Author: admin
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The Holy Grail
A “Matplotlib” Adventure.
Looking for clues in Python Programming Productivity – “AI” Sludge vs. Clear Exposition.
Python Documentation
There’s abstruse and incomprehensible and surely most formal Python documentation for the average business technician/knowledge-worker/hacker/scribbler/programmer meanders somewhere in between. Communities emerged to cope StackOverflow, Youtube etc. No “RTFM” for these guys and gals, more “DIY”. Ten years ago, quite a shock for a geezer thrown in to the pool of methods and objects. Where’s the register? And pythonistas were you taught not to comment your code.
Keep it Simple Stupid (“KISS”)
A golden rule of computer science etc. used to be “KISS”. Was this ever a rule, more an observation? Like Moore’s Law a bit of a misnomer.
Assume “KISS” is still a rule (like “GIGO”).
If “KISS” is a rule does “AI” simplify?
Like for example, a Youtube video by somebody who, with clear and concise explanation, very easily makes things simple. Somebody who knows how to educate. Corey Schafer that’s you.
Or a well-written note that matches the “what” with the “how”, featuring more than the occasional snippet.
Productivity doing hard things will not be improved by throwing more at the wall, the default response of an “AI” prompt.
Perhaps we should be grateful. Any idiot can make the complex complicated. Making the complex simple requires a mind.
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The Vastness of Time
A recent visit to the National Museum Australia and a discussion on the history of the Pyramids recalled the emergence of iterative software development methods in the 1990’s
Muttaburrasaurus
Anywhere between 100 million and 110 million years old. Not only is 100 million years a completely unimaginable period of time but the variation in the measurement is also unimaginable. There is a ten per cent or so variation in the value depending on how calculated which is of course very significant in itself but it is an enormous period of time. What on earth does 10 million years mean?
The difficulty of the human conceptualism of time was further illustrated in a discussion lead by Associate Professor Ash Lenton in the Masters of Applied Cybernetics course at the ANU, 26th February 2026, considering “Languages and Perspectives”.
The subject under discussion was “The Great Pyramid of Giza – Pyramid Tomb of the Pharaoh Khufu” c. 2,600 BCE – that is to say around four and a half thousand years ago. Who would claim to truly know the consequence of this observation?
Not those it seems responsible for the crazy fictions about “Aliens” or at least those that wish to transmute breezy entertainment into serious explanatory narratives.
Scholarship as described by Prof. Lenton revealed the iterative refinement of the “Pyramid” from the Shaft & Chamber Tombs, Xemxija, Malta 6000 – 4000 BCE through various forms of increasing engineering sophistication and stylistic refinement including:
Mastabas, Tarkhan c. 3100 BCE
Step Pyramids, Saqqara c. 2630 BCE
Step Tombs, Saqqara c. 2700 BCE
to the familiar manifestation at Giza. The time taken for this process is at least circa 2,500 years given the difficulty in the measurement of building age; staggering.
In the late 1990’s, an advocate for DSDM a formalised iterative development methodology, Paul Taylor then of British Telecom, while visiting Sydney, Australia used the illustration of “Going to the Moon” to describe the benefits of the approach. His story started with the Montgolfier Brothers in 1783 with their Hot-air Balloon and ended with Neil Armstrong aboard Apollo 11 in 1969 a period of nearly 200 years.
Montgolfier Brothers in 1783 – first steps to the moon
Neil Armstrong in 1969 – “One small step for a man, one giant leap for Mankind”
What of course is extraordinary is the compression of the evolution of innovation – from thousands to hundreds of years.
Will future people’s regard the claims for space flight as far-fetched, their perspective misled by the astonishing effect of iteration through time, their attention attenuated into the millisecond life-cycle scale of digital transformation?
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“Meshing the Gears” – the “How” of Digital Transformation
In our third iTWire research (27th February 2026) conversation with Desmond Seeley, Delivery Executive at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia #CBA, the nitty-gritty of Digital Transformation in the DevOps function of a complex institution is considered.
In our previous conversations, the “Why” and “What” of Digital Transformation in DevOps was discussed. At the #CBA, “Platform Engineering” has been identified as the required solution, based in part on the Google Model a significant extrapolation of the “portable” operating system.
In this conversation, Des describes in detail the juggling exercise required to align a number of separate initiatives and priorities, perhaps half a dozen along a common path….and keep them there.
Many of the ideas will be familiar though possibly under-appreciated in the zeitgeist and can be generally applied – iterative development, modular component delivery, identification of an early-adopter (“guinea-pig” or “champion” ?), marketing and selling the approach, essential where there is an element of “deferred gratification” where funds are allocated to the development of an “productive asset”, an engine that will deliver improved future results.
How do you mesh the gears?
Note for listeners and viewers – momentary glitch between 8.00 and 9.00 minutes in after which normal service is resumed !
Video: Meshing the Gears (Video) – The How of Digital Transformation
Audio: Meshing the Gears (Audio) – The How of Digital Transformation
Further Reading
The classic work on innovation and the adoption cycle:
“Diffusion of Innovations” 5th edition, Everett M. Rogers ISBN: 9780743222099
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“AI” Grates and the Clash of the Crafting Titans
Has the addition of “AI” engagements improved the customer experience? Is the Raspberry Pi cooked?
The “AI” Mercury Switch at ii-net
How’s your broadband going? If you are with ii-net in Australia you’ve probably found that if it isn’t going too well then when you call them up, instead of the simple pressing of a few buttons to get you to some one who has a good idea what’s going on (usually the case it has to be said) there is a new intervention: an emulation of a hapless adolescent posing the question “how can I help?”
In a sentence.
Problem? Even if you could construct a reasonable and publishable sentence to describe your current state of NBN despair, you cannot make yourself understood as the mobile phone no longer carries a signal of sufficient clarity to convey a message of any substance so the meaning is lost.
And time wasted. Why?
An agent at ii-net and I were having a laugh about my wasted time and he suggested that the “AI” intervention was needed to meet the requirements of the young. After all, the young are blessed with much time, though as Mose Allison implied perhaps little else.
The Irritating Avatar
Hold on, what’s going on? Crafting is going on and a strong recommendation is the “30 Days as Lost in Space” kit from Crafting Table. As stated on the tin, perfect for beginners.
What however is this that stands before me? An intervention by a curious being seemingly half way between everywhere; red dwarfed by Youtube. Is this “thing” necessary or a distraction from the tasks engaged?
Try out the kit and you be the judge.
Raspberry Pi or Pickle
The squeezed middle is a painful place to be.
Total cost of purchase of a working pi?
keyboard, mouse, sd card and monitor is getting for four hundred Australian bucks. A fully configured low-spec laptop with windows and office price in fact for which one can grab a full-fat python for free.
The unboxing wasn’t great; screwholes but no screws and the cooling fan connector with the power on the board was a bit fiddly. And then it broke or least the connection didn’t conduct; No fan.
The OS download was OK but then the monitor went into sleep mode and wouldn’t wake up either with ubunto or raspberry os. What to do? Lots of online guidance that assumed prior knowledge lead to a few changes to the config.txt with notepad and a re-boot. No luck. Another monitor, I don’t think so as the one in use displayed switch-on diagnostics just fine and worked with the laptop. It’s not worth the money.
To program? Back to the laptop,
The Heath Robinson hack appeal of the pi still attracts but maybe, like many artefacts and initiatives in the technology world, commodification has come for its lunch.
Further Reading
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What is not a System?
A visit to the National Museum Australia reveals the nature of things and those things are systems.
It was my pleasure to make a visit, with fellow students, to the National Museum Australia on Friday 19th February 2026 in the company of Professor Katherine Daniell, Interim Director of the ANU College of Systems & Society, School of Cybernetics and Associate Professor Ash Lenton, Convenor of this year’s Master of Applied Cybernetics course.
Exhibit A – For Fish
The fish traps of Brewarrina “Baiames Ngunnhu” are famous for a number of reasons fully articulated elsewhere (Baiame’s Ngunnhu, Nonah). Far from trivialising these constructions, from another perspective as described by Professor Daniell, they can be abstracted as a system, in which challenges and resultant functional features can be analysed by cybernetics.
For example, the migration of fish down the Darling River, can be represented as a flow of information subject to change. How are the active processes and mechanisms (intended to perform the delivery of food by capture) at Brewarrina to be adapted to or altered by often capricious, precipitous and violent change within the meandering evolution of the watercourse. Question? Could the design and implementation of processes and mechanisms be changed to improve the performance of the system? If so how and at what cost? How has the new fishway at the site contributed to productivity?
Exhibit B – Socrates, Gorgets and Nova’s Olympic Gold Medal
The introduction to the group of “Socratean dialogue” by Associate Professor Ash Lenton provided an engaging and reflective means for the consideration of the systems required for the manifestation of the displayed artefacts.
Complex supply chains, cybernetic systems stretched in trading webs across the globe, were a recurrent theme illuminated by the display of breastplates (more specifically “gorgets” in this article from the NMA) and the Gold medal earned by Nova Peris at the 1996 Olympics with the Hockeyroos, still an extraordinary achievement.
Exhibit C – Jack Brabham
Thirty years prior to Nova’s triumph, another Australian achieved a remarkable feat, never replicated before or since, that of a Formula 1 championship as driver, engineer and owner. Arguably underappreciated in his own land, the legend that is Sir Jack can be revisited in the NMA’s collection.
Again, the extraordinary power of cybernetic information exchange was evidenced as Repco took the Oldsmobile block from the U.S.A. to Australia and created an engine to compete in, at that time, the most European of contests (the Repco engine).
Further Viewing
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“What?” – About Platform Engineering in DevOps
On “Digital Transformation” in DevSecOps at the CBA; using modular-construction platforms for the support of digital product delivery.
The “What?”
In this conversation, second in a series of three (Why?, What?, How?) with Des Seeley, Delivery Executive at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the features and characteristics, benefits and costs of the “Platform Engineering” approach are considered.
The Google Model
Thirty years since Section 230 initiated the “platform” concept for “digital media” and paradoxically as vendor work platforms are under market pressure, the contemporary manifestation of the “portable operating system” offers a strong argument for adoption where industry-sector or organisation specific digital products are in continuous demand.
Google provides a clear and coherent “base camp” for the exploration.
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Platforms hit the Buffers
On the 30th Anniversary of the Legal Ruling (Section 230 (c) (1)) that for better or worse, cast the nature of our times, technology in the form of “AI” agents has driven the lucrative “platform” gravy train into the buffers.
Let’s look at those share prices again
Service sector work platforms derived from the search and social media platforms that flourished under the protection of Section 230 (c) (1) have proved highly lucrative in the age of digital paper-pushing. Markets however seem to think that “AI” might be about to eat their lunch, as at 5th February 2026:
- PEGA – down 43% in five years, down 29% YTD
- Salesforce – down 16% in five years, down 21% YTD
- Workday – down 35% in five years, down 17% YTD
- SAP – up 54% in 5 years, down 16% YTD
- Atlassian – down 56% in 5 years, down 32% YTD
- ServiceNow – down 5% in 5 years, down 25% YTD
- Monday.com – down 44% in 5 years, down 27% YTD
According to the UK’s Daily Telegraph “AI’s apocalyptic jobs prophecy is about to become reality“, the future is now and markets, are jumping, perhaps to premature conclusions. It could be argued that these firms have been generously valued for an extended period and as such have become bloated and overburdened themselves with the bureaucratic impediments they propose to minimise in their client organisations.
Even if “AI” can deliver as prophised by its evangelists, the re-engineering of “legacy” systems and practice will be enormously expensive and time-consuming, battling both inertia and active resistance. What is perhaps universally true, is that benefits will accrue to early adopters while the frictions will accumulate over time, slowly but inevitably eroding any competative advantage.
Paul A. Strassmann’s book “The Economics of Corporate Information Systems: Measuring Information Payoffs” from an earlier era in the evolution of digital systems tells an interesting story.
A Minsky Moment
What is clear though, is that for the “platform players” and the management consultants that have feasted at their table, what cannot go on forever has finally stopped; a metaphoric and in some ways literal, “Minsky Moment”
Further Reading
The_Economics_of_Corporate_Information_Systems: Measuring Information Payoffs by Paul A. Strassmann
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Digital Transformation in DevOps
“Platform Engineering”? Yes mate, not that “Platform Engineering”, this “Platform Engineering”
Intrigued by the following statement in Desmond Seeley’s “New year, new tech reality” LinkedIn article:
Three conversations with Sydney-based technology leaders last week all started the same way: “We’ve got AI tools, but they’re not moving the needle.”
Gareth Davies of research2.au invited Des, C-Suite/Executive Leader, currently an Engineering Delivery Executive at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia #CBA for a discussion on the 2026 challenges faced by his team and enterprise function in a large, extremely complex, highly-regulated and very visible institution.
In this, the first of three conversations, the “Why?” question is applied. Terms are defined in the general and the specific, the current state of play in #DevSecOps as the function is known at the #CBA is understood and the proposed solution introduced.
In the next two conversations, the “What” and “How” will be considered.
See you next time(s).
Click on the forward arrow below to listen.
Des on LinkedIn
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The Commodification of Governance
Who can afford governance when it looks like this?
Whither AI?
In the current mania, much conversation centres around the concept of “AI” governance?
Why? and what is “AI” governance? Now and in the future.
The issue is this. Even if “AI” tooling can be acceptably governed (if this can be defined) how much is this going to cost. Does the cost of governance (a “friction”) militate the use of “AI” as the benefits no longer outweigh the costs.
For example, in automated systems, an assumption might be that a given set of inputs will always generate a given set of outputs. A cake recipe when followed with fidelity will produce a cake. Is the respect of this principle a “core competence” of “AI” without significant investment in guardrails, audit etc.
The use of ISO Standards
It can be argued that a mechanism for a reasonable response to the use of new technologies is the adoption of ISO standards e.g. ISO27001 and for “AI” ISO42001, given that independent first principle analysis and deployment of requirements will be beyond the resources of most organisations.
A feature of “platform engineering” could be that compliance and governance functionality is available by default to engineers in their work.
In fact, one of the benefits of the adoption of “public cloud” platforms is the availability of default compliance functionality from the platform – for example in “privacy” – by the certified ISO handling of “personal data” or “personal information” as defined by the applied regulation. It is hard to envisage the circumstances in which a regulator would object to the reliance of a “public cloud” customer on a provider from the current “Big Tech” cohort.
Tendency to Oligopoly at Best
Current valuations for “AI” suggest that investors are betting on the identity of the eventual number one of one provider of “AI” services, given the enormous capital costs required for its deployment.
Equally, the complexities of “AI” deployment suggest that there will be a tendency towards at best an oligopoly of suppliers in the provision of governance, preferably systemised as a commodity.
Oligopoly profits and pricing privileges for “Big Tech” await, again, this time as an unintended consequence of regulation and governance.
Or do they?
Further Reading
