Matthew Gamble's Blog
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Matthew Gamble

Reflections by Matthew Gamble

code

Welcome to Conduit (new blog engine)

If you're reading this, you're looking at a completely rebuilt blog. Not a theme change. Not a migration. A from-scratch rebuild of everything – the content system, the search, the social layer, and...

code

When Critical Isn't Critical

Last week I was reviewing a vulnerability scan report for a client when something caught my eye. Buried in a list of "critical" findings was a Log4j vulnerability - you know, the one that broke the...

ai

The Data Will Be Exfiltrated

Most AI bans don’t actually reduce risk. They reduce visibility. When pressure to deliver stays high and approved tools create friction, employees will find another way. The data will move. The real question isn’t whether AI gets used, it’s whether leadership chooses to see it happening.

Reflections

go home bing weather, you’re drunk

There is a special kind of UX failure that doesn’t crash, doesn’t throw an error, doesn’t even look broken. It just quietly lies to you. Exhibit A: Bing Weather’s “Health & Activities” panel. At a glance, everything is green. Green green green green green. If you are a normal human being wh

Reflections

Forever Highlighted

I was listening to Young Forever by Jay Z the other day and a line landed harder than it ever had before. “So you livin life like a video where the sun is always out and you never get old.” That is not just a lyric anymore. That is the internet. Scroll for five minutes and tell me you do n

Reflections

When a Smart Home Gets Too Smart: A Cautionary Tale

I came home last night from a New Year’s Eve party to something that felt deeply wrong. My house was hot. Not just warm. Uncomfortably, unbearably hot. The first thing I did was walk over to my ecobee thermostat. The display showed 20.5°C, which seemed perfectly reasonable. But the furnace was r

Reflections

The Great Wrappening: When Everything Decided It Needed a Year in Review

Long ago (2016) on a much simpler internet, Spotify Wrapped showed up in December and everyone agreed it was kind of delightful. You learned that you listened to the same song 347 times, your personality was somehow “sad cowboy disco,” and your friends briefly revealed more about themselves than the

Reflections

Introducing Humbled and Grateful

Humbled and Grateful started the same way many bad leadership posts do. With a pause. A deep breath. And the quiet realization that something had gone terribly wrong. For years, my LinkedIn feed has been flooded with a very specific genre of writing. The anguished executive LinkedIn confession. The

Reflections

When Your Code Says "FU35": The Hidden Hazards of Random Word Generation

A few weeks ago, I was at a McDonald’s drive-thru when the pickup screen flashed a code meant to confirm my mobile order: FU35. You can imagine the awkwardness of saying “F U” into a speaker to a total stranger. I half expected the system to beep back in protest. At least my kids got a good chuckle

Reflections

Click to Cancel: Why Canada Needs to Catch Up

Earlier today I tried to cancel a TV service I’d signed up for entirely through an app. Setup was seamless - download, click, confirm, and boom, I had live TV faster than Shane Bieber exercised his player option with the Jays. But when it came time to cancel? That required calling a real person, sit

porn

Bill S-209: Protecting Kids at the Cost of the Internet

Bill S-209 aims to protect kids from explicit material—but it risks turning ISPs into internet police, undermining privacy, and threatening freedom online. There’s a better way. 🛑📵 #BillS209 #Privacy #InternetFreedom

ai

Embracing a New Era: Introducing Collaborative Intelligence by Int13

Today marks a significant milestone in my professional journey, and I couldn’t be more excited to share it with you all. After decades of pioneering voice and cloud solutions, I’m thrilled to announce the launch of my new venture: Collaborative Intelligence. This isn’t just a rebranding; it’s the be

hr

Beyond Titles and Tiers: Rethinking Compensation in the Modern Workplace

Recently, a colleague of mine transitioned to a "Director" position within an organization, intriguingly without any direct reports. The rationale? The organization's only method to offer the deserved compensation was by elevating them to such a level, highlighting a lack of high pay bands for non-m

data breach

Hey HDSB - Security is EVERYONES problem.

Tonight I received the following email from the Halton District School Board: To summarize the email - Edge Imaging, a vendor tasked with managing school photographs for yearbooks during the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 academic years, experienced a data breach. This breach occurred within the vendor's

microsoft

Supporting legacy 4 digit dialling in Microsoft Teams

Migrating an organization's communication system to Microsoft Teams represents a pivotal shift, particularly for large enterprises rooted in established dialing practices. Unlike traditional telephony systems, which rely on extensions, Teams emphasizes user identity for calls, enabling users to rea

Reflections

CRTC 2023-358: A False Dawn for Canadian ISP Competition?

Today the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) released it's long awaited decision on Temporary access to fibre-to-the-premises facilities over aggregated wholesale high-speed access services.  This decision is aimed to take action to address the declining competitive i

cars

I got fucked by Clutch.ca

For many people, selling a car is no walk in the park. It's an intricate process that can often leave us feeling bewildered, under pressure, and quite frankly, underserved. These feelings can be amplified when we are dealing with relatively niche segments of the market, such as electric vehicles (EV