The role of luck

  It often amazes me just how lucky you have to be to find some bugs. I've found bugs when you use data that may only affect 1 in 1000 items in your database. I've found bugs that only manifest on certain days, if I'd been testing a few days earlier, or a few days later I never would have seen it.
  Once you see these things for the first time, you can add to your list of oracles and that should help you find similar bugs elsewhere. Which goes to prove the old addage, the more you practice, the luckier you get.

Where I get grilled by James Bach

  During the STC testing meetup in Nottingham, there was a presentation made by James Bach. During the presentation, he issues a testing challenge, and picks on a member of the audience to try it. Guess who he managed to pick out of the crowd?
  The video can be viewed Here. My contribution starts at around the 24:30 mark. I warn you, it is cringeworthy.

P.S. Thanks to Mohinder Khosla for recording and uploading the video.

Test Addict

  I've had that realisation today that I just can't see something without attempting to test it.

  A friend of mine updated a Facebook group he set up to use the new format, with the words 'Have just upgraded this group to the new format...all seems good at the moment...waits for the other shoe to drop...'. This was a red rag to me, so immediately I had to see if I could find this other shoe.
  He uses a link from his website to the group and it works fine, if you are already logged into Facebook. If not, you receive a page that says 'Sorry, something went wrong. We're working on getting this fixed as soon as we can.' I'd expect you to be sent to the login page and then when you login successfully it forwards you to the group page. Turns out it was a problem with the link, which has now been fixed.
  The point is to show that I just can't resist testing. Pity me.