Neil Vass

@neil-vass.com

602 Followers 476 Following

Helping software teams work well together

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."
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!"
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".
My hand holding the stylishly designed book cover up for the camera.
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".
Bird feeder broken open on garden steps, with seeds everywhere. Two squirrels are happily tucking in.
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.
Iron rectangle embedded in the pavement says "the cracks the cracks the cracks, the world between the windswept flags"
Ralph Wiggum from The Simpsons on a school bus. Caption says "(chuckles) I'm in danger."
4 magnificent sourdough loaves cooling on a rack
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"
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.
Photo of the screen. Thick black masking tape covers most of the screen.
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.
Audible app playing the audiobook of "Designing data-intensive applications" by Martin Kleppman. It's playing the section named "consistent prefix reads".
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.
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..."
Dog curled up cozily on relaxing chair in front of a bookcase
A table in the sunshine with countryside in the background. The table has a bottle of beer - obsidian wesh stout - poured into a glass, and a book - the unreal and the real by Ursula K Le Guin.
A screenshot of a website titled "Neil's notes", with a list of posts. There's just one, dated today, with a title of "welcome to jekyll"
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".
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.
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
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."
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
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.
Four loaves cooling on a wire rack. Lovely round shapes, like rugby balls and one flattish football.
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.
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
Jit at the front of a big glass and concrete room with tables of people. Screens show his slides about a 1977 airport disaster.
Holly in front of her slides
Inside Booking.com's office. Lots of people talking at tables in a large glass-walled toom, with welcome slides on various big screens
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.
A little rubber duck in a Santa outfit with hat and beard, sitting in the snow.
Screenshot of @matthewskelton.bsky.social profile - photo and info looks exactly like the real account, only has 16 followers, 46 following, 0 posts.
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".
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%.
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
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
A fluffy dog curled up on the back of a comfy armchair. He does look like a croissant.
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.
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!
A bone-white rat nose mask with pipe cleaners for whiskers. Elastic loop so it can be worn as a mask.
Photo of Fred Aldous handicrafts shop - several floors of incredibly tempting art supplies.
Photo of the cinema: a bright red building with white columns, and "assembly rooms 1893" in gold lettters near the top.
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."