Hiccupps

Last week I started to see tweets with the simple text "Like this tweet and I’ll write something about you." The replies, all by the author of the tweet, were fascinating: numbers apparently representing a person followed by praise, reminiscence, and gratitude. Elisabeth Hendrickson's thread is a particularly uplifting example.  I was intrigued, so I liked a couple of them. Shortly afterwards I got a direct message which explained that the tweet was part of a project for suicide prevention month with the aim of celebrating people while they are alive. If I wanted to join in I should provide a number to represent myself so that the author could write something about me, and I was invited to do the same for others. I'm naturally cautious of these chain letter-like activities and I'd heard of Suicide Prevention Day and Week , but not month. However, I found that September does appear to be promoted as suicide prevention awareness month by the National Alliance on M

  Maaike Brinkhof tweeted this last week:   Give me your most brutally honest definition of software testing.  As it happens, I have a definition of software testing that works for me , and it is (honestly) my honest answer:    Testing is the pursuit of relevant incongruity. But Maaike asked for the most brutally honest definition. How might that change what I'd say? Well, what is brutal honesty? As I interpret the term, it describes a statement of perceived truth given with no regards for the feelings of anyone who might hear it. That gives me a route in: can I find someone with a perspective that might offend us testing snowflakes, someone who is relevant to us, and someone whose view I can characterise with extreme candour? I thought about this for about, um, one second and chose THE BUSINESS. A perspective that might offend? Check. In the main, businesses run for the benefit of the business and, particularly as they get larger, can lose touch