Let me jump on a trend for once, yeah? For some reason, I'm seeing the "two wolves" meme making a comeback over on Mastodon, which is admittedly pretty niche as far as social media platforms go. But i...

I'm about to make a huge mistake by publishing this post, as today's topic is: quality. Is there a concept, a word, that's more divisive in the software testing community than quality? I have to admi...

Why do so many testers think they aren’t enough? That they should be ashamed of their role? That they should be called something different in order to get the respect they desire and deserve? Well, I...

In my last post about testing, I told you to stop thinking that testing can find all the issues. Today, I want to focus on what I do, instead of saying what you shouldn't do. Walk the talk, and such. ...

The theme that Hobonichi chose for next year is "you love you?". At first, it sounded cheesy to me, but follow the link and read what Shigesato Itoi has to say about it. A small excerpt: “I Love Me” ...

YouTube video by maaikees

Editor's Note: For those of you reading via email, I recommend opening this in a browser so you can use the Table of Contents. This is my longest newsletter - a 16,000-word-long opus - and if you like...

This has honestly been the question that I've been dealing with for almost my entire life: How to live when my "output" is so erratic? How to make "the most" of my life? (A question that makes me slig...

There are currently 5 notebooks on my desk. Actually, I'm lying! There are 7 notebooks on my desk if you count the 2 Rhodia scratch pads I use for throw-away notes. If there's one thing that "AI" and...

We could have made our environment welcoming to cyclists and pedestrians, but we didn't. A car centric environment is the norm in many parts of the world, making it dangerous to be outside if you cann...

In the disturbing film, A Clockwork Orange, the protagonist's eyes are being forcefully kept open, and he has no choice but to watch the most horrible scenes in order to “rehabilitate” from the awful ...

Almost everyone I know is in at least a couple of group chats on messaging apps. Here in Europe, WhatsApp (by Meta) is still the most popular choice to run a group chat. My second orchestra also put e...

Many thanks to everyone who liked and shared the posts on my blog and LinkedIn where I was announcing that I was searching for a new IT assignment and where I was asking people to not put me in a box....

I was reading a very interesting article in The Guardian: 'All people could do was hope the nerds would fix it': the global panic over the millennium bug, 25 years on. At the turn of the millennium, I...

I'm trying to find a new assignment as a self-employed Test Consultant, and this confronts me with some facets of job searching that I don't really enjoy. My main complaint is that most roles try to ...

We are all wrong from time to time, it's part of the human condition. Even smart people can be wrong. True wisdom is being able to admit you were wrong, and then actually change your mind. However, th...

Let's talk about the female body. The female body is not allowed to just exist without garnering opinions from others. Surprisingly, not only from men. Women also love to comment on other women's bod...

The following drawing was the inspiration for my Testing RPG talk. Excuse its quality, I have never left the "drawing people as figure sticks like a toddler"-stage. I have contemplated recording the ...

YouTube video by ItzRudes

Does 2025 Maaike agree with what 2021 Maaike wrote? I found the following in my Apple Notes just now. Read it, and then I'll tell you whether I still agree with my thoughts from 4 years prior. Spoiler...

Everybody thinks they're a better than average driver, and everybody thinks they are a decent person. I too, would like to think that I'm a decent person. If you think I'm an awful person, you might n...

As a testing community, we have failed to make software better. And let me be clear, developers have also failed. We are in the same boat here. I firmly believe that most people working in software de...