tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15593579294126312392024-03-03T12:20:00.966+01:00funTESTic's Bedenksels, ideeën en waarheden en gewoon dingen waarover ik mij verwonder in werk, hobby, privé en wat nog niet meer.
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Op zoek naar mijn Suriname avontuur? => http://funtestic-suriname.blogspot.com/FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.comBlogger127125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-12016676379971848682021-08-26T17:49:00.004+02:002021-08-26T18:04:13.859+02:00Minder afval, wat van mijn ervaringen...<p> Al weer twee jaar geleden begon ik met mijn 'minder afval' uitdaging. In het begin ging het als een speer, want ik had best veel afval en als je dan net begint is het verschil al snel groot. Binnen mum van tijd had ik wekelijks nog maar een zakje van minder dan 10 liter. Toch merkte ik dat het er weer in sluipt dat er steeds meer afval weer bijkomt, dus deze week besloot ik het weer strakker aan te pakken.. ook omdat ik nu steeds meer dingen zelf maak dacht ik dat het makkelijker moest zijn minder afval te veroorzaken.</p><p>Minder afval als doelstelling kún je natuurlijk heel rigoreus aanpakken, maar mijn ervaring is dat 'werkbaar', 'leefbaar' en 'haalbaar' ook heel belangrijk zijn anders houdt je het niet vol. Ook zijn er dingen die ik in de tussentijd heb uitgeprobeerd en die het voor mij gewoonweg niet zijn; zoals no-waste damesproducten (cup en wasbare sharkweek-plugs zijn voor mij een no-go) en siliconen diepvrieszakjes (die dingen worden simpelweg niet schoon/droog na het afwassen bij mij).</p><p>Ik begon heel simpel met mijn pakken melk te vervangen door glazen flessen. Ik maakte zelf mijn plantaardige melken en yoghurts en chocolademelk maak ik ook zelf. Dat scheelt al snel 8 pakken in de week in ons huishouden per week. Dat is dus pak 'm beet; een kleine 400 pakken per jaar. Als 100 gezinnen dat zouden doen dan zit je op 40.000 pakken per jaar dat je minder aan afval kunt hebben....Ja het is wat meer sjouwen; nou èn? </p><p>Ook heel makkelijk; je keukenrol vervangen door wasbare doekjes. Men neme een bamboe keukenrol met herbruikbare vellen of een pak met die doekjes. Een afsluitbare bak voor onder de gootsteen waar je de gebruikte doekjes in doet en een mandje waar de ongebruikte doekjes in zitten. Het mandje staat bij mij op het aanrechtblad. Eens in de week doe ik een 'doekjeswas', waar ook mijn poetsdoeken, dweil en herbruikbare make-up watjes in meegaan. Die laatste is dus ook heel makkelijk te vervangen en scheelt je dus die 2 eur aan een rol wattenschijfjes die je moet kopen, en het scheelt nog meer als je voor 'eco' of 'bio' varianten normaliter gaat. </p><p>Kaas: haal het bij de kaasboer. Ik merkte dat ik de laatste tijd weer voor die mooie voorgesneden plakken ging in de (bio)supermarkt. Maar ten eerste zit dan gelijk (te) veel kaas op je brood en ten tweede heb je dus een plastic verpakking en soms ook nog eens plastic velletjes tussen die plakken. Ik heb 'waxdoeken' waar ik kaas in kan halen. De steviger doeken zijn het beste. Ik maakte van een - kleur heel mooi- dunne stof ook bijenwasdoeken, maar die werden een soort van plakkerig en werken gewoon niet lekker. De kaasboer heeft ook biokaas en snijdt ook met liefde plakken (als je niet zelf wilt schaven). Ik heb nu twee 'boc-'n-roll's besteld waar ik mijn kaas in wil gaan halen, die zijn makkelijker schoon te maken.</p><p>In mijn boodschappentas zitten een hele selectie van lichtgewicht katoenen zakjes. Voor groente, fruit en noten, al neem ik ook nog wel eens potten mee naar de markt om die te laten vullen met noten. Plastic kun je weigeren of negeren. Supermarkten kunnen - dat toont Jumbo aan- met een laser prima aangeven of iets biologisch is daar hoeft niet - zoals bij de AH- plastic om een komkommer, tomaten etc. Juist de bio producten zitten in plastic, de citroen en limoen in kunststof netjes... hoe verzinnen ze het. Groenten en fruit haal ik dus in de biowinkel of (bio) op de markt; het gaat mee in de katoenen zakjes. Overigens kun je ook rekening houden met je ecologische voetafdruk door hier lokale producten te kiezen ipv een appel uit verweggistan; in NL hebben ze prima appels immers! Koop dus ook met het seizoen mee; aardbeien - ook bio- komen in het vroege voorjaar uit Spanje bv. ..dat zijn een hoop km's voor een product dat in de zomer uit NL komt. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheZLErxvycQVwOjCruMBOekeFO_BdfbihC0j_4HKV3_xxHX2pyakMn722L0XRatjvrjFUHZpgtFZ0LIwDLNGeYfUqHQyHNlpg6uFc6IQswtjlOXJ1XhlHjnNjLAO4iB2paqEbxA71crg/s359/pieter.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><img border="0" data-original-height="267" data-original-width="359" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheZLErxvycQVwOjCruMBOekeFO_BdfbihC0j_4HKV3_xxHX2pyakMn722L0XRatjvrjFUHZpgtFZ0LIwDLNGeYfUqHQyHNlpg6uFc6IQswtjlOXJ1XhlHjnNjLAO4iB2paqEbxA71crg/w320-h238/pieter.png" width="320" /></a></div>Keuze: pot of zak. Glas is vele malen beter te recyclen en vaker te recyclen zonder kwaliteitsverlies. Zakken van plastic of folie zijn dat niet. Plastic is recyclebaar, maar verliest steeds meer aan kwaliteit. Kies dus áls je al plastic 'moet', voor een composteerbare variant. Papieren zakken kan ook, maar papier is nog steeds 'waste' ook al is het recyclebaar. Ik kies als het even kan voor een glazen verpakking. Een pot is volledig recyclebaar en vaak zijn potten ook nog in huis langer bruikbaar voor allerhande opbergdoeleinden. <div><br />Over potten gesproken; er is tegenwoordig een supermarkt die verpakkingsvrij is.<a href="https://www.pieter-pot.nl/" target="_blank"> Pieter Pot</a>. Ze leveren aan huis in potten. Als de pot leeg is gaat hij retour (statiegeld systeem). Maar er zijn ook soms 'bulkwinkels' (zoals VERS in Alkmaar) waar je met je eigen zakken kunt komen en bv kruiden, granen, rijst etc. kunt kopen zonder verpakkingsmateriaal. Ik zit nog niet zo lang bij 'Pieter', maar ben er nu al erg tevreden over; al mag van mij het assortiment 'bio' nog wel een stuk groter worden.<p></p><p>Ga je eten halen? Neem je eigen bakjes mee! In het begin vond ik het een drempel. Maar ik merk dat het vaak door een restauranthouder niet eens zo gek gevonden wordt. Het scheel hen immers de kosten van de verpakking. Het helpt wel als een restaurant een sticker op de deur heeft dat een eigen verpakking prima is, merk ik. Ben je in een restaurant wezen eten zorg dan dat je de restjes meeneemt, dat is no-food-waste en je hebt nog een lekkere snack of zelfs lunch; nog beter is dat je dat in een eigen bakje dus doet. </p><p>Vlees en vleeswaren alsook de vegetarische/veganistische vervangers koop ik - moet ik bekennen- nog wel in verpakkingsmateriaal. Als het kán haal ik bij de 'Groene Slager' en neem ik eigen bakjes mee, maar vaak heb ik niet genoeg bakjes of ik ben ze vergeten en deze slager zit in de stad dus ik moet er voor 'om'; hier doe ik dus een concessie dat ik niet de extra kilometers er voor maak, maar als het kan ik wel verpakking-loos haal. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMs3VYU6FRuQ9pE75S-C0UQ93_z5UvIkLjiETGZ45v1rT0L6p3NVl5KoHqeU4zlurZ6XMCkHwVz8-H-SWvgKqAuQa1d-G78oybTfm8bnk7IL_16d5eMYmmX74nSlfJsyrMmoD8op_tRA/s352/zeep.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="352" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMs3VYU6FRuQ9pE75S-C0UQ93_z5UvIkLjiETGZ45v1rT0L6p3NVl5KoHqeU4zlurZ6XMCkHwVz8-H-SWvgKqAuQa1d-G78oybTfm8bnk7IL_16d5eMYmmX74nSlfJsyrMmoD8op_tRA/s320/zeep.png" width="320" /></a></div></div>Zeep, scheerzeep, deodorant, tandpasta, conditioner, crèmes, makeupreiniger... kun je prima verpakkingsloos kopen (happysoaps, werfzeep, de zeepfabriek, Lush), maar nog gaver is het om allemaal zelf te maken. Ook verpakking-loos én je weet ook nog eens exact wat er in zit. Dat geldt ook voor schoonmaakmiddelen. Ruitenreiniger? Dat is spiritus met water en een drupje zeep. Dagelijkse WC-reinigerspray? Dat is schoonmaakazijn, alcohol en flink wat druppels etherische olie van grove den, rozemarijn en lavendel. Als je dan toch wasmiddel etc wilt kopen omdat je geen zin of tijd hebt om zelf te maken, koop dan bulkverpakkingen. Voordat ik aan de 'zelfmaak' ging, kocht ik 5 liter cans van Ecover wasmiddel, een jerrycan is toch minder plastic dan al die flessen...ook 'faith in nature' is ene merk dat shampoo, bodywash en conditioner (vloeibare varianten) in 5 liter jerrycans verkoopt (Big Green Smile)<p></p><p>Sinds kort heb ik een voedseldroger en droog ik voedsel dat ik over dreig te houden. Citroenschijfjes, aardbeitjes, ui/prei/ lenteui, kruiden... kun je allemaal drogen en dan is het laaaaang houdbaar. Geld ook voor fermenteren trouwens... ik heb nu een potje aangebroken met gefermenteerde prei (van een prei die ik dus over had) die bijna anderhalf jaar gefermenteerd heeft; een waanzinnig smaakpalet!</p><p>Ik ben ongetwijfeld nog veel zaken vergeten die ik al een tijdje toepas, wellicht in een volgende post dat ik die aanvul. </p></div>FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-30276313838623417242021-07-19T08:33:00.005+02:002021-07-19T08:33:33.142+02:00Waarom laat jij je vaccineren? Ik hierom...<p>Dat was de vraag die ik vorige week van iemand kreeg. De vraag was in de context dat ik van de natuurgeneeswijzen ben en van 'natuurlijk' en velen vinden dan vaccineren daar niet bij passen. Ik denk daar niet zo zwart wit over.. zoals alles heeft dit ook nuances. Sommigen denken dat ik vaccinneer om altruïstische redenen, maar dat is niet het geval; ik doe het voor mijzelf de rest moet maar uitzoeken wat ie doet... </p><p>Klinkt egoïstisch? jawel, maar soms moet je dat ook zijn. Als we allemaal eens wat meer naar onszelf keken in plaats van continue te bemoeien en te beoordelen van wat anderen doen of wat minder zouden handelen in de geest van 'wat anderen denken' of wat meer vanuit onszelf dingen doen, dan zou de wereld er misschien heel anders uitzien... </p><p>Dat wil niet zeggen dat ik dus helemaal niks om anderen geef, maar ik ben het niet zonder meer eens met al die roeptoeters die lopen te schreeuwen dat we alles altijd maar samen moeten doen en aan anderen moeten denken, dat ligt er allemaal maar aan. </p><p>Afijn. Die vaccinatie dus. </p><p>Eén ik wil gewoon kunnen reizen, gewoon overal heen kunnen gaan zonder iedere keer die zeer nare wattenstok in mijn neus te moeten laten poeren om mijzelf 'vrij van gevaar' te kunnen laten aantonen. Is dat dwang. Ja en ook nee. Ik HOEF niet, want ik kan immers ook niet overal heen gaan en ik kan dus ook testen.. maar ik WIL wel en kies voor deze weg. Het is dus niet 'om anderen te beschermen', maar het is gewoon een simpele 'ik wil dingen' -overweging. Geen heroïsme, geen altruïsme... nee, gewoon simpel 'egoïsme'. </p><p>Daarbij komt dat IK mijZELF wil beschermen. En dan wordt het wat complexer. Want beschermt dat vaccin wel? Is het middel nu niet erger dan de kwaal, die je niet eens hebt...</p><p>Tja dat is natuurlijk de hamvraag met alle preventieve vaccins. Waarom gele koorts vaccineren als je het niet hebt? Waarom je kinderen tegen polio laten enten als ze het niet hebben? Je hoéft het immers niet te krijgen toch? </p><p>Als je gewoon gezond eet en beweegt dan krijg je geen COVID, begrijp ik van een buurman toen hij tegen een buurvrouw zat te vertellen dat hij zeker geen vaccinatie gaat halen en hij er diepgaand onderzoek naar had gedaan. Dat die buurvrouw overigens van het 'gewone gezonde eten en bewegen' is en hartstikke zwaar COVID heeft gehad.. en hij haar dus ter plekke schoffeerde... dat kwartje viel bij hem niet...</p><p>Maar toch, gezond eten en bewegen, veel boswandelingen (want verhoogd - en dit is wél wetenschappelijk onderbouwd - een bepaalde soort witte bloedlichaampjes en dus je immuniteitssysteem), niet roken, niet drinken, geen cafeïne, geen theïne, geen parabenen, geen paracetamol (want chemisch én veel bijwerkingen), geen niet-natuurlijke kleur, geur en conserveringsmiddelen... heeft wel degelijk impact op je 'constitutie'. Ik vraag me alleen af of mijn bijna dagelijks bij de 'thuisbezorgd' bestellende, rokende en drinkende buurman die zo 'gezond eet' dat allemaal laat staan... ik kan met grote mate van zekerheid stellen dat dit niet zo is en dus is hij net zoals het overgrote deel van Nederland, mijzelf incluis, net zo veel kans heeft om 'gepakt' te worden door dit virus als ieder ander. </p><p>Het al dan niet met het COVID-virus in aanraking komen, maar dat geldt voor ieder virus, is niet afhankelijk van het wel of niet hebben van een vaccinatie. Dat virus denkt niet 'hé dit is een gevaccineerd persoon, ik maak even een ommetje', hij denk ook niet 'hèh hèh hèh, daar is een niet gevaccineerd persoon, die ga ik eens even pakken'... Het virus denkt niet, het maakt geen onderscheid, het discrimineert niet... </p><p>Zowel ongevaccineerden als gevaccineerden kunnen nog steeds COVID krijgen. Zowel ongevaccineerden als gevaccineerden kunnen ook ERG COVID krijgen en ja, beiden kunnen er ook nog aan dood gaan. Zo, ik heb het gezegd. Een vaccin vrijwaart je niet van de gevaren van COVID, maar... en dan komt mijn tweede overweging... het vaccin geeft je wel meer kansen en je lijf ook meer 'fighting chance' zoals ze dan noemen, oftewel het geeft je een voorsprong als het toch mis gaat en die kans dat het mis gaat verklein je ook nog eens. </p><p>Ik ga dit simpel maken met een voorbeeld.</p><p>Stel je krijgt een tweetal bakken voor je neus. In die bakken zitten noten of M&M's of iets van dien aard, maar voor dit voorbeeld gebruik ik even 'noten'. In beiden bakken zitten exact 100 noten. Bak één krijg je als je gevaccineerd bent en bak twee krijg je als je niet gevaccineerd bent. </p><p>In bak 1 zitten 100 noten. 90 van die noten zijn gewone noten, gezond, niks mis mee. 5 noten krijg je wel COVID maar geen verschijnselen, 3 noten krijg je COVID en lichte verschijnselen, 1 noot krijg je COVID en heftige verschijnselen en 1 noot krijg je COVID en ga je helaas dood.</p><p>In bak 2 zitten ook 100 noten. de hoeveelheid gewone noten ligt aan de besmettingsgraad, maar laten we voor deze berekening zeggen; 23 noten zijn slechts normaal, van 2 , soms 3, noten ga je dood. 40 noten krijg je COVID maar merk je er niks van, van 20 krijg je COVID en heb je milde tot matig klachten en van 14, soms 15 wordt je hondsberoerd. </p><p>Iedere dag eet je een noot en iedere dag weer is de bak weer aangevuld tot 100 (anders is de zekerheid dat je ooit aan COVID doodgaat 100% immers)</p><p>Ik maak dus bewust de keuze om bak 1 voor mijn neus te krijgen. Dat ik daarmee ook nog eens - is inmiddels ook onderzocht onder gezondheid medewerkers - 90% minder besmettelijk ben voor anderen áls ik het oploop is dus dat altruïsme wat niet mijn hoofdreden tot vaccineren is, maar wel mooi meegenomen is.</p><p>Daarnaast is er dus die 'fighting chance', je lijf heeft immers al kennis gemaakt met de indringer en kan het gelijk aanvechten. Dat kan een gezond lichaam trouwens ook bij de eerste keer 'in het eggie', maar ik heb liever dat mijn lijf eerst leert vechten met een reeds moe gemaakte vedergewicht in plaats van met de zwaargewicht kampioen. </p><p>In het begin had ik ook mijn twijfels, Maar inmiddels zijn we qua vaccin ruim 8 maanden verder. Hebben we miljoenen mensen gevaccineerd en is er zoveel data, dat je niet meer van een 'onbekend middel' kan spreken. </p><p>Overigens is het volgende ook iets om over na te denken; Waarom zijn alle 'non-vaccers' of mensen die er zo veel vragen bij hebben WEL de mensen die allerlei 'onderzoeken' aanhalen die (zogezegd) hebben plaatsgevonden. Ze zeggen dus dat een 11 maanden onderzoek door gespecialiseerde bedrijven MET het voordeel/ voorsprong van COVID-1 als basis, plus nu de 8 maanden doorgaand onderzoek nu het vaccin er is, MINDER zeggen en minder betrouwbaar zijn dan die enkele maanden van 'shady' vaak niet met wetenschappelijke cijfers onderbouwde "onderzoeken"... en daar baseren ze dan hun keuze op om niet te vaccineren? </p><p>Een voorbeeldje: 'COVID_vaccin veroorzaakt verhoogd ADHD in kinderen' : hoeveel kinderen hebben dat vaccin gehad? hoeveel tijd is er geweest om dat te onderzoeken??? en DAT is dan een geloofwaardig onderzoek??? que??) </p><p>Of: Het COVID-vaccin geeft je juist COVID. Nee mensen, het COVID vaccin geeft je geen COVID. Het geeft je niet het virus. De vaccins bevatten namelijk geen coronavirusdeeltjes. Wel is er inmiddels in één onderzoek onder 79 jarigen gezien dat het hebben van het vaccin juist tot gevolg heeft dat men vaker COVID krijgt, echter de kans om ernstig ziek te worden of in het ziekenhuis/ IC terecht te komen wordt dan weer met 30% verkleind. </p>FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-45506017885594803702021-05-25T08:15:00.001+02:002021-05-25T08:15:47.235+02:00Als je er eenmaal overheen bent...<p>Waaroverheen? Nou schroom of schaamte of twijfel.</p><p>Ik heb een tijd zitten overpeinzen of ik nu wel of niet de stap zou maken. Wat zouden anderen er van denken? Maak ik mezelf niet belachelijk?</p><p>Ik begon met voorbereiden. Wat heb ik er voor nodig? Wat wordt het doel of moet ik gewoon 'gaan met die banaan'...</p><p>Met de aanschaf van een grijpertje werd het al concreter.</p><p>Maar de eerste paar maanden bleef het ding in een hoekje in de gang staan. Hij werd op een gegeven moment zelfs even bewoond door een spinnetje, die bij een stofbeurt zijn heil verder buiten moest zoeken.</p><p>Het ding bleef echter in mijn gedachten branden.</p><p>Deze maand (mei) is de maand waar 'bewegen' een gewoonte moet worden welke ik aan mijn routines wil toevoegen. Elke dag minimaal een kwartiertje. Dus ik bedacht een rondje dat zo ongeveer een kwartiertje duurt.</p><p>Iedere dag maakte ik het rondje. </p><p>Iedere dag kwam ik langs steeds meer voorwerpen waarbij ik dacht... mijn grijpertje...</p><p>Dus op een ochtend toen ik terug kwam van een wandeling. Pakte ik het grijpertje. Ik pakte gelijk een afvalzakje en een handschoen en zette hem naast de voordeur. </p><p>De volgende ochtend toog ik mét grijpertje, zakje en handschoenen naar buiten en begon aan mijn rondje. </p><p>In plaats van wandelen was ik nu aan het plandelen.</p><p>Ik kan nu uit ervaring zeggen dat het goed voelt om dingen een stukje beter te maken, ook al is het andermans rommel die ik opruim. Het is in ieder geval weer minder troep op straat waar putten van verstopt kunnen raken of vogels en/of andere diertjes in verstrikt kunnen raken. Het is minder plastic op een plek waar het kan 'niet-vergaan' tot microplastics die in het milieu terecht komen.</p><p>Heb ik nog schaamte? Nope.</p><p>Sterker nog, ik zie anderen die mij zien 'grijpen' met een gevoel van schaamte kijken. Of dat schaamte is van iemand die een 'vervuiler' is of schaamte dat ze zelf alleen kijken niet niet DOEN?</p><p>Dus ik recht mijn rug, glimlach en voel mijzelf trots. </p><p>Iedere Plandeling draag ik bij aan een stukje schonere wereld en dat is verreweg iets om je voor te schamen!</p>FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-35546748121570322752021-05-07T13:29:00.005+02:002021-05-07T13:35:33.709+02:00Welles / nietes<p>Deze week moest ik (wederom) voor een coronatest., de vorige keer was 19 juni 2020. Ik was gelukkig- weet ik sinds vandaag- negatief. Ik ben nog niet zo vaak blij geweest dat ik negatief was en niet positief. Ondanks dat mensen mij iedere keer zeggen dat ik toch wat '' positiever' moet zijn …Maar blijkbaar was ik dus 'gewoon verkouden'... dat is al waardeloos genoeg trouwens....maar...</p><p>Voor corona was je verkouden, snoot je je neus, nam je een paracetamol, voelde je je 'k*t*/ waardeloos en ging je gewoon door. Je kon écht wel een dagje op 'minder dan optimaal' werken. </p><p>Nu: test, in quarantaine...je neus snuiten en wacht op de uitslag... een paracetamol nemen, behalve k/-*t* ben je ook zenuwachtig/ onzeker over de testuitslag en kan je alleen online/ in quarantaine door...</p><p>Waag het niet om naar je werkplek te gaan.... Waar je voorheen met een pakjes zakdoekjes en neusspray uit kwam... nu ben je zoals de Lepra-patiënt vroeger.... hoe DURF je ook maar in de buurt van anderen te komen....kuchje... niezen... AAARRRHGGGGHHHH!!!!</p><p>Behalve dat je je dus ellendig voelt door je verkoudheid, zit je dus OOK in de onzekerheid over die test. Het voelt toch als een soort examen én je kunt nergens heen én je - ik in ieder geval wel- zorgen of je niet iemand anders hebt geïnfecteerd.</p><p>Daarmee bedacht ik me dat niet alleen het 'hebben van covid-19' een impact heeft, maar dus ook het 'simpel hebben' van verkoudheden, griepjes - in mijn geval - neusvliesontsteking- kent nu een andere beleving, namelijk: heb ik het wel of heb ik het niet.... is het gewoon iets als een verkoudheid of een griepje of is het Covid en kan ik iemand - potentieel - doodziek maken....dat geeft extra zorgen en daar heeft vast niemand in het COVID-gewel over nagedacht...</p><p>Hoe denk jij over verkoudheden, griep of het hebben van Covid???</p>FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-7837996032876489492021-05-02T10:08:00.002+02:002021-05-02T10:08:25.527+02:00Emotionele belangenverstrengeling: Wat als men helemaal niet wíl dat het voorbij gaat...Afgelopen week hoorden we dat de maatregelen niet worden versoepeld, de nieuwslezer vertelde ons dat het kabinet het niet aan durfde twee keer 'het OMT advies in de wind te slaan'. <div><br /><div>Voor wie het nog niet weet. Het OMT is het 'outbreak management team'. Het Outbreak Management Team (OMT) is een Nederlands adviesorgaan dat de minister van Volksgezondheid, Welzijn en Sport (VWS) en de Ministeriële Commissie Crisisbeheersing (MCCb) adviseert bij de bestrijding van een epidemie; het advies beperkt zich tot de medische invalshoek van de epidemie. </div></div><div><br /></div><div>Op de site van het RIVM is ook het volgende te lezen: De OMT-leden geven onafhankelijk advies. Om transparant te zijn en belangenverstrengeling te voorkomen, vult elk lid voor een OMT een belangenverklaring in. Deze ‘Code ter voorkoming van oneigenlijke beïnvloeding door belangenverstrengeling’ vraagt informatie over (neven)functies, persoonlijke financiële belangen en onderzoeksgelden. </div><div><br /></div><div>Deze tekst staat op een vrij prominente plek op de site waar de uitleg over het OMT staat, dus -blijkbaar- verwacht men al vragen omtrent de integriteit van de leden van het OMT, lijkt mij het doen overkomen.</div><div><br /></div><div>En dat is niet zo gek, want laten we wel wezen. Als ineens jouw bedrijfje "testfaciliteiten voor bacteriën en virussen" het ineens supergoed doet door een laten we zeggen 'COVID-epidemie' dan is de waarschijnlijkheid dat je NIET wilt dat deze voorbij is vrij hoog. Dat geldt ook voor mensen die aandelen hebben in medicijnen die een ziekte niet zo zeer verhelpen, maar 'verlichten'. Je wilt immers niet dat iets voorbij is, maar iets zo lang mogelijk in stand houden om jouw 'verlichtende medicijn' te kunnen verkopen is des te meer aannemelijk.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nu is een financiële 'trail', gemakkelijk na te gaan. Dus zullen de OMT-ers ongetwijfeld een financiële verstrengeling of niet najagen OF - waarschijnlijker- heel goed maskeren en via-via-via-via- geregeld hebben. Waar echter niet op wordt getoetst is 'emotionele belangenverstrengeling'.</div><div><br /></div><div>Iedereen die gepest is, een buitenbeentje was of anderzijds niet behept is met een enorme vriendenkring en tot de 'gezelschapsdieren' of 'gangmakers' wordt gerekend, weet waar ik het over heb. </div><div><br /></div><div>Stel je behoort tot die zojuist genoemde groep. Op een gegeven moment maak je iets heel bijzonders mee. Laten we voor het voorbeeld zeggen: je zit in een bus onderweg naar een vakantiebestemming en die bus verongelukt, maar iedereen overleeft het op miraculeuze wijze doordat jij wist hoe je iedereen uit die bus moest krijgen. </div><div><br /></div><div>Het eerste de beste verjaardagsfeest, bedrijfsborrel en weet ik niet wat waar ze je nooit zagen staan ben JIJ ineens het middelpunt. Je kunt je heldhaftige verhaal keer op keer doen en je laaft jezelf aan al die aandacht die je krijgt... na jaren het verhaal te hebben kunnen vertellen, wordt de aandacht er voor steeds minder. Je probeert nog hier-en-daar een stukje van de heroïek te poneren, maar DIE spotlight is helaas verder gegaan. Je behoort weer tot die 'muurbloemen-populatie' van oninteressante personen en je betrapt je er op dat je stiekem wilt dat er weer iets rampzaligs gebeurd waar je de held kunt zijn...</div><div><br /></div><div>En dat is waar ik in de context van een OMT dus bang voor ben en niet alleen voor deze groep, maar ook voor de 'Viruswaanzinwappies'. Dansleraren die eigenlijk nooit zo bijzonder waren, maar nu door stennis en media-aandacht op een (te hoog) voetstuk worden geplaatst door de media en hun wappie-volgelingen. </div><div><br /></div><div>Kijk eens naar deze personen. Hoewel iedereen op zich staand uniek is en op zich staand ongetwijfeld een pracht mens. Ik durf te wedden dat er ook mensen bij zitten die in hun specifieke vakgebied al veel bekendheid genieten. Maar de COVID-media aandacht is er één van natuurlijk een heel andere orde. </div><div><br /></div><div>Eerst was je een - zij het in je vakgebied of kring misschien zeer gewaardeerde en erkende - persoon waar buiten je vakgebied nog nooit iemand van had gehoord. Plots ben je DE man waar de regering naar luistert EN die macht heeft om iets wel /niet te gunnen. Jouw oordeel bepaald of een dierentuin wel of niet bezocht gaat worden de komende maanden. Jouw oordeel bepaald of iemand op een stairmaster in een partytent staat de sjouwen of gewoon in een sportschool terecht kan. Jij bent diegene waar de overheid zich aan ergert. Jij bent diegene waarvan de overheid juist wil dat je je mond houdt. </div><div><br /></div><div>De media schrijft over je. </div><div><br /></div><div>De mensen geven je positieve of negatieve aandacht. Maakt niet uit; HET IS AANDACHT.</div><div><br /></div><div>Je wilt dat het nooit stopt, al die jaren van bewegen in jouw leszaaltje. Al die jaren dat je ouders WEL een luis in de pels konden zijn van de overheid, maar jij in je majot stond rond te huppelen in een schooltje en je dreadlocks het enige waren waar mensen commentaar op hadden. </div><div><br /></div><div>De ene wil dus dat het nooit stopt, die wil dat mensen zoveel mogelijk bij elkaar komen. Dat de COVID-regels weg worden gedaan. Zolang COVID er is, heeft hij het podium om te ageren. De andere wil dat het óók nooit stopt, maar dan qua regelgeving en maatregelen. Hoe langer hij de maatregelen kan rekken, hoe langer zijn 'clubje' nog operationeel moet zijn om regering te adviseren. </div><div><br /></div><div>Vaccinatie? Hij werkt, hij werkt niet, het is een hoax, het is het enige middel... We zien de cijfers terug vallen, oh nee, toch een bejaardenhuis dat gevaccineerd is en waar TOCH weer infecties zijn. Variant 1 en dan ook variant 2 en 3 en 4... het lijkt maar niet op te houden...</div><div><br /></div><div>Beide kanten van het verhaal zijn nu DE verhaalmakers op het (niet te houden) feestje...</div><div><br /></div><div>In mijn optiek moet je dus niet alleen kijken naar het financiële voordeel maar ook naar de emotionele belangenverstrengeling van diegenen die nu het meest in de media verschijnen...</div><div><br /></div><div>Wat als men helemaal niet wil dat het voorbij gaat....</div>FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-60806513456071822782021-04-30T17:21:00.002+02:002021-04-30T17:21:43.482+02:00FLY-en, wat is dat dan? Bekentenis en Start met GLIMMEN!!!!<p>Ik ben een 'overtuigd FLY-er' of 'FLY-ster', ook wel FlyBaby genoemd. Dat is iemand die de systematiek van de FlyLady volgt voor het elimineren van CHAOS (can't have anyone over syndrome, oftewel ik kan niemand op bezoek hebben syndroom) en zorgen voor RUST in je leven, huis en relaties, maar vooral ook je hoofd. </p><p>Ik kan het iedereen aanraden. Ik merk echter dat mensen vaak denken 'jaja... het zal wel' en het allemaal wat vaag vinden OF ze vragen 'wat is het dan?'. Mensen vragen mij ook vaak 'hoe kan het dat je daar allemaal tijd voor hebt?'... of 'hoe krijg je dat allemaal gedaan?'. Of zeggen.. voor mij érg grappig: maar jij bent zo georganiseerd....</p><p>Geloof me. Dat is niet van nature zo. Het is aangeleerd en jij kunt dit ook! écht waar!!!!</p><p>In 2015 was ik het ineens zat. Ik kwam thuis en het voelde als 'zooitje'. Ondanks een goed salaris, was het toch aan het einde van de maand vaak zo dat ik 'naast het geld greep' en gebruik moest maken van het 'reservepotje'. Een kapotte dakgoot hielp niet mee, evenals een gebroken kies (nagenoeg op hetzelfde moment en beiden kostten behoorlijk wat geld). De druppel was dat ik met een (duur) tijdschrift thuis kwam en toen ik het in de lectuurmand legde, er al een exemplaar in lag. Schaam ik me daarvoor? JA!!! of eigenlijk ... daar schaamDE ik me voor. Ik weet echter dat als ik die schaamte voorbij durf te stappen ik misschien - al is het maar één - iemand kan helpen. </p><p>Maar hoe pak je dingen dan aan? Tot dan toe had ik iedere keer hele dagen getracht alles in één keer op orde te krijgen. Dagen alles uitmesten, ordenen, van de ene naar de andere plek verschuiven onder het mom van 'dan ziet het er netjes uit' om dan na enkele weken er achter te komen dat het weer een zooitje is (en dan nog niet eens te hebben over dat j<br />e eigenlijk niks meer kunt vinden...want die logische plek bleek helemaal niet zo logisch... ). </p><p>Ik kwam op een site uit die 'FlyLady.org' heette. FLY is een afkorting van 'Finally Loving Yourself', oftewel 'Eindelijk van Jezelf Houden'. Ik besloot het een kans te geven, ondanks de ontzettend - wat ik noem - happy-peppie, soms overdreven Amerikaanse aanpak en ik besloot ook om het echt te volgen zoals het beschreven was. </p><p>Nu - 6 jaar later- 'FLY' is nog steeds. Mijn huis is 'op orde', evenals mijn financiën en zoals de 'FlyLady' belooft: je hebt daardoor ook ruimte in je hoofd om andere dingen op te pakken en naar anderen om te kijken. Het gaf me de ruimte om te kunnen stoppen met roken zonder weer voor de tigste keer terug te vallen. Het gaf me financiële ruimte om (nagenoeg helemaal) biologisch te eten en duurzaam dingen te kopen (want duurzame kleding is wat duurder dan 'gewone kleding'). Het gaf me de ruimte om te gaan wandelen (tot grote afstanden aan toe). Het gaf me de ruimte om weer mijn opleiding natuurgeneeskunde (fytotherapie, massagetechnieken, ontspanningscoach, etc) op te pakken...maar het gaf me ook die innerlijke rust met niet meer overal schuldig over te voelen... </p><p><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS3VLcu43Tl9ZY7eohgaHuCYNirxUNU4IxK2xh66LYjpsaTj_SFqc_A5OTnU5wwzPkDIfs2rTzsk8bQh9rnjEjZ6qongRMgZzpfy0yAMSmqszKtvZ-YztXPk23uMZ9VOUPSYtZliPccA/s2048/IMG_1728.JPEG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS3VLcu43Tl9ZY7eohgaHuCYNirxUNU4IxK2xh66LYjpsaTj_SFqc_A5OTnU5wwzPkDIfs2rTzsk8bQh9rnjEjZ6qongRMgZzpfy0yAMSmqszKtvZ-YztXPk23uMZ9VOUPSYtZliPccA/s320/IMG_1728.JPEG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Benodigdheden voor een glimmende gootsteen...</td></tr></tbody></table><br />De systematiek is gebaseerd op routines en gewoonten aanleren. Als je eenmaal een gewoonte hebt aangeleerd, voeg je die toe aan de routine van dat moment van de dag. Routines zorgen er voor dat je alles op de automatische piloot doet en dat het weinig moeite kost. Verder zijn dingen 'achter je kont opruimen' en alles doen wat je leven (morgen) makkelijker maakt, dingen die onderdeel uit maken van het 'FLY-en'. De sleutel is echter ook: BABYSTAPJES. Niet alles in één keer willen doen.</p><p>Voor mensen die 'van nature georganiseerd' zijn lijkt de systematiek 'buitenaards' en vreemd. Maar voor mensen - zoals ik- die van nature chaotisch zijn óf te perfectionistisch is het hebben van deze handvatten een verademing. Een perfectionist doet namelijk NIKS als er geen tijd genoeg is om het PERFECT te doen, je roept daarom continue 'ik heb geen tijd om...'. Terwijl stiekem dit niet het geval is, we maken de zin namelijk niet af.... 'ik heb geen tijd om het perfect te doen' is de complete zin. Daarnaast willen we ook alles in één keer doen. Die laatste kriebelt bij mij in sommige gevallen nog steeds, geef ik zo toe, maar als je het daarna niet bijhoudt omdat het 'niet goed genoeg kan', dan is die glans van die prestatie er snel af. </p><p>Maar wat ís het dan? </p><p>Het is dus een systeem. Een methode. Je bouwt routines op en gewoonten. Eén (baby)stapje per keer. Die routines zorgen er voor dat je een automatische piloot creëert. Door dagelijks een klein beetje te doen, hoef je niet alles in één keer te doen op één dag. Je gaat er voor zorgen dat je die dingen doet die dingen gemakkelijker voor je maken en zorgen dat je minder stress hebt. Je doet alles in blokjes van 15, 10, 5 of zelfs 2 minuten, íets doen is altijd beter dan níets doen en ook imperfect uitgevoerd is nog altijd beter dan niet uitgevoerd. </p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Je hebt ten minste een ochtend en een avondroutine; die wordt groter naar mate je meer gewoonten eigen maakt. </li><li>Je hebt ook een dagelijkse 'focus' iets dat je specifiek die dag doet. </li><li>Je huis verdeel je in zones en iedere week van de maand richt je je op die specifieke zone</li><li>Je doet íets in plaats van niets, ook al is het imperfect (in jouw gedachten)</li></ul><div><br /></div><div>Het start echter allemaal met 'de Glimmende' of 'de Glanzende' Gootsteen. </div><div><br /></div><div>Werkt dat echt? JA!!! dat werkt écht...</div><div><br /></div><div>Dus. Als je wilt weten HOE ik zoveel tijd heb. Hoe het kan dat ik alles lijk te kunnen in een beperkte tijd... wat je ook invult... Ik ben écht begonnen met die glanzende gootsteen... écht waar. Als je dus ook die rust, controle etc. wilt hebben, neem dan die eerste stap en blijf vervolgens babystapjes nemen en dan beloof ik dat JIJ er ook komt!</div><div><br /></div><div>Ik houd een site bij in het Nederlands (met toestemming van de FlyLady zelf!) : www.funtestic.nl/flysite.</div><div><br /></div><div>en ja... ik heb óók mijn 'glanzende gootsteen' vlogje gemaakt :-D </div><div>Dus stel niet langer dingen uit en probeer dit eens voor een maandje... als het niet bevalt kun je er altijd nog mee stoppen en één keer gemist is het geen probleem, je 'springt er weer in' waar we zijn!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aoXERhDMn4k" width="320" youtube-src-id="aoXERhDMn4k"></iframe></div><br />FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-44711708698986148192021-04-30T07:39:00.004+02:002021-04-30T07:39:46.017+02:00I test, therefore I learn. I learn, therefore I test.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: #333333; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2px;">[This blog was originally published as Dutch article in </span><a href="http://nieuws.testnet.org/vak/ik-test-dus-ik-leer-ik-leer-dus-ik-test/" style="color: #006677; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 18.2px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">TestNet Nieuws</a><br />
<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: #333333; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2px;"></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: #333333; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="line-height: 22.75px;">(http://nieuws.testnet.org/vak/ik-test-dus-ik-leer-ik-leer-dus-ik-test/)</span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: #333333; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2px;">]</span></div>
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<em>In one of my previous blogs I wrote about <a href="https://funtestic.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-sheep-with-five-legs-is-dead-long.html" target="_blank">the centipede</a> and while I wrote it with sarcasm in mind, especially when working in consultancy it becomes evident -with all the hiring-desks and brokers that have nested themselves between client and supplier- that the illustrated jack-of-all-trades is actually asked for. </em></div>
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Hiring agencies and selection desks use (a form of) semantic tests (checks) to see if the requested data and - if applicable- the accompanying certificate - is in the resumé. Every tester knows - off course- that a semantic test is there to verify the validity of inputs and not - while the name might suggest otherwise- an elementary comparrisson technique that is necessary to thouroughly test functionality based on pseudocode or similar specifications. </div>
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While I was hoping that my years of experience would get me somewhere nowadays, nothing is less true. No certificate: no job. So I had to go back to school and 'hit the books' to be able to test again. Much of the requested certificates are (based on) knowledge that I already have experience in in practice but I never got the official certificate. So I had to study again, Especially since practice now seemed a pitfall for the exam. The exam has questions with multiple choice answers which are derived directly from the theory. I figured out very quickly by doing practice-exams that I started doubting the answers because in practice, the solutions are never applied so black-and-white as the anwers describe OR in practice a combination of answers is applied. The exam demands the 'most fitting answer', but in practice that is dependent on the situation...<br />
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Letting go the thought of 'that is the way things work' for the benefit of 'this is how it is described in theory' was an eye-opener for me. How many times did I myself explain to somebody that was starting as tester "yes, the theory might say that, but in practice it works like this...". In this case it is "yes, in practice you are doing it like this, but the theory states that..." And then I was also bothered during the exam by the thought: "I think it is like this in practice, but the theory probably is stating this..." and afterwards when checking the answers it seemed that my knowledge of how I would have done it in practice, was the right answer. It is a big hassle to relearn everything that I learned in my early days when I began as tester after all these years of practice. The saying is 'as the twig is bent, the tree is inclined' but aparently testing this is easier said than done.<br />
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Another eye-opener was that I thought that 'SINO' (SCRUM in Name Only) and thus SCRUM-mis-use was very common. Well, than you should dive into 'Prince2'... 'PINO' (Prince2 in name only) and the mis-use of that name is far more serious and widespread than or will every be the case than with SINO. Did you know for example that <i>testing</i> and quality (yes, yes!) is an embedded part of Prince2? Did we as testers got fooled by project managers that were able very skillfully hide testing under the carpet... I have seldom seen an exception report or have seen one rule in a risk ledger which Prince2 describes as one of the deliverable to a steering committee when an activity can't be executed according to plan of when there's an increased risk. Read: when not enough testing can be done or testing cannot start on time (of finished in time)... well... never too late to learn...</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #303f50; font-family: Arial, "Arial Unicode MS", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22.75px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-top: 13px; padding: 0px;">Also in the upcoming year(s) 'learning' seems to be the trend at various (test)conferences, as it has been the passed years with themes like "Learning to test, testing to learn' (EuroSTAR) and ' “Verbreed je basis: nieuwe vaardigheden voor testers!” (TestNet). These conferences point out the importance of learning in practice and learning new skills. I'm willing to bet that one skill isn't thaught and that is the learning itself. One needs to learn to learn! Where the theory ends in practice, when to apply theory and when in practice one needs to use theory as basis for argumentation. But HOW you should do that, isn't thaught. </div><div style="background-color: white; color: #303f50; font-family: Arial, "Arial Unicode MS", Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22.75px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-top: 13px; padding: 0px;">In my experience (learning) the theory is increasingly seen as something 'dirty', let alone that we verify the learned by doing an exam ánd getting a certificate for it. The certificate isn't saying anything about the skill of the tester. But I find this a very black-and-white line of thought. Especially 'us testers' should know the importance of verification, validation and even falsification and we finalize this by writing a report. If I would state that the report doesn't say anything about how the systems performs it would be totally quatsch. We know exactly how the tests were performed and how the system (does not) perform, but the report reflects what we have tested. </div>
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FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-30931377896223619912020-03-23T15:39:00.003+01:002021-04-21T06:42:05.951+02:00Perspectief: Een virus, levensduur en handenhygiëne<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Afgelopen week lees ik met zowel vermaak, verbazing als irritatie verschillende berichten over de NCov-19. Wat mij vooral verbaast is hóe weinig kennis mensen eigenlijk hebben en wat me nóg meer verbaast is dat áls men geen kennis heeft, hoe weinig moeite men blijkbaar doet om die kennis op te doen. Wat dan weer resulteert in dat mensen heel gemakkelijk dingen van anderen aannemen, acties ondernemen die ofwel schadelijk zijn (dingen erger maken soms), ofwel helemaal niks uitmaken of veelal een vals gevoel van veiligheid geven. Waarom is men zo gebrand op 'fake news', maar is men niet bereid om - bij zoiets belangrijks als gezondheid en NCov-19 - na te gaan of iets écht is en/of de kennis op te doen. <div>
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Ik zelf ben enorm nieuwsgierig van aard en wellicht ook wat opstandig. Dit maakt dat ik niet zo makkelijk dingen aanneem en eigenlijk bij alles wil weten waarom dingen zo zijn.</div>
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Iemand kan mij vertellen; was je handen met zeep want daar worden ze schoon van. Ik wil weten waarom ze dan schoon worden; wát doet die zeep? en wat is 'schoon?'..</div>
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Zo heb ik dat ook met NCov-19. Ik denk dat wat achtergrond informatie voor anderen helemaal zo gek dus nog niet is, dus ik deel de volgende info graag! Maar uiteraard; ga ook zelf op onderzoek uit en neem niet alles zomaar voor 'waar' aan.</div>
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Op een gegeven moment lees ik dat iemand stelt : "zolang je ramen en deuren gesloten houdt, dan kan het virus niet bij jou binnen komen"... </div>
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Daar moet ik enerzijds om lachen, maar eigenlijk is het diep triest dát men dit denkt. Ongetwijfeld zijn er hele hordes mensen die op dit bericht alles in huis potdicht doen (=ongezond!), afval niet wegbrengen (= zeker ongezond!) en de deur absoluut niet open doen voor een eventuele persoon die aanbelt (dit kan dan wel verstandig zijn, maar wat als je boodschappen besteld?), terwijl ze daarmee zich veilig wanen van 'het virus'. Feit is dat het virus wel degelijk in een huis met gesloten ramen en deuren kan komen, tenzij je jouw huis heb ingericht als 'cleanroom' en overdruk en sluizen hebt met de buitenwereld en speciale filters voor de luchtzuivering. Ik denk echter dat maar weinig mensen die inrichting hebben. Zolang er lucht naar binnen stroomt die niet extreem gefilterd is en van alle pathogenen is ontdaan, komen met de luchtstroom gewoon virussen mee naar binnen als die zich in die luchtstroom bevinden.</div>
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Als je met een virus te maken hebt, is het handig te weten wat een virus eigenlijk is én hoe het zich gedraagt. <a href="https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_(biologie)">https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_(biologie)</a> is een bron, maar er zijn er meerdere "<a href="https://www.microbiologie.info/Virussen.html">https://www.microbiologie.info/Virussen.html</a>"is er ook ééntje bijvoorbeeld en zo ook: <a href="https://www.gezondheidsplein.nl/aandoeningen/virusinfectie/item39192">https://www.gezondheidsplein.nl/aandoeningen/virusinfectie/item39192</a> en - ook een interessant e(vooral ook vanwege het beeldmateriaal van glazen sculpturen: <a href="https://www.dvhn.nl/extra/Wat-is-een-virus-Over-de-mysterieuze-grens-tussen-leven-en-levenloosheid-25480060.html">https://www.dvhn.nl/extra/Wat-is-een-virus-Over-de-mysterieuze-grens-tussen-leven-en-levenloosheid-25480060.html</a>) </div>
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Er zijn dus verschillende bronnen van informatie, handig is om informatie van verschillende bronnen te bekijken en ze niet gelijk per definitie voor waar aan te nemen, maar altijd vraagtekens te blijven zetten totdat duidelijk met kennis, wetenschap en bewijs en onderzoek is onderbouwd dat iets zo is (en dan nog zijn er uiteraard grijze gebieden)</div>
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Feit is dat virussen erg klein zijn. Feit is ook dat ze zich niet zonder een gastheer kunnen vermenigvuldigen. Een virusinfectie ontstaat door besmetting via de <b>longen</b>, maag-darmkanaal of huid (in specifieke omstandigheden of bij kapotte huid) of <b>slijmvliezen</b>.</div>
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Het inademen van lucht die iemand anders uitgehoest of geniest heeft kan dus een infectie veroorzaken, maar ook aanraken van besmette oppervlakten en/of eten/drinken van geïnfecteerde voedingsmiddelen kunnen een oorzaak zijn dat je besmet wordt met een virus. Met 6 miljard mensen op aarde is de kans groot dat je dus lucht inademt die een ander heeft uitgehoest of geniesd en welke virussen bevat. Gelukkig blijven virussen niet onbeperkt leven buiten het lichaam dat ze nodig hebben om zich te vermenigvuldigen. </div>
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Het is een beetje afhankelijk van het virussoort hoe lang dat is. Zo kan een griepvirus op harde niet poreuze oppervlaktes 24 tot 48 uur overleven en op papier of kleding 8 tot 12 uur. Iemand met griep die dus een dag of zelfs twee dagen van te voren in een toilet is geweest en keurig de zeeppomp heeft gebruikt, heeft daar ongetwijfeld op die pomp virussen achter gelaten en als die pomp niet is schoongemaakt in de tussentijd en jij ook netjes je handen wast met zeep uit diezelfde pomp, dan kun je al snel het haasje zijn. Wil je dus zeker weten dat er geen virussen zitten op een oppervlakte dat jij aanraakt, dan zul je die eerst moeten desinfecteren (met de juiste middelen!) óf handschoenen moeten aantrekken.</div>
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Een coronavirus zoals het NCov-19 lijkt vooralsnog het een redelijk lange tijd uit te houden buiten de gastheer. Gemiddeld is het 4 tot 5 dagen, maar ze kunnen zelfs tot 9 dagen overleven (bron: <a href="https://www.scientias.nl/hoe-lang-kan-het-coronavirus-overleven/">https://www.scientias.nl/hoe-lang-kan-het-coronavirus-overleven/</a>) </div>
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Maar ook als we een 'vies' oppervlakte aanraken hebben we niet gelijk een ziekte te pakken. Onze huid is gelukkig niet één en al slijmvlies, maar is er - onder andere- om ons te beschermen tegen schadelijke invloeden van buitenaf (bacterien, virussen, vuil...).. Wat wél een probleem is, is dat we schijnbaar het heerlijk vinden om ons gezicht aan te raken, vingers in onze mond te stoppen, in onze ogen te wrijven en in onze neus te peuteren. Hier zitten wél slijmvliezen en met onze handen infecteren we deze dus met een virus als we niet nadat we een verontreinigd oppervlakte hebben aangeraakt onze handen eerst reinigen.</div>
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Voor het reinigen kunnen we 'ethanol' gebruiken (ethanol is aangetoond effectief bij het desinfecteren van oppervlakten), maar het haalt zichtbaar vuil wat slechter weg. We kunnen ook onze handen goed wassen. En goed wassen is ten minste 20 seconden en volgens een bepaalde aanpak. Bijvoorbeeld zoals op: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6uBxC1yZfk of <a href="https://www.rodekruis.nl/nieuwsbericht/tips-om-risico-op-besmetting-en-verspreiding-coronavirus-te-verkleinen/">https://www.rodekruis.nl/nieuwsbericht/tips-om-risico-op-besmetting-en-verspreiding-coronavirus-te-verkleinen/</a> of - deze vind ik zelf wel aardig: <a href="https://www.cws.com/nl-NL/het-belang-van-handen-wassen">https://www.cws.com/nl-NL/het-belang-van-handen-wassen</a>. Dubbel safe: dan na het wassen en nadat je de ruimte verlaten hebt (en dus een deurklink vast hebt gepakt) nog even met een drupje desinfectievloeistof nawrijven..en nee... een anti-bacteriele gel heeft niet altijd nut...(<a href="https://www.nu.nl/coronavirus/6034858/helpt-handgel-tegen-het-coronavirus-handen-wassen-met-zeep-is-beter.html">https://www.nu.nl/coronavirus/6034858/helpt-handgel-tegen-het-coronavirus-handen-wassen-met-zeep-is-beter.html</a>) .</div>
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Toch is er ook geen reden tot paniek als je ineens onbedachtzaam in je ogen wrijft met 'vieze' handen. Ons lijf is namelijk uitgerust met een ingenieus defensie systeem, ook wel immuunsysteem genaamd. Heel veel bacterieën en virussen - vooral de 'mens-eigen' worden al onderschept en 'opgegeten'/ ingekapseld' </div>
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Ons lijf blijkt / lijkt ook het Coronavirus te lijf te gaan. <a href="https://www.scientias.nl/wat-gebeurt-er-als-het-coronavirus-een-gezond-lichaam-infecteert/">https://www.scientias.nl/wat-gebeurt-er-als-het-coronavirus-een-gezond-lichaam-infecteert/</a> en dat is best knap als je bedenkt dat het een voor het mens vreemd virus is (komt namelijk van een dier als oorsprong).</div>
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En toch maakt het complexe immuunsysteem ook dat niet iedereen opgewassen is tegen een infectie. Hoe we tegen indringers vechten en hoe succesvol we hierin zijn, is afhankelijk van onze 'weerstand'. Maar ook van de mate van infectie en wáar in het lichaam we geïnfecteerd raken. </div>
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Wat precies jouw weerstand bepaald? Hoe gezond je leeft is er eentje, maar ook wat je eet en drinkt (een gezonde microbioom door veel gefermenteerd eten wordt bijvoorbeeld steeds vaker met onderzoeken onderbouwd als essentieel voor een goede weerstand), ben je verder gezond (geen ziekten of gebreken), ben je emotioneel in balans? etc etc. etc. </div>
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Maar dat het eten van zuurkool of het drinken van zuurzaksap het Coronavirus zou vernietigen is weer zo'n bewering waar je je vraagtekens bij kunt stellen, hoewel ze ongetwijfeld bijdragen aan je weerstand en dus indirect wél bijdragen aan de strijd die je lijf er tegen levert...het is dus maar wat je perspectief dan is...</div>
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FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-37670909211218510512020-03-22T13:29:00.000+01:002020-03-22T16:09:51.242+01:00Noem me maar gekkie, maar ik ben klaar voor de coronapocalyps<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Ooit kreeg ik op een “werving dag” (dat was rond 1999/ 2000) een workshop van het “vrekken echtpaar” over consuminderen. Het is mij altijd bijgebleven. Alternatief dingen gebruiken, maar ook tips en tricks van “de oude dagen” (oorlogs - en recessie tijd) . Dat ik sommige dingen hiervan ging toepassen vonden mensen maar raar...dingen (zelf) repareren? Wie doet dat nou?<br />
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Als experiment / voor de grap ben ik jaren geleden eens begonnen met “wat als de zombie-apocalyps nu zou beginnen, zou ik dan overleven?”. Eigenlijk was het een gedachte-experiment nav seizoen 1 van “the Walking dead”<br />
Hoewel ik hierin niet “full fledge” (complete redneck prepper stijl) ging, ben ik toch eens gaan nadenken over wat je minimaal in huis zou moeten hebben van dingen zonder dat je dingen overmatig in huis haalt, maar ook; is datgene wát je al in huis hebt, voldoende om de dingen te kunnen doen die nodig zijn (alternatief voor verband bv). Mensen bestempelde me als paranoïde...”een gekkie” , zeker toen ik ging nadenken over een “EMP”...(had ik de zilverfolie hoedjes al in huis??)<br />
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Vorig jaar raakte ik bevlogen door de nowaste / duurzaamheid beweging en ging kijken naar reduceren van wegwerp en “slimme voorraden” van etenswaren bv. Wecken, fermenteren...hoorde daar allemaal bij.<br />
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Door mijn (toentertijd nog ongewilde) reis naar Suriname in 2017 leerde ik basale medische dingen, zoals hechten, bijvoorbeeld.<br />
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Het wakkerde ook de wens voor “zelfredzaam” / off the grid leven aan. Wat ook weer gepaard ging met het leren van allerlei dingen die vroeger heel gewoon waren, maar we door de consumptiemaatschappij zijn vergeten.<br />
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Voedsel verbouwen, jagen, vissen, (wild)plukken, kruiden-leer, kleding maken (naaien), dingen bouwen/maken/herstellen, alternatieve gezondheidszorg, imkeren...er zijn almaar weinig mensen die het allemaal kunnen, en ik ook ben nog voor enkele dingen “in de leer” of niet ik nog leren (jagen/schoonmaken en imkeren).<br />
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Dus toen iedereen acuut ging hamsteren, keek ik redelijk relaxed in mijn voorraadkast en maakte een “aanvullijstje”; die dingen die minder dan 50% “in stock” had, gingen op het lijstje, krijg je ze niet te pakken, ook geen nood. Geen vreemde dingen, een kilo pak suiker, een kilo pak meel, geen gekke dingen extra (zoals 5 kilo pannenkoeken meel wat je normaal nooit koopt en ook kunt maken van bloem en bakpoeder en wat vanille essence). Wat extra dingen zoals een blik “jackfruit” en een extra kilo blanke amandelen om zelf amandelmelk te kunnen maken.<br />
Pepsi, monster en wijn zijn dingen die ik ipv de normale maand, nu ruimer op voorraad neem; evenals kattenvoer; want die van ons is nogal kieskeurig...Dus tóch een beetje gehamsterd<br />
Enkele droge bonen van soorten die ik nog maar weinig heb bestel ik extra bij mijn “bonen mannetje”.<br />
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Tijdens mijn tocht, greep ik maar echt naast één ding en dat was een doosje paracetamol. Met een half door maandelijkse perikelen gebruikt doosje, wilde ik graag een extra stripje op voorraad...maar helaas. Toch ben ik niet helemaal onthand, want ik heb een pot moerasspirea staan en een goed extract hiervan, is een zwakke, maar voldoende vervanging. En als het echt moet, kan ik de bast van de witte berk van mijn buurman altijd nog koken...<br />
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Kortom... nu ik eigenlijk wel verwacht dat binnen enkele dagen de “full lockdown” uitgeroepen gaat worden door de hersenloze grote menigte die maar blijft socializen (Hey het zijn net zombies...!!), ben ik gewoon klaar voor de coronapocalypse die daar ongetwijfeld op gaat volgen (als we er al niet in zitten). Hoe gekkie ben ik nu eigenlijk? </div>
FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-40431587258624335722020-03-19T13:41:00.001+01:002020-03-19T16:10:37.970+01:00Absentio Anima Sani: de COVID-19 gerelateerde symptomen waar de RIVM niet over spreekt...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Dat COVID-19 op griep <i>lijkt</i> maar het zeker niet is, is -gelukkig- voor een steeds grotere groep mensen wel duidelijk. Dat iemand die niest niet per definitie een 'COVID'-lijder is, begint ook bij mensen te dagen. Dit allemaal dankzij die informatie die de RIVM aan ons Nederlanders geeft via hun website 'rivm.nl'. Er is echter een hele groep symptomen - gerelateerd aan SARS-COV-2- die <i>niet</i> door de RIVM beschreven worden en die een grote impact op onze samenleving hebben én het verloop van deze pandemie.<br />
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Wat ik heb geobserveerd ten aanzien van deze verschijnselen is het volgende:<br />
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Personen gaan compulsief hamsteren en hoewel er herhaaldelijk aan hen wordt verteld dat dit niet nodig is en zelfs wordt getoond met bewijzen dat dit niet nodig is, blijven deze personen een overdaad aan - onder andere- toiletpapier, droogwaren, conserven en reiniging/ontsmettingsmiddelen kopen.<br />
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Personen zijn er van overtuigd dat zíj specifiek immuun zijn voor alle virussen. Ze zijn er van overtuigd dat de afwezigheid van symptomen als 'verkoudheidsverschijnselen' of andere door het RIVM aangegeven symptomen het bewijs is dat zij het virus niet bij zich hebben. Deze personen willen dit benadrukken door zich expliciet niet te conformeren aan het verzoek 'social distancing' en zoeken elkaar juist op in -bijvoorbeeld- 'Lock Down party's'.<br />
Een variant hierop is 'mijn kinderen zijn immuun' of 'kinderen kunnen het virus niet overdragen'...<br />
Nee mensen: kinderen zijn <i>minder</i> vatbaar, maar <i>kunnen</i> het wel krijgen en kunnen zeker dragers zijn én het dus overdragen (júist met hun snotneuzen en gesabbel overal aan...!!!) ; als scholen dus sluiten, ga dan niet met zijn alleen naar binnenspeeltuinen als 'Ballorig', 'Monkey Town' of 'Smalland'!!!<br />
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Personen lijken cognitieve vaardigheden te verliezen. Een bericht als 'alleen bij binnen reizen' verwordt bij deze populatie: "ook van toepassing op 'naar buiten reizen'" (en vice versa). Een<i> advies</i> van een instantie is ineens verworden tot een <i>verplichting</i>. Een bericht als 'u mag het huis nog uit om de noodzakelijke boodschappen te doen" wordt beleefd als "u kunt dagelijks uw kopje koffie nog komen doen met al uw buurtgenoten bij de koffiecorner in uw lokale supermarkt". De afstand van 1,5 meter in een wachtrij is voor deze personen een kans om voor te piepen want de kennis dat deze 1,5 meter niet voor hen bedoeld is, maar dat dit de 'social distancing' afstand is, is in hun hersenen nog niet verwerkt als kennis.<br />
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Personen zijn OostIndisch Egoïstisch. Dit is een variant op 'OostIndisch Doof', dit zijn mensen die op diverse berichtgevingen (social media) doen hoe sociaal ze wel niet zijn en hoe egoïstisch en asociaal bepaald gedrag wel niet is bij anderen. Ze wijzen met vingers en nagelen anderen aan de schandpaal 'hoe erg ze wel niet zijn'. Daarbij wordt de beweegreden of context van de ander compleet genegeerd. Het zijn die mensen die zeggen "Je zou ook eens aan de ander moeten denken", terwijl ze zelf júist niet aan die persoon denken waar ze die boodschap aan sturen én - nog erger- vervolgens zelf zeer asociaal gedrag vertonen.<br />
Boos werd ik bijvoorbeeld van (ik citeer (bijna): "daarbij wist ik [product x] af te troggelen van [persoon x] omdat ik hoorde dat het nergens anders meer te koop was". Dat 'persoon x' , die dat dan hoogstwaarschijnlijk maar uit goedheid heeft gegeven, vervolgens dat 'product x' met grote zekerheid vanuit eigen zak moet betalen omdat baas van persoon x dat niet vergoed is de persoon die het aftroggelde maar even ontgaan...(en dat vervolgens andere mensen dat een mooi verhaal vinden, vind ik helemaal )&()&@#*~ - onbegrijpelijk laten we maar zeggen)<br />
Mensen zijn sociaal en altruïstisch wanneer dit hen goed afschildert bij anderen en social media, maar feitelijk gaan ze gewoon voor asociaal en egoïstisch wanneer het hen zelf het beste uitkomt.<br />
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Personen negeren de (wetenschappelijke) feiten en cijfers. Het gekke is dat deze personen de mensen die nu zeggen dat de aarde plat is, voor 'gekkies' uitmaken. Deze personen zijn er van overtuigd dat 'het virus zo erg niet is', dat 'deze maatregelen allemaal overdreven zijn', 'dat thuiswerken onzin is' (en dat is helemaal schadelijk als dit een werkgever betreft en de werknemers dus met alle zorgen van dien zich dienen te melden op de werkplek met veel collega's bijeen!) en dat 'allemaal wel overwaait' of 'bij een gemiddelde stevige griep is het erger'. Hoe de wetenschap ook publiceert, hoe de cijfers ook anders laten zien; deze mensen weigeren in te zien dat COVID-19 toch echt een ander verhaal is. Zélf mensen die gezinsleden hebben die behoren tot de COVID-19-risicogroepen (Astma, hartkwalen etc.) heb ik dit gedrag zien vertonen.<br />
Ik plaatste een overzicht waar in stond 'bron RIVM', maar feitelijk was dit niet getoetst... mensen namen het klakkeloos over en deelde het zonder nadenken...zonder enige bron-onderzoek te doen (en ik moet toegeven; ook ik had 'm zonder toetsen gedeeld)<br />
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Verder heb ik een -gelukkige zeldzaam- geval weten te noteren van een 'vechtpartijen bij het niet kunnen verkrijgen van een product' en een geval van 'ik weiger hulp omdat het niet van mijn land is' (deze laatste is gelukkig dus maar 1 persoon, maar die is wel -helaas- president van dat land).<br />
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De symptomen die ik hierboven beschrijf, worden niet beschreven door de RIVM maar zijn mijn inziens wel symptomen die zeer hardnekkig zijn én tot op de wortel uitgeroeid dienen te worden; dit mogen we niet tolereren als maatschappij en dienen we aan de kaak te blijven stellen. Ik ben van mening dat ze namelijk veel impact hebben op zowel de samenleving algemeen als het verloop van deze COVID-19 pandemie.<br />
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Laten we alsjeblieft een vuist maken tegen deze groep symptomen die ik noem: Absentio Anima Sani.<br />
Oftewel: afwezigheid van gezond verstand!</div>
FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-7004187658799739362019-06-30T14:29:00.000+02:002019-06-30T14:29:15.782+02:00Stilte door Slipknot<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Als je er nog nooit mee van doen hebt gehad is het lastig voor te stellen dat burenherrie een punt kan zijn, maar als - helaas- ervaringsdeskundige kan ik zeggen dat het écht tot spanningen kan leiden.<br />
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Toen wij kwamen wonen waar wij nu wonen was alles rustig en vredig ten opzichte van de buren. Manlief houdt nogal van wat steviger muziek, dus we stemden met de buren af wat het maximaal geluidsniveau was. We draaiden de volume knop net zo lang omhoog totdat de buren hem hoorden en zette toen een streepje met stift op dat niveau en voor die momenten dat manlief wat luider van zijn muziek wilde genieten, kochten we een (kwalitatief hoogwaardige) koptelefoon. Deze laatste kochten we draadloos zodat op de dagen dat we de deur open wilden hebben of in de tuin wilden zitten ook de buren niet tot overlast zouden zijn.<br />
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Na nog geen jaar in harmonie te hebben gewoond, kwamen daar 'de Engelsen'. Een echtpaar waarvan zij regelrecht uit 'Slaugh' zou kunnen komen. Zij was nogal aan de maat, niet allen qua lijfelijke omvang, maar ook qua stemgeluid. Daarbij- volgens mij- niet gespeend van enig intellect of enig buurlijk fatsoen. 'Plat, achterbuurts Engels' zou ik het noemen. De kindernamen ken ik alleen als <b>'AAAAMMMMIIIIEEE!!!!' </b>en<b> 'CHAAAAAAASSEEEE!!!!' </b>voor respectievelijk 'Amy' en 'Chase' en we weten inmiddels wat haar echtgenoot allemaal mee moet nemen in de auto omdat ze dat 'fijntjes' roept vanuit de achterdeur naar hem bij de auto. Ongeveer een afstand van 30 meter waar onze tuin tussenin ligt. Waarbij hij overigens niet schuwt om regelmatig op zeer verheven geluidsniveau te vertellen wat hij er van denkt dat zij zo naar hem schreeuwt.Nog maar niet te spreken van het briljante idee dat ze had om een kinderdagverblijf 'spontaan' te beginnen: iedere dag bij thuiskomst een kakofonie van kinderen waarbij zij probeerde er bovenuit te schreeuwen: zonder dat ze ooit - zoals de wet voorschrijft- een hinderwetvergunning met daarbij horend onderzoek had aangevraagd. Kinderdagverblijven, hondenopvang: je moet je omwonenden dan om toestemming vragen met een vergunningsaanvraag. Maar zij had bedacht dat 'dikkerds uit Slaugh' dat niet nodig hadden. Evenmin als opgaven aan de belastingdienst... wat wij later begrepen uit een (wederom luide) discussie die ze voerde met haar moeder over een aanslag.....<br />
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Na enkele jaren kochten we een caravan om in ieder geval de weekeinden maar weg te zijn van de herrie; het was ondragelijk geworden. We besloten om de confrontatie uit de weg te gaan in plaats van aan te spreken, want het laatste is niet ons sterkste punt en we wilden ook koste wat koste eventueel ruzies voorkomen. Je moet er toch wonen en we wilden liever geen ruzie met 'achterbuurt' Engelsen.<br />
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Ik kan me nog herinneren dat het bord 'TE KOOP' op de woning verscheen. We kochten een fles champagne voor het moment dat ook de toevoeging 'verkocht' er op zou staan.<br />
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Dat duurde gelukkig niet al te lang.<br />
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Ik herinner me nog het moment dat DIE oranje sticker op het 'te koop' bordje stond. Ik herinner met nog dat ik manlief direct een berichtje stuurde dat het zo ver was en dat we vervolgens besloten om de fles champagne pas open te trekken als ze echt de eerste meubels uit huis zouden tillen, bang om de mogelijkheid dat de verkoper zich zouden bedenken.<br />
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Enkele maanden, bijna een jaar genoten we intens van de rust die terug was gekeerd. Geen viswijf meer. Geen geschreeuw. Geen ruzieënde kinderen... en we konden 's avonds gewoon in de tuin zitten en genieten van het weer.<br />
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Nieuwe buren kwamen en gingen weer.<br />
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En nu is er een nieuw stel. Net 'vers' ouders geworden. Enkele maanden heeft het bord dat ze een zoon hadden gekregen op de ramen gehangen.<br />
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En.. nu het mooi weer is en wij van de warmere zomerdagen in de tuin proberen te genieten komen we achter twee dingen.<br />
1.: zoonlief is een huilbaby<br />
2.: men houdt van (hard)house muziek.<br />
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Nu zouden beiden voor ons geen probleem moeten zijn. als je de deur dicht houdt of je muziek binnenshuis houdt. Maar Hobbie 2 houdt 1 wakker en/of maakt deze aan het huilen. En 1 willen ze overstemmen met 2 door deze te ventileren mbv een draagbare box in de tuin....<br />
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DRAMA dus.<br />
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En dus stelde ik manlief voor het eerst sinds we hier wonen de vraag om de geluidsknop ver over het zwarte streepje te draaien en een plaatje van de collectie op te zetten, al was het maar voor enkele minuten. ...<br />
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Na twee minuten 'Slipknot' op bijna live geluidsniveau te hebben aangehoord (ja, onze geluidset kán het wel produceren ;-)) vroeg ik een terugkeer naar normaal geluidsniveau.<br />
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Enkele minuten later werd ook de boombox bij de buren het zwijgen opgelegd.<br />
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Direct aanspreken in niet zo ons ding, maar gelukkig spreek muziek een universele taal ook al zijn de dialecten verschillend. Wie had ooit gedacht dat een tweetal minuten 'Slipknot' genoeg was om de boodschap dat wij niet van hardhouse muziek op de stille zondagmiddag houden, uit te dragen.<br />
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En dan zeg ik toch op zijn zondags... AMEN!!!</div>
FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-47161294727757165692019-06-06T13:14:00.002+02:002019-06-06T13:14:51.280+02:00Suikerchallenge lastiger dan gedacht...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYMRVmUg_4PU-0YuPr9mgv7QjJg7snER7JS66Q3ZA__EhpiCNGaan8HF7lMNz-OVbB_ZGqkdkTVUs4Ctiga-iUeLTq7vRIugJ1Uc6CrYhfKEz_N05n_AcmhZ4NgIt2ifpv2qXBJOEjLQ/s1600/suikerchallenge.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="549" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYMRVmUg_4PU-0YuPr9mgv7QjJg7snER7JS66Q3ZA__EhpiCNGaan8HF7lMNz-OVbB_ZGqkdkTVUs4Ctiga-iUeLTq7vRIugJ1Uc6CrYhfKEz_N05n_AcmhZ4NgIt2ifpv2qXBJOEjLQ/s320/suikerchallenge.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Enige weken geleden kwam ik bij het lezen van de reclamefolder van de EkoPlaza de vermelding van de 'nationale suikerchallenge' tegen, (#suikerchallenge is de hashtag voor social media). Een initiatief van het diabetesfonds, waarbij de uitdaging is om een week lang geen vrije suikers te gebruiken. Vrije suikers zijn suikers die toegevoegd zijn aan producten plus alle suikers die van nature aanwezig zijn in honing, siropen, vruchtensappen en vruchtenconcentraat.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Blijkbaar krijgen we anno 2019 een equivalent van 28 klontjes suiker binnen per persoon per dag, zo'n slordige 40 kilo per jaar. Dat is schrikbarend veel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Vol enthousiasme meldde ik mij aan op de site; hoe moeilijk kon het zijn? Ik neem 's morgens een kopje koffie met één suikerklontje, drink geen frisdrank en ben gek op noten en fruit. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Nu aan het begin van de vierde dag denk ik er íets anders over. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Ten eerste gebruik ik meer producten die vrije suikers bevatten en ten tweede zitten vrije suikers ook in meer producten dan ik dacht; en vooral dat laatste is écht schandalig!! Waarom zit er verdorie overal suiker in, zelfs in producten waar dat helemaal niet nodig is? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Ook wel eigenaardig als je er op let: Biologische yoghurt van Campina (vol) bevat 5,7 gr koolhydraten, waarvan 5,7 suikers. Dat zullen dan van nature aanwezige suikers zijn(?), maar waarom heeft 'halfvol' dan '6,0' gram? Je zou toch verwachten dat dit op zijn minst gelijk is en het vet gehalveerd. Niet dat het aantal koolhydraten meer wordt... </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Overigens zag ik ook dat Campina nu drie smaken biologische vruchtenyoghurt in het assortiment heeft en die ga ik toch mooi proberen na de suikerchallenge week (want er zitten uiteraard wél suikers in...). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">De Abbotkinney kokosstart naturel heeft overigens geen toegevoegde suikers en de aanwezige koolhydraten liggen lager dan bij gewone yoghurt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Zoals gezegd, ik ben geen fan van frisdrank, al drink ik zo nu en dan best een colaatje. Dit was een makkelijke om tot nu toe ontwijken - dacht ik. Tot ik mezelf betrapte dat ik tóch met een flesje 'naturfrisk - pepermunt' stond. Weliswaar geen toegevoegde suiker, maar - en dat was ik éven vergeten in de tussentijd- wél gebaseerd op vruchtensap. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Het is dus - blijkbaar- echt alleen water, thee en koffie.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioFAlaBI0eA1PEGf_EdtnHlTQnOzIsMnNt4uqwUjIq-bXbltNi9RlpjOh78_fecHleVl29OrF2iCoNnzArLUs8FjHmvdjiIXqBosdJ6jPmE81bXa9cW2RBb4BO-O_huu4Fs5iQxZ3VmA/s1600/koffiemelk.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="517" data-original-width="363" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioFAlaBI0eA1PEGf_EdtnHlTQnOzIsMnNt4uqwUjIq-bXbltNi9RlpjOh78_fecHleVl29OrF2iCoNnzArLUs8FjHmvdjiIXqBosdJ6jPmE81bXa9cW2RBb4BO-O_huu4Fs5iQxZ3VmA/s320/koffiemelk.PNG" width="224" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">zelfs koffiemelk bevat vrije suikers</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Maar met die koffie is het ook nog uitkijken geblazen! Gelukkig is de 'weerribben koffiemelk' alleen 'Gesteriliseerde geëvaporeerde biologische volle melk' (kortweg "room") , maar als ik een ander bekend NL merk had gebruikt dan bevat het 'melk, melkeiwit, karamel en betacaroteen'; verborgen suiker dus! En de middagthee kan ik niet zoeten met honing (lekker die middagthee met een drupje...maar nee dus...).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Appelsap, jus d'orange (niet vers geperst) ... allemaal no-go. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Ik ben gelukkig wel een echte puur-sapjes en smoothie fan. Waarbij ik er vanuit ga dat eigen pure sappen wél mogen; denk aan (verse, biologische) bieten/wortel/gembersap en een (zelfgemaakte) smoothie met amandelmelk en banaan en wat (pure) cacaopoeder. één maal daags neem ik een sap en één maal daags een smoothie. Dat deed ik voor deze challenge ook al, maar deze week is de smoothie dus niet gezoet met een drupje honing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Een rode biet wrap met geitenkaas, gekocht als lunch omdat ik dacht 'gezond bezig'"!, bevat verdorie ook honing én ook nog suiker. Overigens zijn de meeste kant-en-klaar dingen voorzien van suiker én zout. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Een snoepje van ingedikt vruchtenconcentraat, met alleen van nature aanwezige suikers, kan dus ook niet. En ik dacht nog wel dat het een mooi 'zonde' momentje kon zijn in de middag, want ik ben een immense zoetekauw en snoepkont. Dus dan maar aan het gedroogde fruit, op zich lekker, maar ik mis toch dat 'gummie-dingetje' er bij en eigenlijk mis ik mijn dropjes óók. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">En dan belanden we langzaamaan in de avond. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">Twee obstakels: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">1. de overwerkmaaltijden als je 's avonds niet thuis eet.<br />Luxe broodjes met geitenkaas en walnoten en ... honing. Kaas met - gezoete - mosterdsaus... kroket met - gezoete- mosterd. Dat kan dus niet zonder meer zonder een suikerbijdrage. Eten moet dus mee vanaf huis als je echt suikervrij wilt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">2. ingredienten waar je mee kookt bevatten dus óók suikers.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i2.wp.com/www.blijzondersuiker.nl/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/mayo_groot.jpg?resize=800%2C533" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://i2.wp.com/www.blijzondersuiker.nl/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/mayo_groot.jpg?resize=800,533" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Meukvrije mayo... bron : blijzondersuiker.nl</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Ketchup, mosterd, mayonnaise... , al heb je wel een ongezoete versie van ketchup (én kun je het zelf ook maken). Er is ook specifiek 'suikervrije mayonaise' (bv AH merk), wat eigenlijk idioot is, want mayonaise hoort eigenlijk helemaal geen suiker te bevatten. De meeste mayo's bevatten echter suiker. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms"; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">De consumentengids: </span></span></div>
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<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<i style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">"<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 25.6px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Een minpunt is dat aan alle mayonaises uit deze test wat suiker en zout is toegevoegd. Gemiddeld bevat mayonaise 1% zout en 2,5% suiker. In de mayonaise van Jumbo zit met ruim 4% de meeste suiker, in de Hellmann’s met 1,4% het meeste zout. Van Wijngaarden voegt het minste zout (0,6%) en suiker (0,8%) toe.</span>"</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">En dan ben je lekker éindelijk thuis..neerploffen op de bank, wijntje erbij ... even niks... Precies : even niks. Niks geen wijn. Tja, dat was nou precies zo'n ding waar ik niet over nagedacht had. Chips? Nope; ook in<i> zoute</i> chips zit<i> zoet...</i> in de vorm an fructose bijvoorbeeld. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "trebuchet ms"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Die suikerchallenge is dus toch nog een stuk lastiger dan ik dacht. </span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"></span></div>
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FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-33400645231116130322019-06-04T11:42:00.003+02:002019-06-04T11:45:56.416+02:00Time for change, tijd voor verandering<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My last post before this one, was dated 28th december 2016. So I can genuinly say that it has been a while. I have been blogging, but just not on this blog. I've been blogging on my Surinam-adventure (and still am) (in Dutch), did some columns for TestNet and some writing on Facebook and/or LinkedIn. Last couple of months I've been overthinking a lot and I have made some changes and made some desiscions. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One of them is that I'm going to blog in -mainly- Dutch from now on and the other is that the topics are going to be more diverse. Not only my work, expertise and conferences I visit (software testing), but also stuff on my hobby (trauma simulation, crafting, cooking, hiking) and my new study I've picked up on natural healing methods (herbalism, relaxation coaching, healing foods). I also want to blog about what concerns me and about stuff that still facinates me and makes me wonder. Basically: I'm going to blog on stuff that I like and people are invited to read along... </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Mijn laatste post voor deze, dateerde al weer van 28 december 2016. Ik kan dus wel stellen dat het een tijdje geleden is. Ik heb wel geblogd, maar alleen niet op deze blog. Ik heb geblogd over mijn Suriname-avontuur (en nog steeds), heb wat columns geschreven voor TestNet en heb zo nu en dan wat geschreven op LinkedIn en/of FaceBook. De laatste paar maanden heb ik veel overdacht en heb ik een paar veranderingen doorgevoerd als ook een aantal besluiten genomen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Een daarvan is dat ik deze blog voortaan -voornamelijk- in het Nederlands ga schrijven en de andere is dat de onderwerpen meer divers worden. Niet alleen over mijn werk, specialisme en de conferenties die ik bezoek (software testen), maar ook over mijn hobby (traumasimulatie, handwerkhobby's, koken, wandelen) en mijn nieuwe opleiding natuurgeneeswijzen (kruidengeneeskunde, ontspanningscoach , voedingskunde). Ik wil ook bloggen over dat wat mij bezighoudt, waar ik me zorgen over maak en waar ik mij over verwonder. Kortom: ik ga bloggen over dingen die ik leuk vind en iedereen is uitgenodigd om mee te lezen..</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">.</span></div>
FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-12256287432759014972016-12-28T18:14:00.000+01:002016-12-28T18:14:19.457+01:00Agile Testing Days Diary - Second Day<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-GB">Lean Coffee
seems to be a problem for me to attend as I’m still sipping my coffee and
eating breakfast as I see people flocking in the Fritz bar for this event. I
didn’t even go to bed that late last night, comparing to other attendees who
partied-on till 4-ish this morning. I remember a tweet of Richard Bradshaw,
stating he brought his own pillow and thinking ‘what nonsense’, but I’m sure to
bring my own pillow next year too. The Dorint mattresses are as hard as the
pillows are airy; meaning that when you put your head on it: it’s gone -
totally flat. I tried folding it in four, but that didn’t help much. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPAnNPhbXMz8x037kIRO97TgrFo7uoD4sQoVYyboORrld-lF1AR6inUgR6j-tLkwRJQZJL1Jb0IH7183XwMok8VMoR5ybha7KRyBLPIwx3NFByqErQw-6vzhB3Sgnq9Npr5rNbOKR4Rw/s1600/dianalarson.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPAnNPhbXMz8x037kIRO97TgrFo7uoD4sQoVYyboORrld-lF1AR6inUgR6j-tLkwRJQZJL1Jb0IH7183XwMok8VMoR5ybha7KRyBLPIwx3NFByqErQw-6vzhB3Sgnq9Npr5rNbOKR4Rw/s320/dianalarson.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Well, I was
on time for the keynote where Diana Larsen, also known on twitter as
DianaOfPortland, presented ‘Liftoff: Start & Sustain Successful Agile Teams’.
Instead of using ‘Kickoff’, the ‘Lift
Off’ is a better way of heading towards a destination called: “High Value
Delivery”. But before you can Liftoff,
you must ask yourself if your product has a committed sponsor and identified
product manager, if they can articulate the business case for the product, if
someone has allocated the funding and a budget to start the endeavour and if
the intention of what you want the team(s) to accomplish is clear. If so, you can move on to the next step. But
before getting to that, you must be aware- although many people don’t like the
notion of being a ‘system’- that teams are complex, adaptive systems, with
interactions, emotions and the occasional ‘naughty guy’. Being aware of this
sets the basis of also being able to create the factors for success. You will
also be able to work on something that is called ‘cohesion’ in teams, people
that have worked in very cohesive teams will know what she’s talking about and
Diana states that once you’ve experienced such a team you’ll always be trying
to find a team like that again. Group cohesion is a multifaceted process with
four main components which are; social relations, task relations, perceived
unity and emotions. She also states: “One learns best when we feel more alive” and she elaborates on the conditions to be set
to promote learning. What I liked the best of this keynote however, was the
part about appealing to the humanness. I thought up the term ‘Sensatory Pleasing’, and my mind started to
wander off to what one can do to please the senses, making people feel good and
thus not only make the liftoff a success, but also help with group cohesion.
Food, drinks, colors, pictures, music ánd smells; it might be very interesting
to see if you put an effort into these aspects have that impact when starting a
project.... I get back to the keynote
again to see something on team chartering and setting goals. I was also charmed
by the concept of a test-driven mission; Make the tests during the Liftoff, test during
the journey. Because everything IS
driven by testing in Agile. This keynote inspired me to get into dept of the
matter more. If you are interested too, Diana has written a book about Liftoff:
<a href="https://pragprog.com/book/liftoff/liftoff-second-edition">https://pragprog.com/book/liftoff/liftoff-second-edition</a>
and more information on Diana can be found here: <a href="http://www.futureworksconsulting.com/about/diana-larsen">http://www.futureworksconsulting.com/about/diana-larsen</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The next
track I visited was a ‘New Voice’ track. It was called ‘Sketching User Stories,
Making user stories easy and interesting for the whole team and the new voice
to be heard was: Viktorija Manevska (@viki_iki). I really like the visualisation
stuff in software development and Viktorija does a good job in explaining the
benefits of using pictures to get everybody on the same page. I like the
statement: “someone explains 3 times and says 'do I have to draw you a picture'.
If you could draw it why didn't you start with that?”. She explains how imagery
triggers another part of the brain, stimulating to ask deeper questions. She also shows the tools she uses, like paint
and balsamic. Tools don’t have to be highly advances, as long as the meet the
purpose used for. But a real powerful thing happens when she shows a
description to fold a Christmas tree (origami like) from a piece of coloured
paper. The whole room struggles to fold something into the requested item, but –
as far as I can tell- nobody manages this in the allotted amount of time. Then
she shows imagery of the way to fold the tree, a bit like the way IKEA uses
images to explain how to assemble their furniture, and she assigns us to the
same task. An behold; everybody is able to fold the tree and in half of the
allotted time! And to shamelessly plug
my (Dutch) blog on TestNet about visualisation: <a href="https://nieuws.testnet.org/vak/een-beeld-zegt-meer-dan-duizend-woorden/">https://nieuws.testnet.org/vak/een-beeld-zegt-meer-dan-duizend-woorden/</a>
(to be translated in English in the near
future on the FunTESTic blog)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I ran into
a PACKED (!!!) room to hear Maaike Brinkhof on ‘Mapping Biases to Testing’, I
was lucky to have one of the last seats, but ended up sharing two chairs –forming
a provisionally made bench- with three persons. She started with a survey which
worked partly. Again: the audio-video monster was haunting the premises and it
affected Maaike’s presentation too. (slidedeck: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0By2lWBEOcdiocDhoYmdUc2lUeU0)
. Whether we like it or not; we are all biased. Maaike explains some of the
biases we as testers are influenced by. She elaborates on the ‘confirmation bias’,
being the mother of all biases and effortlessly (she seriously has great
English speaking abilities!) goes to the Halo-effect, ‘what you see is all
there is’, availability heuristic and closing the loop with referring to the
confirmation bias again. The anchoring effect is explained after that. She also
refers to a must-read book, mentioned at least three times in her talk, which
is called: thinking fast and slow from the author Daniel Khaneman. The book
greatly influenced her apparently. I think everybody is biased in some way, I
like that Maaike is explaining what certain biases impact us in testing and
what behaviour is connected to that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the
break I notice something: Huib Schoots who is doing the keynote after the break
is really, very energetic and seems to become more so by every minute that passes,
while I’m getting more and more quite now my workshop is approaching. Is this a
different physical effect that is a difference between an introvert (me) and
and extrovert (Huib)? In other words: do extroverts become more energetic and
introverts more into themselves when a talk to be given by them is to be given?
Hmmm..more food for thought...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">After setting
up the room for my workshop , I attend the next keynote; One upon a time by
Huib Schoots and Alex Schladebeck. The keynote is all about storytelling and a
commercial about ‘best buds’ is shown, where I –seriously- get emotional (sappy
stuff!!!). <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlNO2trC-mk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlNO2trC-mk</a>
We as humans have the capability of storytelling and it’s a powerful
instrument. An exercise is done where we have to tell a story about our project and our failure. The sound in the room
is enormous and the energy produced is awesome. They also tell about the
science behind storytelling. Although I like science facts, I can’t help but
think that (yes... it’s the Halo-effect taking over) that everything has to
have a scientific basis nowadays because else it won’t be useful, fun or valuable.
I like to have some magic, some imagination and some thinking of my own left. I
can’t help it, but I get annoyed because I blame certain ‘skools’ for this. Why
can’t we just state things without spending numerous slides on the scientific
basis and just be cool with that??? It ruins the keynote for me a bit. I notice
I’m annoyed, angry and particularly biased at this moment. Luckily Alex is then
telling about her experience with her violin and her special connection to it.
Making the keynote having something special again. Storytelling to me is about
emotions, tension, climax and inspiring imaginative processes. I feel strongly
about the power of storytelling and in this matter I think this keynote is
valuable. I also think that imagination and cold-hard facts are more difficult
to combine. In my mind-cabinet, I’m making a note titled ‘scientific and
factual storytelling’ to make a distinction with regards to storytelling for
the sake of entertainment, motivation and other ways of storytelling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRsOAI_ORLLviWpxewuP35WkrD4vi-EyYQsnpkX_jWY8mwWFBRf9B2PqFve3aNrcKkNvTD1pgEjVq7nm7c4rFmmBDMNTn2ziGBDhzfE5o2U05LKNh77ZO8p6BTtTR8hCKYT26UL-0jFQ/s1600/agileTD+workshop1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRsOAI_ORLLviWpxewuP35WkrD4vi-EyYQsnpkX_jWY8mwWFBRf9B2PqFve3aNrcKkNvTD1pgEjVq7nm7c4rFmmBDMNTn2ziGBDhzfE5o2U05LKNh77ZO8p6BTtTR8hCKYT26UL-0jFQ/s320/agileTD+workshop1.jpg" width="320" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">My workshop
is up next. It isn’t crowded at all. That at first feels like a disappointment.
I’ve put so much effort in this workshop. But then the magic happens. The
attendees that are there, and I have to keep reminding myself that it’s not the
numbers that count but the involvement (!!), are really engaged in the topic.
Bearing with me. Although it might seem I’ve loads of experience in speaking,
it’s a huge effort for me and I still get very anxious and nervous when I have
to ‘perform’. I’m giving it all of my energy and luckily for me: it paid off. I
think deductive games are a fun way to inspire and motivate our inquisitive
mindset; so why not use those to help design better user stories and question
specifications. I was really grateful for having such an engaging and
enthusiastic group of people in my workshop and I felt really blessed. And
thanks to Eddy Bruin, I now know that actually playing a game of WhoIsIt? Helps
clarify the intentions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I cleaned out
the room afterward and was a tit-tat late for the keynote of Keith Klain. And
what a timing to enter a room and seeing a slide stating: “I don't know what
the #$%&! I'm doing” , why I wasn’t at the keynote from the beginning It
felt like a completely appropriate slide at that moment. I didn’t get much of the talk though, I was
till unwinding and getting to myself from the workshop. Like I said, it takes a
lot of energy and a lot of effort for me to do these kind of things, so the
keynote; although I really wanted to snatch some learning stuff from it, It just
didn’t stick. I did get something about ‘tool fetishism’ and the purpose of
doing things. But I hope that the published slide-deck will refresh my memory
again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Mn-mIq259hJZwzi5d6N8ak48sGFtD7d-7fIkR52k9XbuEEmgU8fBw7QHdc_IP5ETxLj2tm_lDSfROpJL-KeZ-uj0dEurnXLPfRB88xLXWy4d_t8S10yMqkyif5CyD2sXt2o_g13Pnw/s1600/beertasting.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Mn-mIq259hJZwzi5d6N8ak48sGFtD7d-7fIkR52k9XbuEEmgU8fBw7QHdc_IP5ETxLj2tm_lDSfROpJL-KeZ-uj0dEurnXLPfRB88xLXWy4d_t8S10yMqkyif5CyD2sXt2o_g13Pnw/s320/beertasting.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">After the
keynote the sponsors and exhibitors did a speed round and after that food and
drinks were available in the lobby. I
planned and managed to attend the ‘Beer tasting and testing’ workshop by Eddy
Bruin and Bram Bronneberg in the Fritz bar at 19:30. I was there early, because
the places available were limited. Bram and Eddy had prepared a couple of
rounds where everybody got a beer and a description of two beers on paper. By
tasting the beers you had to figure out which beer was in your glass. I know
one thing; I’m not good at tasting beer! I had the ‘Berliner Weisse’ correct
(the other description was of the Saison). But tasting the difference between ‘outmeal
stout’ and ‘schwarzbier’ was a bit more difficult and I failed to taste the distinction
between ‘Belgian Blonde Ale’ and ‘Belgian Golden Strong Ale’ (which I felt
quite embarrassed about since I like the Delirium Tremens a lot). I got the
Belgian Dubbel correct, being not the ‘Doppelbock’, but managed to fail again
with the choice between ‘Belgian Dark Strong Ale (Quadruple)’ and the ‘English
Barleywine’. After the tasting, the ‘testing’ began. All attendees got a ‘bingocard’
and a description of defects in beer, that can occur when making errors during
the brewing process. Apparently there are tablets that you can add to beer that
mimic those flaws. The tablets were added to the beer and the attendees had to
guess which error was made. That was very difficult and I managed to get them
all wrong. But then again... I wasn’t really looking forward tasting ‘skunk-taste’,
‘sewage-flavour’ and ‘baby-puke’. Which respectively stand for ‘lightstruck a strong skunk like flavour imparted to beer
that has been exposed to sunlight for too long’, ‘mercaptan, a drain like
flavour that occurs in beer due to aging and oxidisation once packaged’ and ‘butyric,
a baby sick or cheesy flavour formed by bacteria during wort production or in
sugar syrups’...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">After the
tasting and testing, I felt very jolly, I went to the cabaret by Mephistoteles
Fassbinder. A role perfectly performed by Daniel Maslyn. I agreed to telling a
story there. An anecdote about me being a simulation victim and about ‘hairy
bits down-there’ (you know what I mean...*blush*). Don’t worry; it’s not having
the actual hair ‘down-there’ but about a special made pair of trousers to do
delivery-drills at the obstetrics department of the hospital. But it makes an
hilarious story. I think it was well received, considering all the other acts
performing at the cabaret. Like the awesome performance of Alex Schladebeck and
Tomm Roden, Gil Zilberfeld, George Dinnwiddy (as Cat), Four Yorkshire men and a
sing-a-long of Test me tender...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">During the
cabaret Morten Hougaard and me also had to perform some real first aid, when
somebody bumped into a doorpost holding a glass, which chattered and cut up the
person’s hand.. Luckily in first-aid there is an universal language </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span><span lang="EN-GB">. Some of it wasn’t serious, but one
finger was really cut up very badly and we send the person to the hospital,
where 3 stitches were the result of the venture. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The evening
thus turned out to be quite adventurous and when entering the bar I seemed to
have started a trending topic, because both groups I joined were talking about
body hair and shaving-anecdotes. At 1-ish I really became very tired and decided
to leave the crowd to face the hard-mattress-and-flat-cushion bed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-78365199940335128972016-12-11T14:22:00.002+01:002016-12-11T14:22:57.948+01:00Agile Testing Days Diary - Arrival and First Day<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">Monday</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwcMIj2cgej8SHLYpOMiDY2FEoET0bTExihxvPQrROqCKYxEkKKRhg48f99BJYHXO6Fe2nK4HVYXhP2FGeLYVHEgkvvdE2rA6F4zBGsJJfpzGZ84satwesnDUtcamK5wYs8gOJWrdiHQ/s1600/IMG_0295.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwcMIj2cgej8SHLYpOMiDY2FEoET0bTExihxvPQrROqCKYxEkKKRhg48f99BJYHXO6Fe2nK4HVYXhP2FGeLYVHEgkvvdE2rA6F4zBGsJJfpzGZ84satwesnDUtcamK5wYs8gOJWrdiHQ/s200/IMG_0295.JPG" width="200" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">It took me some time to get
there, because fog in Berlin was keeping the plane from taking off in
Amsterdam, but Monday afternoon I finally arrived at Agile Testing Days (ATD)
in Potsdam. It's my first ATD and I find it amusing that I'm experiencing the
'first-timer-excitement' again. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB">The first thing I see, but
they are kind of hard to miss, are the big white, blow-up, unicorns. There's a
whole herd of them in front of the hotel registration desk and some specimens
have found their way into the hallways and after I registered myself I'm lured
onto one of them for a photograph. I decide to use it as a sort of
chaise-longue and find out they aren't as easy to get off, resulting in a weird
kind of gymnastics that passers-by must have observed. Luckily for me the
tutorials were in full swing, so there weren't many witnesses. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">In the evening ATD has
organized a dinner for the speakers. It's already dark and the drive to the
venue isn't that long, but the short travel shows a lot of beautiful buildings
and a elaborately lit Christmas market. I find Potsdam a beautiful town and I'm
hoping that I'll find some time this week to be able to explore some of it by
daylight. I thought the food was good and the dinner is closed with some digestives
in the attic bar. A bus drives us back to the hotel and most attendees gather
in the bar to extend the conference day. I'm not sure when the last people
left, but I decided to finish at 01:00.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhpEcRDNWhmMqOkC9Vw1qADNEsEvibwAjRlFUJQnwFPxbjGtcmhvihKifIXbVc0W1twKyTAUyR0mwFU_zddgBG0YSbdvrxZPexSIwV84NK26OgNwOkF0VsP_FRiUaMQFz_0tKoyftMPQ/s1600/IMG_0298.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhpEcRDNWhmMqOkC9Vw1qADNEsEvibwAjRlFUJQnwFPxbjGtcmhvihKifIXbVc0W1twKyTAUyR0mwFU_zddgBG0YSbdvrxZPexSIwV84NK26OgNwOkF0VsP_FRiUaMQFz_0tKoyftMPQ/s320/IMG_0298.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gift bag Agile Testing Days with Breyk</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><span lang="EN-GB">Tuesday</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB">Reading my twitter feed
while trying to get out of bed, I see a post about a gift that is waiting for
me on the outside door handle of my room. Strongly motivated (an curious as can
be) I get up and get the bag that is there. It contains an Advent Calendar, a
Santa Hat and a bottle of 'Breyk'; a beer brewed by Eddy Bruin and Bram
Bronneberg especially for Agile Testing Days. How cool is that! <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB">While I have breakfast, I
can see people being very engaged in the Fritz bar during the LEAN coffee
session. I tried to make it, but today is not my fittest day. I wish I could say
the headache I have is from a luscious alcohol consumption the night before,
for at least I would know it would go away in an hour or so, but alas this is
not the case. It seems aspirin is going to be a big friend today. After
breakfast I'm heading to the Opening Session, while walking over there I spot a
dude wearing a Christmas suit and some people wearing a Christmas sweater.
While waiting for the Opening a cube is passed (well, actually.. thrown) around
which is called 'the cube of truth'. It's a cube made of cloth with a
microphone in it, so you can throw it through the room, Cool solution to have a
mic go around a big auditorium!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhgtXrnldQpb2IOxxRlZFlRBr3KvN8BgioK35V6K7Xm6syp1Ot0maKMEirfS1XTU1GNUaDWXBpaXqfrW6v5qwRj5LXAHw-ciz-1aY_M05HQXQBrDha09bZARXWJLYkXEppBD3ZsMJBSw/s1600/IMG_0301.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhgtXrnldQpb2IOxxRlZFlRBr3KvN8BgioK35V6K7Xm6syp1Ot0maKMEirfS1XTU1GNUaDWXBpaXqfrW6v5qwRj5LXAHw-ciz-1aY_M05HQXQBrDha09bZARXWJLYkXEppBD3ZsMJBSw/s320/IMG_0301.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Testing ghost of the past, present and future</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-GB">Alas; José Diaz is sick and
not able to open ATD himself, instead Mike Sutton kicks off and introduces 'the
very Agile person' and a well known testing cast, to tell and sing about the
Testing Passed, Testing present and Testing Future. It even had actual
jingle bells in it, lights in a hat and we all finished singing the last part
of the song to get into the spirit of Testing Christmas. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
I felt goose bumps when the
Software Testing World Championship teams were awarded in a ceremony; the
music, those proud people on stage, it does something that touches me!<br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">Then Abby Fichtner, also
known as @HackerChick, enters the stage for her keynote called '<b>Pushing the
edge on what's possible</b>'. She tells a story of her childhood when her father
bought her an Atari. I immediately think about the black box where you put the
cassette tapes in, as did she when she was a child. But instead she got the
computer variety, which she thought was even more cool, because the amount of
games were far higher and she got to learn to code. So, now I’m thinking “ok, <i>hackerchick</i> ... <i>code</i>, she’s going to tell about hacking”, you know, the one like in
‘ethical hacking’. But just as with the Atari, it was about hacking, but in the
meaning of being able to find an innovative workaround or solution. Taking an
object and using it out of context in an inventive way, being creative with it
and thus being able to enhance and advance. She also tells about how people
that come up with these great ideas are perceived as odd, weird and having lost
their minds. Because great ideas in a lot of cases look like bad ideas, but the
problem is that bad ideas look that too. In history it was thought that the
telephone was a bad idea so was the idea of the iPod. I myself think about the
same ‘predictions’ by Watson (IBM) saying “I think there is a world market for
maybe five computers.” or Darryl Zanuck, executive at 20th Century Fox who
stated that the television wouldn’t last, but would only be a temporary hype.
Abby also states that evolution is the ultimate ‘hack’, I find that comparison
a bit farfetched myself, I can follow the line of thought, but evolution to me
is about being able to adapt to survive, hacking is finding clever solutions
and being innovative, I see some connections, but I can’t completely go with
this statement. Nonetheless, the keynote was food-for-thought, entertaining and
had good stuff in it. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB">After each track and keynote
ATD has a break (fifteen for coffee breaks and an hour for lunch). Now I’ve
been to a number of conferences and in most of them the fifteen minutes breaks
are used to grab a quick cup of coffee (or tea) and then quickly walk to the
next track. That’s not what happens at ATD. During these breaks attendees
gather and confer. I guess this is a combination of the type of people (active,
engaged), the type of conference and content (living up the Agile manifesto
;-)), the size of the venue (not that massive) and the way ATD is really
pampering their audience with snacks, fruit, food and different kinds of
beverages. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB">The second track I attended
was ‘<b>Testing your Emotions</b>’ by Stephen Janaway. I had a bit mixed feelings
about this track. The main message of what I got from the what Stephen was
telling is that emotions play an important role in testing and that
understanding emotions makes (us) a better tester. Whether this is during the testing itself; the
‘gut feeling’ that you have when interacting with the software or the emotions
we display and encounter when interacting with other people involved in
development of the product (developers, managers etc.). He also used references
to models to explain emotions (Plutnick, Lövheim). This is where I thought the
track started to lose some of the strength. When the Plutnick model was
explained I could still relate. The examples shown after that made the
arguments and statements understandable and applicable. The Löveheim part
however made it vague for me, don’t get me wrong; I understand how neurotransmitters
and hormones physically impact / cause emotions, but I just couldn’t relate to
this (empirically unverified) model. I couldn’t get the ‘what’s in it for me’.
I thought this part weakened the talk, that was until then for me very good. Luckily
the last bit of the track went back to the ‘gut feeling’ again. But during the
Q&A questions were asked about the Löveheim model/cube; even creating more
distance to the main message, because it focussed on the model itself and not
on the ‘understanding emotions’ –message. Nevertheless most of the track had
good points that I could take with me and refreshing my awareness on my own and
other people’s emotions when software testing and the interactions around that.
The slidedeck of the talk can be found
here: <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/sjanaway/testing-your-emotions">http://www.slideshare.net/sjanaway/testing-your-emotions</a>
<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">‘<b>Brewing Beer, the Agile
Way</b>!’ by Eddy Bruin and Bram Bronneberg was the next track I attended. They
told the story about how an observation of lots of people drinking beer at the
previous ATD inspired them to brew a ‘perfect’ Agile Testing Days beer. They
told about the research done to get to a recipe and the development process,
including prototyping and scaling. During the track they showed the brewing of
the beer itself, with Eddy vigorously grounding the rye by hand and Bram setting
up the brewing kettle. When it came to scaling, because the beer had to be brewed
for the whole ATD audience and they couldn’t assure consistency when having to
do this with their own machinery (they would have to brew at least six batches
that might have caused different results) they started to search for a brewery.
They made a really nice comparison here with waterfall versus agile. Because
the first brewery they contacted – Heineken- was able to brew the recipe, even
being very enthusiastic about it, but it would take at least a year and cost
about 50.000 euro’s, in that way it could be seen as a very waterfall approach;
costly and taking a long time to finish. The brewery they finally found was
able to do smaller batches, with less costs and in time for the ATD 2016, which
could be seen as the Agile way. Bram and Eddy then proudly presented their product:
a bottle of ‘Breyk’ (which actually was meant to be ‘Bryek’ because of ‘rye’) ;
an Agile Roggen. They also presented their official ‘brewery name’ which,
because their last names both begin with ‘BR’ is ‘<br />eaking <br />ewery’,
also relating to ‘breaking bad’. They also got to be registered in Untapped and
found – as is a testers privilege- a bug in there. Untapped – not being able to
cope with brackets – now knows them as ‘Eaking Ewery’...I thought it was a very
entertaining track, with some interesting facts about beer and the process
brewing, and some nice analogies with testing. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB">During lunch my headache is
really acting up and since I really want to participate in the workshop by Lisa
Crispin and JoEllen Carter, I decide to go to my room, take a dose of aspirin
and catch some z’s. This means I’m missing the keynote by Vasco Duarte on
NoEstimates. In hindsight that is really unfortunate, the buzz around the
keynote I hear afterwards is amazing and during the ‘cube of truth’ session on Wednesday
morning it is mentioned a couple of times. I also heard he plugged his book
several times (<a href="http://noestimatesbook.com/">http://noestimatesbook.com/</a>)
so I have to check this out I guess to catch up on the missed info. It is even
more unfortunate because the workshop I wanted to attend and for which I passed
the keynote turned out to be completely full and I was asked to leave the room.
I felt really disappointed by this, but as the conference is all about ‘being
Agile’, I quickly chose an alternative. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB">The alternative was the ‘consensus
talks’, three short talks on different topics. Gerd Doliwa’s talk was named ‘code
your infrastructure the agile way’, Felix Elinger’s talk was named ‘how to test
with 50 billion things in one hour’ and Jeroen Mengerink talked about ‘Test
improvement for Agile’. I have to be honest here; the first two talks weren’t
my cup of tea and I was also trying to catch the tweets on the workshop I was
missing, so I wouldn’t be doing both speakers credit. It was not the speakers,
but – and yes, I’m also thinking about the ‘emotions track earlier’ – it was
totally my emotions relating to disappointment not being able to attend the
workshop in combination with the large dose of aspirin hindering active
listening. The third one however was
more of interest to me, <b>Test Improvement for Agile</b>. Jeroen related to
improvement processes and mapped them to aspects of testing in Agile environments.
I’m a person who likes processes and models, so this talk was more up my alley.
I also noticed that 20 minutes talks are – for all three speakers- quite a
challenge, they all three have a lot to tell, more than fits those 20 minutes.
But when a talk motivates me to look into something and investigate more, it is
a good enough talk for me. So I’m definitely checking the stuff that Jeroen
also blogged about here: <a href="https://www.polteq.com/weblog/test-improvement-4-agile/">https://www.polteq.com/weblog/test-improvement-4-agile/</a>
<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">The next thing I went to
was the keynote (last one of the day): ‘From waterfall to agile, the advantage
is clear’ by Michael ‘The Wanz’ Wansley. What an amazing, entertaining keynote
this is. The speaker is clearly gifted with the ability for interacting with an
audience, all seems to go so effortlessly and supple. But what strikes me is what I might call ‘voice
artistry’, using different tones, emphasis, colour and pitch of voice. It makes
the talk energetic and fun. I think every speaker (to be) should learn about
this aspect of presenting. ‘TeeWanz’ as he’s also called talks about his career
at Microsoft and he has some really good one-liners that stick, like ‘We are
the power in Powerpoint’, ‘Testers have the ‘why-gene’, ‘Collaboration is what
sets us apart working in agile’, “You're using your brain power to increase the
collective intelligence to produce something that nobody sees” and “testers are
the rear right wheel of a car - no one sees it, but we are there and our work
matters”. This keynote feels like being at a really good feel-good show with
the added benefit of expertise relevant lessons. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr-SPfVGRSKzXClYZIAin6B-zRFWIb34U_qp9r9S3CUBnYzrOnrQ9YyME-Quu7tg5h-hy3Dr1fectBc0GKRY9UOkKwlBV7pvVDpvToW8h1mwsaCPhMuHo3lsRarJHVUIhApju-481c-g/s1600/IMG_0305.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr-SPfVGRSKzXClYZIAin6B-zRFWIb34U_qp9r9S3CUBnYzrOnrQ9YyME-Quu7tg5h-hy3Dr1fectBc0GKRY9UOkKwlBV7pvVDpvToW8h1mwsaCPhMuHo3lsRarJHVUIhApju-481c-g/s320/IMG_0305.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Christmas Market in front of the hotel</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-GB">But the last keynote of the
day is far from the last activity at ATD. Because the evening is also packed
with activities and fun. Walking outside the hotel a genuine Christmas market
is build on the front lawn, with fires, heaters, ‘beer gartens’, food stalls
with ‘bratwurst’, ‘gruhnkohl’ and ‘crepes with apfelmus’ and a curling-track. A
band is playing various Christmas classics and there’s even a stall where you
can buy Christmas decorations. Although the temperature is around freezing,
people are gathering to have a good time, talking around the fire and drinking
mulled wine or the (now almost famous) ‘breyk beer’. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB">But even this Christmas
market isn’t the last thing to be done in a day at ATD, because at eight the ‘Ho-ho-ho-ly
STWC & MIATPP’ award night was starting. The announced theme of the party
is ‘christmas and winter’ and lots of people have dressed up in costumes. <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLODmn4nkzrDs2LAXibCeyre2aF3p9NXprwAimBuERRmn9KjwHloUtgmMRlYSTyQQjXUnf29JpX4wPwXF07V7V6GX1uSVBkIOKxr4wSKnTjCed2VrQ6m1kWqb05Sj-cFHrAtfEg55l8A/s1600/IMG_0323.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLODmn4nkzrDs2LAXibCeyre2aF3p9NXprwAimBuERRmn9KjwHloUtgmMRlYSTyQQjXUnf29JpX4wPwXF07V7V6GX1uSVBkIOKxr4wSKnTjCed2VrQ6m1kWqb05Sj-cFHrAtfEg55l8A/s200/IMG_0323.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dressed as Elsa</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I
myself dressed up as ‘Elsa’ from frozen, the wig that I had was actually a bit
heavy and I forgot some bobbypins to lock it in my hair, so I walked and sat
quite carefully, which some people perceived as ‘stature’ fitting the ‘royal
nature’ of the Frozen princess. Talk about a bug that has actually a good
feature as a result ;-). I thought the
market was intended to be also the dinner for the attendees, but as it turned
out the award night was also including a whole dinner, with really good food. We
also took up a ‘mannequin challenge’ which had an awesome <a href="https://twitter.com/lilitshark/status/806504355759263744/video/1">movie
clip</a> as a result. After dinner the Software Testing World Cup winners were
announced. The Dutch team won (and they also had awesome snowmen costumes by
the way). Also the Most Influential Agile Testing Person was announced which
was Maaret Pyhäjärvi. Deserts were then
served in the hall and music started in the dinner hall, making people get up
their feet, indulge in sweet bavaroises, pudding and dancing. I decided to go
to bed at ‘twelve-ish’ but the party went on – as I understood- way longer than
that. ATD-people are really
party-people!</span><br />
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FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-63681292582945736842016-11-28T18:51:00.002+01:002016-11-28T18:51:34.254+01:00Scrum, burn-out and the Tai Chi-spective<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">(translated <a href="https://nieuws.testnet.org/vak/scrum-burn-out-en-de-tai-chi-spective/" target="_blank">TestNet column</a>)</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">According to research done
by the Central Bureau of Statistics in the Netherlands and TNO, the
percentage of IT-personnel that succumbs to burn-out is 17.2%. That is 3.2%
higher than the national average. According to the investigation done, the
causes are to be found in -amongst others- a higher work pressure and a higher
emotional involvement for work. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">During a workshop about
absenteeism that I attended not so long ago the 'burn-out' was also discussed.
One of the observations made in one of the discussions was that it seemed that
especially in the younger population burn-out seemed to be increasing. We
philosophized further on what could be the cause of this 'trend'. Was it the
high work pressure? Was it the higher emotional involvement? We didn't thought
this was the biggest issue. We made a link with the increase of working in an
Agile way.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The Agile way of working,
we were focussing on Scrum, is a way of working where the team is
expected to have a high degree of (team)responsibility. The team as a whole is
responsible for the results, and as a result one feels more involved. That is
what makes working in a Scrum-team challenging and gives a high degree of
autonomy. That autonomy is an important factor for motivation of employees,
as various researches confirm. Thus far, there isn't any problem as it
seems and one can safely conclude that working in a Scrum-team is both
motivating and stimulating. Most employees will probably confirm that this is
indeed the case, I'm convinced of this myself too.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But all that stimulation
and performing can also have its downsides. Particularly, but not limited to, a
young population. In the 'traditional project world' a 'youngster' was
gradually introduced to the IT world by a test manager or test coordinator or
mentor. Now these youngster are added to a Scrum-team where immediately the
(team) responsibility for results count. Also 'oldies' experience this 'burden'
in some cases, especially when they have worked in a micromanaged environments
previously. Responsibility isn't a given fact, responsibility is something you
have to dare to take, but sometimes you have to learn to take it. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Off course, one isn't
responsible as an individual but as a team. But let's be honest, many teams
perceive the new addition as a decrease of their velocity and this has to be
brought up to speed as soon as possible. The expectancy is thus again relayed
to the 'newbie' who, in all his or her enthusiasm and will to please excepts
the challenge, not wanting to let the team down. The organisation asked for a
sheep with five legs, excuse me- centipede- and the youngster is eager to
comply. That can work out fine, but it can also backfire with absenteeism as a
result. One has put his whole soul into his work, but loses his sanity in the process.
When Vincent van Gogh stated this, he wasn't that crazy after all.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But I didn't get the
'aha-erlebnis' for this article by the 'burn-out-discussion' during that
session about absenteeism, but during a course on Scaled Agile Framework. At a
certain time there were a lot of references made on LEAN, KANBAN, Kaizens,
GEMBA and what not more. I made a link with 'oriental' , and although Scrum
hasn't got oriental roots, I noticed that a lot of Agile stuff has a link
with the orient. I remembered the 'burn-out' discussion and the ((non)existing)
relation with Scrum and made a connection. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">A known concept in the
orient is 'Yin and Yang'. These are Chinese concepts that refer to the opposing
principles of forces in all aspects of life that permeate the universe. There
in the Orient (yes, I'm generalizing now) people are more occupied with
achieving the right balance and 'in the West' we tend to address this as 'hocus
pocus'. There hardly arent any numbers on burn-out in the Orient, but if you
search for researches done on the topic, burn-out is mostly seen in Western
countries. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">My argumentation: when
developing in an approach with an oriental basis in a western country the
chance of developing burn-out is bigger than in a country of oriental origin
because apparently something is done differently. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">What makes that difference?
What doesn't one do, that is done in the Orient? I think it's because the
awareness of the previously mentioned Yin and Yang and consciously being aware
of these. When you walk through the average town in Asia and you pass a park or
a square, you'll notice groups of people moving harmoniously. People charge
themselves when they are tired, people take their rest when they are tired.
People practice Tai Chi! which refers to a philosophy meaning one extreme
(ultimate) and the other extreme (best) and refers thus to the philosophy of
Yin and Yang. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So. My conclusion is that
there is no other way than to add an extra ceremony in the Scrum-process to
prevent imbalance and burn-out with employees; The Tai chi-spective
(combination of Tai Chi and retrospective). I love to observe the teams and
investigate what the effect will be!</span><br />
</div>
FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-86609521318823221962016-11-24T12:17:00.000+01:002016-11-24T16:01:15.157+01:00Lullabies to Paralyze<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">For those of you who are
expecting a blog about the 4th album by Queens of the Stone Age: I have to
disappoint you. This blog has nothing to do with 'little sisters', 'broken
boxes' or 'medication '. It has to do with testing, software testing that is.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I can no longer ignore some
of the expectations and assumptions that are made about testing, I have to
speak up. I have observed, for quite some time now, that testing service
providers, independent testing professionals, testers, etc. etc. are advertising
their activities in a way that I find is not what testing should be about and
it worries me. It bugs me and as a tester I really dislike bugs...</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I assume this advertising
is done because companies who hire them (or the actually the people who
hire them) have a soft spot for this kind of message. I find this
alarming. Time for a wake-up call. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Slogans and sentences like:
"Be Quality Re-assured", "we are testing so you don't have to
lie awake at night...", "We will take your worries away",
"hire us and you'll be certain and assured of...", they have one
thing in common: they are lullabies that paralyze!</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Testing should not be about
taking worries away nor should it be about giving the customer a warm and cosy
feeling. The customer on the other hand shouldn't be expecting this. They
shouldn't assume that hiring testers or paying for testing(services) will
suddenly make every worry go away nor should they think having 'testing' in
place will abstain them from certain responsibilities. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Lots of testers (and/or
companies) have taken up the role of pacifier, they are singing their lullabies
and the client let's them sing. They feel comfortable, they don't have to worry
and everything is alright.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">People who know me a
little, know I fancy a sturdy rock song. Maybe sometimes it's uncomfortable to
listen to and a lot of lyrics are about ugly truths, but it certainly keeps me
energized, aware and awake! Testing should be like a rock song, not
the lullaby that features little white, fluffy sheep, soft and
warm kittens and twinkling little stars... </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Letting testing become the
lullaby has its downsides. A lullaby has the goal of making you sleepy and that
is exactly what I see happening in an alarming rate. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">When you think everything
is all right and warm and cosy, you won't be as receptive for dangers and
risks. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Testing won't take away
dangers or risks. Testing is about providing information, about providing
insight on fitness for use, performance, security and what not
more. But you'll have to act upon this information to
actually mitigate dangers and risks and to address issues with
performance, security and other things that testing will point out. That's not
a responsibility of testing departments, testers or testing services; no matter
what they tell you or what they promises. That's the responsibility
of the organization or team as a whole. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I think that as
organisation you should be aware of testers (or services e.a.) that sing
lullabies, that make you feel comfortable, that make you feel completely at
ease and where you feel you haven't got a thing to worry about regarding your
software and systems. Testers that 'Rock' are the ones you want. Testers
that make you aware, energize you and wake you up. They make you think!</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Organisations should also
stop wanting to listen to those lullabies. I've got plenty of examples where
the information provided by testing is ignored, because - like in a lot of rock
songs- it contains some painful, ugly truths. If you don't want to listen to
the songs, why buy the record? </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Thirdly I'd like testers,
testing service providers etc. to stop lulling their customers into sleep.
Besides the downsides I've already mentioned, they are also digging their own
graves businesswise. Because when somebody feels very safe and has nothing to
worry about, why would you pay for testers? Hey... no risk, no test right?</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So from now on the only Lullabies
to Paralyze you are listing to are those by The Queens of Stone Age </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span></span><br />
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
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FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-11902425456806010892016-10-03T23:15:00.003+02:002016-10-04T05:45:06.074+02:00Bad-tester stamps, The why and Lingual Bias <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Last week I saw a slide. The slide was posted on twitter.<br />
Maybe the slide was pulled out of context (as many slides are that are posted from conferences), maybe the slide was made with the best intentions (aren't they the what pave the way to hell?) and maybe the message to be read (or understood) had more to it then met the eye (mostly slides accompany a spoken text).<br />
But the slide did nevertheless anger me and the tweets and the blogs that followed didn't take away that anger (or maybe it's being annoyed that better fits the bill here). It bothered me, it still does.<br />
<br />
I started reflecting what it exactly was that made me feel this way and I found that there are different things that have an influence. I decided I wanted to share them with you. Firstly because I felt I needed to 'justify' myself, maybe even find redemption of some sorts. Secondly because I think that something that I found, might help people in the testing community (or at least I like to think so).<br />
Yes, this blog is self-centered. I hope in this way I can make some people understand why I do things the way I do them and I even hope some people can perhaps relate (or even identify themselves) and in this way I hope to create an understanding for those people as well as they might have the same way of coping with things. And yes; I also want to get some things off my chest, which is what I will start with.<br />
<br />
Some years ago I was tagged a 'bad tester'. I was also told on another occasion that I wasn't a real tester and I was told that if I ever wanted to be a serious tester I could take a certain training. It didn't stay with one person stating this, it grew out of proportions. More people started to treat me as 'tainted goods'. I was shunned from and silences from a part of the testing world that I wanted to learn from and ask questions to. And all because I got this 'stamp' of no-good.<br />
<br />
What that did to me, was triggering an older hurt. When one has been (extremely) bullied during their schooldays they know what it is I'm talking about. You want to learn and want to participate but not by becoming something you are not, it feels awful when you get locked out because of that.<br />
<br />
I think I was tagged because of bad judgement and wrong assumptions that lead to prejudice. The first incident I remember is stating I was proud of my ISEB-P certificate. Although I left a wide opening to ask the question '<b>why</b>', it wasn't asked. Instead it got me a load of scorn. I would have expected a bit more inquisitive behavior of people that value questioning and investigation with high regards, but that was apparently a stupid an naive assumption. For those of you that have made up their minds regarding this 'incident'. Here's the reason I'm proud of that certificate.<br />
<br />
Most of you might not know this, but I have an extreme form of exam anxiety. Although my rationale is telling me otherwise, my body doesn't cooperate. My palms get sweaty, my face starts producing this minuscule drops of sweat, my mouth becomes as dry as the desert and my heart-rate goes up twice the normal beats and one of the really big downsides is that I black out. That is what happened the first attempt I went to the ISEB-P exam; I blacked out. I got to answering the first question of the three hour written exam and the next thing I know is that the supervisor is telling me that I only have a quarter left to finish. So I really prepared the next attempt. I got to specific therapy for the anxieties, I got some beta-blockers, learned (yes the theory!) my ass off and gathered as many practical cases and experience as I could so I could relate to the question. I went to the exam again and I managed to sit it through, despite the anxieties, and I passed. Not with brilliant figures, but I managed to cope with all the stress and I did it! So it's not the ISTQB/ ISEB stamp that makes me particular proud, it could have been any exam (although multiple choice is a bit easier for me), it's the victory on my exam anxiety that was the anwer to the 'why' that was never asked. Does that make me a bad tester? I believe this is not so.<br />
<br />
Some of the people that shun me have strengthened their bias because I am involved in ISTQB via the BNTQB. Again, they have failed in asking the 'why' question. I believe, like lots of testers out there, that the ISTQB-F certificate particularly doesn't tell anything about skills. What is worse is that organizations value the certificate to be something it isn't. I joined the BNTQB because I wanted, and still want that to change. I want to at least make the attempt to add some skills to the foundation, to make it have some value. I want to make an effort on when that's not an option to at least inform organizations on what ISTQB-F actually is: a glossary of terms that can be learned from a syllabus and doesn't say anything about the skills of the owner of that certificate. I also believe a learning program can have its benefits, but it has to be very clear what it embodies and what the value is. And yes; I have my doubt, as do others in the field, about the current curriculum of ISTQB, but I also know I can only take on so much at a time. Does that make me a bad tester? Does that make me a person not serious about the profession or a 'real tester', I think it doesn't.<br />
<br />
Another thing that put another 'stamp' on me is my venture with the ISO29119. I was at the very start of the initiative; a workshop at EuroSTAR2006 and I got intrigued. Mind; I had only been in software testing for two years back then. The idea of a triptych that could serve as a guideline (book of knowledge) for testers worldwide was appealing to me. One part would be the document that would contain all the different (national) old standards, it would be complemented, updated with more recent stuff and be more broad then the 'component' testing focus it used to have. The romanticism of then has long gone, I got disappointed in what the document finally has become because of the 'standard for standards' of ISO. Is it a bad document?, I think it isn't, but it's important to value it for what it is and what it contains. It's important to inform (educate) organizations that aspire to use the ISO on the exact usage so they don't 'just apply' it without any thoughts and without context and adjustment, just to 'follow rules'. Do I advocate the usage? No I don't. Nor do I advocate the rejection of the standard. That doesn't make me a person who doesn't care, you retracts from responsibility. I just don't feel that its my place to advocate anything about this standard to a community or organisations. And I certainly don't sign a petition just because someone says I have to. And that doesn't make me a tester who is not serious about the profession as was stated or a bad tester.<br />
<br />
So far for the 'chest' part. Now back to the slide-thing and the blogging following that.<br />
From one of the <a href="http://www.satisfice.com/blog/" target="_blank">blogs</a> I got that when we present on stage, keynote or not, that is an act of leadership and with that come responsibilities. I understand this. I also put as much as possible effort in thinking on how my actions help or hurt others. I also agree that we all have the right of response when a speaker takes a microphone to keynote (or otherwise have a presence) at a conference and I'm also a promoter of debate.<br />
<br />
But I feel there is a catch here. I feel it's important to point this out. I feel this is something that I should share so that people in the community are aware of this. Maybe it will help in making things (feel) safer again. I just hope it helps.<br />
I call it the lingual bias.<br />
I'm as guilty in having it as I feel the native speaking English are guilty of it.<br />
We take for granted that the English we use, in slides, during talks, on twitter, in debates is understood by others as we mean to communicate it. I also think native English speakers take for granted that - even more maybe because of that- the message that they send is understood as the way they intend them.<br />
It is, I know from experience, not the reality of things.<br />
<br />
When I 'go on stage', I prepare. Vigorously. It's necessary for me since I also get the reactions of the 'exam anxiety' when I have to speak (want to speak). I first type out the text in Dutch, then I translate it to English. I prepare for possible questions, I also find out the wording in English that might come in handy. I plan extra time for explanations and add extra examples to clarify. But you can only prepare so much.<br />
One of the things that are very difficult, although I love a debate, discussions and dialogue, is the direct responses and dynamics.<br />
<br />
The thing is: I'm not that good at spontaneous debates. I like to sculpt my answers, like the sculpture takes time to form his/her object. I want to think about answers, play with the thoughts in my minds before I can word them. That makes debating sometimes quite difficult, especially when emotions get involved. At more then one occasion after a debate I have thought of my answers and what I could have said or would have said would I have been given a bit more time. That is why I like dialogue and more paced discussions more then debates. Even more so because I feel in a debate with a native English speakers I'm already 3-0 behind, because of the language difference.<br />
It happens on twitter too, although I can take my time composing answers and thinking about the answers, the lingual bias has more than once caused misunderstandings. Sometimes just a question, nothing more to it, was answered with a certain aggressiveness (perception by me, mind!), even blogs - as I'm certain this one will too- have the hindrance of the lingual bias.<br />
<br />
The lingual bias, added with a sniff of prejudice it can make that you get a stamp that you feel you don't deserve, that you feel is unjustly put on you. The stamp also causes that answers are always read or perceived with a certain bias up front. Sometimes even with broader consequences and it make you feel unsafe(r) to speak up. I certainly feel this way, hence my retracted behavior on different media to engage in debate. It's not that I don't care.<br />
Maybe the question 'why' can help with the lingual bias or maybe it's a little bit more tolerance and kindness or compassion, maybe some like kindness...<br />
<br />
just saying: in non-native English that is.</div>
FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-66779550619594785612016-08-24T10:26:00.001+02:002016-08-24T10:26:53.835+02:00The sheep with five legs is dead, long live the centipede!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">[This blog was originally published as Dutch article
in </span><a href="http://nieuws.testnet.org/vak/het-schaap-met-vijf-poten-is-dood-leve-de-duizendpoot/" style="color: #006677; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 18.2px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #006677; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">TestNet Nieuws</span></span></a><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 7.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">(<a href="http://nieuws.testnet.org/vak/het-schaap-met-vijf-poten-is-dood-leve-de-duizendpoot/">http://nieuws.testnet.org/vak/het-schaap-met-vijf-poten-is-dood-leve-de-duizendpoot/</a>)</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<em><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #303f50;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the past few months it has become clear to me that </span></span></em><em><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #303f50; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">we, whether we are testers, quality directors or -engineers,
T-shaped testers, qualisophes or whatever self-made variation of the validating-
and falsifying professionals, must no longer advertise ourselves as the ‘sheep
with five legs’ but as a genuine centipede,. By doing so, we also fully align
with the latest trend of ‘meat’ being ‘out’ and insects are ‘the next thing’. </span><o:p></o:p></span></em></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #303f50; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If I had to describe this centipede derived from all
the articles, presentations and discussions it would be as follows:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #303f50; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The person has to be a male with a ‘feminine touch’ or
a woman with a strong pair of ‘cojones’. He or she (for readability purposes I’ll
use ‘he’ further on) has received a solid education, where he has cum-laude graduated
from far ahead of schedule. The education distincts itself by having combined a
sturdy practical approach common to higher professional education with the
theoretical foundations of a university and a ‘school of life’ approach where
it all depends on which context something will develop. This educational institute
was also the only one providing the full testers curriculum developed by
TestNet. He has done, purely out of personal interest, some extra modules that
include technical informatics, creative education, didactic skills, psychology
and multicultural communication. He also was able to attend two masterclasses
at Nyenrode; the first on Sales and the second one on Consultancy. His parents
brought him up bilingual; English and Dutch are his native language and during
his studies he has been on several exchange programs in foreign countries,
where he mastered German, French, Spanish, Mandarin and Hindi, while not
perfect in writing, he knows enough to express himself verbally sufficiently. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #303f50; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The last ten years this person has been building
experience within the testing profession in the broadest sense. He can excellently
perform the role of test analyst but has no trouble at all to step into the
shoes of a test manager of even expert where he can easily advise on strategic
level. The ten years before he got involved in ‘testing’ he was employed in a
diversity of non-testing roles, also managerial ones, with service providers in
both private and public sectors where they developed financial products for
non-profit organizations. He is truly a jack of all trades! He possesses the
overview of the sector concerned and its developments, but also has a thorough
knowledge of the domain specifically. He really is an IT-specialist but also a domain
expert. In the last two years of his career he has been – besides engineer- the
SCRUM-master in a high performing SCRUM-team.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #303f50; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The person has got a thorough knowledge of all testing
methods, approaches and techniques. He is also an expert in SQL, XML, C++,
JAVA, JAVAscript, Python, Ruby, .Net and he can use nine-out-of-ten test tools,
like (but not exclusively) Jira, Visual Studio Test professional, HP Unified
Functional Tester, Selenium and the Tricentis testsuite. He is also fairly
knowledgeable on the topics testdatamanagement, security- and performance testing,
test environment management and mobile testing. Prince II project management,
SCRUM, LEAN, Kanban and TOGAF are also topics he has packed into his rucksack
as test- and all-round IT professional. He is up-to-date with all the latest
trends and has a very complete historical overview and accompanying historical
awareness. When he lacks a certain piece of knowledge he finds it no problem to
learn, he loves to learn after all! He is even willing to invest a large part
himself in both time and money for the benefit of this expansion of knowledge
and skills.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #303f50; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In the area of soft skills he has been able to build
up a broad palette in the past years. Communication is by far his strongest competence.
Negotiating techniques, conflict management and active listening are
key-concepts that fit his personality. He is a great sparring partner for the business.
He is highly emphatic and has a high organizational sensitivity. He knows how to enthuse, stimulate and
motivate others. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #303f50; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">He is mentally strong and is also emotionally
connected with his inner self. He is flexible, agile and <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #303f50; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">and able-bodied. He is a passionate professional but
also a family man. The values of both his company and his family he holds in
high regards. He has good work ethics, has integrity and is very honest. He
knows to balance quality and speed. He finds intrinsic rewards much more
important than extrinsic rewards. That’s also the reason why he works for a
(minimum) wage where he can live from, but doesn’t pursue any luxury. He is
both introvert as extrovert, depending on the situation at hand. He can be a
leader but also a follower, a predictable and also surprising team player that
is very able to do his work autonomously. And… last but not leas: he is only 21 years
old!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #303f50; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This description might look a bit far-fetched, but yet
it is mostly what I have gathered from a diversity of published material (including
real job adds) in only 3 months’ time enriched with some things that are generically
said about the ‘ideal employee’. And I also
admit that some of the ads where for very specific vacancies that require very
specific skills or knowledge and I díd incorporate them in the description
anyway, like I did for ‘test automation expert’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #303f50; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What I also noticed was that there was a lot of mentioning
of that ‘every employee’ had to be fitted into a specific description (very
generic) but that it also has to be a unique and authentic individual.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #303f50; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Anyway. The sheep with five legs doesn’t fit the bill
anymore, but a genuine centipede has to fulfill the needs nowadays. Now I don’t
know how it is with you, but in my vision the <em>‘</em></span><span style="color: #303f50; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Human_Centipede_%28First_Sequence%29" style="color: #839bb4; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><em><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #839bb4; text-decoration: none;">Human Centipede</span></em></a></span><em><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #303f50; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">’ (= film)</span></em><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #303f50; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> doesn’t reflect my image of the ‘ideal creature’ and
isn’t that viable. I prefer being my good old self: human, with two legs on the
ground, sturdy grounded and sometimes with both feet in the clay! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-24124669894171108412016-07-26T11:51:00.000+02:002016-07-26T11:51:27.021+02:00Ratting out the Loaded Term<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In the last couple of years my job has shifted from 'hands-on' tester to a more advisory, coaching, leading and determining strategy kind of role. It has it's downsides of not experiencing the thrill of finding a serious bug as much any more and I miss the - almost Star Trekkian - feel of going where no (wo)man has gone before in different applications. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The upside is that I think my work has become enriched with all kinds of other things that are affiliated with software- and system testing. When I think of talks like 'the tester is dead' or 'testing is dead' and the discussions that followed about the future of testing and the different roles in testing, I think one of the paths to grow to is becoming an adviser on how to gain insight and grip on risks in an organisation that flows from implementing new software- and system components but also to help organisations and the people in that organisation to be more efficient and effective in getting that insight, that can -but is not limited to- testing. Whether this is by coaching people, helping setup an automation framework or even teaching testing to non-testing personnel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But that is not what this blog is about. This blog is about something that I noticed during the years that I have been involved in testing, but is not necessarily a testing thing. My job involves a lot of explaining, clarifying and teaching. But also learning. Until recently I was unaware of this phenomenon that apparently has a big impact when trying to change things in an organisation; it's a thing called 'the loaded term'. The skill that comes with it is a skill I call 'Ratting out the Loaded Term'. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The loaded term is a term or a jargon that is or has already used in an organisation, group or team (etc.). This term is misused or doesn't have a particular positive vibe to it. When people speak of the term, they do that with a certain amount of cynicism. When you talk about this term with those people the body language shows 'anger', 'dislike', 'disgust' and sometimes a 'rolling eyes' movement is seen accompanied by a *sigh*. Sometimes somebody starts laughing, not because it's so funny, but because of pure contempt. This is the impact of the loaded term. Knowing about the loaded term is important when you want to get your message across, not knowing about the loaded term will let you fail in your endeavors. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">A loaded term in the testing community is for example 'best practice'. There's a whole group of testers that dislike, even scorn this term. Best practices don't exist; only good practices. The are dependent on the context. But an average person still uses the phrase 'best practice' without knowing this is a 'loaded term' within that group of testers. When that person would give a presentation in that group of testers a disaster is bound to happen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I would argue that the group of testers in this case would be a bit lenient and would explain with a certain amount of patience and kindness to that person that there is no such thing as 'best practices'. I could also argue that the person in this case could also have done some research on this group of testers before doing the presentation; communication is a two-way-kind-of-thing, n'est çe pas? But is this to be expected of someone? Expectations and assumptions... well we know what we say about assumptions in the testing world!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In my own example the 'loaded term' was "expert lead" and also "thought leader". Apparently the terms were used once and they weren't perceived as positive roles. In the past it was a role people got reckoned on in their appraisals or expectancy of the organisation of those roles were not aligned. When trying to set up a sort of knowledge community this proved to be a problem for me, when encountering these loaded terms. I even found out that using affiliated terms were not-done. So what to do. I needed people, not necessarily the most knowledgeable on that specific topic, to be the 'go-to-person', a person that could get colleagues together to discuss a problem on a certain topic to come to a solution and to share that knowledge. I also needed a lead-of-leads, somebody that could help the leads to be able to organize and coach in their group of expertise (the go-to-for-help-and-coaching-person). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">During a meeting about this role (roles) I anxiously tried to avoid the term and became very focused to talk about the tasks and activities of the role. But nonetheless the question came; how do we call those people? The need to have a stamp (name) for the role was very real and not to be ignored. I confess: I "uhmmed" a bit here. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">But suddenly I said 'Mumsel'. Why I said *that* I don't know. It was a word from my imagination*. It sounded funny, it didn't have any meaning. And that was <i>exactly</i> the point!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So I started defining the 'mumsel' from scratch. The mumsel is an employee who independent of seniority has the task to be the single point of contact for a subjectmatter. When a question, problem of interesting topic around the subjectmatter arises. He/she has to organise a meeting (of some sorts) where the question, problem or topic can be tackled with all other personnel involved with the topic. This is for the benefit of sharing the knowledge directly with every person that is involved. If the topic, question or problem is too specific for the whole group, he/she might be able to help him/herself directly of to redirect to the right person in the organisation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">What I'm advocating here is that it is important to be able to rat-out the loaded term. Pinpoint it, discuss it and - without ridiculing or creating a whole new organisational vocabulary - redefine or recreate the needed term. Be aware though that only so much terms can be imaginary, non existing phrases; it's has a low saturation threshold. Imagine coming into an organisation where mumsels are organizing a brainwave session to tackle a problem on a topical. One would think to have landed in a sanatorium instead of an organisation with loaded-term-issues... on a second thought.... :-)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(*note here; I did some afterward research and the term 'mumsel' is sometimes used in childsplay at summercamps where they have to find the 'mumsel' (person in disguise), sometimes used as another word for 'mademoiselle' and sometimes to be used as 'my love' :-))</span></span></div>
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FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-38273163454854481652016-05-31T10:50:00.002+02:002016-05-31T10:50:31.639+02:00Falsification<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2px;">[This blog was originally published as Dutch article in </span><a href="http://nieuws.testnet.org/vak/falsificatie/" style="color: #303f50; font-family: Arial, 'Arial Unicode MS', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 22.75px;" target="_blank">TestNet Nieuws</a><span style="color: #303f50; font-family: "arial" , "arial unicode ms" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 22.75px;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2px;"></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="line-height: 22.75px;">(http://nieuws.testnet.org/vak/falsificatie/)</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2px;">]</span></div>
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I had a discussion with a colleague not long ago. He's an information analyst that has knowledge about both the (ancient) Greek language as Latin and who likes to get involved in a nice, bit philosophically substantiated conversation. That particular time we discussed one of my most favorite topics, namely, my profession: Testing.</div>
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The discussion started because I illustrated the V-model to another colleague on the whiteboard. I explained that the flow was not only downwards, but that there was also an upward stream so that it could be an iterative process. I illustrated the difference between verification and validation in the various steps. After the colleague had left the room, my information-Latin-colleague turned around and pointed at the <a href="http://www.funtestic.nl/Assets/MappaTesti2012.JPG" target="_blank">Mappa Testi</a>, that hung on the wall behind me. </div>
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Now you have to know that the MappaTesti is a product derived from a meeting called the TestingRetreat, where we (I and the other testers that attended) were inspired after a visit to the MappaMundi in Hereford to make a similar map of how the software testing world would look like from our perspective in 2011. The MappaMundi is the oldest still existing medieval map of the world and as was customary in that time, the map was intended for topographic, religious and mythical display. It was also intend to awe the person who saw it. Hell, or the netherworld is displayed - for instance - at the bottom.<br />
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On my MappaTesti that hell is also at the bottom. With, as my colleague pointed out, written in dog-Latin 'Infernum Falsificatum Consequitur'. I meant to translate the phrase 'The hell of falsified results'. In other words: if you make yourself guilty of falsifying your results, you deserve to end up in hell!<br />
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My colleague changed that perspective in the light of the V-model discussion. He genuinely asked himself if 'falsification' in the software testing expertise wasn't allowed in relation to 'validation' and 'verification'. He had wondered for some time now, but now the opportunity arose to ask the question in the needed context.</div>
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After I explained to him that the phrase in the MappaTesti was meant differently as he had assumed, the fascination for the topic falsification remained though. Even more so after my colleague explained that with many a thesis, falsification is a form of providing evidence (anti-evidence actually). Isn't it the case that If you are a system- and software tester and you practice verification and validation, that you should also be practicing 'falsification'. </div>
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So what is falsification actually? The word derives from the Latin word 'falsificatio' (late Latin) or 'falsificare' (ancient Latin). In short: demonstrating something by proving the opposite. The explanation on Wikipedia (mind you; for this article I used the Dutch one), has a nice explanation. Imagine that the theory states that all swans ar white. The opposite of this statement, also states the possible 'falsificator': there is at least one swan that isn't white' (also"there is at least one black swan"). If it is accepted (or proven) that this black swan exists, than the statement 'all swans are white' can be refuted.</div>
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The principle of demonstrating something by presenting the untruth, comes from a man named 'Karl Popper'. He was a philosopher of science and his opinion was that scientific theories could only be tested indirectly by testing their implications performing a crucial test. If the outcome was positive (or actually 'negative'; there isn't a black swan to be found), than that doesn't mean that this is verification; there's always the possiblity that a black swan might show up. Popper describes this as 'corrobation', what is best described as 'the probability of the statement being true is higher'.<br />
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The more you dig into the matter of philosophy behind science, the more fascinating it gets. Terms like 'inductive verification', 'deductive falsification' come by. For instance; there's also an assertion that a crucial test isn't possible at all and there's a shifting of paradigms. Also the - for some already known - epistemology came up during my search for knowledge.</div>
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What I was wondering particularly in this whole matter was: 'What is the <i>significance </i>of falsification within the software- and system testing craft?'</div>
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In practice I regularly get the goals for testing like: 'prove by executing a test that the system is fit for purpose' or 'prove by executing a test that the build functionality is as described'. Let us - for argument sake- leave these statements for what they are and if they are <i>correct </i>as goals for testing. By showing one single error, fault or failure in the system we demonstrate that the statement 'the system is free of faults, failures or errors' (bug free) can be accepted and <i>thus </i>we practice falsification and not validation. Bugs are in basic our falsificators. <br />
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Falsifying is an essential part of our craft, next to validation and verification. Though according to the Popperian principles the latter isn't ever possible! </div>
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FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-74548482294800885312016-04-05T09:16:00.002+02:002016-04-08T13:11:52.243+02:00We are the person of interest<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yesterday I read an article about the TV-series '<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1839578/" target="_blank">Person of Interest</a>'. It was about the making of the final season (5) and how we in the Netherlands are currently at season 3. Something in there triggered me in writing this post. There was a paragraph in there that said the series had mostly become popular due to the fact that it seems that<b> this fiction is happening right before reality catches up</b> (which you obviously not notice when you are two seasons behind the current one). It was right before Snowden made his information public, that in the series already was mentioned that governments were collecting data about everyone. It made me aware again and I had the urge to make others aware too.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I like watching 'Person of Interest'. I think - for me- its like watching a sort of reality-horror/thriller show. It occurred to me that when you are open to pick up the signs you see things that aren't that far fetched at all. On the contrary: I find more and more things become more plausible every day and I even notice some of these things have become reality.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Most testers like being involved in the state-of-the-art and designy side of testing; mobile, test automation, usability... I see testers specialize in 'performance' and 'automation'. I see -alas- still only a small amount of testers that care about Business Intelligence, Big Data and Analytics and I see a growing interest in security testing. But.... it anybody giving it any thought WHAT data they are exactly protecting with these security tests? I don't think so. I don't think that testers (in general) are giving it a second thought that the data they are testing for is 'proper data' in the ethical sense of the word. We test data for correctness, we test if data has been processed correctly by the ETL layer, we test if data is in the right format so our systems can use it, we test the readability and meaning of data to our business. <b>BUT WE DON'T TEST THE ETHICAL USE OF DATA!!! </b></span><br />
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</span><a href="http://www.businessclan.com/sites/businessclan.com/files/styles/blog_image/public/bigstock-Security-Threat-on-a-Network-w-74204581.jpg?itok=xUWyqrcQ" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://www.businessclan.com/sites/businessclan.com/files/styles/blog_image/public/bigstock-Security-Threat-on-a-Network-w-74204581.jpg?itok=xUWyqrcQ" height="131" width="200" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I think we should start caring about this! In a world where we become more and more dependent on information technology, where data AND <i>predictive</i> data is becoming more and more a factor in decisions of governments, society and companies to treat people in a certain way, in- and excluding them even. Think this is not going to happen because our societies aren't going to allow that? Guess again, read it and weep: <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/girls-and-unmarried-women-in-india-forbidden-from-using-mobile-phones-to-prevent-disturbance-in-a6888911.html" target="_blank">http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/girls-and-unmarried-women-in-india-forbidden-from-using-mobile-phones-to-prevent-disturbance-in-a6888911.html </a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We should, no we <b>MUST</b> make a difference. We as testers are -I think- most fit to check designs and data definitions on unethical use of data and information: we dare asking questions, are skeptical by nature, are curious and think like bad guys (girls) when we need to. We can make a difference when testing the software and systems, particularly databases and data warehouses, data mining software and other data processing systems, by checking them on compliance to data protection acts and that only data is collected that is actually needed for providing the service etc. Which, I can tell you from experience, isn't the case. In each and every system that is being build right now and has been build in the past data is being collected and stored that isn't a necessity for the service being provided. The designers have just been <b>THINKING LAZY </b>in expense of a bit of privacy-loss. Ever wondered why a bank needs your gender to conduct business? They don't.</span><br />
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<a href="https://www.aclu.org/pizza/images/btn_pizza_action.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://www.aclu.org/pizza/images/btn_pizza_action.gif" style="cursor: move;" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So back to Person of interest. I know that at least a more than one person sees this show and thinks it's science fiction, just like StarWars is. But I'm telling you now: this is reality. current. This machine has been build and it's only a matter of time that the information collected is used in a way we as society might benefit form but also might find not so pleasant. The '<a href="https://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiVm7uc9_bLAhXE8Q4KHQ66C98QFggiMAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aclu.org%2Fordering-pizza&usg=AFQjCNH1i7p_u-7jLCLYcRXYIbehSeuKPQ&sig2=UlcK23Z54e2KKMCBNnXboQ&bvm=bv.118443451,d.ZWU" target="_blank">ordering pizza' example</a> might be funny, but it's a genuine wake-up call. Time to act now! For sure: '<b>you are being watched</b>'! </span></div>
FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-341730554119855022015-07-31T13:31:00.000+02:002015-07-31T13:33:30.998+02:00Contemplations from 'Common' Events<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">[This blog was originally published as Dutch article in <a href="http://nieuws.testnet.org/vak/overpeinzingen-uit-alledaagse-dingen/" target="_blank">TestNet Nieuws</a> <span style="font-size: x-small;">(http://nieuws.testnet.org/vak/overpeinzingen-uit-alledaagse-dingen/)</span>]</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Two weeks ago I experienced a disruption in production, a - especially for me- very serious one. I was able to navigate to a <i>safe </i>point and that was it. Frustrated I called the helpdesk and I started explaining what I was doing up to the moment the disruption occurred, what I did that triggered the disruption and what the impact for me was. While I was telling the story, I noticed that I was thinking about the signals that I had been ignoring up until disruption and all the workarounds that I had been applying and if I had to mention them to the support desk or not. Were they related to <i>this </i>problem or maybe contributed to it or weren't they related at all? Had the problem become worse over time or had my actions made it worse or maybe I had made the problem harder to solve or even unsolvable. I thought that if I had this experience that maybe tons of other users that made incident-reports from the organisation also went through the same thing. What if "my" testers had this problem that were working on a project for a long time? Or any tester for that matter in other organisations?... </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">My contemplations were interrupted by a voice on the other side of the line: "I'll transfer you to TechSupport". Then it went quiet on the other side. I was thinking then, that I had cursed the dull and corny waiting tunes hundreds of times before, but that I was now doubting if I was still connected now it was <i>not </i>there. I wondered if that was the case with the requests of users too. They tend to throw things over the wall all the time to the IT department, even worse now people are 'scrumming' and it is almost immediately realised.... we now have features in the software that people wanted really badly, now they are there, those features have exposed even worse problems or have now created a situation that users aren't serviced in a need. The silence on the other side of the line is deafening, but the clock on my phone indicating the connection time is still ticking, so apparently I still have a connection. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I'm hesitating if I should call again and just before the 'moment </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">suprême', a voice sounds on the other side of the line. I start explaining the disruption again from beginning to end and decide to mention I had my doubts a bit longer and that I have been ignoring signals and using workarounds. While I'm telling this, I hear the guy on the other side typing franticly and I realise that I have seen adjustments of the 'historyfield' or 'descriptionfield' itself on several occasions <i>after </i>the initial administration of a bug and I smirk a bit that this principle is not only applicable for 'us testers'. The <i>tester's conscience </i>in action. </span></span> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I'm restarting and it all seems to go into the right direction. I'm still getting a message, but I'm helped for now. I'm getting along nicely when suddenly the whole thing stops abruptly, nothing is reacting as it should. I'm calling the supportdesk again, telling the story, forwarded to TechSupport and now also the physical support is on it's way. They are looking, even using a special diagnostic device, a conclusion is made and I'm presented with a description for the solution. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I'm now at the party that is going to solve my disruption. I hear myself, now I have the solution, skipping the problem history all together and I hear myself stating "that's the solution, you fix it". I have a diagnostic report after all and I now exactly what the cause of the problem is. I'm flabbergasted when I'm called a few hours later to hear that an investigation has been done, that the cause is found and that they are going to fix it; exactly as is stated by myself earlier. I question myself if "my" testers have this same knack and are doing the whole diagnostics again when they get work transferred from another tester or do they trust the work of the tester before them? Are developers asking the new tester in their project to do all the already done test work again to make a new diagnosis? </span></span><br />
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</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I get a heart-attack when I hear the guy on the other side of the line mentioning the amount that is to be paid for the solution. I'm quiet for a bit. I have myself also done some investigation 'on the internet' on the different possibilities to fix the problem and I have seen (exactly the same) solution that cost a fraction of the amount that this guy is presenting. The only thing is that I have to get my hands dirty myself. In an impulsive moment I flap out that I'm going (thus) fix the problem myself. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">There's silence on the other side of the line (no, I'm not expecting a waiting music this time) and then the voice says that I'm still to pay for the diagnostic fee. Clearly annoyed now, I'm stating that I will not pay for this fee, since I didn't ask for it. Even more so: I already had the solution in a report presented to them, did I calculate my diagnostic fee to them? Again my thoughts were wandering off to my working situation; isn't this <i>exactly </i>what we are doing as testers? Doing the work of our predecessor over again because we want our own view on the problem or we don't trust the data of the one that tested before us and then calculate the costs to our clients (time, money, etcetera...). I mumble something about 'service' being a virtue and I end the phone call after some grumbling and discussion.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In the aftermath my thoughts go to the situation at work and that many disruptions, issue and bugs are raised to easily by users because they have no idea of the costs that a solution costs, especially since it's not their own money they spend. I wonder if, even if the problems are a bit more complicated by nature, if people are rewarded for it they would solve it themselves. Because solving things themselves would be cheaper that letting it be solved by the (more) 'expensive' IT department. Would one be solving problems more quickly and not spending time on implementing workarounds that might worsen the problem of make it unsolvable? What would that mean for 'us testers'? Should we trust the 'results from the past'...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">And now? For a fraction of the costs I have fixed the problem myself. What? A tester isn't <i>supposed to</i> fix a program? Says who? Is that relevant at all?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Oh? Didn't I mention that this wasn't an IT-problem? No... I had car trouble. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It broke down on the highway, while I was under way to a hike on a nice, bit chilly Sunday afternoon. I had the ANWB (Dutch breakdown service) on the phone. First the regular helpdesk, than the technical support. The tech guy said I could drive on with the problem after restarting the car, but when the problem worsened, the ANWB-van with a mechanic came by. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The cause of the problem was a broken ABS-ring (just Google) and it was repairable by a few easy steps. At the dealer they asked more than twentyfold (!!!) of the amount because they couldn't order the ABS-ring part on it's own but only with the whole axle. In the end I did the repair myself and I'm driving again to <i>there and back again</i>. I also got the invoice of the 'service'... 50 euros for plugging in a device into the car that the guy from the ANWB already did when on the side of the highway. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">And so... the last lesson of this article is... only in their context things <i><b>really</b></i> get clear.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijSv4r4P5GkTxl7hFLb-RHahQg7qYgN4GlbLcuGgkILOScWOVBQ6VWg_ISovnV1ckGtwBsvovSogHW781m9qOyrBBkz40hzASeHvz_-z9KCEBKD6pY1W-A93l3Pl0cAwzuGf6QTnlRJg/s1600/Reparatie.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijSv4r4P5GkTxl7hFLb-RHahQg7qYgN4GlbLcuGgkILOScWOVBQ6VWg_ISovnV1ckGtwBsvovSogHW781m9qOyrBBkz40hzASeHvz_-z9KCEBKD6pY1W-A93l3Pl0cAwzuGf6QTnlRJg/s400/Reparatie.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Pictures: My own repair attempt and Smart HobbyRepair day in Heemskerk (where I got some helping hands), own archive and Ricardo Vierwind</span> </span></span></td></tr>
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FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1559357929412631239.post-80699938459022190342015-03-10T12:17:00.001+01:002015-03-10T20:46:56.801+01:00Let's blog about...Let's Test BeNeLux<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Once a regular
time to start the day... now a unholy moment to get up. I got on the bus
at 05:42, the chauffeur hadn't even bothered to turn on the lights yet.
Was easy on the eyes though. Traveling by train was quite fine today,
unlike yesterday when I had to arrange a car on last notice because of
'actions by NS personnel'. Approximately 08:30 I stepped into 'Mezz'
for the <a href="http://lets-test.com/?page_id=3861" target="_blank">Let's Test BeNeLux</a>,
great venue when your tagline is 'For those about to Rock', since it's a
smaller (music)stage/ rockvenue. At registration already some familiar
and also loads of unfamiliar faces for me. Always easy to have the
longest name on the registration list; easy and fast find :-)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">After
some coffee I ran off to mainstage where James M. Bach was scheduled
for the opening keynote about 'checking versus testing'. In style the
keynote starts with some rock music by AC/DC and James plays te part
with a striking pose :-). Interactiveness is encouraged and the 2Dcode
is shown to <a href="http://t.co/5IQGlEEZTZ" target="_blank">download the deck</a> on-site (saves notetaking) so I have an easy job only to have to write down the keywords and scribble my doodles down. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">My interpretations of this keynote is that checking seems to be the fetish of people like managers, who don't understand that <i>testing </i>is
more than automaticly running stuff but and that checking is part of
testing. Testing being ' evaluation by learning through experimentation
and exploration including questioning, modeling, observation, inference,
etc. It's like morphine; something that's for professionals for use for
a specific use, but not to be given to children.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">When
we look into testing there are four quadrants, consisting of
spontaneous testing and checking and deliberative testing and checking,
all activities no matter in which quadrant they are, are useful but it
takes people who understand the matter to really make it valuable. The
key is 'making sense' , which is the part that can't be automated
(probably also the reason why 'sensemaking' has 'sense' or 'sentient'
in it ;-))</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">As
I see it, checking is something that can be defined and when you have
difficulty defining it into a specific criterium, you'll probably have
something before you that is in the category of sentience and
non-checkable testing. Checking is something that is derived from
algoritms. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In the QA I asked a question that referred to something that James called <i>epistemic testability, </i>which was explained as the things we already know. Together with the mention of the '<i>history oracle' (</i>the things we see/find we already know), I wondered how to cope with the things we<i> think </i>we know. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">As I interpreted James' answer this is the core of testing and he referred to the story of the '<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Bridge" target="_blank">Silver Bridge</a>',
which had a problem in it since the beginning but only after 40 years
the problem emerged. He also mentioned having dinner; what are the
acceptance criteria there, how are you going to define when you are done
up front? It's all about discussion and conversation, but also having
an attitude of acceptance; acceptance that problems <u>can and will</u> be in the things we test. With this knowledge and mind-bender, I went for the coffee break. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">After
the coffee break James Lindsay had a very energetic note about 'A nest
of test'. First time I had to take out my laptop in a non-testlab room
and test <i>during</i> the track!! How cool is that. Check out the IP: <a href="http://52.16.45.184./">52.16.45.184.</a> <br />for
some interesting teststuff. I really had a good time puzzeling around
and figuring out what would cause the things I encountered. It was cool
to test with a room full of people and having people hypothetising about
the things seen on the screen when changing the parameters. I felt like
this is what 'Let's Test' is all about; learning and especially doing
together. Sorry for being so short in this part, but being very busy
with tools, reduced the amount of time of being able to blog...</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE1hxE6tQ5lfkDosMI45IVZnJiZVEMVTMx_KM1sujqy_VdaBcl0lV-RMX8-T8LlvlesNWmOgvIHZ0gnsEMmcesTdr9V9bB87rMoOeRGm_KKii946qml7iyZHS5YwppcvB8lqNCncPeDQ/s1600/IMG_2885.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE1hxE6tQ5lfkDosMI45IVZnJiZVEMVTMx_KM1sujqy_VdaBcl0lV-RMX8-T8LlvlesNWmOgvIHZ0gnsEMmcesTdr9V9bB87rMoOeRGm_KKii946qml7iyZHS5YwppcvB8lqNCncPeDQ/s1600/IMG_2885.JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">.... The continued...</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />What
a fabulous lunch! Good food and a very sunny terrace outside with
testing colleagues. It was almost too difficult to drag my ass into the
venue again.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But
I got myself up to listen to Jean-Paul van Varwijk about the challenges
of implementing context driven testing (at Rabobank international). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Jean-Paul
told about some Dutch context (the Dutch apparently have loads of
publications about testing compared to other countries) and the steps
that lead to the implementation of context driven testing. Rabobank,
also because of the crisis and the wish to become more agile, changed to
an organisation with 'Domain based delivery teams'. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It's surprising to hear about 'thought leadership' in this particular case, since lot's of times I have heard about the term <i>thought leadership </i>being
perceived as a nonsense thing, since you can't give leadership to
thoughts. My opinion around that was that it was that this thought
leader is someone who knows his (or her!!!) stuff and guides people to
investigate new things and to learn, educate and stimulate development;
it was mostly honed away. Understand my surprise that the thought leader
is described in this presentation as such! </span></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW7MluL2foaQ335kpC0wTg4DcVwuxH_2YdLWCTGAaa3oj7RJf4Ww3h_lWd1y42tL9f6yEbn5O8Rw7XIJyhcqYzyEEXXKBCcSxBRhh5IU495wR50IEvgTVxwRjksOTXQ7vDRVkmuN_B_Q/s1600/IMG_2889.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW7MluL2foaQ335kpC0wTg4DcVwuxH_2YdLWCTGAaa3oj7RJf4Ww3h_lWd1y42tL9f6yEbn5O8Rw7XIJyhcqYzyEEXXKBCcSxBRhh5IU495wR50IEvgTVxwRjksOTXQ7vDRVkmuN_B_Q/s1600/IMG_2889.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Jean-Paul
tells about the uncertainty about not having guidance and direction, he
tells about being a bit down about the situation of not knowing where
the organisation is heading, but is recently more enthusiastic because
direction is more outspoken and he's even motivated to organise
workshops again. I found this last part of this track the most valuable,
since it (again) points out - to me- that having the organisation or
management pointing into a direction or to have leadership, especially
in turbulent times or change programs/ organisational changes (and
implementations) is essential to keep your people motivated and
stimulated and to keep reminding them that they are invaluable to the
organisation, even during these times of turmoil.</span></span><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicmzn_uTdu-rWJWVox7LqHyEPLxE72rxa_X_S4KaLlMIKV3sl4u6GXBg2UKELzAWGtQOPXKzPLxfamOWBH9NpizfL_krDoDZAB-erHTo3OQOqBEhOByPvW-OOQwd3oV1U_gUThVIHBmA/s1600/IMG_2891.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">After Jean-Paul, Joep
Schuurkes took the stage to do a track called 'Helping the new tester to
get a running start'. He made the analogy with learing to navigate a
city to make a point that the 'usual suspects' as plain documentation,
map, route descriptions, etc., won't make a newby in the company a happy
starter. He has lot's of images of his home town of Rotterdam to
explain the different aspects of introducing the employee in the
company. For instance, when showing a picture of Rotterdam right after
WOII (flat), he explains that a historic view might not be that
interesting for your new team member, since they have to work on the now
and future development, but then again we (IT in general) are too
history unaware and an overview is important to know how you got there
where you are. Slide by slide he ads and ads to the package, only to
tell us that we need to become more abstract and have a more guideline
like approach with the next key areas: provide structure, model the
application (SANFRANCISCODEPOT-heuristic), model your approach to
testing (mind the overhead hazard), guide interactions with the
application and with the team, <b>empower the new tester</b> (mastery, autonomy, purpose) and the least; <b>have fun!</b> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I
hoped to warm up in the sun during the afternoon break, the conference
room being a fridge. But I ended up having a great conversation about
conferences and German literature being an inspiration for a workshop
about reporting (looking forward seeing it at one of the future
conferences!).</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Back
to the stage in the fridge again. Andreas Faes starts his track, titled
"Testing test automation model", with telling a story of the whale,
experiencing different things in the "emptiness" of space and defining
those things to create it's model to understand these. Loving the story
about counting; 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13, €... Euro being a number
in the model of his son who has not grasped the concept of currency yet.
By assimilation this model is correct in his sons mind, but who
understands currency knows € isn't a number of course. About
understanding models and verifying them...:-). Making a bridge to models
in test automation, Andreas explains his path to the now, on the way
explaining some historic concepts on the way and adressing what a
implicit and explicit model is, but specifically how to get <i>from</i>
an implicit (test) to a explicit (automated) model. The idea of what is
mentioned here, domain specific language, sounds familiar to me and I
can't help but think about '<a href="http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sjir_Nijssen#Kenniskunde" target="_blank">Kenniskunde</a>'
(sorry for the international guys; it's a concept by Sjir Nijssen on
use of proper Dutch language and mathematics and logic in the daily use)
or '<a href="http://www.informatie.nl/Artikelen/1997/juni/Kennisrepresentatietalenindenegentigerjaren.aspx" target="_blank">Kennis Representatie Zinnen</a>'
(google translates this to knowledge representation sentences, but I
wonder if this the same meaning), seems -like the article- a Dutch
principle, but I'm sure there's a non-Dutch version as well. It triggers
me to look into this matter more and it dissapoints me a bit that the
track suddenly is over. It feels it's ended very abruptly and would have
loved to have heard more about this, but I guess the fact that I am
triggered is also valuable, so I have to be satisfied for now.</span></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Instead
of Jacky Franken, Pascal Dufour now takes the stage. Which I find a bit
too bad, since I skipped Jacky's track in an earlier conference knowing
I would see it here. The topic of Pascal is very relevant for me, so it
makes up for the loss. 'Automation in DevOps and Continuous delivery'
it is called. From continuous integration, to continuous delivery to
continuous deployment. Continuous seems to me to ensure a constant, fast
feedback loop to development, team or customer, dependent on what type
of 'continuous...' is used. DevOps is then explained, because as I
understand, to be truly agile in development, whether this is XP or
SCRUM, development and operations should be 'on eachothers' lap' sort
of speak; hence <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DevOps" target="_blank">DevOps</a>.
I got confused during the track about DevOps, as it seemed as a line of
tools to be able to push through a development lifecycle, but checking
Wiki set me on track again. Getting back into the track again an example
is shown of a check in cucumber and a summary about what is possible
and to be done. And then suddenly the presentation is over and slides
over to a discussion. Keeps me wondering about whether continuous
integration, continuous delivery and continuous deployment also needs or
implies continuous testing?....or is only checking then possible?...</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">After the <i>testlabrats </i>James
Lyndsay and Bart Knaack had finished the testlab report and Huib
Schoots closed the official part of the day, the crowd went to the bar
or the hotdog stand by 'dokter Worst' outside, enjoying a hotdog, some
fries and beer (or wine, or sodadrink etc.) and some after conference
conversations. I called it they day when I had just finished my hotdog
and (after all it IS almost an summer day) a glas of rosé. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I
had an excellent day with good tracks, talks and I learned a lot. I
think this Tasting Let's Test or this year called 'Let's Test BeNeLux'
is a nice oppurtunity for those can't afford the 17000 (ex 25% VAT!!)
Swedish croner to attend the full edition. Hope to attend again next
year.
</span></span><br />
<table><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMSJfsDZM9IulHlr29vEnpK1gwtHz7qCO5r7yWi7m4BoFUIiP2Ip0GFWfJvDAhHCgtG9m4JhAA4dyJu2xMYMvDNImy0tQ06TdKHPkqjfY7pUww3trIDdwQx-dvcSh4zp8LcIdOw8k9gg/s1600/IMG_2897.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMSJfsDZM9IulHlr29vEnpK1gwtHz7qCO5r7yWi7m4BoFUIiP2Ip0GFWfJvDAhHCgtG9m4JhAA4dyJu2xMYMvDNImy0tQ06TdKHPkqjfY7pUww3trIDdwQx-dvcSh4zp8LcIdOw8k9gg/s1600/IMG_2897.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td>
<td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcVj9vA7I59cWuEkWo-wNE4tfQ7P_F6a00MFubaT7qCEnR2izqDV02CmR0pht3QvhQNm1LS4ZPJ2Dt7sXI_13cdmN7wDDjZhLKbX7o4I18aAduco41rTH0z10a5d_ksAKxKwtDFP9rQQ/s1600/IMG_2898.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcVj9vA7I59cWuEkWo-wNE4tfQ7P_F6a00MFubaT7qCEnR2izqDV02CmR0pht3QvhQNm1LS4ZPJ2Dt7sXI_13cdmN7wDDjZhLKbX7o4I18aAduco41rTH0z10a5d_ksAKxKwtDFP9rQQ/s1600/IMG_2898.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
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<td align="left" colspan="2"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsYroF5MOYrm748D96taxWTqCyIpdE_HMMfnhdUfmQUZwy_rLh_oMBPX92h6cDXr9HGbhgSx34089cpfTP7R4RazjT5eRMpwD4lyWHcm8EE0ZhCJea-XjO4syCq71uqFQjJsCcqXkClw/s1600/IMG_2900.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsYroF5MOYrm748D96taxWTqCyIpdE_HMMfnhdUfmQUZwy_rLh_oMBPX92h6cDXr9HGbhgSx34089cpfTP7R4RazjT5eRMpwD4lyWHcm8EE0ZhCJea-XjO4syCq71uqFQjJsCcqXkClw/s1600/IMG_2900.JPG" height="240" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">As some of you might know, the past year I haven't been very active in blogging. First it was because I had a new job, then it was because I didn't feel like it (having more free time, causes to slack a bit :-) ) and after that, I felt to bullied, vulnerable and 'attacked' to blog anything. (I think 'Gotesen' with her blog wrote it down very well: <a href="http://godtesen-on-test.blogspot.nl/2013/11/being-pramatic-tester.html" target="_blank">http://godtesen-on-test.blogspot.nl/2013/11/being-pramatic-tester.html )</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Lately there's much fuss about the ISO29119 standard. I've followed the different 'discussions', seen the rise of a petition, seen blogs being written etc. etc. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I've observed and my sadness has grown and grown. I'm deeply saddened that a group within the tester's community is perceived and treated as lesser lifeform by people who think they have a right to do this. I'm saddened that although I have a right to learn, explore and experience things myself, I'm bullied into a certain thoughtprocess, fellow testers who deprive me of a learning process of my own, only by their own false pretence of 'knowing what's good for me'. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I was astonished of one of the replies on a reply I wrote 'I don't follow the same process as you' .. I wasn't even aware I HAD a process, but apparently that stamp has been pressed on me. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I'm astonished by some blogpost, which, judging on the content, are based on non-information or not (entirely) correct facts . I'm even more astonished on the amount of people who, again judging on the replies, are without questioning the content believing what's in there. It scares the s**t out of me, that it's believed that easily, sometimes it seems that only because a certain person says something ' it must be true'. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I once saw a reference to a quote on the Wikipedia... it was on wikipedia so it must have been true.. only to find out this person had added the wiki-article himself. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I've seen perfectly good replies, seen 'beaten to death' by replies that shout 'it doesn't matter what you say, it's wrong anyway' -non-arguments.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Arguments are made that are of the 'pot calling the kettle black' persuasion. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Arguments are made, it seems, because of the sake of it, not because they have any constructive value in the discussion. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">People with the loudest shout or that have the gift of easy writing are sabling down what people with small voices or that have difficulty writing are saying, not on the arguments themselves, but on the way they are using words. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It's not about the meaning but about the correctness of use of words, there just doesn't seem any tolerance anymore for hearing messages, just because a comma or certain word was used wrongly, but only when it's not a message of ones own, because then you are supposed to 'get the overall message'.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Yes, I'm one of the 'ISO people', but I'm also a tester, thinker, questioner, learner, explorer and most of all... I'm a human being... sad but true. </span><br />
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FunTESTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10261385358488625907noreply@blogger.com4