Technologist, Artist, Enterprise growth advisor, Investor, Father, and Husband. All views my own.
London, England
Joined September 2010
- Tweets2.3K
- Following890
- Followers490
- Likes21.3K
Sam Rowe retweeted
On 11th October, JP, Samuel Rowe and I will be taking on the Chester Marathon, 26.2 miles in support of Prostate Cancer UK 💚
This one is particularly personal for me. Over the summer, my dad was officially diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Thankfully, it was caught very very early, at the moment with no immediate treatment required but it was a reminder of just how many men and families are affected by this disease and how important early diagnosis, research and support can be.
We had already planned to run the marathon but in the event of my dads diagnosis it was only right we tried to raise money.
If you’d like to support us and Prostate Cancer UK, any donation big or small, it would mean a huge amount.
A huge thank you to everyone who has supported us so far, especially our friends within GitHub ❤️
🔗 justgiving.com/page/ryan-dre…
If you can’t donate, a share would be hugely appreciated too.
Roll on 11th October. 🏃♂️💚
Sam Rowe retweeted
I work at GitHub. yesterday was rough and i'm not pretending otherwise. full root cause report is up if you want the timeline and numbers, and what we are doing to prevent this from happening again.
githubstatus.com/incidents/z…
Sam Rowe retweeted
Iain M. Banks wrote one of my favorite sci fi series (Culture Series) about what society would be like in an abundant future.
One of the ideas that stands out is that even if people don’t strictly need a job, they will still want mastery, stories, to build, and to feel useful to others.
In the society he imagines, the hard problems are no longer allocation problems, but are instead about values (what’s good, beautiful) and identity.
The scarce resources become trust, attention, and, for institutions, claims to legitimacy. Values, not resources, drive differences in cultures. Societies choose different aesthetics, morals, and attitudes towards risk.
Banks’ world offers infinite comfort, and some people basically opt into endless pleasure. But the books focus on the people who crave intensity,
put themselves in danger, chase purpose in hard environments, and want friction and consequence.
In the books, “the Minds” are basically benevolent, well-aligned ASIs who solve all our problems and run everything. Even if that’s where we are headed, it’s fun to imagine what we will still care deeply about.
Banks is amazing at thinking through what that might mean. I highly recommend them.
Sam Rowe retweeted
We’ve moved fast to integrate Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.1 into your GitHub Copilot Chat model picker. This new version brings a major boost in performance, giving you a smarter, more capable partner.
Now go put it to the test.
github.blog/changelog/2025-0…
Claude Opus 4 —> 4.1
The latest and greatest model from @AnthropicAI is now available in the GitHub Copilot model picker. ⚡
Sam Rowe retweeted
I'm tired of seeing the typical list of books recommended over and over again for software engineers. This is my list of great books (free & paid) and Youtube content creators that you should read / follow.
Featuring: @Lethain , @neoeno, @munificentbob , @shiffman, @chacon, @aarondfrancis, @3blue1brown, @ArtemKRSV and many many more who I cannot tag here
Sam Rowe retweeted
I didn’t know John Cena was this wise. That was a beautiful speech about purpose ❤️
Sam Rowe retweeted
The Toyota Production System (TPS, usually called "Lean" in the West) defines three sorts of difficulties, all of which apply to software development: Muri, Mura, and Muda. They're all worth thinking about.
Muri is long-term overburdening of the entire production system (e.g., too much work for the people at hand). That's not waste so much as creating a system incapapable of doing the work. To my mind, Muri also encompasses inappropriate organization architectures, where the management structure is fighting against working in effective—all too common in larger corporations, but you see it everywhere.
Mura is variation in the work to do. The biggest cause is usually random show-stopper bugs in the drop-everything-and-fix-this category. Variation can also happen at a macro level, for example, tax-related software that's used only once a year, so all the bugs surface over a couple of weeks rather than continuously throughout the year. In general, the more variation you have, the more buffering and slack time you need in your schedule to absorb it.
In the Muda category, TPS defines eight categories of waste (all of which apply to software). I use the acronym DOWNTIME to remember them:
* Defects (of all sorts, but bugs and technical debt).
* Overproduction (is related to Inventory. Producing software we can't sell—often because we're not validating products before we build them)
*Waiting (all sorts of dependencies cause waiting, as do processes that mandate lots of meetings and the like).
* unused taleNt (punnishing people as "unproductive" instead of training them is a big one here.)
* Transportation (when the work needs to move from one place to another—from product to dev or dev to test, for example—you have delays).
* Inventory (work done that has not been released to customers. Money spent without a balancing revenue.)
* Motion (too much process. too many meetings. Lots of motion, but no progress).
* Extra Processing (building more software than you need. futureproofing).
Of course, all this is just the tip of the waste iceberg, but it's a good start.
Sam Rowe retweeted
Please share this far and wide. As far and wide as you can. NIST Password Guidelines for 2024 are in the process of being updated.
This is a HUGE pet-peeve of mine (when vendors in particular are still operating like its 2017 and keep changing passwords every 60 days, STOP DOING THIS, it's outdated and has been shown to put you MORE at risk than less -- NIST explains why it does in this document, meticulously outlining user behavior**) so I'm sharing this in the hopes all of you will pass it along to your bosses.
The Special Publication series governing passwords is SP 800-63 "Digital Identity Guidelines".
The 2024 version is 800-63-4.
Here: pages.nist.gov/800-63-4/
The companion docs are also on that link. They are 800-63A, 800-63B and 800-63C. These are different documents for different scenarios in play at your org.
The previous update was in2020.
The changes in the 2020 version from the 2017 version were numerous but one of them was that the password verification method should NO LONGER require passwords be changed at specific intervals (i.e. every 60 days) but in the following circumstances instead:
1. After a breach/compromise
2. User request
2024 repeats this and adds a bunch more guidlines but here is a screenshot of page 13 of the new 800-63-4 (note the # 4 after it) which outlines how your systems should now and moving forward, be handling passwords.
This goes for Active Directory, too. All your systems which have passwords should align with these guidelines provided there isn't another standard or framework you must adhere to which overrules this.
Most frameworks, however, have moved away from arbitrary password resets and complexity rules.
**We cybersec researchers and hackers use wordlists from breaches in a variety of different ways. Hackers use them in tooling to crack passwords whereas researchers use breach dumps to see the kinds of passwords users are creating and the psychology behind them.
Using complexity rules gets you the user psychology of:
Password1
Password2
and so on
Use phrasing instead and allow for spaces, which is important. Humans type phrases with spaces. They also mention phish-resistant methods and most vendors are on-board with MS going to be turning off all Legacy Auth next month, across all free accounts and tenancies.
I'm so excited for the new changes!
Ok I'm off my soapbox.
Share the love! Thank you!
Sam Rowe retweeted
Now with GitHub Enterprise Cloud, organizations have the ability to store their most valuable asset, their code, in the EU. The timing is vital and pressing for much of Europe, as we face a steep uphill climb in a global economy gone digital. (1/4)
github.com/newsroom/press-re…
Sam Rowe retweeted
We're rolling out new features. 🎉
👉 Create GitHub branch from work item
👉 Connect to GitHub repository search improvements
👉 AB# links on GitHub pull requests
👉 Improved AB# validation
Learn what that means for you. 📖 msft.it/6018ldrh8
ALT Logos for Azure DevOps and GitHub text reads: Update on Azure Boards + GitHub Integration
Sam Rowe retweeted
Thank you to @CMTrust enlightening opportunity to see #NaoVictoria replica of first ship to circumnavigate globe 1519 - 1522. What a feat! In Chatham for next few days - well worth visit! #WeAreMedway
Sam Rowe retweeted
You Can Use LEDs As Sensors, Too
hackaday.com/2024/07/23/you-…
Sam Rowe retweeted
Stroll on.
I've been doing some maths.
Our MG5 is now at 130,000 miles.
If our MG5 had been a diesel car and it averaged 50mpg, it would have costs us £17,375 just in fuel.
We'll forget servicing, wet belts, egr coolers, DPF regens and discs and pads for now.
Because it's electric and we can charge predominantly at home and at customers premises, it's actually cost us £2321.43p. There's some public charging in there too, so let's chuck an extra £500 on. £2821.43p, and that's generous.
Total savings in fuel - £14,553.
You can buy a lot with that, Including 2.5 brand new traction batteries or 6 second hand traction batteries, just before anyone thinks of using that arguement.
On a serious note, imagine knocking that £14k off of your mortgage!!
When the car hits 150k we'll do a full breakdown of the cost vs a diesel equivalent.
Pic of our amazing MG5 below ❤️
Sam Rowe retweeted
Ok. Let's try again.
12 months advisory free MoT applied two days ago. IMS and clutch done 2 years ago, superb condition, PCCM+, sports seats, 103k miles.
It's a beauty. Get some.
collectingcars.com/for-sale/…
Sam Rowe retweeted
Blog post after a long while: Sharing my insights about measuring DORA DevOps Metrics, and how you can learn from my mistakes.
#devops #dora #devopsmetrics #github #azuredevops
samlearnsazure.blog/2022/08/…
Sam Rowe retweeted
Quite amazed at the aurora show of last friday captured with my #Allsky raspberrypi camera.
Sam Rowe retweeted
As you watch the Aurora this evening, it’s worth reflecting that you’re getting a rare direct glimpse of the power of Nature. Those charged particles causing the atmosphere to glow came from a sunspot complex 17 times the diameter of Earth and traveled across 90 million miles at a million miles an hour. Without our magnetic field to protect us, our atmosphere would have been lost to space long ago. Those colours in the sky are Nature reminding us that we’re very lucky to be here amidst the violence. And perhaps therefore also reminding us not to shite it all up :-)
