The Test Department

 My Nanowrimo A good few years ago I attempted to do the Nanowrimo. If you don't know, this involves you attempting to write 'a novel' of over 50k words in November. I had a vague idea of a story. Time travel to the late 18th century. Fantasy beings, alternate history/future, magic, life and death! For my fun, I included Robert Burns into this heady mixture. I completed November with over 50k words. There were times it was a huge slog. Other times it was as the great Terry Pratchett said "The most fun you can have on your own" I had not even gotten to the point where the characters had time travelled. I left the unfinished mess alone for a year. The following year I did the same again and this time it was Part II. Another 50k words but I completed it. It is all the readability of a first draft, i.e completely unreadable and all over the place. There are howling spelling mistakes and plot holes all over the shop. I sent Part I to a member of my family who is an awa...

 Secret Treaties. I am wheeling one album that had a big impact on my musical journey. Blue Oyster Cult's "Secret Treaties". Like everyone I had heard BOC's classic "Don't Fear The Reaper". That song was my introduction, my older brother had all the first three albums. Called the "Black and White" albums as all the covers were pencil drawings. BOC 1974 There is not a bad track on the album, BOC were hitting their stride musically and in the writing. The whole album oozes lyrical menace. From the opening of "Career Of Evil" ( Co penned by Patti Smith who was Alan Lainer's girlfriend at the time). My favourite is the proto-punk "Dominance and Submission". It sounds like a plot for a David Cronenberg movie that he could of made. The closing epic Alien abduction/invasion "Astronomy" inspired many a future metal band. Metallica went out of its way to cover it. My advice is to put it on now, you will be off your seat...

In Your Garden of Delights.. The other day I noticed a story about Disney clawing back a lot of their content is on Netflix. It would appear the days of shared content across platforms is diminishing. The streaming providers want to keep you in their walled garden for as much as possible. If you are a serious tv watcher you are now going to have to subscribe to at least three if not four providers. All that to watch your fave film or TV show. My arithmetic is not that great but it would be safe to say that would be not shy of well over £350 a year. Ouch. We have Prime and Netflix and we do watch them a lot. I had Prime when it was Love Film and £4.99 was a good price. When Amazon came along and waved their wonga at Love Film I continued to only pay £4.99 for years and years. It was down the contract that Amazon had to fulfil. I have since upgraded to a Prime user so now fork out £7.99. My wife decided to pay for Netflix, as she wanted to watch a certain show for a bit. I have to be hon...

  As The Song Doesn't Go.. Bad Time My week started well when I had realised that I had left my wallet in the Takeaway last night. There is quite a lot of people traffic through that particular Takeaway. Some of them look like they would not bat an eyelid at trying a lost card. This morning I went through the process of cancelling everything. I kept checking the online bank to see if any overnight spending spree had happened. I went round early this evening and the good man in Takeaway had retrieved it. I had placed my black wallet on the black table in there. The takeaway had arrived a bit sooner than I had expected. The table camouflaged the wallet so I did not see it when I got up to get my takeaway. Being distracted by my silly phone had not helped either. Good Time I had a bit more of a productive day at work today. Being left alone for most of the day helped. I actually said that in our end of day meeting. Not sure how that landed with people but no one passed any comments on...

The Truth And Nothing But The Truth Friday I had my brain melted by a 5 and bit hour Zoom meeting. We were attempting to do a full end to end walkthrough of the process/Application we are testing. To use a theatre term is was a "Dress Rehearsal" for next week when we get the business users to do the same thing. It took that long because the application is still riddled with bugs. As well the bugs there as many environmental issues. At almost every point of the process, there are problems. There was aghast team leads on the call who had never seen the application in full flow. The reality of what we have to do to get it to work left them shocked. Our team lead joked with us that they were not allowed to use certain phrases. Phrases like "Environmental Issues" or "Application Issues." are best avoided when they are talking to the business stakeholders. It got me thinking about how progress gets reported in Software Development. A lot of the time managers it ...

Earliest Music Memory For Throwback Thursday I am going back to my earliest musical memory. My father's music collection was a mix of Jazz and classical music. One record he had was Peter And The Wolf by Prokofiev. The version that my father owned had Peter Ustinov as the narrator. Old Prokofiev knew how to write a catchy riff or two. The melody of the main theme stuck with me right through to today. Whenever I want to cheer myself up I will whistle the main theme. I mean who has not done that. There have been many other versions and many other famous actors have taken the role of the narrator. Ustinov's version is still the best for me. Now thanks to the wonder of the internet I am listening to that very version( see below). The story is a good mix of scary and comical. How it should be for wee kids. It was this record that introduced me to music and melody. I continued to listen to a lot of classical music. Even when I was that the bloody-minded teenager who was only into Har...

Imposter Syndrome kicking in It might be mid-week blues or me having an off day, but today I felt like I was not good enough for my job. The old confidence took a but of dunt when I lost my job a couple of years back. I am not sure I have worked that through the how's and whys of what happened. That might be for another day, I am kicking that particular can down the road. Today I felt as if was not contributing enough, I am trying to feel my around and a complicated Software Package. It is a bit like being in a dark room. I am also blindfolded and there is a voice yelling "Why haven't you found it yet-get a move on". One crumb of comfort is that I am in this situation with other people who are in the same predicament. We keep bumping into each other and saying "Have you found the door yet", "Nope" and off we bumble. When I lost the job, I did contemplate "I am cut out to be Tester?" Today I found myself contemplating that question again....

  Exciting Day In the Life of Software Tester I had an interesting exchange with a young lad in the supermarket tonight. The lad was behind the till and the conversation sort of went like this Lad: "So you had an exciting day at work then...?" Me(packing dinner and trying to forget about work)"Emm yeaa..always busy.." Lad(brightens up): "Oh what do you do If you don't mind me asking" Me(Trying to remember what I do at work) "Emm I'm a software tester.." Lad(frowns for a second): "Ohh I take back my comment about the exciting then.." Me(abashed): Well..you know it has its moments..(exits till with dinner) I have a lot of those conversations when people ask what I do. It usually ends with them going "Oh..". and "never mind could be worse you could be doing.." and some horrible job like cleaning toilets on 11pm night train to Perth. To be honest, my current project which I have been on for the last 7 months I ha...

All That Jazz I am going through a phase of listening to old music. The other day I disappeared down the YouTube wormhole of old blues records. Then in the random selection up popped a Miles Davis track. I am no Jazz buff, but my late father was. Whenever he got the chance, he would switch off the TV and put on a Jazz LP, that he borrowed from Kirclady music library. He managed to clear the sitting room of anyone so he could read his book in peace. On an odd morning he would give me and my brother a lift to high school he would stick in the tape of Jazz to drive to work. Some of his selections were quite traditional but I do recall some far-out stuff. You know that far-out stuff. The band have taken amphetamines but the drummer did not get the memo and had dropped acid instead. I am sure he did that to freak us out, he did put the foot down when a Benny Goodman track would come on. I get the feeling my old man tolerated the wilder stuff, but his love was listening to the old school Jaz...

  Weekend.  My two-week "beer fasting" came to an end for this month. I decided to brave and venture into the pub. I was going to do the very man thing of having a pint while watching the football scores roll in. I am still wary about going to enclosed busy places. I wanted to make sure I went to a quieter establishment. I chose The Artisan Bar on London Road, which I have not been in since all the lockdowns. It is a proper old boozer, which is a dying breed these days. One thing of note is you are not allowed to stand at the bar anymore. Only sitting. The barmaid just shrugged "Whit difference diz that make?" she said laughing.  I would pass The Artisan during the lockdown and would worry that it may go the way a few other pubs have gone. Many have  Closed shop completely and turned into flats. It was good to see that it has survived and it was busy yesterday. Good to see there were quite a few younger people in there. The prices are better, I noticed prices of a p...

Doing Nothing to Being More Creative  End of the week, yay! If this was last year I would be looking forward to switching off and doing NOTHING for two days. I am very good at doing NOTHING, my default setting is being lazy and wasting time. You can argue that doing nothing and switching off is good for mental health. The brain does need to switch off and cool down after all. This yet became an excuse for not doing anything constructive or creative. Writing something every day is one step in this, the other was to restart my attempts at sketching. While unemployed I dug out the pencils and sketch pad. My first attempts were rather as you expect. View from My Window during the first Lockdown I also wanted to think about getting proper guitar lessons. I have been playing for most of my life, never learned any songs though. J would bash around on the same chords. Part of that was I never had the inclination to be in a band. I did think about even asking a friend to teach me basic key...

  Throwback Thursday Album ELO Out Of The Blue (1977) ELO was the first rock band that I got into. I can not remember if I was hearing the record when my older brother was playing it, or I heard it on the radio. Anyway, I wanted to hear more of it. Of course "Mr Blue Sky" was one of the big hits of this album. Even today the DJ requests people to send in their happy songs "Mr Blue Sky" is right up there on everyone's list. I remember getting a walkman for my Christmas. It was quite a robust machine that attached to your belt and breeks. With the walkman my parents had bought me 3 or 4 blank tapes, you can guess what happened next! My older gave me the opportunity to record some of his LPs. 'Out Of The Blue' was the first one I got my mits on. It also provided a challenge to get on to my tapes. It's a double album and getting it on was quite tight. I got quick eduction on what tapes I had to use. C90, C120. It got onto the C120 with a bit of a squeak....

  Learning Python Week I I have dived back into my learning to code with Python. I thought about getting a good book and doing that first before going back to Udemy. I had started one course for beginners a while back and it had fallen by the wayside. It had been a while since I had checked so I logged back into the site, I wanted to check where I got up to. There on my dashboard were some suggestions for a quick lecture so I decided to check it out. I had spare 5 minutes and the lecture was half that. The link took me to a completely different beginners course in Python. The lecturer seemed like a likeable person, and his teaching method engaged me. The upshot is that I am now taking his full course. Nothing against the other person's course which I will return to. I was finding the information denser to comprehend. I am still early on in the course, it may go all information overload further down the line. Out of interest, I skimmed over the course comments. Some of them are ra...

As Ben Elton Would Say.. "..little bit of politics.." I have been trying to avoid mentioning anything about the covid pandemic on here. Like many of us, I have obeyed the rules. For the last two years I have got my jabs-all three now-and reduced my social interactions to the absolute bare minimum. I have managed somehow to avoid caching covid, not had a single cold, sniffle in two years. I have done what the elected people told me to and done so without much complaint. I understand how pandemics work and they do not go away after a couple of months. It takes years, and we are going to have to live with this virus forevermore. At some point, I am going to take a bigger risk and go to an indoor event like a proper gig with lots of people. I am going to have to prove that I am tripled jabbed, I may have to do a lateral flow test as well. I will follow all that because it is not a big deal, not something to take to the streets about and get angry. There are many, many other thin...

Learning To Code part 2 I am attempting to reboot my learning how to code in Python. While unemployed, I had the time to make a start. I failed in this attempt. It was down to me trying to go faster than I should be. I have always had that problem when learning. The challenge I have around learning to code is I find the problem-solving bit of a monumental uphill struggle. I struggle when a lot of the coding challenges are to do with Maths. I am not a Maths person. I was never diagnosed with dyslexia or the equivalent dyscalculia. I had quite an advanced reading age when I was young. My writing and spelling was a nightmare. Numbers and equations was a whole new level. It’s a special fresh hell my mind goes to when presented with equations. “ A Car is going “X” miles an hour and breaks at “Y”. What is the total number of cats that think that “B” will be doing when it stops” type of question get me going. My brain goes into lockdown mode. “I am not coming out till you stop looking at the ...

  Keep The Shot I have always loved taking photographs. I remember one of the art teachers at our school allowed us to take some photographs with their camera. Then going through the process of developing in the darkroom that had been set up in one of the cupboards. Let's say my efforts looked blurred and ill-lit. It was still exciting and fun to see how they turned out. I would say at least 70 per cent we thought should end up in the bin. The teacher tut-tutted us and said "it's all art McRoberts-keep 'em" I nagged my parents into getting me a camera. I have no idea what type it was. A pretty cheap small autofocus one. All I remember was loading the film in the back winding the film, then I had about 30 chances to take a photo. I was a point, click and hope type. In those days you had no clue what you were going to get. It was like "Hope that was in focus..Hope that person did not move.." A lot of the photos that I took have are now lost. I have been fl...

In Defence Of Scottish Football  It is Saturday I am going to relax by doing to the time-honoured tradition of following the footy scores. I like football, but not obsessed with it as some are. Raith Rovers and Scotland team are the only teams that I have any emotional connection with. Watching them means I am on the edge of my seat. I leap about when they win ( which has not been often). I suffer the lows when they get beat (which has been a lot). There is a negative narrative about Scottish football. I have heard stuff like "Predictable", "Boring", "Dull". "Naff," said to me. These are from people who have watched one or two games, and those games are ones involving 'the old firm'. I will concede that the Scottish Premiership is predictable. When the season finishes it will be either Rangers or Celtic in first and second. Third place more often is what all the other teams are playing for. The neat equation of Predictability = Boring is...

End of The Week  It's Friday and at this moment I would be setting off to pick up some wine, and some nice beer to settle down with. Not today though. For the first 2 weeks, I am going dry. My vow not to drink for the first 2 weeks every month is being tested to its limit. This week at work has been a bit of a grind. I had hoped there would be a slight improvement in the way we were working on our project. Any hope of that reset is being dashed somewhat. The mood music coming from the senior management is that the pressure is only going to get worse. I am going to have to grit my teeth and knuckle down for the bumpy ride. I am trying not to write about this particular project that I am on. I fear I will end up in hysterical rant mode if I did. I am trying to keep this space as a place of tranquil creativity. See how long that lasts will we? I have been contemplating sharing some of my early attempts at writing with other people. A few years back I attempted a Nanowrimo and managed ...

    Thursday Throwback Album You see a lot of people doing the Thursday Throwback to some point time in their life. I thought I would do this every Thursday with a record that meant a lot to me when I was younger. I had planned to get a record player and dig out my old vinyl and then do a YouTube reaction to various records. The story behind why I had bought it, fave tracks and the like. I had hoped to do this with another old friend of mine. I could never get organised enough though. One day I will! I was reading an article about Syd Barret the other day. It was one making of his 2 solo albums, and this made me think about the first only Pink Floyd album he played on. The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. He appeared on the second album fleetingly at the end. He did some guitar, but for all purposes, he was already out the door by the time they cut the second album. I first heard Piper when I was 12 or 13. I knew of Floyd from their "Another Brick In The Wall Part II'. Which resona...

Using The Writing Tool  The reason I set myself the challenge of writing something every day for 2022, was to try to improve my writing. I remember watching an online meetup where a person discussed writing. This person suggested using tools to help to turn that turgid prose into a sharp and sparkly read. One such tool suggested was the Hemingway app, which I am currently using to write this with. The other tip was when writing was to write and ignore all the spelling mistakes and broken grammar. So write first and then go back and edit. Unlike many people, it seems I actually like to edit so the last tip for me was the revelation of sorts. I am still out on the tool. The Hemmingway App is ruthless, it really pairs down on sentences. It does get you to try and kill off adverbs. A lot of writers see them as evil and I am inclined to agree. I am very prone to writing a lot of long sentences because my grammar is so bad it caused at least one of my high school English teachers red pen...

Back To Work Back to opening my laptop and logging in to work as we are being encouraged to work from home. I have yet to set foot on the client site and I have been working on this project for almost seven months now. I have been into my own company's office a few times last year, it was nice meeting in person rather than zoom. Now they are also now telling us only to come into the office if you think it is only necessary. If I wanted to go in I then I have to go through a whole the palaver of getting a lateral flow test. Once there of course I would have to navigate the many rules that are in place. In short, it is not very appealing and nor it should be. I hope things will calm down in the coming months. I do want to be able to work with my other colleagues on the project, seeing how this project has many challenges. I am not going to write about how challenging the project I am on. Software development is not easy, there is no such thing as an easy job in this game. The challe...

  Every Thing In Moderation This year I have a making a promise to be a bit less boozy. I can already see people who know me rolling their eyes and laughing. As you may be aware I do like my drink. At various points in my life, I have enjoyed it far too much. As soon as I looked eighteen I went to the pub or the off-licence to get booze. I had the typical underage rights of passage of getting wasted at any opportunity. It did impact my Schooling and had something to do with me failing every O'grade bar one. It did wake me up and the remaining school years were a bit more tempered. I scraped into University and because I had my wild moments earlier I did not go crazy. I have got the steamboats out of my system. Some of my university friends went for it, one or two of them went too far with it and suffered the consequences. I had my moments, but I still managed to keep the boozing down. I left Uni and went to live in Edinburgh with a few of my friends from University. I would admit t...

One Book At A Time I have set my reading challenge for this year. Last year I set an ambitious total of 21 books. I thought this was a doable total. My TBR pile is large I would have no problems finding books to read in quick succession. Of course, my final total was nowhere near that. I managed to read 12 books. I am surprised that I even managed to get to 12, given the sporadic nature of my reading. I would often go whole weeks without picking up whatever book I was reading. When of course when I did pick up the book, I needed to flip back to remind myself what was happening in the story. In other cases, I would smash through a book in a week or so. I could attempt to read more than one book at a time. My wife reads more than one at a time quite how she does this I do not know, hence her reading total by the end of the year is more than double mine. Multi book reading is not something that I am good at though. My attention span has always been quite low. I need to force myself to c...

 Day 1 of 2022 So here I  go attempting to write something every day of 2022. I am doing this via my smart phone, so I am keeping this short. Visiting my mother at New Year is always entertaining.  Every year she has a good moan about people misprouncing 'Auld Lang Syne'. "Why do people keep on saying 'Zine' it's Sssyne' Scots for 'Since'"  she gripes about this Every year and place a bet when she is going to pass comment on it.  Mum also got worked up about 'Hogmanay'.  Us on the East Coast never referred to New Year as that, we called it 'Auld Years Nicht'. According to mum this is some sort west coast/English phrase.  I am about to sit down have the traditional New Year Steak Pie and then drive back over to Edinburgh.  Slainte