What A Lot Of Things: Tech talk from a human perspective

In a daring experiment that could only be described as "asking for trouble," Ian and Ash take their rambling tech discussions to the stage at the twelfth Leeds Testing Atelier! Marvel at their technological inequality as Ian gleefully controls all the buttons while Ash sits helpless without even a mute switch. Witness real humans actually listening to them in person - proof that their podcast isn't just shouted into the void!First, Ian waxes lyrical about Model Context Protocol (MCP), which (despite sounding like a villain from Tron) is actually how AIs connect to your apps to book endless holidays during the inevitable robot apocalypse. Then Ash tackles the fascinating world of "glue work" - those invisible tasks that mysteriously fall to testers and minorities while everyone else pretends not to notice the team slowly disintegrating.With audience members bravely volunteering their opinions, this special live episode proves that What A Lot Of Things can indeed survive contact with actual humans, and that you can never have too many Clangers references.Our thanks to Ivor Caldwell, Emily O'Connor, Bryan Jones, Faisal Sultan, Melissa Rocks and everyone else who shared their thoughts, questions and opinions. You are awesome, and you make the world a better place.

In this episode, Ian and Ash plunge headfirst into the wild world of “vibe coding” - where developers surrender to the AI gods and trust whatever code they spit out! Watch in horror as our intrepid hosts debate whether letting AI write your code without checking it is just weekend fun or a recipe for cybersecurity disaster. Marvel as semantic diffusion transforms innocent terms into tech industry nightmares before your very ears! Will Ian’s adamant defence of the original definition save the term from the clutches of corporate jargon, or is he just fighting against the vibe?But wait, there’s more! The dynamic duo then migrates to the fresh pastures of Bluesky, the social media platform where exiled Twitter users now frolic freely. Gasp as they navigate the thorny thickets of free speech absolutism, moderation policies, and Jack Dorsey’s digital flounce! Between debating buttons that lead to nowhere and dreaming of Figma-specific content filters, Ian and Ash once again prove that in the chaotic landscape of tech, sometimes you just have to read the diffs, and sometimes you have to vibe your way through it all.But what do you think? Have your say on Bluesky LinksThe Clangers and the clip from the episode "Goods" whence sprung our name (2m 40s watch).Leeds Testing Atelier, at which we are recording a Live Episode of What A Lot Of Things!Andrej Karpathy on X: Vibe codingClaude Code and Cursor (and Github Copilot)TechCrunch: TurinTech reveals $20M in backing to fix problems in ‘vibe coding’Simon Willison: Semantic Diffusion (and Wikipedia article on Semantic satiation)ThoughtWorks: Fuzz TestingYouTube: Interview with vibe coder 2025leojr94_ on X: “guys, i’m under attack”Wikipedia: Fuzz testingBluesky, the AT Protocol, and Bluesky starter packs (and Mastodon).Fast Company: Bluesky CEO Jay Graber on her company’s ascendant year and what she’s planning next or you can read a more ad-free version of the article including Ian's highlights.Ian Dunt, now on BlueskyWikipedia article on Freedom of SpeechQuote Investigator on "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler" and "My Customers Would Have Asked For a Faster Horse"

In this episode, Ian and Ash embark on a thoroughly British adventure through the land of presentation software, complete with the obligatory post-implementation complaining. Marvel as Ian delivers a monumental discourse on PowerPoint crimes, Keynote superiority, and why Comic Sans should be punishable by “a damn good encouragement.” Meanwhile, Ash provides a heartfelt eulogy for Skype, Microsoft’s once-beloved communication tool that’s being put out to digital pasture this May, only to be replaced by its demonstrably worse offspring, Teams.Between passionate debates about slide etiquette and whether “post-amble” should be a real word, our intrepid hosts ponder why big companies buy innovative tools only to slowly suffocate them, contemplate the future of VR meetings with battery life measured in minutes, and propose a spin-off podcast called “Terrible Product-Type Meetings.” All delivered with the quintessential British approach of having an idea, implementing it, and then complaining about it afterwards – just as nature intended.LinksPresentation Zen by Garr ReynoldsRethinking the Presentation: Ian’s presentation opus astonishingly preserved on Slideshare from 2009.Apple’s Keynote and Microsoft’s Powerpoint. Oh and Google Slides.Fonts: Arial and, er… Comic SansSir Ken Robinson’s iconic TED talk: Do schools kill creativity?ToastmastersThe Thick of It (watch on iPlayer) and In The Loop, both by Armando Iannucci, and featuring Peter Capaldi as Malcolm TuckerDifficult difficult lemon difficult.The Register: Non-biz Skype kicks the bucket on May 5BBC: Microsoft announces Skype will close in MayWeekend TestingMicrosoft with the world’s highest cookie consent form to press release size ratio: The next chapter: Moving from Skype to Microsoft TeamsThe Team Guide to Software Testability by  Rob Meaney and our very own Ash WinterMeta’s Horizon Workrooms Virtual Office and Meetings and Ian’s VR experiments in using it with Dan HammondLawyer cat filter mishap

In Episode 29, Ian and Ash venture into the wild frontiers of video podcasting, with Ian's "door and chair" background sure to be nominated for design awards. The pair tackle the thorny art of story splitting, with Ash confessing his frustration at watching teams scramble around massive requirements like ants on a dropped ice cream cone. Meanwhile, Ian suggests testers might be uniquely positioned to lead such efforts, having "a clear foot in each domain" – or as Ash quips, possibly Schrödinger-like properties.The mood darkens as Ian reveals Apple's "deeply disappointed" (not "gravely disappointed" – an important semantic distinction) announcement about disabling UK encryption features following secretive government demands. Our hosts explore the concerning implications, suggesting this puts the UK's surveillance powers closer to China than democratic peers, while wondering if police might soon arrive because "computer said nick."Between discussions of HP's spectacular customer service own-goal (forcing callers to wait 15 minutes even when operators were available), Ian's surprisingly positive experiences with Claude Code AI, and the shocking revelation that they're podcast royalty in Côte d'Ivoire (top 10!) and Cameroon (top 100!), our hosts deliver an episode that proves that story splitting may be challenging, but splitting hairs about levels of disappointment is an art form unto itself.LinksThe Register: HP deliberately adds 15 minutes waiting time for telephone support calls, and then ditches it. Live Multicam in Final Cut Pro for iPadWhat A Lot Of Things on Bluesky, and our podcast hosting service Transistor.The Humanizing Work Guide to Splitting User StoriesMike Cohn: Five Story-Splitting Mistakes and How to Stop Making ThemConway's Law (wikipedia) which explains why heavily delineated technical teams (front-end, back-end, database) end up splitting work along those same boundaries rather than by user-pathway centred flows.Youtube: Introducing Claude Code, and Claude Code: OverviewApple can no longer offer Advanced Data Protection in the United Kingdom to new usersMatthew Green: Three questions about Apple, encryption, and the U.K.UKGov: Investigatory Powers Act 2016, and its Wikipedia entry.Edward Snowden (wikipedia) and Uber's God View (The Guardian)...and, of course, Cynefin.

In Episode 28, Ian and Ash wade into the treacherous waters of AI-generated testing strategies, with Ian demonstrating how LLMs can now create comprehensive (but perhaps suspiciously mundane) test documentation with just a few commands. The pair debate whether testers should fear for their jobs or simply laugh at AI's confident yet risk-blind approach to testing. Meanwhile, Ash ponders the BBC's hand-wringing over the future of open source software, questioning whether the current gatekeepers might need to stop finger-wagging at younger developers and instead create more welcoming environments for volunteers.Between discussions of 960Mbps internet connections, mind flayers in Baldur's Gate, and the correct pronunciation of "Ethernet," our intrepid hosts manage to deliver a rollicking episode that proves testing isn't dead - it's just a zombie looking for brains.LinksSimon Willison's blog, and his post about how "o3-mini is really good at writing internal documentation".Examples of o3-mini's work: Test Strategy for Ilkley Live and Ilkley Live New Developer Onboarding GuideSimon's `llm` and `files-to-prompt` command line toolsWe'll Give It A Go - The Spooky Men's Chorale (Youtube)The Cursor IDE as used by Ian.Ben Franklin's Famous 'Liberty, Safety' Quote Lost Its Context In 21st Century (NPR)Content Management Systems - Contentful, Sanity and Strapi.Douglas Adams quotation on age and technologyOpenreach Full Fibre BroadbandThings Ian never wants to end: his game of Baldurs Gate 3 and Jonathan Strange and Mr NorrellBBC News: Will young developers take on key open source software?Will Young...Unix tools - `curl` and `wget`.The Register: Mixing Rust and C in Linux likened to cancer by kernel maintainerThe naming of `git`.