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Romania – a student of excellence or poor learner?
14 January, 2019 23 January, 2019 / Vladimir Mitev
The relations between Bucharest and Brussels are not so bad (photo: YouTube, channel of Romanian government)
Bulgarian media narrative on Romania changed significantly. The recent wave of romanoscepticism in Bulgaria on the occasion of the starting presidency of the EU simply follows the mainstream of Bruxelles, but doesn`t help for the better understanding of what is going on in the region
This article was published on 12 January 2019 on the Bulgarian section of the site "The Barricade".
The days before the official start of the Romanian europresidency, which began on 10 January 2019, came together with a wave of negative evaluations and comments in Western European media about the government in Bucharest and the Romanian political elite. Leading Bulgarian media also gave tribune to a number of analysts, who expressed their scepticism towards Romania, similar to the Western European, given that literally until the middle of 2018 Romanians were given constantly as example for successful reform in justice, economy and loyality to the West. The experts now sowed doubts that Romanian presidency will be successful. The analysts also reduced Romania of 20 million people to the person of the strong man in the Social Democratic Party Liviu Dragnea, who is criticised strongly in Western Europe and to the ironised prime minister Viorica Dancila.
The parallel with the Bulgarian europresidency, lauded for its tractability by Jean-Claude Juncker, is natural to be made. Until recently Romania was the country of excellence in the region, because of "anti-corruption" and its "awaken civil society", which "opposes the thieves in politics". Now Bulgarians were to live their small media moment of glory as most loyal and responsible representatives of the EU in the region. This change was taking place while Romania was transforming itself into a country, which, according to the interpretations, "is not looked at with credibility" in European institutions and in the other country-members. A possibility arose that the government in Sofia shines before the European partners, pushing itself away from Romania, with which it had been in tandem for the last two decades. It is expected that Bulgaria will be admitted to the Schengen space until the end of the Juncker commission, while no such announcements have been given to Bucharest.
Let us have no illusions. While the Romanian president Klaus Iohannis met with Donald Trump in the White House in 2017, Romanian media started affirming that Romania begins to de-connect itself fast from the Brussels-imposed tandem of the "countries of inferior category in the EU", where it stood with Bulgaria. So the Romanian political elite also has its aspirations for privileged partnership with the West and for subcontracting functions in the region.
The media reflection towards Romania in the beginning of 2019 reminds of the one towards Greece, when it resisted the prescribed treatment of the debt crisis. Then Greeks were often described in European and Bulgarian media as irresponsible, because they resist and destabilize the whole of the eurozone. But it wasn't pointed out that the Greek debt actually rose as a result of the "treatment".
The wave of romanoscepticism in Bulgaria media showed once again that we know superficially our neighbours. It seems that there is a political and media elite in Sofia, which is well-connected to Brussels, but doesn't have deep roots in the region. It turns out that it is easier to compete with our neighbours who is more responsible and more European, retransmitting the Western scepticism towards them, instead of looking at the countries and at their people in the region with our own added value. It is worthy if when we know our neighbours, we don't remain limited to the satisfaction that we make one thing or another better, or to the pitifulness that we fail as people and institutions in comparison to them. As a part of the EU we could need more cooperation in the European South-East. Not only competition, but cooperation is an European value.
The relations between the EU and Romania
The dialogue between the EU and Romania is not as bad as it seems. Bucharest has its strategic importance for the EU – both in geopolitical and in economic plan. On the other hand, Romania also needs the European business, which gives it an otherwise unattianable dynamics.
But indeed in the last years the social democrats stir rising criticism in Western Europe with their judicial reforms and economic policy. The opponents of the Liviu Dragnea's party are many and have influence both in the country and abroad. They accuse the social democrats of being anti-European, of returning the country back to socialism or of its attachment to the "evil forces" of Hungary and Poland.
The social democrats declare themselves pro-Europeans. The prime minister – Viorica Dancila, or the strong man in the party – Liviu Dragnea, say that in their capacity of Europeans ask for the right to have a propper opinion, to respect from the European partners, to recognition by these partners of some Romanian interests. The supporters of social democrats' policies from the last years describe their activities as attempts to correct some excesses and abuses. For example, it is claimed that the fight against corruption was realised on the basis of illegal protocols for collaboration between the secret services and the prosecution, which brought to condamnations of contested legality. Another thesis of the social democrats' supporters is that the foreign companies – such as banks, have greater return on investment than they do in Western Europe. It happens even though the Romanian citizens are poorer that Western Europeans.
The economic measures of the social democrats
The Romanian ruling coalition uses this feeling of injustice, in order to introduce measures, which help to balance the budget. In the last two years the social democrats` government constantly confronts the problem of low tax collection, which imposes "innovative" solutions. In the end of December it raised the minimal salary and the minimal pension, introduced ceiling upon the prices of electricity and natural gas, and introduced the so-called "greed tax" for the financial institutions in the cases when banks` interest rates are above certain level. The license fees for mobile operators and the tax on energy companies were raised a few times, while their nominal value is determined by the turnover of the companies. This was made because turnovers are great, but the profit tax, which companies pay often is much more modest.
Through such measures the government finds important income for the budget. At the same time representatives of the business point out that infringement procedures of the EC are possible, because the measures break the rules in the respective sectors. However, one can see that the measures don't cover the automotive sector, where there are significant foreign investments. The government even approved state aid of tens of millions euro for various automotive companies at the end of 2018.
We should not forget that after a social democrats` reform from the beginning of 2018 in Romania the employees pay social contributions, without sharing their burden with the employers, unlike Bulgaria. This earlier reform to the advantage of the business was made so that the collectibility of social contributions gets higher. However, it hit the interests of the employees and many saw their net salary going down, even though the gross income got higher. It is a detail, which is often missed, when Bulgarian media compare Romanian and Bulgarian income from the standing point of their gross figures, where indeed there is a growing difference to the advantage of the northern neighbours.
The ambivalent policy towards business can be interpreted as populist in different senses. On one hand in the sense that social democrats are not real eurosceptics and only pretend to be like that. On the other hand, in the sense that the government makes gestures towards its electorate, but doesn't alter the state of poverty, dependence and underdevelopment in the regions where its electoral base lives.
The confrontation: Bucharest-Bruxelles, government-president
The contradictions in the country and between Bucharest and Bruxelles would probably continue. There are topics for disputes: from the question who will preside some formats of the European dialogue in the following six months – the president or the prime minister, till the lasting desire of Liviu Dragnea for the issuing of an emergency decree for the amnesty of those who were condemned illegally. Apart from political interest, he also has personal interest to insist on such a decree, because at this moment he appeals a verdict against him and will avoid the punsihment. The dialogue between Bucharest and Bruxellles will most likely be active in the next 6 months, without a change in the contradicting interests of the participants in it.
The Romanian contemporary politics has long been marked by the contradiction between supporters and opponents of the social democrats. The citizens of the Romanian cities from the middle class usually see the social democrats as everything that is to be despised in the country – inheritors of the communists, people with rural mentality, traditionalists, local feudals and patrons of clientelistic networks. On the other hand, in the last years there are rising attitudes against Germany and the president Klaus Iohannis, who is an ethnic German.
The differences between the camps and between the politicians, which embody it, would hardly be overcome. In December 2018 a number of events in Romanian politics took place. One of the hot topics were the economic measures. Another was the attempt for overturn of Liviu Dragnea from the position of president of the lower chamber of the Romanian parliament. This activity could probably be explained by the fact the europresidency puts certain limits on what is possible in Romanian politics.
Romanian and the europresidency
In the beginning of the year the president of the EC Jean-Claude Juncker and the prime minister Dancila spoke about "unity". The same word was a key word during the discourses of the European and Romanian leaders at the official opening of the presidency on 10 January in Bucharest. Obviously, the EU exerts pressure so that the Romanian presidency passes without political turmoil, which could create difficulties for the functioning of the union. However, it is not sure whether the contradictions of the Romanian internal politics will be able to unfold at a slower motion in the following months. The time is running for the government and for Liviu Dragnea. If they want to continue to rule, they will have to realise their interests in justice, in economy and in other spheres. But whenever they try to protect their concrete interest, they provoke European reaction.
In this context it is noticeable that in Romania one can hear more often the opinion that the presidency is a simple technical activity, that it realizes the will of the Europeans and not of Romanians. In Bulgaria the Bulgarian europresidency was reflected abundantly in media and created the feeling among the people that our country has European mission. Now, as the Romanian europresidency begins, it looks like our expectation for an European mission enters into a new stage – in Bulgarian media Romanians are seen through the prism of Bulgarians' self-confidence of successful EU presidents and through skeptical West-European eyes.
If commentators and experts were taking into consideration the local context, they would have noticed that the bastion of the europeism in South-East Europe – Bulgaria, failed with the introduction of the system for electronic vignettes (the Romanian system for electronic vignettes is introduced in 2010 and costs around 8 million euro without VAT, while the Bulgarian one has a price of 92 million euro). Some rushed to announce that they "don't believe" the Romanian presidency will start and that "the EU will have to preside over itself". Perhaps we will finally notice that neither Romanians were "students of excellence", as it used to be affirmed until recently, nor we are more successful than them. All the time the political and media winds have been blowing in one or another direction, while we simply distribute the messages of the mother ship, thinking that something happens or changes.
What will happen, when tomorrow the formula of governance in Bruxelles or Sofia changes? Life starts there, where the myths end.
Read in Romanian language!
Read in Bulgarian language!
Analiză - Анализ - Analysis, Baricada - Барикада, București - Букурещ - Bucharest, Economie politică - Политикономия - Political economy, English, Lupta împotriva corupției - Борбата с корупцията - Anti-corruption, Opinii - Мнения - Opinions, Politica internațională - Международна политика - International Politics, Relații româno-bulgare - Румъно-български отношения - Romanian-Bulgarian relations, Sofia - София
Bulgaria, confrontation, EU, media, Romanian presidency
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David Lehmann is a founding member of Geller & Lehmann, LLC, a partner in the CPA firm of Cooper & Lehmann, LLP, and a licensed CPA. David has served as an accountant, financial manager and advisor, and business advisor since 1989.
David graduated from Yeshiva University in 1988 with a BA; received his Certificate in Accounting from the University of Baltimore in 1992; and got his CPA license from the State of Maryland in 1993. After beginning his career in finance at a hi-tech startup in Silicon Valley, David relocated to the mid-Atlantic region to focus on accounting, tax, and business advisement. David's passion for tax and financial planning grew during his time at Ernst & Young and other local accounting firms. Since 1996, David has provided extensive tax and financial guidance to multi-generational family clients, as well as overseeing the real estate management of many clients' holdings. David is involved in all aspects of financial planning for Geller & Lehmann LLC's clients, working hand in hand with Sandi Geller on each issue.
David is involved in community organization boards and lives in Baltimore, MD with his wife, Pam, and four children.


With a fitness centre and a sauna, the Pelopas Resort Apartments offers 5-star luxury in the heart of Tigkaki.
The Pelopas Resort Apartments has multiple facilities including a sun tanning bed, family rooms and a kids pool. The resort also provides a 24 hour reception, meeting rooms and a playground. Bicycle hire is also on offer to discover the local area.
The Pelopas Resort Apartments has 55 spacious rooms.
Kos Island International Airport is under a 20-minute drive from the Pelopas Resort Apartments. Kardamaina and Kos are both an easy drive from the resort.


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Q: Problem with printing from 2 processes simultaneous i have 2 processes that each run his threads and there are prints that happens simultaneously and run each other.
how can i protect the prints that only when one is done the other will begin? is there some way to send mutex between two processes?

A: try using OpenMutex function:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/synchapi/nf-synchapi-openmutexw
you can create the Mutex in the main process
and open the mutex in the sub process

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


On most crash test days at the Institute's Vehicle Research Center, a car or SUV races toward a deformable or rigid barrier in a frontal crash. Recently, though, a Vanguard trailer hitched to a parked rig was the target. A 2010 Chevrolet Malibu hurtled toward the trailer at 35 mph, smashing into the outer half of the trailer's rear underride guard.
Evaluating the Malibu's crashworthiness wasn't the goal of the test. Instead, the trailer's steel underride guard was the focus.
When the test was over, the Malibu ended up behind the trailer — not crushed beneath it — because the Vanguard's underride guard held up. That's important because serious injuries and death can occur if a passenger vehicle slides underneath a higher-riding large truck. The Vanguard's underride guard stopped the oncoming Malibu, preserving survival space for the test dummy in the driver's seat of the car and preventing the dummy's head from contacting the rear of the trailer itself. When that happens, injury measures taken from the dummy almost always indicate certain death for a person in a real crash.
"The Vanguard's underride guard performed great — a big improvement from our earlier tests," says Sean O'Malley, senior test coordinator for the Institute.
The test is part of an IIHS research program to spur better underride guards that won't buckle or break away when a trailer gets rear-ended by another vehicle. IIHS trailer crash tests have demonstrated that underride guards need to be stronger than current U.S. safety standards — and in some cases exceed tougher Canadian rules — in order to prevent underride in the kinds of crashes that happen on North American highways (see "Not good enough," March 14, 2013). U.S. regulators have signaled they are working on a new standard.
Vanguard National Trailer Corp. is among the manufacturers taking the Institute's findings to heart. The trailer's passing score is a big win for the Indiana-based company. Two earlier Vanguard models failed prior IIHS 50 percent overlap tests despite complying with U.S. and Canadian regulations.
In an initial test in 2010, the Malibu slid beneath the 2007 model Vanguard trailer as bolts on the rear guard broke and the guard tore off the trailer. The result was moderate underride at 25 mph and severe underride at 35 mph (see "Crash tests demonstrate the need for new underride guard standards," March 1, 2011).
Vanguard made improvements and requested a second test. When the Institute put the updated 2013 model through another 50 percent overlap test in 2012, the underride guard failed again. The guard's vertical support broke off the trailer on impact, just as it did in the earlier test (see "Not good enough," March 14, 2013). The Vanguard was the only trailer of the eight the Institute tested to fail the 50 percent overlap test. Because it failed, the trailer didn't advance to the next round of 30 percent overlap testing. Only one trailer, a model from Manac, has passed that test so far.
"The Vanguard team is pleased to see a positive result from the recent IIHS test of a new Vanguard rear-impact guard design," says Charlie Mudd, president of Vanguard National Trailer Corp. "We are always interested in reviewing safety-related options."
This isn't the first time IIHS has evaluated an improved design. Hyundai Translead is another manufacturer that made design changes to a trailer and underride guard after at first failing a full-width IIHS crash test in 2010. Two years later the upgraded model built to the tougher Canadian standard passed both the full-width and 50 percent overlap tests. Other manufacturers are working on design improvements to their dry van trailers in response to IIHS evaluations and are expected to request retests.
Two prior generations of Vanguard trailers (2007 and 2013 models) failed the Institute's 50 percent overlap evaluation. Vanguard redesigned the trailer for 2015, and it passed. This time, the underride guard successfully stopped the Malibu from sliding beneath the trailer.


Of all the people I have profiled there are a select few I would class as "heroes." Bridgebuilder Toni Ruttimann is at the very top of that list. After traveling through Cambodia and Laos with him and seeing him in action, I now know what the real meaning of "hero" is.


Miranda set to join Chelsea?
Arturo Vidal completes Man Utd medical?
Arsenal to sign Man City defender?
Morgan Schneiderlin closing in on Arsenal switch?
Everton sign Lukaku from Chelsea?
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Liverpool to continue So'ton raid with star signing?
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Man Utd to make stunning move for Barca Superstar?
Joel Campbell to swap Arsenal for AC Milan?
Man Utd flop heading to Napoli?
Liverpool eyeing swoop for star striker?
Tottenham to sign Miguel Lopes?
Hull City agree deal for Carl Jenkinson?
Arsenal defender Jenkinson to join Hull City on loan?
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Tottenham table bid for Douglas Costa?
Chelsea to join pursuit for Liverpool target?
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Xavi leaving Barcelona for a move to the US?
Arsenal to seal deal for star defender?
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Hummels to Manchester United a done deal?
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Man Utd to launch £30m bid for Colombian winger?
Arsenal agree deal for Serie A star?
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James Rodriguez to move to Madrid?
Crystal Palace to sign Holtby?
Arsenal's bid for Carvalho rejected?
Arsenal to announce Sami Khedira signing?
QPR in loan bid for Tim Cahill?
David Ospina to make Valencia move?
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Liverpool to sign Belgian Zakaria?
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Tottenham Hotspur flop heading to Inter?
AC Milan to tempt Nani away from Manchester United?
Kolo Toure to swap Liverpool for Turkey move?
James Rodriguez to sign for Real Madrid?
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Wesley Sneijder set for Monaco transfer?
Ferdinand to QPR a done deal?
Yaya Toure heading to Real Madrid?
Ben Davies to Manchester United?
Antonio Rudiger to sign for West Ham?
Dynamo Moscow to bid for Wilfried Zaha?
Man Utd to sign Arturo Vidal ?
Toni Kroos to Madrid almost completed?
Mehdi Benatia to Bayern Munich?
Danny Welbeck to Real Madrid?
Lukas Podolski to swap Arsenal for FC Koln return?
Chelsea and Man Utd to make bid for Alex Song?
Bojan Krkic to make Stoke City loan transfer switch?
Everton to re-sign Lacina Traore?
Man Utd to seal deal for Angel di Maria ?
Mangala to Premier League this season?
Man Utd target Stefan De Vrij to join Lazio?
Stefan de Vrij to snub Man Utd for Lazio?
Khedira to Arsenal a done deal?
Southampton to bid for Fraser Forster?
Liverpool to bid for Antoine Griezmann?
Morata to agree Juventus move?
Nicklas Bendtner to join Aston Villa on a free?
Tottenham plan late bid for Belgium forward Divock Origi?
Enzo Perez to Manchester United?
Di Maria to Manchester United?
Luuk de Jong to PSV Eindhoven?
Alexis Sanchez to snub Arsenal for Juventus?
Lazar Markovic to Liverpool - bid accepted?
Crystal Palace to move for Cedric Bakambu?
Newcastle to bolster defence with Micah Richards move?
Manchester United to exchange Kagawa for Hummels?
Wilfried Zaha to Newcastle United?
Algerian star Slimani to Crystal Palace?
Everton to re-sign Jack Rodwell?
Liverpool to loan Divock Origi back to Lille?
Victor Moses to join QPR?
Clement Grenier ready to quit Lyon?
Arsenal and Southampton to bid for Colombian Armero?
Ashley Cole to move to AS Roma?
Manchester United agree deal for Arturo Vidal?
Enner Valencia to West Ham United?
Former Gunner to join Stoke City?
Patrice Evra to sign for Juventus?
Arsenal set to sign So'ton duo?
Micah Richards to join Newcastle?
Pepe Reina to return to Liverpool?
William Carvalho to Manchester United?
Chelsea close to Tiago Mendes capture?
Toni Kroos-ing to Real Madrid?
Kurt Zouma to leave Chelsea on loan for former club?
Marouane Fellaini heading for Man Utd exit door?
Liverpool eye Mario Balotelli as Luis Suarez replacement?
Manchester United to sign Juan Cuadrado?
Morgan Schneiderlin open to Arsenal switch?
Michu to make move to Atletico Madrid?
Arsenal to bid for Sanchez?
What was the killer blow for England in the Group of Death?
Barcelona decide to keep club legend Xavi?


Wondering how the insides of the Audi R8 V10 Plus look like? Get a tour of this car with the 360° degree view of the interior. Enjoy a lifelike view of the interior design of this car. Check out how the manufacturer has utilized the space and how spacious the legroom as well as the headroom are. Get a feel of the quality of the material used and see how the dashboard looks like. Check AC vents, infotainment system and other utility equipment on offer. See if the car offers steering-mounted controls. In a nutshell, this 360° degree interior view walks you through the inside of Audi R8 V10 Plus. Click anywhere on the image and drag it to the left and right to rotate. Zoom to enlarge the view!
Audi R8 V10 Plus is a powerful-looking sports car that is equipped with top-of-the-line comfort and safety features. The car is big in size and is designed in a way to project power and style. It has two doors and can seat two people comfortably. A capable 5204 cc petrol engine powers this sports car. Audi R8 V10 Plus colours include shades of Panther Black, Ibis White, Brilliant Red, Ice Silver Metallic, SuzukaGrey Metallic, Sepang Blue Pearl Effect, Teak brown Metallic, Samoa Orange, Estoril Blue Crysta and Daytona Grey Pearl Effect. Audi R8 V10 Plus price is quoted around Rs. 2.5 crore (Ex-showroom, New Delhi).
Audi R8 V10 Plus images shows a well-sculpted body with an overall length of 4440 mm, breadth of 2029 mm and height of 1252 mm. The car's wheelbase is 2650 mm, ground clearance is 110 mm and kerb weight is 1670 kg. It has a huge chrome-meshed engine grill to cool its powerful engine. The engine grill is flanked by clear lens headlamp cluster. The body-coloured front bumper is redesigned and houses two big air sockets to dry the brakes quickly. The bonnet has a sloping design with character lines. The big tinted windshield with rain-sensing wipers gives it a very determined look. The dynamically-curved body distinguishes the side profile of this car with side wings, giving it a unique look. The rear profile of this car has a very determined look, and houses LED tail lamp cluster and a sleek designed tailgate opener.
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All Audi R8 V10 Plus reviews by experts' state the fact that it has a powerful 5.2-litre 601.4bhp 40V Petrol Engine that gets an all-wheel drive system. This 5.2-litre petrol motor has 10 cylinders that are integrated with 40 valves. It comes with a total displacement capacity of 5204 cc. It churns out 601.4 bhp at 8250 rpm and yields torque of 560 Nm at 6500 rpm. The power train is coupled to a 7-speed automatic sport transmission gearbox that drives power to all its wheels.
Audi R8 V10 Plus Mileage according to the ARAI standard is 7.75 kmpl.
Audi R8 V10 Plus specifications include powerful ventilated disc brakes for all the tyres with ABS, EBD and brake assist, eight airbags, three-point seat belts with front pyrotechnic belt tensioners and force limiters, cornering brake control, dynamic stability as well as traction control, ISOFIX child seat mounting, run flat indicator, emergency spare wheel, and side impact protection, among a host of others.
The powerful 5204 cc mill, along with the 7-speed transmission gearbox, gives this sports car enormous power that allows it to reach its top speed of 205 kmph in no time. The pickup is also smooth and crosses 100 kmph from standstill in just 3.2 seconds. For a bump-free ride, it has an advanced double wishbone suspension system that keeps the car running smoothly even on uneven roads.
This car is made for the sports enthusiasts who have money to burn and want the best in life.


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If you're looking at a Continental tourer on a British dealer forecourt, it's a fairly safe bet that it's a caravan from the Adria stable.
The Slovenian firm's ranges have been available in the UK since 1971, making it the longest-serving imported brand on the British market.
And if you are scouring the used caravans for sale pages, today they can make great secondhand buys.
The Adora is Adria's mid-market line, a step up from the value-for-money Altea.
Launched in 2004, it quickly proved a success, offering mainly four-berth layouts – though a two-berth was introduced to a lukewarm reception for 2015.
By 2010, the Adora range had matured into a line-up of four layouts, all featuring fixed beds.
The Adora also sported a decent specification, with an Al-Ko chassis and tough body construction using a polyester exterior finish.
So do these Adoras live up to their reputation of being reliable tourers?
Popular caravans for sale when new – and today!
The Adora took off from its very first year in 2004, offering UK buyers a generous specification including a full oven and an AKS hitch stabiliser, though alloy wheels were not yet standard-fit.
As with all Adrias, there was no TV aerial fitted from the factory, but wiring was in place for owners to easily fit a sound system.
For 2010, new lighting was added along with flashier graphics, a redesigned kitchen and a larger entrance door.
The 612DP model, featured here, was launched for the 2009 model year.
It featured a front lounge with wraparound seating – so there's a small fold-up table in place of the traditional chest of drawers up front.
The kitchen is central and on the nearside, next to the entrance door, while opposite you'll find a side dresser with a dedicated TV point, plus the washroom behind, before you walk through to the rear master bedroom.
The in-line island bed is placed on the rear wall, with a good walkway around each side.
Our chosen 612DP came fitted with the standard soft furnishings, plus a gas barbecue point and a TV aerial that had been retrofitted by the previous owner.
The featured Adria Adora 612DP was up for a tempting £9950, which seems to be bang on the money for this model – though we did spot one example being offered for £10,495.
You might pick up a 542DL for around £500 less, whereas the 612DT and 643UP start from £10,995, with top examples falling just short of £12k.
How about a 2013 Elddis Affinity 550?
It is another cracking tourer with virtually the same layout, at £14,995.
Or a 2012 Swift Challenger 580?
This features the same layout, but it is newer and classier. Expect to pay £15,295.
Adria Adoras offer great value as used caravans for sale, and this 612DP is spacious with an extra-large double bed.
You won't get quite the same spec as in a UK tourer, but all the essentials are here, including blown-air heating.
There are plenty of mains sockets and owners report that Adria caravans take wear-and-tear in their stride.
Solid and durable, the Adora offers a tempting alternative to a British brand.


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Carlos Hernandez Midfielder, Wellington Phoenix
Carlos Hernandez, born April 9, 1982, is a 40-year old football player from Costa Rica who most recently played for Wellington Phoenix in the Australian A-League Men's competition. Hernandez is 177 cm tall and plays as a Midfielder. More information at Wikipedia »
Total: 142 129 11,054 43 43 18 2
Sun 13/10/2013 1 Brisbane Roar(H)
Sun 20/10/2013 2 Western Sydney Wanderers(A)
Sun 27/10/2013 3 Newcastle Jets(H)
Mon 04/11/2013 4 Melbourne Victory(A)
Sat 09/11/2013 5 Perth Glory(H)
Sat 23/11/2013 7 Sydney FC(A)
Sun 01/12/2013 8 Western Sydney Wanderers(H)
Sat 14/12/2013 10 Brisbane Roar(H)
Sun 22/12/2013 11 Sydney FC(H)
Fri 27/12/2013 12 Melbourne Heart(A)
Sun 12/01/2014 14 Central Coast Mariners(H)
Sat 18/01/2014 15 Melbourne Victory(H)
Sat 01/02/2014 17 Adelaide United(H)
Sun 09/02/2014 18 Newcastle Jets(A)
Sun 16/02/2014 19 Melbourne Heart(H)
Fri 21/02/2014 20 Central Coast Mariners(A)
Sun 30/03/2014 25 Adelaide United(H)
Sun 06/04/2014 26 Sydney FC(A)
CBus Super Stadium


Over 200 revision cards for the AQA GCSE exam. There are cards for the complete topics of Tourism, Changing Urban Environments, Globalisation, Water on Land, Restless Earth and Living World. The cards have been divided into topics with case studies clearly marked in red.


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How do we get more visibility into attacks across our environments, improve our response, and reduce response time? SANS Analyst, James Tarala, provides insight on the solution by automating functions that should be automated and connecting the dots between detection systems and response. Connecting these dots and applying intelligence provides responders rich context into the observed behaviors for taking action. Integrating these processes improves accuracy, while reducing time, manpower, and costs involved in detecting and managing events. This white paper explores how to achieve this.
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Service and Signposting Guide
In March 2020, when the first national lockdown in England first came into force, IMHN built this web-based guide containing signposting information and sharing changes to normal operations in mental health services brought about by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. We are in the process of updating this guide to reflect changes to local support during the third lockdown, starting in January 2021.
IMHN has also produced, posted, and distributed a signposting leaflet across the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire areas. Click here for more details.
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Do you work in tech and have to deal with pesky business analysts or project managers? Are you a project manager and have to deal with flakey development and testing estimates? Have you spent months working on a specification document only to spend more time arguing with everyone else? Worry not, there is an answer.
I suggest trying an impact map.
OK you may say, but I have already written a spec doc, is this not a waste of time? Well let me ask, who you are sending this spec doc to? Is it hitting the head of dev and possibly the head of test? Whats the usual plan after that? The head of dev allocates it to a dev team and they start writing code. At the same time the head of test allocates it to a test team and they start writing tests? This is the usual working way. But the main problem I have with all this, isnt really the handovers, or the time delay, or the confusion in requirements, it is, where is the customers needs in all this?
OK the argument could be that the needs are outlined in the spec doc, possibly in the inital page. But the more hands the doc goes through the more complexity gets added and the further away we are from getting the customer their needs.
So how can an impact map help?
Well the start of the impact map is the goal. The goal is a small simple outline of what the customer needs. Non techincal just a simple problem. It easily answers the question, why are we doing this? If any of the impacts or deliverables dont feed back to that goal, then are they really needed? Probably not, so why waste time developing, testing and building them?
Next we outline who the customer actually is, the user of our system. Here we may actually find out we have multiple users. That's ok, once they all link back to our goal. Maybe the software we are building will have both internal and external uses, so we may have different requirements for each user.
This leads us nicely into part three of the impact map. The actual impacts. So what change can we make that will help our user achieve their goal? Don't think technically here. Instead of saying "add a button to a screen that allows the user to access the next page of the app", say "allow user to navigate the app". This means that instead of getting bogged down in technical details, we are just outlining the problem that needs to be solved. The details can come later. If there is still a spec doc somewhere, now you can get impacts from it. You may actually realise that some of the things that where in the doc don't tie back to the goal. Awesome, you have just removed waste.
Ok now you should have something that has a goal, a few actors and some impacts. Whats next? Well now we come up with deliverables.
This is where we can break down the impacts into smaller features or goals with customer value. The output of this could be epic stories. These can then be broken down into smaller stories. I suggest using specification by example to help break down these larger stories. Once you have smaller stories, you now have a backlog that your team can start working on.
Not only will this make sure every story you work on is adding value to your customer, it will also remove some other pesky problems with spec docs. There will be less misunderstanding over requirments, as everyone was in the impact mapping sessions and it's visable to all. Also instead of having to deliver everything at once, you can now just focus on areas which will add the most value to customers first, then add the rest later.
So hopefully next time you either get a giant spec doc, or have to write one, you could try using an impact map instead. I have used them to great value, and hope you will as well.
Further reading on impact mapping can be found here: https://www.impactmapping.org/.
What Is A Test Coach??
Recently I have tried to move into the realm of test coaching. It's an interesting field. Mostly cause nobody seems to have heard of the role.
I have had phone calls with recruiters looking for QA folk. They get in touch via LinkedIn mostly, and only one has ever asked me what a test coach was. I find it interesting that the people in charge of hiring QA's don't know what a test coach is, let alone does.
What I think most moving into the coach role do is just become a coach out of necessity. For example you are the only QA in the company, or there are not enough testers for the amount of work developers are churning out. So QA folk help teams to use collaborative techniques such as BDD and WIP limits. This of course introduces cool side effects like slack time, which testers can use to teach developers fun testing. I don't just mean manually running through acceptance criteria or test cases (these can with help of the developers, be automated). I mean fun techniques like exploratory testing, which can be a very rewarding activity.
Once the developers understand HOW we test, they can easily sub in for an over worked QA. This then frees up the QA to get into a more coaching role. If you are the only QA in a company, or maybe one of very few over multiple teams, you can start helping other teams. Get one team working well together and testing upfront, devs testing other devs work. This means you can jump team and do it again. To me this is the role of a test coach. Someone who can teach others to test and once done, they can leave the team to work without them.
OK so what happens if your company has too many QAs? Maybe there is a tester per developer. On paper this looks AWESOME, right? But what can happen is the wall between dev and test remains, and in fact is harder to smash as developers can think it doesn't matter how fast I get through work, there are LOADS of testers. But in reality even with more people trying to find problems, nothing beats helping to stop them from being started. So how can a coach help here? Well, the role of QA is quite quickly becoming, automation engineer. Which is cool, but in my opinion if you are writing code, you are a developer! A coach can enable automation engineers to become developers. They can do this using the above techniques and encouraging pairing.
I don't understand the point of having some folk writing test code, and others writing production code. Surely coding is coding, and if paired up with devs, testers can become devs quite quickly. So now we have not just a multifunctional team, but multifunctional people.
Doing this you may hear something to this effect, "testers and developers are DIFFERENT people, they THINK different, testers will NEVER be able to code, and developers will NEVER want to test". I believe this to be totally untrue.
In fact most software testers have a computer science degree and did not have a clue what a QA was until one day they got a job as one. When you do hear something like that, just ask to trial paring for a few weeks, and see if the team learn anything. What I have found enabling pairing, is a happier team. Yes, you get greater quality, but you also get testers who thrive as developers, and stop feeling like second class citizens to the teams developers.
Once you have coached your way through the teams, what next? You can start looking for waste in other places. Maybe security reviews are taking too long, or releases are difficult. Can you as a test coach help there? Of course you can.
This is what test coaching means to me, but it seems to be quite a new concept in terms of companies. What does it mean to you? How can we help more companies to see the value of a coach, and not just a box ticking QA?
So at this point your team has started using WIP limits and BDD.
Does your team now have a surplus of one role, maybe there are 2 or 3 testers who are not covered in you WIP limits as they are not developers.
Maybe its time to evolve a little and try blur some of the roles, or how about experimenting with your WIP limits?
Let's talk through these two ideas.
In an earlier blog I talked about having WIP limits set to the number of developers in the team. So when a story is in test the developer is in slack time.
This is where we can start blurring the roles a little bit. Personally I like to invite the developer to test along with me. If our examples have already been automated then we don't have to worry about testing them. Now we get to do some fun creative exploratory testing, this is great as a paired activity. Once developers see how you are thinking, they can then start doing it themselves.
For exploratory testing I tend to think of the least technical person I know and pretend to be them using the system. This is my dad (sorry dad). He has managed to find the most interesting bugs and get the best viruses over the years, and his answer is always the best for a tester, "Ohh yea I clicked on that cause I could". If your system has a flaw no matter how small or silly you think it is, a user WILL FIND IT.
But pairing works both ways. After the 3 amigos session when a tester is in slack time, why not pair up with the developers. You could start doing a joint TDD exercise. The tester writes the tests and the developer writes the code to make the tests pass.
Eventually you could swap that up completely and have the developer write the tests and the tester write the code. You will have a true multi-functional team, where everyone can do everything.
So how does experimenting with your WIP limit work?
Well how about decreasing it. So if you have 4 developers, make the WIP limit 3. This frees up a developer to help the team. This means someone is always free to jump on code reviews, or to do some of that tech debt you can never find the time to get to. You can swap up that developer each story. It also encourages more pairing, as two developers can work together on a story.
If you have any suggestions, or have run some experiments on your teams let me know.
This blew my mind. The last company I was in, all my one to ones had been micromanaging sessions telling me I wasn't doing my job well enough. All that did was ruin my already low self esteem as I was fresh out of college and to be honest terrified. One simple question changed all that, how can I help you today?
Instead of telling me what I was doing wrong, he told me what I was doing well. Then said maybe you should improve in X area. Then recommended a book for me to read, and booked me in on some training in that area. So when we caught up the next month, I was able to show what I had learnt and how I was able to improve my work. Also because I was totally disarmed and not afraid, I was perfectly willing to approach him with any problem I had.
He also taught me how to self learn. He did this by introducing me to the wider testing community and brought me to a conference. It was here I learnt that it's not just the companies job to train you, you need to train yourself. So I started reading blog posts and attending meetups, and looking for new ways to improve and new things to try. This all started with that one little question and a genuine interest into my personal growth.
It also made me realise that junior folk will not know this. They have to be taught how to self learn. It is important as it not only helps the company but builds up the person's self esteem. Instead of making me feel bad and dread a catch up meeting, I looked forward to them. It made me enjoy my work, which is super important. Your job should be fun for you.
It reminded me of something my granddad used to say when he rang me, "are you wanting for anything?" It was not do you need something, but, what do you want and how can I get it for you? It was a level of kindness that everyone should strive for.
"Be more kind, my friends, try to be more kind".
A family friend of mine used to be a serious hoarder. I mean TV show worthy level hoarding. I was once asked to go help her clean her house, so she could move.
Every single room in the house was packed. There where maybe two seats that where not covered in books, magazines, news papers, hats, coats, shoes, if you can think of it, it was probably somewhere in that house.
My dad rented a skip and we set about removing the junk. Our friend usually had to be removed from the scene as she had a habit of picking stuff out of the skip and bringing it back into the house. She thought that one day she might need it. Thankfully after a few weeks the house was fully cleaned out and our friend was able to sell it and move.
This story popped into my head when thinking about old tech debt and bugs every company seems to manage to build up.
Why do we keep them? Ever go through those still open bugs and stories? How old are they?
If its 2 years old, why is it still there? Cluttering up backlogs and making it more confusing to see what real work needs doing?
How can we class it as a bug, if its out in production for years and nobody complained about it? Maybe fixing It could even ruin our current customer experience.
I once went to a talk where the subject of old bugs came up. This company went about closing all their open bugs, this managed to upset their customers. It seems that since the bugs had been in production for several years they where actually being used as either features or work arounds had been build and now stopped working. So fixing an old bug had actually changed how the customers where using the software, hilarious.
Are we just like my friend holding on to these stories and bugs thinking one day we will need them? Clear out the clutter, ask yourself this question: Is this stuff adding any value?
If the answer is no, DELETE IT!!!
If it's really important it will come up again, but I'm sure if nobody has looked at it in a year or two it wasn't very important anyway. Now you can focus on a cleaner backlog with stories that will actually add some value and make some customers happy.
Recently I have been listening to a podcast by Blindboy Boatclub of the the Rubberbandits. For anyone who doesn't know them, they are an Irish rap duo famous for wearing plastic bags on their heads and singing songs about owning horses.
Blindboy has recently become famous for his views on psychology and politics. He will show up on various Irish talk shows wearing his bag and discussing issues with politicians on various subjects, mostly about the state of male mental health in Ireland.
If you don't know him I highly recommend you check him out. His podcast is a wonderful listen and makes my Wednesday commute to work a delight.
Recently he was talking about something that made me think. He was talking about Plato and his allegory of the cave.
Imagine a cave where people have been imprisoned from birth. They are chained in such a way that they can't move their heads and can only look at a wall in front of them. Behind the prisoners is a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a walkway with a low wall. People can walk behind the wall hold puppets up above it so the puppets cast a shadow onto the wall in front of the prisoners. The prisoners can only see the shadows in front of them and are not aware of what is happening behind them. The sounds of the people behind them echo off the walls in such a way that the prisoners think that the shadows in front of them are talking.
All these prisoners know is what they see in front of them. If they see a shadow of a book, they fully believe thats what a book looks like and their whole world is just 2d images. In reality of course a book is a 3d object, but they have never seen anything else so have no idea.
If we stop here for a moment, we could relate this to teams working in isolation. Now I think everyone realises at this point that its good to have multifunctional teams working together, testers, developers and BAs all work together for a common goal. But what can then happen is the team becomes the prisoners. Yes they are all working for a common goal, but they don't know what the goal is, or why they are working on it. Their reality is just what they see and they may be afraid to question this. Or worse they may not know they can question it, thus working on something with zero value.
But fear not Plato goes on to give us some hope. One of the prisoners escapes. That freed prisoner goes on to discover the truth about reality outside the cave. This however takes time and is painful as he has to relearn everything about his world. Eventually the prisoner goes back to the others to explain to them about reality. The bad news is it on his return to the cave to help free his fellow prisoners, they refuse to believe him.
This could be where you fit in. Maybe you are on a team much like our imprisoned cave dwellers. You could start to question your work and your teams goals. Much like the freed prisoners journey, this might prove to be difficult at first. You may have to learn some new skills, also your team mates might not believe you at first.
Unlike the cave prisoners though, you can help show how putting value first will help your team. You could even start this be sharing what your team works on with other teams. Maybe organise a showcase weekly or monthly, for a member of each team to share their work. This will allow everyone to have a better understanding of what each team does. Also make sure your team has a very clear goal that will make the company some money when complete.
There are loads of things that can be done to help find value in our work. Let me know how you get on trying some, or even some interesting ideas you might have.
How many retros are you involved in?
Usually a lot right? Most teams have one at least every two weeks.
What usually happens? Do you do the usual stop, start, continue?
Do you come out of your retros feeling uplifting and motivated to get some cool new stuff done?
I never used to, the retro used to be a thing that I hate, "ohh this shite again, there goes another hour of my life".
Turns out my attitude was horrific, I had become an agile beatnik.
Now what is an agile beatnik you may ask?
It is basically Ned Flanders parents from the Simpsons, remember them? If not see the picture below.
They where awful parents, "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas". That was me in retros. I was just complaining and not trying anything to fix problems. What used to happen after a retro, I would continue working the exact same way making the exact same mistakes and complaining about the exact same things in the next retro.
What was I doing wrong here? I was trying NOTHING new. Trying literally anything to fix the problems is better than just complaining.
So what can you do? Well have a think about your retro before hand. Write down all the stuff you want to complain about, and give it a google. You will be surprised that your problems are probably not unique. You may find some cool ideas to fix the problems, jot them down.
Now when you head into the retro stick up your problems, once they are up for discussion you can bring up some sample solutions. Now the fun begins, you get to suggest trialing something new for a few weeks. I suggest making one maybe two small changes and seeing what happens. Making too many changes can cloud the outcome. You wont be able to tell what worked and what didn't, and this can very easily lead you back down the same old path. After you have decided the change to make as a team, try it as an experiment for a few weeks, at least until the next retro.
Now you are in a much better position. Make sure to keep an eye on the problem you are trying to solve with your new experiment. Also don't get discouraged if your experiment fails, this is normal, learn why it didn't work and change it. The important thing is you are trying something.
So try something, try anything, but don't sit around and say you are all out of ideas when you have tried nothing.
Let me know how your experiments get on.
Story points, everybody's favorite scrum activity. I understand they are meant to be used to help size stories. What usually happens is they are used to determine a team's velocity.
A sprint goal suddenly becomes lets get 20 story points done this sprint, not let's deliver stories that have business value.
Also what happens to unknown work that ends up needing to be done, but wasn't pointed? Well it still has to be done, but if you are judging a team on only story points, then they won't get any credit for it. So maybe the team failed the sprint goal as they only got 10 points done, but in reality 10 stories only 2 of which had been pointed. Those 8 stories were totally unexpected work, we all know that happens from time to time.
So the standard system seems to be, backlog grooming in which planning poker happens, and stories all get sized by a guess.
A sprint is then planned on how many story points we can do. Where this falls apart is it is nearly impossible to guess how long a story will take from just reading some acceptance criteria.
So what's my solution? Well in the past I have talked about specification by example as a means to split stories, but where does this fit in a Scrum world?
Well how about in your backlog grooming sessions, instead of just reading the acceptance criteria and voting, use examples.
By using examples here, we can usually see how big or small a story is, the idea being to get a story done in close to a week. So the rule of thumb is usually 4 or 5 examples per story.
Maybe you get a story that has 10 examples, well we can split it here. Now we have two stories in the backlog ready to go. If for some reason some managers still need story points, grand we can just make sure all stories are roughly the same size. If each story has roughly 4 examples then pick your favorite number, 3 for example. All stories are then 3 or smaller.
The idea being to focus on delivering the value of story and not wasting time trying to guess points. Adding up the amount of time spent guessing these numbers will show you how much time we are wasting on this exercise. It reminded me of this Dilbert cartoon.
Eventually your team will get really really good at sizing stories using examples and since all the stories are 3 points anyway, points will fall away.
In a previous blog I talked about the three amigos and discuss and distill. This is basically moving the discuss part of the 3 amigos into backlog grooming to help split stories. You can still keep the 3 amigos lanes on your board, as we can still use the examples as test cases, and here we can double check and make sure everyone understands everything before starting work.
OK you might ask me, well how do I measure my team's velocity? Well you can measure the cycle time to done.
Say a new feature has 10 stories in it, and these ten stories have been groomed using specification by example. We can then say that each story should roughly take a week. Then the feature will be ready to go in roughly 10 weeks.
By getting better at our story sizing (which happens with practice) we can become predictable instead of trying to guess how long something will take.
Firstly I must apologize for the lack of attention this blog has been getting recently. It has been a busy few months for me.
Secondly this post is yet again not going to be BDD part 3. I recently went to the Dublin agile tour, and have to share my notes. As always it was a brilliant day, with loads to be learnt, and a great after session which left me feeling a little sore the next day.
Colm started the day by talking about how agile can lead to teams innovating. He said that every line of code we write represents cost, and the traditional development view is to do everything the same way every time. This may work for cakes, but we are not baking cakes, we are actually making recipes. So why would you make the same recipe over and over?
What we need to start doing is ship less code that delivers more value. So how do we do this? Well Colm suggests we change our way of working. Focus on maximising the value delivered not just on shipping code.
Innovation is about learning fast. So we need to create an environment where we are able to learn fast. Colm explained that waterfall is a bad environment to learn in, as we only learn at the end. Agile works well as it is all about learning. We try to figure out the problem via user stories and reviewing them. We create solutions to try and fix the problem. We use tools like the three amigos to create the best solution. Then finally we implement and deliver the problem fix. We do this in small increments and thus gaining fast feedback.
Knowledge is validated learning, so we need to try something to see if it is true. Fast feedback is so important as we need feedback to prove our ideas. If you want to learn a lot, do something that has a 50 percent chance of failing. We need to create a common goal for the team. Have everyone working on the same problem, not just ba first, dev in the middle and test at the end. We need to have rules set in place to show how we are going to work together, what is the team's definition of done?
Innovation will happen when we learn by doing something, and then change what doesnt work. We need to create an environment of creative chaos, agile and scrum support these environments. You need something that challenges people, but doesn't overwhelm them. For an innovative environment people should have more information than they need. To create a new idea, you need to have knowledge to combine. If you starve yourself from good information you are restricting yourself from innovation. Our teams need to have trust, the more trust the more we will share information.
Fran started out by saying Scrum is the dominant agile framework. So he would like to share with us 7 sins he has seen to help improve our agility.
Sin 1: Taking our eyes off culture.
Agile is about people, and people tend to resist change. So we need to embrace people. Don't be tied to a plan, we need to embrace change and follow people. Don't use contracts as a stick to beat people with. It is not simply, we do standups we are now agile. We need to get senior management buy in. Success is more much likely if we align with our stakeholders. If the people doing the work don't buy into it, it won't work. You will get a blame culture, the testers blame the devs, the devs blame the testers, etc. So we need to hire staff who enjoy working in an agile environment, does HR know this? Are they training staff, and looking for people with the correct skills?
It is all about people, remove fear and build trust. How you communicate change should take into account how it will affect people. You need to create a team culture. Encourage people to have a mix of roles, to be cross functional. The hardest part is getting people to work together.
Sin 2: Push versus Pull.
Only the team should pull the scope of the sprint. Not a PM or an SM, it's the team's job, the work should not be pushed on them. If you start to increase scope by pushing in work, you will cause problems. Technical debt will build up, people will start hiding work, quality will drop as people cut corners to get work done. Make sure to have a WIP limit, it's a pull system like Kanban.
Our planning either daily or sprint, should only be done by the team. Sometimes daily planning just becomes a status report. It should be a self organising team planning the day's work. Make sure the whole team is involved in sprint planning. It is not just planning, it is joint design so we need the whole team.
Our release planning needs to be light and adaptive. We need to have a test first approach. Don't call it a plan, it's not a set in stone commitment to deliver on X date, its an adaptive forecast. Try and figure out the biggest risks, focus on fixing them.
Sin 4: Product backlog refinement.
We need to make sure we have valuable items in our backlog. We need to have the whole team, otherwise we will need another meeting to explain everything to the team. We need to focus on story sizes. If the stories are too large we will end up with mini waterfalls.
Sin 5: Definition of done.
A lot of teams don't have one, or have one and ignore it. It should be ever changing. We should use retros as a place to change it. Ask how are things really going?
The definitions can be too vague, tests are passing, but what does that really mean? What tests? Does everyone on the team know what tests, and what passing means? We need to have transparency and trust. Do all the teams have one? Does our organisation have a standard, if so make sure it is not too descriptive. We want teams to be able to adapt and change the definition of done to suit their own needs.
We need early testing integration, this stops mini waterfalls. TDD is a big practice, early testing is good. We should have story level test practices. Test cases are only valuable if validated by the developer and business analyst. The devs can then write code to make those test cases pass. The worst thing is having test as a verify column, testing should be at the start and integrated.
Sin 7: Scrum master sins.
Scrum masters should be a team servant. They should not act like a team manager. Not focusing on teams culture is a big problem. Another problem is having a part time scrum master, this will damage a team. Also the scrum master needs to learn to use the power of a retro.
Vincent started with a question. What is the best thing we can get from a devops world? Speed. We can minimise the total time through the loop, thus we get faster feedback. We need to make sure what we want to deliver will help our users.
Why do we want to change how we work? We want to challenge business assumptions, we want to make sure what we are delivering will have value.
We need to create an intimacy between our users and our teams.
Tools like BDD can be used to capture the software's behavior. This creates a shared understanding of how the software works using examples. Everyone in the company should be able to understand these examples. Once the examples are automated they become a living document of how the software works.
But automation is expensive so do not fully rely on it. Use the testing pyramid, we should have more unit tests.
The next step is to write code to make all these tests pass, then to make the feature available. Roll out the feature once the implementation has been validated.
We want availabilty over pure correctness. We want the feature available for customers to play with.
We then iterate. Maybe the feature can be changed or removed? Back to step one we go, find the value of the feature.
What are the values to working in a testing driven devops world?
We get testing done up front, increasing the features value.
We can work incrementally and focus on the customer's needs first.
We now have an environment which allows for experiments and new learning.
What were the problems that made us want to change?
Scrum was just focused on keeping people busy. The delivery of work was very unpredictable. Tester were under serious pressure. Two weeks of work had to be tested in 2 days and the end of a sprint. We were doing loads of things, but nobody could tell if any of them were valuable. We had scrum processes in place, but none of the them were giving any value.
So what did we do to change this?
We created a plane to change things. We did a lot of training. We brought in outside coaching to get teams up to speed. To create a sustainable organisation we needed to make a deep change. Everybody had to understand what and why we were changing our process.
A big thing to watch, was trying to stop old bad habits from coming back. Make small incremental changes, don't change everything at once.
The first change they made. Create a board, make sure all the work is visualised. They learnt they were doing A LOT of work at the same time, and A LOT of it was bug fixing. There was too much work being done at the same time, way too much context switching.
So they stopped that, they added a WIP limit to the board. By limiting the work in progress they increased their flow. Eventually they noticed that sprints feel away, as by doing less work they were getting more done.
But some problems still showed up.
There was very little movement between lanes, devs did dev, qa did qa, there was little collaboration. So they created explicit lane policies, encouraging collaboration. Also they started gathering and using metrics, they became metrics driven. This allowed them to focus on different areas and use experiments to change things, using the metrics to see if the experiments worked.
Every team was different, so did not have to move at the same pace. That was a very important realisation.
Some other things that helped with move to Kanban. Playing games with the teams to highlight WIP limits and explain Kanban. They even hosted meetups including our own ministry of testing meetup (thanks again lads). This allowed the teams to share their discoveries with the outside world, and find out how other companies work.
Magda started by saying that all we want to do is deliver a product to our customers. But not just any product, something that they want to use. What tends to happen though is as our product evolves the customers use changes. So what does the customer need?
Everyone might think they know the answer to that, but will have different answers. So Magda says we need to discover what our product is before we start building it.
So how do we do this? Well we need to work with our customers. Figure out their needs, and we can find out how to solve them. Magda suggests there are four key steps: Discovery, design, development and deployment. If we miss one of these steps, the other steps get more complicated and wrong. We need to ask who our customers are, create personas to capture how they think and use our product. Figure out what attracts them to your company, and what makes them tick.
Magda suggests bringing in the whole company and creating a goal, create a high level concept design. Start by answering the questions, found in the below picture.
Make everything visual, humans like to see before we create. Create a hypothesis and test it. Make wire frames, these are light weight as most will probably be thrown away, but will get us started.
Magda suggests using impact mapping and story boarding to bring the project ideas to life. Impact mapping and design phases become much easier as the team has been involved in all the previous steps.
Magda recapped by saying we need to learn who our customers are, find out what they want, and test our ideas BEFORE we start to develop them.
Mary started out by playing a small game with us to teach attribution theory. She should a picture of a badly parked car, said it was our car, and asked why did we park so badly?
Everyone wrote their answers on post it notes and they were collected. The majority of the answers were external problems. Something made me late, somebody else parked badly etc etc. Mary then showed a similar picture and asked, someone else has parked like this, why did they do it?
After the post its were collected, we had a new set of answers. These were all blaming the other person, the person is lazy or stupid. Mary explained we describe behavior in two ways, internally and externally. Internally is for us and our friends. They did bad as something was out of their control, they are good people, they did not mean it. Externally is for people we do not know, they are stupid, probably bad people, therefore they did bad as they are idiots.
So, how does this affect our teams? Well if we don't know each other, we can tend to explain problems away externally. Those testers are idiots, those developers are idiots etc.
Marys answer is to get your teams collocated. We need to get everyone on the same page, if people are sitting together and working together, there is less of a chance to fall into us versus them.
Mary suggested making our lane policies explicit and making sure everyone on the team understands them, this will get everyone on the same page.
Everyone is coming to work to do a good job, so we need to make sure our team has an environment where they can collaborate, instead of blame.
After the talks I attended a KanBan pizza game. This allowed teams to learn the principles behind KanBan by making pizzas. Overall it was a fantastic day, I recommend everyone come along next year.


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Home COVID-19|Injections & Infusion The Three Most Common Blood-Borne Diseases and How to Avoid Them
COVID-19|Injections & Infusion
The Three Most Common Blood-Borne Diseases and How to Avoid Them
When blood or bodily fluids are contaminated, a bloodborne disease occurs. Infectious bloodborne diseases are spread and made deadly by bacteria, some non-living infectious agents, and parasites present in the blood. Because many healthcare workers draw blood or administer medications with syringes, they are more likely to contract bloodborne diseases. Infected blood may come into contact with the mucous membranes of a healthcare worker. We will examine the three most common bloodborne diseases that can pose a significant threat to healthcare practitioners and the precautions we can take to decrease our risk of acquiring these diseases.
Bloodborne Diseases are the Most Common
Bloodborne pathogens are numerous, but HIV, Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C are the most lethal and prevalent.
Blood is the main route by which HIV is transmitted. HIV can spread through unsterile needles, contaminated blood transfusions, and unprotected sex. While collecting blood samples, healthcare workers are more likely to be infected with HIV by needle stick injuries.
The Hepatitis B Virus
The Hepatitis B virus (HBV) causes hepatitis B infection. Symptoms of the infection can include jaundice, abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting. Cirrhosis (liver scarring) and liver cancer can also be caused by chronic Hepatitis B. Only vaccination is effective in preventing Hepatitis B.
The Hepatitis C Virus
Getting infected with the Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the main cause of Hepatitis C. The majority of Hepatitis C patients have no symptoms. However, chronic Hepatitis C can cause liver damage and eventually lead to liver cancer. Injecting drug users and those receiving blood transfusions with unscreened products are at the highest risk of contracting Hepatitis C. Hepatitis C cannot be cured. Still, drug treatment can improve liver function and the immune system's response.
What Causes Bloodborne Diseases?
Bloodborne pathogens are responsible for transmitting diseases that affect or affect the blood and other body fluids. In Dr. Doka's definition, pathogens are microorganisms that can cause disease by inhabiting the blood or other fluids of the body.
She noted that viruses and bacteria are most commonly the cause of bloodborne diseases.
How Are Bloodborne Diseases Spread?
Pathogens in the following areas are responsible for the transmission of bloodborne diseases:
Hemoglobin (Blood).
Platelets or fresh frozen plasma (note: due to screening, this is rare) are blood products.
Secretions in the vaginal canal.
The fluid, which surrounds the fetus.
A pleural fluid fills the chest cavity.
Fluid in the joints.
Hypodermic needle sharing.
In healthcare settings, needles or sharps can cause punctures.
Dr. Doka noted that while the most prevalent bloodborne diseases can be transmitted through contact with blood or bodily fluids, some viruses, bacteria, and parasites that may live in the blood and be transmitted through bodily fluids can also be transmitted through other modes:
Tick bites transmit Babesia.
Touching soft tissue wounds or surfaces that are contaminated can spread MRSA.
Mosquito bites transmit both Zika and malaria.
What are the Risks of Contracting a Bloodborne Disease?
The following groups of people are more likely to contract bloodborne pathogens than the general population:
In intravenous drug users, because contaminated needles can be shared.
People who engage in high-risk sexual behavior, such as sex workers or those involved with multiple partners.
Bloodborne diseases can be contracted by babies born to infected mothers in utero or during birth.
People with compromised immune systems, whether they are very young or very old, or who are taking immunosuppressive medications.
Anyone who has come into contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person through an open wound, a cut, or mucous membrane.
Those who are working in healthcare can get stuck with needles or sharps that have been contaminated.
Preventing Bloodborne Diseases in Healthcare Workers
Because of the occupational exposure health care workers experience, they are infected with approximately 26 different strains of viruses. A healthcare worker's mucous membranes, needlestick wounds, and a few other sharp injuries can easily let blood into the body. Generally, auto-disable syringes are recommended for workers and employers to minimize this risk. It has been widely acknowledged that auto-disable syringes are the safest syringes for use during mass vaccination programs by the World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners, most notably the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), International Federation of Red Cross, and Red Crescent Societies (IFRCS), and Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). A single-use of AD syringes eliminates any additional risk of infection or illness.
Medriva has established itself as a well-known name in the healthcare industry and is the largest manufacturers of AD syringes for the the developing world. MEDRIVA syringes, commonly sold under the brand name MEDVAC, have a self-locking mechanism, are sterile, and are non-toxic. Syringes include a break-off mechanism to ensure the safety of workers. Auto-disable mechanisms break the plunger automatically after use, eliminating the possibility of reuse and preventing the transmission of pathogens between patients and healthcare workers.
The View from our Perspective
The safety of employees is the main priority of healthcare organizations. Bloodborne diseases can be easily prevented by following a few safety measures, such as using antidote syringes and personal protective equipment (PPE) like gloves, gowns, and masks.
What Is The Omicron XE Variant And Why Are Scientists Concerned About Its Rapid Transmission Rate?


VISAKHAPATNAM: Projecting TDP supremo and AP chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu as a "national leader of importance" and keeping the debate on the alternate front prospects in the ensuing elections alive, West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee appealed to people of AP to elect TDP again to keep the duo of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah away from power.
"Who is Modi to ask about our Prime Minister candidate? We will decide who to elect our leader as there will be alternative for Modi," she pointed out.
Mamata said Naidu has done a lot for development of Andhra Pradesh. "It's a necessity for AP people to give the power to Naidu again as he will play a key role in national politics and show a path of development to the entire country," she added.
Addressing a public meeting convened by TDP on Sunday, Mamata said Naidu is the leader to take the country forward. "Like he has done in Andhra Pradesh, Naidu can do a lot in Delhi," she said.
She added that Modi failed to explain the Pulawama incident and the Rafale deal and spurned the demand for an all-party meeting on the issues. "The nation does not want leaders like Narendra Modi and Amit Shah," she asserted, and challenged Modi for an open debate on a national channel of his choice to discuss issues facing the country.


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Presidential polls in Chile: how credible are they?
If anything is a constant in Chilean presidential races, it's the polls that make headlines in the run up to the elections. Disregarded by those who dislike the outcome, embraced by those polling high. Experts are seriously questioning the methods used by some of the leading polls and criticize their lack of transparency.
At the end of each week, famous polls like Cadem and Pulso Ciudadano launch the results of their weekly surveys into the media. Those media, national and international, don't ask any questions about the surveys, so the people questioned and the methodologies used go unexplained, while the unvarnished results are "breaking news." It's a vicious cyle ahead of every election in Chile.
Just how credible are these polls? Why do they still get so much attention? And how much do they influence voters? Chile Today spoke with Marta Lagos (director of research organization MORI), Kenneth Bunker (founder of Tresquintos) and political scientist Claudio Fuentes to get some answers.
Cadem and its methodology
For Lagos, involved in Chile political polling ever since 1988, the main problem is the way surveys like Cadem operate. In their recent weekly polls, they use a group of 700 respondents. "You can't call Cadem an adequate instrument to measure someone's vote," Lagos says. "International studies demonstrate you need at least 1,000 respondents to get credible results. And that's the bare minimum. Also, their error margin is not according to standards. And we don't know how Cadem asks its questions. If you ask someone, 'Do you want world peace?', all say yes. So, you can influence results by asking questions a certain way."
Fact-checking system in next presidential debate
In the latest survey released by Cadem, 24 percent of the Chilean electorate would vote José Antonio Kast, while 19 percent would vote Gabriel Boric. Fuentes, professor at the Diego Portales University, refuses to say this outcome is false, but he does point to the limitations of a survey like Cadem's. "They don't publish their database. It has limitations to correctly interpret the results. They often point at people from the middle and upper middle classes, living in urban areas, interested in politics, so that also influences the results," he says.
Despite Cadem's shortcomings, national media report every week on the results of each Cadem survey. The way they do that is misleading, Lagos says. "They interpret the results of Cadem as an anticipation, as something that is about to happen, instead of a snapshot of earlier intentions. Surveys never anticipate. The results we read come from surveys performed five days before, while people's votes can change quite quickly," Lagos says.
It's not only media that are tied to the web of political surveys in Chile. In the case of Cadem, ties also run deep with the government. "There are few people in Chile who criticize the powerful model of Cadem," Lagos says. "They surveyed for Piñera when he ran for president, they get paid by La Moneda. And now they get free publicity with their political polls, which is just a side business for these companies. Newspapers cherry-pick when it comes to surveys, they choose which survey they report on, without questioning background or methodology used."
Who is Kast, the far-right frontrunner in Chile's presidential race?
Need for regularization
Bunker's website, Tresquintos, includes the results of all major political polls in Chile. He calls the surveys part of the electoral race, but emphasizes that he doesn't trust them. "I think the biggest problem of these surveys is that it is impossible to measure the public opinion of people in a country that moves politically so erratically. There is no instrument that can measure everything that is happening in Chile. It goes beyond a social or political crisis: there are also things changing in Chile, like the political parties, the electoral system. And candidates also change, in their programs for example. For any survey that is impossible to capture," Bunker says.
The whole sector of polling companies should be regularized, Bunker says. "I would suggest that all surveys in Chile have to comply with certain international standards to assure a better process. Right now, for example, we don't know who finances the surveys." Fuentes agrees. "The first thing has to do with transparency: surveys should start publishing their database, inform about their methodology used, everything should be public. The second thing has to do with the fact that in Chile, 15 days before the elections presidential surveys are prohibited. But still, private surveys are published, this must be better regularized. Maybe all surveys can get published until one week before the elections, but only those that comply with all standards."
Influence on votes
An important question is how influential these polls are when it comes to the vote of citizens. Do people change their vote when they see their candidate is losing according to surveys? All experts agree this influence is minimal. "People choose a candidate based on what happens in their environment. They long lost confidence in the ruling class. Many don't even vote," Lagos says.
Fuentes points to the outcome of this year's primaries as an example that polls don't influence that much. "The electoral results of the primaries don't coincide with the results from the polls. For example, everyone said Daniel Jadue would win the left-wing primary, but Gabriel Boric won. Same thing happened on the right-wing with Joaquín Lavín, who was favorite in all polls. In the end, Sebastián Sichel won."
Boris van der Spek
Editor-In-Chief Boris van der Spek is the founder of Chile Today. He worked in Colombia, Surinam and the Netherlands as reporter and works with international media during major events, like the social crisis, the elections and the Pope's visit.
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