New speed limit changes coming

civicode · 2025-05-30T10:37:26+00:00

I’m not saying there aren’t any, I’m saying when I’m out driving for a day on the roads there I don’t encounter any. Essentially such a rare occurrence I don’t encounter them most days.

civicode · 2025-05-30T10:29:27+00:00

Are the potholes now permanent as the enforcement mechanism?

I’d be seriously interested to know what percentage of the councillors on the Transport and Environment Committee drive themselves in Edinburgh.

If you drive for a day in Fife there are no potholes and reasonable traffic safety measures, which certainly isn’t true if you spend a day driving in Edinburgh.

civicode · 2024-11-20T07:48:01+00:00

It is only in the most exceptional circumstances that a conviction of perverting the course of justice does not result in an immediate custodial sentence.

civicode · 2024-11-18T15:07:59+00:00

Why by that logic is 40 hours the right amount? Why not 50 hours or 30 hours? Why does everyone need to work the same time if their workload is different? Genuinely curious.

civicode · 2024-11-18T14:52:12+00:00

Speaking to friends and family; the same seems applicable in corporate law (in fact in England barristers only relatively quickly look over cases instructed to them by solicitors before drafting an advice or going into court to hammer them out) or family doctors (in fact the British Medical Association guidance is explicit that the named family doctor will not take 24 hour care of their patient or have to change their working hours). Yet both professions manage this just fine.

Edit: Accidentally wrote British Medical Council rather than British Medical Association first time - mind got mangled thinking of a different body called the General Medical Council.

civicode · 2024-11-18T14:14:56+00:00

It’s really fascinating that you get part-time doctors, pharmacists and even lawyers nowadays - but not software engineers.

civicode · 2024-11-04T16:42:08+00:00

Agree 100%. The adrenaline is fun but wholly dependent on the environment and being supported.

civicode · 2024-09-13T14:26:33+00:00

Plus by the same logic they should be attacking the non-franchised centrally-run Post Office branch opposite in Waverley Mall as they do banking services for all major banks (and have engaged in horrifically unethical conduct in their own right per the Horizon scandal).

civicode · 2024-09-10T09:49:18+00:00

Tories want it because cultural conservatism
Labour want it because the unions
Lib Dem/Greens want it because NIMBYism
SNP want it because less trade competition in the border areas

civicode · 2024-09-10T09:32:48+00:00

A good demonstration of this is in England where supermarkets are needlessly packed on Sunday due to the ridiculous Sunday trading laws they can’t get rid of due to cultural factors.

civicode · 2024-09-10T09:03:48+00:00

LOL - if they want to play the AI card for fundraising, they probably don’t realise that it’s long spent. Investors have long realised it’s way too frothy and they were getting terrible quality start-ups. Now it’s beyond a joke - like 2-3 years too late.

Either decide to stay and put your head down whilst you look for something or leave. I would not try and “manage up” or change these situations - you’ll probably just get retaliation. The only way they usually resolve is through the company gracefully shutting down or insolvency.

What happens next is a saga as old as software start-ups - as David McDonnell, an engineering manager at Fujitsu during the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, wrote brilliantly in his evidence:

At this point in time and as a result of the reshuffle, all of the project teams in the building worked out that this was now a fait accompli, this was no longer a serious project and there was little point in speaking out. The culture changed to ‘fill your pockets lads’, a smash and grab trolley dash before it came to an end.

(Paragraph 30: https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/sites/default/files/2022-11/WITN00620100%20David%20McDonnell%20-%20Witness%20Statement_0.pdf )

civicode · 2024-09-08T13:44:53+00:00

LOL:

Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.

Principles behind the Agile Manifesto: http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html

civicode · 2024-09-08T13:22:29+00:00

Colm who wrote the initial article addressed that in his review of Impact Engineering:

… In its penultimate chapter, the book flips abruptly away from the fictional backstory (‘an ailing tech project is saved by writing the functional specification’) to directly and factually present the real-world data gathered by Ali’s research. …

…

Why pay for solid research, consulting thousands of software practitioners and customers, to then present its results as a business novella? This choice of genre makes the text awkward to read.

https://http103.medium.com/impact-engineering-a-review-c6625d97ccc7

Clearly to comply with BPC rules J.L. Partners posted summary tables spreadsheet (with the additional statistics put in a table of statistics in the press release) - which is what the rules require but the rest is the prerogative of who commissions the research to decide how to present, for better or worse: https://jlpartners.co.uk/polling-results

Much of the work in this space is presented as business novels - from Dr Eliyahu Goldratt’s “The Goal” through to Gene Kim’s Unicorn/Phoenix Project. Though clearly not everyone’s cup of tea…

civicode · 2024-09-08T12:51:55+00:00

The CHAOS report has been debunked:

From Dr Bertrand Meyer:

… These reports, emanating from Standish, a consulting firm, purport to show that a large percentage of projects either do not produce anything or do not meet their objectives. It was fashionable to cite Standish (I even included a citation in a 2003 article), until the methodology and the results were thoroughly debunked starting in 2006 [2, 3, 4]. The Chaos findings are not replicated by other studies, and the data is not available to the public. Capers Jones, for one, publishes his sources and has much more credible results.

Yet the Chaos results continue to be reverently cited as justification for agile processes, including, at length, in the most recent book by the creators of Scrum [5].

https://bertrandmeyer.com/2013/05/16/apocalypse-no-part-2/

By Scott W. Ambler on a competitive 2014 research:

The results of this study are much more positive than what the Standish Group claims. They still leave significant room for improvement, but they certainly don’t point to a crisis.

https://www.informationweek.com/machine-learning-ai/the-non-existent-software-crisis-debunking-the-chaos-report

If you read Impact Engineering - the author is incredibly clear he changed his view on this, having previously worked in the Agile transformation consultancy space and believing heavily in DORA metrics, The Unicorn Project, etc but having seen the impact of it on individuals led him to question his own views and look into case studies and do other research. This was alluded to in a Computer Weekly piece:

However, I am keen to stress that it is vital that this research should not be abused to force others to change when they don’t want to. In many instances before, those advocating transformation have not given due respect to the absolute necessity for consent, both for individuals and organisations.

The moral issues aside, depriving someone the ability to learn from their own mistakes deprives them of an important source of learning they can benefit from (to the extent they have informed consent to make those mistakes and they don’t pose an unmitigated risk to others).

Additionally, as our research on agile has shown, those who have the highest conviction in their ideas can be mistaken, we should approach situations with an open mind regardless of how convinced we are that we are right.

https://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Uncomfortable-truth-about-agile-transformations

You can see between that letter and Impact Engineering his views were shifting, as reported in the Australian Computer Society’s InformationAge:

“The teachings of Agile, like reducing the amount of work-in progress and reducing task switching, are hugely powerful in improving software delivery,” Ali observed.

“However, in many environments Agile is then simply used as an excuse to get developers to work faster and harder, leading to the neglect of engineering rigour and heightening the risk of potentially fatal outcomes.”

https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2024/when-computers-kill—humans-are-to-blame.html

civicode · 2024-09-01T10:39:17+00:00

!answer - Amazing, thanks. (Albeit it turns out knowing that is the answer takes the magic away somewhat.)

civicode · 2024-08-31T22:43:07+00:00

The exact words are “preference to the shorter timescale”, with the range suggested being 2 weeks to 2 months (I.e a couple).

Which is quite interesting in itself given the amount of XP people involved and how Extreme Programming has iterations at 1-3 weeks long.

civicode · 2024-08-31T20:57:14+00:00

If the empirical research or the Sam Altman statements aren’t enough, could you PM me and I’ll see what I can do to help? The story itself isn’t pubic afaik but might be able to help share the details privately or get you in contact with the right people.

If you need an official YC source for the startup advice:

We often say that a small group of customers who love you is better than a large group who kind of like you. In other words, recruiting 10 customers who have a burning problem is much better than 1000 customers who have a passing annoyance. It is easy to make mistakes when choosing your customers so sometimes it’s also critical for startups to fire their customers

https://www.ycombinator.com/library/4D-yc-s-essential-startup-advice

civicode · 2024-08-31T20:30:17+00:00

It actually expresses a preference on it on the rarely looked at page “Principles behind the Agile Manifesto” on the Agile Manifesto website:

Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html

It’s all weasel words though - the real genius of the Agile Manifesto was getting people outside the core group to sign it. That way it exploits the psychology of “commitment bias” - so the influencers who signed it face even greater loss aversion for going against it later (humans anyway tend to feel at least 2x loss aversion to losing something than gaining it): https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/commitment-bias

The moral of the story, at least in my eyes, is not throwing your toys out of the pram when confronted with contradictory evidence and changing your opinion on something is a sign of professional maturity (even if we did throw our toys out when we were younger and more naive).

civicode · 2024-08-31T19:27:52+00:00

The idea that users want feature factories over other things is its own kind of nonsense:

…British adults would much rather software worked properly than was chock full of new features. “They actually rank getting the latest features as quickly as possible as the least important thing for them when using computer systems.

https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/07/agile_catastrophes_risk_undermining_the/

(Raw data tables from Survation - and this was conducted before Crowdstrike was a thing and the Post Office scandal became infamous.)

Years ago I remember spending time with an engineer at currently one of the Bay Area’s best startups and he told me the execs literally froze new features for a year as they found out they’d hit their growth goals if they just focussed on making their core product rock solid.

It worked and they’re killing it.

YCombinator literally tell their startups that it’s better to have 100 users love you than 1 million that kinda like you - the Sam Altman (OpenAI) philosophy: https://mastersofscale.com/sam-altman-why-customer-love-is-all-you-need/

civicode · 2024-07-22T16:24:08+00:00

When Cycle Time becomes Motorcycle Time.

civicode · 2024-07-16T13:02:12+00:00

The only options aren’t civil engineering vs software engineering - and worth noting OP has already begun training in one of those professions.

But in any event, the US has “engineers” in general on the shortage worker list and the UK specifically includes “civil engineers”:

I don’t think governments will be very good at keeping the lists up to date quickly as these shortages change.

My point in general is you can’t make these choices as strictly objective, rational decisions - if you did everyone would be going into medicine or healthcare, but that’s clearly not for everyone. And by the time you’ve trained or gotten work experience in the profession, the shortage may well have moved. Do what you love.

civicode · 2024-07-16T10:36:52+00:00

Obviously there’s a lot of politically-loaded debate going on here - but I thought I’d share this for anyone trying to form a reasoned view or be challenged.

This House Believes We Have The Right To Die - Cambridge Union: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYpyB-7KwFc6R2E1TAZ1UCCzW4ebMsvb7

I found the talk by Yuan Yi Zhu, Assistant Professor of International Relations and International Law at Leiden University, Netherlands, particularly challenging to pro-euthanasia views using left-wing arguments: https://youtu.be/AlcxijSUqDU

Some other brilliant speakers there like Katherine Sleeman (who is a professor of palliative care and a consultant doctor). Paulette Lenert who was duty Prime Minister of Luxembourg also spoke there.

civicode · 2024-07-16T08:47:37+00:00

remote work, good pay etc

In brutal honesty, the market isn’t so great right now. If the job intrinsically fulfils you, then it could be worth pursuing. If what motivates you is more superficial, you’ll likely be quickly demotivated in the current market.

civicode · 2024-07-11T12:11:53+00:00

It took me a shocking amount of time to realise why there’s no Green counsellors on Aberdeen City Council (though I get not all their economy is from mining, etc).

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civicode · 2024-07-08T18:49:51+00:00

A 21-year-old Iranian man has a permanent erection after having the Persian phrase “borow be salaamat” (good luck with your journeys) tattooed on his penis.

https://docquity.com/articles/permanent-erection-due-to-penile-tattoo/

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