Ash: 00:00

I'm not sure what's the intent of Slack to recreate Clippy.

Ian: 00:04

The most derided user interface thing in history.

Ash: 00:08

Yeah. It is a bit, isn't it? Kind of novel though when I first saw it. I was like, oh, look at this. I never used it.

Ash: 00:14

Just dismissed it. But I was like, oh, look at this.

Ian: 00:17

Yeah. It

Ash: 00:17

looks like you're writing a letter. Could be not.

Ian: 00:21

I liked all the spoofs. It looks like you're writing a proposal. Let me make up some numbers for you.

Ash: 00:27

Sounds like sounds like a proposal to me. Sounds like an estimate. Looks like you're writing an estimate.

Ian: 00:32

Yes. Would

Ash: 00:32

you like me to generate a random number for you? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Plus 10%, please.

Ian: 00:38

Yeah. Yeah. It's very important to have that 10% padding on the random number. Hello, Ash.

Ash: 00:46

Hello, Ian. How's it going?

Ian: 00:47

It's going very well. How about you?

Ash: 00:49

Yeah. Very good. Thank you.

Ian: 00:50

Excellent. And we're back for episode four. Four. Episode four. Nearly lost count there.

Ash: 01:00

And we have some great news as well. Oh. So after the last episode, when we talked about the four day week, it has now become official Labour Party policy.

Ian: 01:09

Because we're just that influential.

Ash: 01:11

Yeah. But design thinking, well, they haven't outwardly said that it's Labour Party policy, but it might be used within the Labour Party somewhere.

Ian: 01:19

That's true. Especially, when they're doing whatever they're gonna do to universal credit. Yeah. Hopefully, they're gonna do some design thinking.

Ash: 01:27

Design I'm thinking on that, hopefully.

Ian: 01:31

Yes. Yeah. Oh, edgy. Edgy. Always.

Ian: 01:34

We're so edgy. So, yes. No one's asked us any questions this time. So we we have nothing to report on the question from. No.

Ian: 01:43

But there were some audio issues last time, which nobody has mentioned. But because I'm me, I feel absolutely compelled to talk about.

Ash: 01:52

The perfectionism within Ian's post production is terrifying.

Ian: 01:57

Not least to me. So next time we use the word bull and have to bleep it out, we'll try and arrange things so that it doesn't get really quiet in order to justify the very loud beep and make it appear not distorted.

Ash: 02:15

So this means I'm gonna swear a lot in this episode.

Ian: 02:18

Please don't. The other thing I learned was that, once you have published your podcast, that's it.

Ash: 02:24

That's it. It's a one shot deal.

Ian: 02:26

So I I did redo the bleeps and then found I can't upload them. So sorry, everyone.

Ash: 02:33

See, this makes me want to advocate for test driven development even more.

Ian: 02:37

It should do. It's a it's a case in point.

Ash: 02:40

It did the work, but I can't make it work.

Ian: 02:43

Yes. I agree. So not a disaster.

Ash: 02:46

Not a disaster.

Ian: 02:47

But a good learning point. Absolutely. We'll add it to our retrospective.

Ash: 02:52

All those retrospectives you never have.

Ian: 02:54

Yes. And we're recording ours for you, so lucky you. Yeah. So, yes, we had some audio issues, and we've learned from it. In the future, our audio will be even more perfect.

Ash: 03:06

So perfect. It will never be released.

Ian: 03:09

Yes. Yeah. I'll just keep tuning it for a while longer. The other thing was that we missed being every other Tuesday on the very episode where we said, wow. Now we're every other Tuesday.

Ian: 03:20

It came out on Thursday.

Ash: 03:22

Promises promises.

Ian: 03:23

So we're recording this in good time, so this one will come out on Tuesday. There's absolutely nothing that can get in the way of that. That is 110% going to happen.

Ash: 03:33

Oh, no. That's what you get, letting architects make promises to stakeholders.

Ian: 03:39

It's gonna be great.

Ash: 03:42

Consultancy promises, everyone.

Ian: 03:44

Consultancy promises. Oh, dear.

Ash: 03:47

So should we talk about some things?

Ian: 03:49

You think?

Ash: 03:50

I think so. We should do that. It's time for things.

Ian: 03:52

Okay. So How many things have we got?

Ash: 03:54

Two things.

Ian: 03:55

Same as usual then.

Ash: 03:56

Yep. Ian gets to talk about his thing first this time. Oh. Stop me monopolizing the, the airwaves.

Ian: 04:05

Monopolizing the airwaves. Is that a risk we should be mitigating? Yeah. Absolutely. No.

Ian: 04:10

I don't think so.

Ash: 04:10

Just do something to my voice box.

Ian: 04:12

Gradually turn you down.

Ash: 04:14

That's probably less permanent. So Ian what's your thing?

Ian: 04:22

Well my thing is actually I can't say the name of it because if I do the device that's referred to will light up and start talking to me.

Ash: 04:32

Can we turn the device off?

Ian: 04:34

Maybe we can. I'm bringing the device over here because we may want to try out something using it later. Okay.

Ash: 04:40

And I

Ian: 04:40

want to hold it next to the microphone so Okay. Cool. All our listeners could hear it. So my thing after all that shenanigans is creating an Alexa skill

Ash: 04:51

Oh.

Ian: 04:52

Which is something that seemed very difficult. And then when I actually tried to do it, it was a bit less difficult than I thought. So I thought let's talk about it.

Ash: 05:01

Okay.

Ian: 05:02

Maybe people will feel empowered to go and do their own one. Sounds good. You can go to Amazon developer services to developer.Amazon.com. Yes there will be a link to that in the notes because that's just the way we roll and you can sign up as an Amazon developer and create an Alexa skill almost straight away almost without doing anything else.

Ash: 05:23

Right.

Ian: 05:24

The skill I developed which I'm certain that our listeners are now sitting on the edge of their seats, I don't know what that might be, It really came out of the idea of when can I charge my electric car? So our electricity provider where I live, I'm trying to pretend that we're not sitting there right now, is Octopus Energy. And Octopus Energy has an interesting tariff called agile octopus. And with agile octopus, you have a different rate for your electricity for every half hour slot of the day. Yep.

Ian: 05:55

And the rates range from cheap, typically overnight or if it's very windy or something like that to expensive at peak time between 4PM and 7PM. Sure. And they have an API so you can call the API and find out the rate for for the for the day you do it on and after about 4PM, the next day's rates as well. So I wanted a way to find out when was a good slot to plug my car in for four hours Yeah. So that I could charge it to the cheapest possible rate.

Ash: 06:24

Okay. Makes sense.

Ian: 06:25

And that's sort of average of the Yeah. The cost over eight half hour slots. So I wanted to be able to say, Alexa, ask Octopus when is the cheapest three and a half hour slot. The cheapest three and a half hour slot runs from 07:30PM to 11PM. And then get the answer back like that and, you may not realize that took about three and a half seconds but in the recording it's going to be pretty much instantaneous.

Ian: 06:49

It's going to be amazing. Because Octopus has an API, I was able to write some code that would be able to go off and find the answer to these things. Yeah. And so making the skill was really simple after doing that. So really creating an Alexa skill is in two bits.

Ian: 07:06

The way it works is that you have to identify the intent people will be approaching your skill with. So what are they gonna ask it to do? And then you come up with some example ways in which people might make that request and you use those as training data.

Ash: 07:22

Okay.

Ian: 07:23

And, Amazon gives you some default ones for free so there's a sort of cancel and a and a help and a stop because we've all Stop. Alexa stop, haven't we? And a navigate home intent.

Ash: 07:36

Okay.

Ian: 07:37

But what you will want to do is that you'll want to identify all the things that you want your skill to be able to do for your users and then tie those down to intents and ways that people might ask for them.

Ash: 07:47

So is it almost like setting up some examples of how your software might be used and then developing it based on those examples?

Ian: 07:56

That's a good way to think about it. I only had one intent, which was the intent to find out the length of a slot. And Yeah. Amazon make it really easy for certain types of things. So you can put it put in a, a thing actually called confusingly a slot where you say, in your intent, for example, what is the cheapest four hour slot?

Ian: 08:18

And in that, you put an indicator where the words four hours occur Yeah. And you designate it as a duration. Right. So I can say when is the cheapest ninety minute slot or when is the cheapest one and a half hour slot? And the hard work of translating that into a duration is done by Amazon.

Ash: 08:35

Okay. That's cool. Because you could write a lot of code to handle all those scenarios, couldn't you?

Ian: 08:39

Oh, absolutely. It would be impractical. Yeah. In fact, I was I thought I was gonna have to do that to start with and I was sort of approaching the task with less than a % enthusiasm.

Ash: 08:48

Then you'd be like, oh, god. It's a leap year. Oh, god. Because I'm not saying that everything I've ever tested that uses time as one of its primary drivers is utterly broken, but that's exactly what I'm saying.

Ian: 09:02

Yeah. I can quite see that and having done some time based arithmetic in the course of doing this Mhmm. I I, you know, I totally get that.

Ash: 09:09

There's a great blog about the falsehoods that programmers believe about time. I'll add that to the show notes as well.

Ian: 09:15

That's something I should probably read. I am thinking Should

Ash: 09:18

have read before this.

Ian: 09:19

Yeah. Well, I'm thinking of making this sort of productionizing this a bit and making it so that I can release it beyond just my developer account. Yeah. But I realize that I haven't actually exposed it to someone with a real tester kind of mindset. When I read this blog about things that developers believe about time, I think it will probably make me cry and have to rewrite it all.

Ian: 09:39

Once you've provided the intent and, you've you've maybe put a slot in there to translate durations and things like that, then you need to supply an endpoint. And the endpoint is really just here is the the interface that Alexa will call Right. To actually process this piece of speech that is related to this content. And so the endpoint is, I think it can be a web service, but the best way to do it probably is for it to be a Lambda function within, within AWS. Okay.

Ian: 10:10

In fact, you can actually if you can write your code all in one file, you can actually paste it in and the Alexa skill environment will host it as as a Lambda function, but you don't have to bother with all that. But I I've taken mine out and put it into a Lambda function because Yeah. When I did it, I used some libraries and things like that which aren't present by default in Lambda and it has to make what are called layers where you put but it's basically some library files that get unpacked and added to your skill during its boot up which no doubt makes it take longer from a cold start. And so there's all sorts of considerations. Yeah.

Ian: 10:41

But, yeah, you just have to write a Lambda function, which you can do in Python or Node JS or Java or something like that. That then actually does the work of the field, and you just put the endpoint into the skills configuration. As I used Python, because I've been using that for the when I was learning all the stuff about machine learning. Yeah. Sure.

Ian: 11:01

Talked about. I'd I'd already sort of learned enough Python to be able to do it. And I have published the code as well on GitHub. Cool. So I will include a link to it.

Ian: 11:10

Although, please don't think it's an example of best practice or something like that. I think it's an example of Ian's not a coder and it probably turned out to be Ian's not a coder or a tester when if people actually look at it. An interesting fact about electricity generation in this country is that you pay different prices depending where you live. That's wholesale prices as well. It's not just retail prices because I think most of the electricity is generated in the North Of England.

Ian: 11:37

And the further away you are from where the electricity is generated I think the more it costs and there are some some number of regions. So one aspect of the code I haven't really done anything with yet is postcode. So you need to put in a postcode so it can figure out what region you're in. Fine. And you can do that.

Ian: 11:56

You can ask the user to authorize can I can I share your postcode with this application? But I need to I need to write that code. At the moment, my get postcode function just returns a postcode in ElkLink. So there's no actual getting of any.

Ash: 12:12

Yeah.

Ian: 12:12

So I need to do some stuff like that and I I do need to up the monitoring as well because I'm doing some logging but I need to monitor for particular things. So I've got a file that translates postcodes into regions Yeah. And I need to keep an eye on whether people are putting in postcodes that aren't being found.

Ash: 12:30

They do change?

Ian: 12:31

And They

Ash: 12:31

do get added.

Ian: 12:32

It's not every postcode. It's it's postcodes like the first four characters or or something like that. So it doesn't use the whole postcode.

Ash: 12:39

The postcode sector. Yes. I used to work in postcodes.

Ian: 12:43

We all work in postcodes. We're in a postcode right now. We're recording in a postcode.

Ash: 12:48

No. I am a postcode.

Ian: 12:50

You are a postcode.

Ash: 12:51

Entirely created, constructed from them.

Ian: 12:53

Oh, well. There you go. So I don't know much about postcodes, but I did learn a bit. And that does need to be maintained. Yeah.

Ian: 13:00

Probably not as much as if it was all postcodes, but

Ash: 13:03

Yeah.

Ian: 13:03

Sure. Still a bit. So I've got a a log message that comes up for that. And a while back, it just stopped working, and it turned out Octopus Energy had changed their API slightly. They haven't changed the, the nature of it.

Ian: 13:18

They changed what it returned.

Ash: 13:20

Oh.

Ian: 13:21

So it's, in fact, I don't think it's all that robust in my my code.

Ash: 13:26

So the age old problem of your dependencies changing their API Yes. Without you knowing about it. Yeah. Yeah. I think we all wrestle with that one.

Ian: 13:36

Well, I've had a good wrestle with it. Yeah. And I hopefully got things to the point where log messages are generated if that happens. And again, I need to go into AWS CloudWatch and set up some alerting Uh-huh. That can then monitor the logs so that I don't have to monitor them.

Ian: 13:51

Because much though this is an interesting project, I feel as though it would be asking quite a lot of me to monitor the logs for it.

Ash: 13:59

I have a daily task

Ian: 14:00

Yes.

Ash: 14:00

To look at the logs. Ah, there's been a change in my Octopus API integration.

Ian: 14:06

I'll just charge the users a tenner every time they ask it when the cheapest slot is for the

Ash: 14:12

Yeah. I feel like that that would be a labor of love, wouldn't it?

Ian: 14:14

Yeah. So I think some alerting. Is opposite. Yeah. And I dare say there's some more productionizing things that I'll I'll probably end up doing Sure.

Ian: 14:23

When I look into it. I had a plan to do that this month, so I haven't touched it for a while. As you can see by looking at the GitHub, the state of the code. It hasn't been updated for a few months. But I was gonna spend some time this month to try and make it into a service that anyone can then install on their Amazon Echo.

Ian: 14:41

Sure. So, yeah, that's my thing. I encourage everybody to go and figure out how to make an Alexa skill for your favorite thing because, actually, it's pretty cool and it's not as hard as you think.

Ash: 14:53

Yeah. The thing that really intrigued me about this thing was the the thinking around, well, this information is publicly available over an API so how can I use that save myself some money you know make life better in some way

Ian: 15:06

yeah which

Ash: 15:07

is a really cool way to to think about technology I think think about your specific problems or what you want to achieve? And then I'm sure there'll be other people out there probably thinking the same thing or they will find it useful even if they didn't quite know how to express it or create the technology behind it.

Ian: 15:22

Yeah. For sure. And I think that's actually the great thing about releasing or providing access to your stuff via APIs. So I think huge kudos to Octopus Energy for doing that. Definitely.

Ian: 15:34

They made it possible for me to come up with this as a as an idea and to do it. And actually, you can imagine such APIs being able to be integrated with smart home things Yeah. So that your washing machine of the future will call an API to find out when to run.

Ash: 15:47

Your washing machine of the future.

Ian: 15:50

You heard it here first. Yes. It will just

Ash: 15:53

turn itself on. It'll fill itself up and turn itself on.

Ian: 15:56

Well maybe you could have a washing machine of the past and a and a smart plug socket because I think a washing machine of the present will not be fooled by a smart plug socket suddenly turning on to start But a washing machine of the past, which doesn't believe in such things, will probably would just turn on and get on with your washing at the right time.

Ash: 16:15

I enjoy thinking about the beliefs of washing machines of the past, present, and future.

Ian: 16:20

Well, you thought that here first. Having reached peak washing machine, I feel as though we should move on. So, Ash, what's your thing?

Ash: 16:33

So my thing this time is about the tech industry dividing cities or areas or regions or whatever into haves and have nots. Oh. So this is, made a bit more relevant and personal because I think the key example is San Francisco, say.

Ian: 16:52

For sure. Yes. We read a lot about that.

Ash: 16:54

Yeah. Absolutely. Which appears to be the frighteningly logical conclusion of tech driving an area into such terrible inequality that even the tech people are getting annoyed by it. But the reason why I wanted to talk about this time was, saw an article about it in the Yorkshire Evening Post, which is one of our newspapers in this region, talking about our nearest largest city, which is Leeds, which is in says it's becoming in danger of being divided by the booming tech sector. So Leeds has always been described as a donut city.

Ash: 17:26

So geographically it has a very wealthy middle, wealthy center and then a poorer inner area and then a wealthier outer area. So

Ian: 17:37

And if you squash it, the in inner wealth squirts out in random directions and

Ash: 17:42

trickles down in random directions. Yes. Of course it does.

Ian: 17:45

I'll cut that very poor joke. Yeah.

Ash: 17:49

So so there's already like a geographical divide there, but now there might be a further divide as well in terms of the tech sector growing, generating lots of jobs and revenue, but that only going in certain directions. My experience of that over the last few years has been interesting. It's been positive in some ways because as a as a tester, a few years ago, testing jobs were very poorly paid in Leeds compared to development and architecture jobs. But since the area started booming a bit more with more tech companies like Sky moving in, and testing salaries have gone up a lot. Not probably not a chief parity, but they're certainly much, much better than they were.

Ash: 18:30

I personally have found that this tech boom within the tech sector has started to equalize a few things or at least drag a few more roles along.

Ian: 18:38

Sure.

Ash: 18:39

But then outside of the tech sector, then maybe you don't see the same amount of benefits.

Ian: 18:44

Yeah. I think that's that's right. And I think San Francisco does provide the really stark example of that, doesn't it? Yeah. Where the tech salaries are super high paid by Google and Facebook and all the all the sort of Silicon Valley companies there.

Ian: 19:00

They're super high. And the contrast is just really stark there, isn't it? Yeah. And it would be really good to find a way to avoid that happening in in Leeds.

Ash: 19:12

Yeah. Definitely.

Ian: 19:13

I like the description of a donut city Yeah. Despite the bad jokes that come to mind.

Ash: 19:18

Yeah. It's

Ian: 19:19

not very good if Leeds turns out like San Francisco.

Ash: 19:22

Yeah. Yeah. And I think if you've already got sort of geographical inequality then having certain sectors which are booming and others not so much probably just like entrenched that inequality as well which would be really sad. But I think that tech companies have a number of things they can do about it as well.

Ian: 19:40

Is it put bus services on so that their employees don't have to mix with the,

Ash: 19:44

Well, that's the Or is

Ian: 19:46

it is that just San Francisco?

Ash: 19:47

I think that's the San Francisco way, isn't it? But I think there's probably other ways that you can start to spread the the benefits of of the of a growing tech sector. Things like coding clubs, for example. Have you ever been involved? I think like that.

Ian: 20:01

No. I haven't, but I've have looked admiringly at them. I think, it's a really good idea.

Ash: 20:06

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So I think there's there's endeavors like that, and then attempts to bring bring us out of the whole the thinking that the white male with a computer science degree are the people that work in tech and trying to trying to bring more people from different backgrounds Yeah. Into technology as well, such as, you know, there's a there's a particular, like, a a women in tech group in Leeds called empower with tech, which do a great job at that.

Ian: 20:36

Yeah. And that's that's super important because any in industry that loses or doesn't have diversity is is definitely underperforming in terms of what it's able to do and also who it's able to serve effectively. Yeah.

Ash: 20:49

Because from my experience working in Leeds for quite a few years is that a number of companies have they're maybe they want to hire locally, but they tend to advertise the jobs quite widely as well and try and tempt people to move to Leeds to take them. So already I think there's probably signs that the tech sector boom is already looking outside of Leeds because the skills just aren't there or at least the companies perceive that the skills aren't there.

Ian: 21:14

And then you get to the kind of infrastructure problems of how do you travel around the North and stuff like that. Yeah. I mean Manchester obviously has good levels of tech skills but it's asking a lot for someone to commute from Manchester to Leeds every day Yeah.

Ash: 21:28

I've tried that.

Ian: 21:28

Because it's an excruciating journey Yeah. As you know because you've tried it.

Ash: 21:33

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think I've seen a few different attempts at bringing people sort of into the tech world. Most of them are kind of, you know, like the phenomenon of having an academy Yeah.

Ash: 21:47

To bring people on. I think, again, that that suffers from you must have a computer science degree syndrome, which is a very exclusionary principle.

Ian: 21:57

Yeah. And actually not not right.

Ash: 22:00

No. No. It doesn't actually bring you that many benefits, really. It just brings you more of what you already have, which means you probably just do the same things that you've always done.

Ian: 22:07

I think that there is a so there's something something in that about professionalism in the IT industry. Yeah. We need to find ways of doing that. But I think saying starting from a computer science degree is the only way to go in would be a terrible, shame. Not least because I would not have a career in tech Nope.

Ian: 22:26

Should that be the case No. My no degree. I can't even say I've got a a different degree. I just have no degree at all.

Ash: 22:33

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So I've had lots of discussions with people about how they market these academies and how they, like, bring people in. And you do get quite a lot of resistance to saying, well, let's let's widen the net.

Ash: 22:46

Let's let anybody apply who's who's studied anything or even take on people who want to change careers. Cause a lot of them are badges like graduate academies as well so there's like a which comes with a inherent age limit on it as well. Yeah. Yeah. Which I feel like ignores a lot of sort of varied experience So I think that helps to entrench inequality as well in terms of a booming tech sector in a city.

Ash: 23:15

So you don't want that, the the kind of separation between the two, you know? Yeah. Between the tech sector and the rest of the city. It should be part of the city.

Ian: 23:23

Yeah. Agreed. And actually, there's inequality that's due to high salaries in the tech sector. Yeah. But it fundamentally is just inequality.

Ian: 23:31

The problem is the the concentrations of it and Yeah. The way in which some bits are super wealthy and other bits aren't. I mean it's almost that tech can work to give people opportunities to get into it Yeah. But you still need people to be nurses and teachers and and Yeah. And all these other kind of roles that in in the world that different people have or and sometimes feel called to or whatever.

Ian: 23:59

Then we're getting into the inequality that is why is a nurse paid less than a developer.

Ash: 24:05

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no. Absolutely.

Ian: 24:07

I could have said a teacher and a tester because they both begin with t. But I'm actually not sure who's paid more, a teacher or a tester.

Ash: 24:14

Well, yeah. It still Could

Ian: 24:16

well be the tester.

Ash: 24:17

Yeah. I think certainly when you're starting out. Yeah. But do you think that companies in terms of enticing people into tech from different backgrounds, do you think they they will do it, or will they just take the shorter term expedient path of just hiring graduates from the same old pools? Or I've quite a healthy skepticism when it comes to companies in doing that because I've had some experience in the past where they haven't done that.

Ian: 24:44

Well, they have particular pressures don't they? So they have some quarterly numbers to make. Big companies they live from quarter to quarter Yeah. And there are always some people in those companies who are thinking well we need to think about longer term problems and longer term solutions but they will tend to be the exceptions and the rule will be people who are trying to make you know get to the end of the week and make the number of sales they have to make or build the thing they have to build. Yeah.

Ian: 25:11

So people are thinking in a short term way naturally and then when you look at small companies startups they're in a tremendous hurry they haven't got time to think about making their environment better. So there's not a lot of incentives, I suppose, in many ways for companies to do that. And the ones that do, that's a a wise sort of forward looking way to do it, but maybe there's help needed from other places. Yeah. There are people delivering these courses and stuff like that.

Ian: 25:39

I mean, they they're doing that as private companies and charging for it.

Ash: 25:43

Yeah.

Ian: 25:43

And sometimes they can charge for it in ways that take advantage of the great increase in salary that someone can get. Yeah. Absolutely. You can pay this back when you've done it or, you know, there may be clever ways of doing it, but it's ultimately in a market economy with little regulation, which I think is a reasonable Yeah. I guess we still have some way to go in terms of beating The US for little regulation but

Ash: 26:07

We're trying.

Ian: 26:08

We seem to be trying. We're in a hold my beer kind of moment, aren't we? But in that kind of scenario where things are very market driven it's hard for people to take account of those kind of external factors. Yeah. And so it's either the government comes along and does something to help Yeah.

Ian: 26:25

Or certain companies figure out ways of making a viable business out of helping.

Ash: 26:31

Yeah. Yeah. Because tech has a has a democratic deficit in that regard, doesn't it?

Ian: 26:36

What do you mean?

Ash: 26:37

It doesn't really sort of seek seek to include and give choice, I don't think. Companies to technology companies. What is built is dictated. What the focus is and how things are built are generally dictated. And who does the building of it is dictated essentially.

Ash: 26:55

A giant dictatorship.

Ian: 26:57

Well, yeah. Absolutely agree. Yeah. In fact, that's kind of the sort of insurrectional nature of agile when it came to the point. Yeah.

Ian: 27:04

Saying, oh, well, teams should decide on their own Yeah. Technologies and their own tools.

Ash: 27:09

Yeah. And who they hire. And Yeah. And how they hire them.

Ian: 27:12

That's then frightening.

Ash: 27:13

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. To

Ian: 27:15

command and control Yeah. Systems.

Ash: 27:17

Yeah. So it's probably not just tech companies that have that deficit. All sorts of companies do. But because we're talking about tech companies Yeah. And tech booms within within city.

Ash: 27:28

I just think that that dictatorial nature kind of spills out into the wider how tech interacts with the city as well, as in they start saying, well, give us a tax break, and we'll move here.

Ian: 27:40

Yeah. Well, like that Amazon competition in The US about where they're gonna put their head office. Yeah. Blimey. I mean, that was, epic.

Ian: 27:47

I mean, it was it was almost edge of the seat stuff.

Ash: 27:50

Yeah. Yeah. But there's no room for democracy in that model, is there? Only dictators. Only dictatorship.

Ian: 27:56

Yeah. I think that's an interesting reflection. I haven't really thought about it like that.

Ash: 28:00

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Ian: 28:02

Gosh.

Ash: 28:03

Yeah. That was quite an intense ending, wasn't it?

Ian: 28:05

It was.

Ash: 28:05

But but it just felt like the right time to show up. Yeah. Before I get sued. Yeah. We can bleep some of that out.

Ian: 28:13

Yeah. You mean the, the Bleep Corporation? Yeah. Quest for a head office across the 12 cities or whatever it was.

Ash: 28:23

Yeah. Insert company name here.

Ian: 28:27

Blimey. Well, I know. I think that's really interesting.

Ash: 28:30

Absolutely. So that was two things.

Ian: 28:33

It was. Does that mean we're done?

Ash: 28:35

I think we're done here, Ian.

Ian: 28:37

You definitely don't have anything else to say.

Ash: 28:40

You feel it feels like you want to say something else.

Ian: 28:42

I'm sure I will want to have said something else.

Ash: 28:45

Naturally. So how do you get in touch with us, Ian?

Ian: 28:48

Oh, we should say that. Yes. Well, I think this is my favorite bit.

Ash: 28:53

The favorite bit of the entire podcast.

Ian: 28:55

You can you can tweet to us on our Twitter account, which is at what a lot of thing. Just one. Just one.

Ash: 29:02

Yep. And you can email us as well.

Ian: 29:05

Yes. Our email address is whatalotofthings@gmail.com. So send us an email.

Ash: 29:11

Please do.

Ian: 29:12

Tweet to us. And we may even put something on our Instagram.

Ash: 29:15

Oh, yes. There's a there's a tease there.

Ian: 29:17

If you're very lucky, go and follow our Instagram, which I think is, at what a lot of things.

Ash: 29:23

Yeah. We need to do more with the Instagram account, I think.

Ian: 29:26

Well, at the moment, it's got some pictures of a pop filter with the top of your head poking out.

Ash: 29:31

That could be anyone.

Ian: 29:32

Yeah. I'm gonna put the Ash playing the swanny whistle

Ash: 29:36

The swanny whistle.

Ian: 29:37

Picture on there, but I thought, we should probably spread out the responsibility of taking the pictures. Otherwise,

Ash: 29:43

It'll just be all be of me.

Ian: 29:45

It'll all be of you, people might think. Is that other voice just a simulation?

Ash: 29:49

Just a simulation. It's just my alter ego. Yes. Ian Smith is the

Ian: 29:53

alter ego. Ar arguing with you. No. You should be that way. No.

Ian: 29:58

You should make sure the audio quality is perfect every time.

Ash: 30:02

Never release this podcast. It will make it impure.

Ian: 30:06

Yes. Yes. People will notice the invisible mistakes.

Ash: 30:10

That they don't care about.

Ian: 30:12

That they don't care about. Oh, dear. Cool.

Ash: 30:15

Cool.

Ian: 30:15

Alright. Well, thank you very much. That was a really interesting thing.

Ash: 30:20

Thank you, Ian.

Ian: 30:21

My pleasure.

Ash: 30:22

And thank you everybody for listening.

Ian: 30:23

Yes. Shows incredible endurance after what do you think? I can't remember which number episode this is. This is absurd.

Ash: 30:36

This is episode four.

Ian: 30:37

Four. Yes. So after four episodes, you're still with us.

Ash: 30:41

So much edited.

Ian: 30:42

It's like a multi Python sketch. The five episodes.

Ash: 30:47

One, two, three,

Ian: 30:50

four. Alright. Alright. Bye bye. See you.

Ian: 30:53

Bye.

Ash: 31:02

That's the theme tune from dog Tanya and the three musket hounds.

Ian: 31:05

We need more singing on this podcast.

Ash: 31:09

That wasn't singing.