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Showing posts with the label control

Google Maps Queue Jumps.

Google Maps directs me to and from my client sites. I've saved the location of the client's car parks, when I start the app in the morning - it knows where I want to go. When I start it at the end of the day, Google knows where I want to go. This is great! It guides me around traffic jams, adjusts when I miss a turn and even offers faster routes en-route as they become available. But sometimes Google Maps does something wrong. I don't mean incorrect, like how it sometimes gets a street name wrong (typically in a rural area). I don't mean how its GPS fix might put me in a neighbouring street (10m to my left - when there are trees overhead). I mean wrong - As in something unfair and socially unacceptable. An action, that if a person did it, would be frowned upon. Example: Let’s assume a road has a traffic jam, so instead of the cars doing around 60 mph, we are crawling at <10 mph. In the middle of this traffic jam, the road has a junction, an...

Controlling software development

Do you ever feel like we do all this work and maybe we needn't of bothered? Things might have worked-out without our intervention. Or we are actually worse off, now, after the work? You're not alone. This is a common problem in any role where you need to investigate the effects of changes. What you're feeling is a lack of control . A control is a view of the world, without your work. It's an alternate view of the world where everything is the same except for your fix/hack/intervention. They behave like 3D TV, they let your mind's-eye 'see' the effects, by making them standout from the background. They are commonly used in scientific and especially pharmaceutical research studies. They let the researchers know how effective a treatment was, compared with similar patients who received placebo (or  older established medicine) pills rather than the new treatment. The researchers can tell whether, for example, a new flu remedy actually helped the patients. O...