iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 29/09/2026

Setting off for #AgileCam! I'm only going for 2 days, but needed to bring my biggest case to fit 45 regular puzzle cubes and 1 oversized instructor's cube. People will wonder how many outfits I have in here.

Very large case standing next to some bus seats.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 09/09/2026

I'm off to teach cube solving later this month at @agilecambridge.bsky.social - and the cubes have just arrived! Adjustable speed cubes, default is for them to spin like tops when turning. I'll tighten them all to more "I am thoughtfully learning this" rather than have them spin wildly. #AgileCam

2 boxes of 20 speed cubes. They look like 3 by 3 Rubik's cubes but have different colours, and are made by "Vdealen".

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 09/07/2026

Sat in my sunny garden and wanting to use my Bluetooth earbuds with my phone. But because I used them with my MacBook earlier, when I take them out of the case the MacBook (closed, sleeping, upstairs on the opposite side of the house) connects to them. Google suggests a time machine.

Google AI result: "To stop your headphones from hijacking your Bluetooth connection when your MacBook lid is closed, try manually disconnecting them via the macOS Menu Bar before putting it away."

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 22/06/2026

I'll be at @agilecambridge.bsky.social in October, with an oversized puzzle cube, to help people learn how to solve these and share some ideas on how it relates to designing and evaluating all sorts of algorithms. It'll be fun! Mention my name (10Neil) for a discount on tickets. #AgileCam

Details of the conference: 30 September to 1 October 2026 at Churchill College, Cambridge.

My workshop is "Algorithms IRL: Let's solve a Rubik's Cube!"

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 20/04/2026

When looking for info about this story I found there's already a very similarly named company - NeuBird AI. Will that be a problem?

Screenshot of Google search for newbird AI says it's including results for NeuBird AI (same name except the W changed to a U). Search results show "about us" page for that other company: Builds AI SRE for enterprise engineering teams, $22 million raised, SOC 2 certified, "Gartner Cool Vendor".

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 18/04/2026

Just arrived! New edition of @ewebber.bsky.social's Building Successful Communities of Practice book, I look forward to seeing what's changed in 10 years.

My hand holding the stylishly designed book cover up for the camera.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 15/02/2026

Now reading: Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird by Henry Lien. It's sent me to watch Parasite before coming back to read its analysis, then off to play some classic Nintendo games. "I won't linger on Zelda games more for fear of never stopping, which is a very real danger, but..."

Photo of me holding the book. Its cover has the title with an appropriate image next to each word (painting of cherry blossoms next to Spring, green leafy tree next to Summer, a cartoon Asteroid with a flaming trail, and a painting of a bird).

Subtitle is "The art of Eastern storytelling".

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 23/11/2025

We keep trying to put this bird feeder somewhere squirrels can't get to it. Another failed attempt. I wouldn't mind if squirrels just took a fair share, but they empty the whole thing every day! Apparently they hurt food and forget where 90% of it was so they need to stock up with loads.

Bird feeder broken open on garden steps, with seeds everywhere. Two squirrels are happily tucking in.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 18/11/2025

Reminds me of this classic Kate Bush interview (All I have is this saved screenshot someone sent me, the actual interview may or may not exist...)

What's the meaning behind "Running Up That Hill?"

People ask me that often. Some think it's about literally running up a hill, but it's not. I've never even seen a hill, let alone run up one.

You've never seen a hill?

No. Never. Why would I do that?

I just imagined everyone has seen a hill. There's one right outside this window. Have a look.

I won't be doing that. Please continue the interview without anymore hill questions.

I don't think I can.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 15/11/2025

Pavement poetry in Manchester

Iron rectangle embedded in the pavement says "the cracks the cracks the cracks, the world between the windswept flags"

Iron rectangle embedded in the pavement says "and perhaps these pavement cracks hold the Manchester myriad"

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 12/11/2025

Having a go at some old #AdventOfCode puzzles while I excitedly wait for this year's. One day I hope to collect all the stars! Latest: My solution for 2015 day 24 part 1 got the right answer (yay!), but it took 10 seconds to run...

Ralph Wiggum from The Simpsons on a school bus. Caption says "(chuckles) I'm in danger."

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 07/11/2025

I've been baking! Incredibly impressed with this lot.

4 magnificent sourdough loaves cooling on a rack

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 05/11/2025

OK, found the winner youtu.be/f-rjR0lUDmg

A still from the linked video, showing a man turning the top row of a cube that's bigger than he is. Caption says "Largest Rubik's Cube 2.02 metres"

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 05/11/2025

Search engines all seem to be getting worse - I moved from Google to DuckDuckGo but I'm still disappointed. Here I'm looking for stories of comically large Rubik's cubes, but all its results are sales pitches for tiny or perfectly normal ones.

Screenshot of a duck duck go search results page. I searched for "Big Rubik's cube" and the top results are all things for sale - the world's smallest Rubik's cube and the official, normal Rubik's cube.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 17/10/2025

Spotted a concealed @kevlin.bsky.social : this screen outside a multistory car park has "Device preview cp-c" at the top, and someone's covered the rest of it with tape.

Photo of the screen. Thick black masking tape covers most of the screen.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 10/09/2025

Looking for AWS learning resources, I'm very charmed by the "Cloud Quest" 3D game that's free from Amazon. I think the town appreciates the infrastructure I've been setting up for them, the mayor just built me my own island! aws.amazon.com/training/dig...

Screenshot of a 3D game, with fairly basic graphics. My character is rising a hovering skateboard down a street. There are game interface things round the side of the screen, like my character's name ("Cloudy McCloudface") with experience points and other stats.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 12/07/2025

I finished all of the Discworld novels! It was a multi-year journey, really enjoyed them all, now ready to listen to completely different books. Just been surprised by this book's section on data replication and violating causality, using an example conversation between "Mr Poons" and "Mrs Cake".

Audible app playing the audiobook of "Designing data-intensive applications" by Martin Kleppman. It's playing the section named "consistent prefix reads".

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 03/06/2025

Fact checking for a blog post… is the Express Building in Manchester in the Northern Quarter, or Ancoats? This check is made a bit more difficult by the council's city centre map page not having a map on it any more! www.manchester.gov.uk/homepage/956...

Me filling in the feedback form on that map page.
Was this page helpful? No.
What were you doing? Looking for a map.
What went wrong? There is no map.
What were you looking for? A map.
How can we make this page better? Put a map on it.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 18/04/2025

Was just reading this earlier webtypography.net

Screenshot from the linked site.

Title: The elements of typographic style applied to the web

Heading 2.1.7: Don't letterspace the lower case without a reason

Quote: "A man who would letterspace lower case would steal sheep, Frederic Goudy liked to say. The reason for not letterspacing lower case is that it hampers legibility. But there are some lowercase alphabets to which this principle..."

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 18/04/2025

Weather's much worse today! It's OK.

Dog curled up cozily on relaxing chair in front of a bookcase

Fire in a glass-fronted stove sitting in an old fireplace arch

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 09/04/2025

Reasons I'm very slowly moving off my Wordpress blog, #144: reading an old post I found the aspect ratio on all images had gone wrong. This wasn’t happening last time I looked! Editing, I see this message on every image. “Attempt recovery” button makes the problem go away… but what caused it?

Diagram showing repetition and feedback with a loop between them. Above this image, a box says "block contains unexpected or invalid content." There's a button to "Attempt recovery".

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 06/04/2025

Barbecue breads! Using this river cottage recipe: rivercottage.net/recipes/barb... I took these pictures and then got distracted when they were actually cooked... all got eaten with no photo evidence. Delicious.

Ball of risen dough in a bowl, with some rye flour and a chopping board ready to use. All on a garden table in the sun.

10 shaped breads ready to cook, each is a little circle.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 23/03/2025

Someone on our neighbourhood group was giving away an acoustic guitar because they never use it. I snapped it up! Despite barely being able to play at all I now have a guitar collection 😄 It had a missing string so I've bought a new set. Remarkable list of famous guitarists who use these strings:

Back of a packet of Ernie Ball guitar strings, with a huge list of players who use them including Jimmy Page, Paul McCartney, Keith Richards, Slash, Smashing Pumpkins, Violent Femmes, Florence and the Machine.. the list just keeps going

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 21/03/2025

Updated VSCode and... wow how many times can you mention "copilot" in one message?

Screenshot of welcome text:
"Welcome to the February 2025 release of Visual Studio Code. There are many updates in this version that we hope you'll like, some of the key highlights include:

Next Edit Suggestions (preview) - Copilot predicts the next edit you are likely to make.
Agent mode (preview) - Copilot autonomously completes tasks.
Copilot Edits for notebooks - Iterate quickly on edits for your notebooks.
Copilot Vision - Attach and interact with images in chat prompts.
Code search - Let Copilot find relevant files for your chat prompt."

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 19/03/2025

I'll be speaking at LDX3 in June - it's 3 @leaddev.com events combined into one mega conference. Lineup looks amazing! I have a 15% discount code you can use for tickets: NEIL15 leaddev.com/leaddev-london/

Image with several coloured blocks. It has a photo of me, the name of my talk, and event details.

10 things nobody tells you about OKRs

June 16 to 17, 2025, London.
15% off discount code: NEIL15

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 10/03/2025

It took a lot of practice to get sourdough loaves to rise at all, all I made was flat biscuit loaves for quite a while. These precise measurements document the first time I started getting the hang of it - taller than 2 Lego figures!

Loaf with a horizontal stick across the top of it. The stick is higher than the two Lego figures, one stood on the other's head, that are stood to the right of the loaf.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 10/03/2025

Next batch: normal oven setting, but tried letting the dough rise and fall fewer times before shaping the loaves and leaving them to prove till they were very puffy. Worked wonderfully, loaves much bigger and airier than last week. Not sure the photo shows the full effect.

Four loaves cooling on a wire rack. Lovely round shapes, like rugby balls and one flattish football.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 05/03/2025

They've turned out very nicely! But this is about what I'd expect from the usual oven setting, don't think the new one did anything very fancy. Experiments continue after we've finished eating this batch

Two loaves in an oven. They're longish ovals, nicely crusty with a pattern of slashes that make lots of diagonal squares all over the tops.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 05/03/2025

Baking day! In my endless tinkering with ideas to get better results, today I've noticed my oven has a "moist fan baking" setting. How long has that been there? Might be perfect for high heat without crusts hardening too soon, meaning big airy loaves. Stressfully watching to see what happens...

4 shaped raw loaves in proving baskets, with the metal peel I'm going to flip them onto. There's also a water mister to keep the crusts from hardening too soon, and a razor to cut slashes. That'll let the bread expand more easily, and give it very stylish patterns

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 12/02/2025

Next: Jit Gosai with Psychological Safety

Jit at the front of a big glass and concrete room with tables of people. Screens show his slides about a 1977 airport disaster.

Slide: "why can't people just talk to each other?"

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 12/02/2025

First up: Holly Donohue with "WTG is a product strategy anyway"

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 12/02/2025

The first Deliver Sessions of the year! Ready to start.

Inside Booking.com's office. Lots of people talking at tables in a large glass-walled toom, with welcome slides on various big screens

Outside Booking.com's office: modern tall buildings in Manchester.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 02/02/2025

"Produced to mathematical standards" A nice topical beer

Cask ale taps in a pub: Manchester bitter says it's "produced to Mancunian standards", and Turing test says it's "produced to mathematical standards". Both from Marble brewery.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 11/01/2025

OMD! A late Christmas present just arrived, would have been perfect for helping work through all those #AdventOfCode problems. Saving for next year.

A little rubber duck in a Santa outfit with hat and beard, sitting in the snow.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 30/12/2024

I think I'm getting followed by a fake @matthewskelton.com! Reported.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 23/11/2024

All set up for #AdventOfCode: Time circuits on, Flux Capacitor... fluxing, engine running! Now I just have to wait, still a week to go.

Screenshot of the test runner in IntelliJ, showing test results for "day01.test.ts". There's one test, called "runs". It's failing, and says:

AssertionError: expected "Hello, World!" to be "a real test".

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 21/11/2024

Suhail Hussain and Shane Ryan reflect on what they'd like to take to the new teams they're moving to. There's lots, but a big one is: there's no point focusing on features if you're not also investing in keeping them working for users.

Service quality - build it. ship it. run it. own it.

The number one thing customers want is that IT WORKS.

We proactively protect the current economic value we create.

We simplify this into a % of the week e.g. economic protection costs 20%.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 21/11/2024

@hatwell.bsky.social with a range of lessons on how to support early-career engineers - what helped her, and what she's done to help others.

Want to learn? Teach.

You have more power than you think.

Remember that a team is made up of people and there are so many different ways to be a great engineer

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 21/11/2024

Jess Bailey is a head of product delivery now, but remembers all the hard lessons she needed to learn to get there. How can she pass these on to new graduates starting out as delivery managers?

Lesson 6: Hard Conversations Are Necessary

Avoiding hard conversations undermines growth and trust.

Example: A project where unrealistic expectations led to promising, but by being transparent about limitations, we were able to manage stakeholder trust and adjust timelines effectively

How I Teach It:

-Teach graduates to manage expectations by discussing risks, limits, and resource stability and risk

Leam how to say no without saying no and practice through role play

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 21/11/2024

On a bus, in the snow, on my way to Deliver Sessions meetup. My dog definitely had a "you go out if you want, I'm staying here to work on my croissant impression" look to him when I mentioned this earlier.

A fluffy dog curled up on the back of a comfy armchair. He does look like a croissant.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 16/11/2024

Archie relaxing in his favourite spot makes me want to get a _really big_ armchair so I can try this out and see if it's as comfy as it looks.

Photo of a small fluffy dog relaxing comfortably along the top of a soft armchair back, with ears and tail hanging down. It's in front of a window with lots of leafy bushes outside.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 13/11/2024

Part 3 of my blog series on OKRs is done! Progress has slowed down a little from part 2’s impressive count of 3 “things” – are we still on track for getting all 10 covered by the end of the quarter? Let’s take a look at the data.

Graph of things against time. Post for part 1 got us to 0 things on October 27, part 2 got 3 things on November 1, and part 3 takes us to 4 things on November 13.

It's all a long way from 10!

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 30/10/2024

Honestly I'm delighted

A bone-white rat nose mask with pipe cleaners for whiskers. Elastic loop so it can be worn as a mask.

Frayed old-looking card with "I ate'nt dead" in black capital letters. It has a crudely-knotted length of twine attached to the top two corners, so it can hang round your neck.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 30/10/2024

Fred Aldous is a wonderful shop but I'm always tempted to buy far too many things I don't really need! Managed to stick to the absolute essentials today - just enough materials to make a skeleton rat nose with whiskers and an "I ate'nt dead" sign.

Photo of Fred Aldous handicrafts shop - several floors of incredibly tempting art supplies.

My purchases: hobbycraft glue called "incredibly tacky", elastic, white paper balls, twine, handmade paper, white foam A4 sheets, white A4 card.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 04/09/2024

I logged out of all social medias for the summer, so I missed this! We visited my aunt-in-law who lives there and went to the lovely Magic Lantern Cinema.

Photo of the cinema: a bright red building with white columns, and "assembly rooms 1893" in gold lettters near the top.

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Neil Vass @neil-vass.com · 23/06/2024

Words! Amazing! Most instructions would use some cryptic diagram or not mention this at all, leading to lots of frustration later

Instructions for fitting a curtain pole. Difference between two almost identical parts is clearly described.

"Identify the larger and smaller end plates. Note on which side of the window each one will be mounted as they will have to match their respective pole ends."

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