Self-Referential on Son of Sun Tzu blog

Dead Project - Tools And Techniques Against The Machines

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 19:30:01 +0100

Image by Gerd Altmann ( https://pixabay.com/users/geralt-9301/ ) on Pixabay

This is the third in a planned series of posts about dead or frozen projects - ideas I’ve had that I’ve consciously decided not to follow up on, rather than just putting them to one side.

I’m writing these up for a variety of reasons:

To demonstrate how many ideas I have, to help me determine whether that number of ideas is unusual.
To get feedback on whether I should have tried to do more with the idea, was there an angle or benefit that I missed?
So others can highlight to me whether someone has tried the idea already, and whether it succeeded or not.
To encourage others to share their own ideas, especially if they’re similarly incomplete, failed, or half-baked.

Also sharing these kinds of “dead projects” has been an idea that’s been rattling around my brain for some time, but I was finally inspired to start writing them up after attending a couple of Stefan Hagar’s Valhalla For Ideas sessions. Valhalla For Ideas is a structured way of working through old plans that we’re hanging onto, to either let them go, or to breathe new life into them. You can read more about Stefan’s services here, and we may be working together in some of those sessions in future.

Some other things I've watched or read in 2026

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 19:25:01 +0100

Just another few months for this weeknote, the second one of 2026

Prologue

One Piece

As always, this is an intentionally browseable set of weeknotes regarding things I “beheld” over the previous “week”¹.

These “weeknotes” support two purposes - recommendations to the handful of people who read it, and also giving me somewhere to look if I’m trying to remember if I watched something or not.

My exploration of Hugo Themes² is still something I need to properly work through, so there should be a Table of Contents around here somewhere but there probably isn’t. If I fixed that you can use that to navigate to whatever catches your eye.

Dead Project - Analogical Conference for Cyber Security Practitioners

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 20:30:02 +0100

Image by Mike ( https://pixabay.com/users/good_ideas-4105319/ ) on Pixabay

This is part of a planned series of posts about dead or frozen projects - ideas I’ve had that I’ve decided not to follow up on.

I’ll be writing these up for a variety of reasons:

To demonstrate how many ideas I have, to help me determine whether that number of ideas is unusual.
To get feedback on whether I should have tried to do more with the idea, was there an angle or benefit that I missed?
So others can highlight to me whether someone has tried the idea already, and whether it succeeded or not.
To encourage others to share their own ideas, similarly incomplete, failed, or half-baked.

Also sharing these kinds of “dead projects” has been an idea that’s been rattling around my brain for some time, but I’ve finally been inspired to start writing them up after attending a couple of Stefan Hagar’s Valhalla For Ideas sessions. Valhalla for Ideas is a structured way of working through old plans that we’re hanging onto, to either let them go, or to breathe new life into them. You can read more about Stefan’s services here, and we may be working together on some of them in future.

Dead Project - Community for the other SAD

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 10:32:00 +0100

Image by AstroGraphix_Visuals from Pixabay

This is part of a planned series of posts about dead or frozen projects - ideas I’ve had that I’ve decided not to follow up on.

I’ll be writing these up for a variety of reasons:

To encourage others to share their own ideas.
To get feedback on whether I should have tried to do more with the idea, was there an angle or benefit that I missed?
To demonstrate how many ideas I have, and to help determine whether the number of ideas I have is unusual.
So others can highlight to me whether someone has tried the idea already, and whether it succeeded or not.

Also sharing these kind of “dead projects” has been an idea that’s been rattling around my brain for some time, but I’ve finally been inspired to start writing them up after attending one of Stefan Hagar’s Valhalla For Ideas sessions. Valhalla for Ideas is a structured way of working through old plans that we’re hanging onto, to either let them go, or to breathe new life into them. You can read more about Stefan’s services here, and we may be working together on some of them in future.

LLMs in serious game design, what did I learn?

Mon, 11 May 2026 12:40:04 +0100

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

I recently attended a seminar about using LLMs in serious game design. Both the presenters and participants shared well-informed experience on what they’d tried, and what had succeeded, and what had failed.

This was part of the Game Design Seminars programme, run by Stone Paper Scissors.

Overall, I’m not sure that I learnt anything completely new, but as self-driven experimentation with LLMs tends to be a solo activity, it was very useful to see other people’s experience, and to hear how that resonated with my own.

What is the minimum that an online community needs?

Wed, 06 May 2026 12:40:12 +0100

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

What’s the minimum requirement for an online community?

I’ve been discussing online communities with a couple of people, more so than usual, so wanted to get some of my basic ideas down.

I actually run the meetings of the Game Experimentation & Development Group, as much as anyone does, for Stone Paper Scissors, and keep an eye on the server. I wouldn’t say I run this community, but I have been, or am, a member of quite a few, so I’m interested in how they work.

Book Review - Ctrl+Alt+Chaos

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 13:42:00 +0100

Book Review: Ctrl + Alt + Chaos - How Teenage Hackers Hijack The Internet

Ctrl+Alt+Chaos

I was lucky enough to win a copy of this book from the author when he posted a competition on BlueSky. The very short review of this book is that it’s well written, and an “easy” read that will hold your interest on a complex subject.

To go into slightly more detail, meant in the best possible way, I want to emphasise that it’s an easy read. I usually read at night, when I should probably be asleep - but this is well-written, clear, and grabs your attention, so it’s suitable for the beside table or noisy commute; which can’t be said of many non-fiction books.

What have I watched so far in 2026?

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 23:21:00 +0000

Just a few months this week

Prologue

Just a few weeks this week.

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 21:31:00 +0000

Just a few weeks this week

Prologue

Image by uwe367 from Pixabay

This is an intentionally browseable set of weeknotes regarding things I “beheld” over the previous “week”¹.

These “weeknotes” support two purposes - recommendations to the handful of people who read it, and also giving me somewhere to look if I’m trying to remember if I watched something or not. Or, well, in the case of the last entry in this post, to give me somewhere to look to see if I wrote up what I watched.

Time is a weird soup, what I watched or read this week

Mon, 08 Sep 2025 18:50:00 +0100

Time is a weird soup

Prologue

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

This is an intentionally browseable set of weeknotes regarding things I “beheld” over the previous “week”¹.

So, how to divide up this mass of half-written notes and turn it into something useful to both of us?

These “weeknotes” support two purposes - recommendations to the handful of people who read it, on whether they should consider spending their time on a piece of media. And also giving me somewhere to look if I’m trying to remember if I watched something or not. Oh, and to practice getting thoughts out of my own head into other people’s heads in a format that makes sense. So I’ll support that first purpose as best as I can, while resisting the urge to turn this into a long table, marking each piece of media as “yes”, “no”, or “maybe”. But I am going to do that in a slightly longer form.

Hugo themes - what should I use?

Sat, 21 Jun 2025 11:20:00 +0100

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

Regular readers will have noticed that the theme for this blog has changed.

I was using Vitae but the requirements and developer for that have changed, so I thought I’d try something new.

I’m now using the Awesome theme - I like the simplicity of it, and the Table of Contents functionality works really well, see this recent post.

But tags and categories would be good without me trying to hack something together, and it handles the about pages weirdly. And I don’t need the multi-lingual functionality of course.

I wrote a couple of things elsewhere

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 17:30:00 +0100

I’ve written a couple of pieces in another couple of places:

On the Milmud blog I wrote up my recent experience of using an online LLM to help me research relevant facts quickly, you can read that here.

On LinkedIn I’m running a poll-based game about how an invented organisation should handled a potential cyber security issue, if you’ve got an account on LinkedIn you can participate here.

Otherwise my latest episode of weeknotes, covering the last couple of years, are due out any day now…

Gaming highlights from the last sixteen months

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 16:21:05 +0000

These are the weeknotes¹ on the games I’ve played since I last wrote up my weeknotes…. about sixteen months ago I think. These are highlights of the games I’ve played that either were particularly notable, or are a strong recommendation for or against playing them.

I’ve divided up the short reviews and thoughts into fairly arbitrary categories below:

And yes, I really should get into the habit of writing up notes as I go along - which I’ve started doing with Chestnut Lodge Wargaming Group games, I’ve included links to games I played there below.

On Agents and Avatars and Immersion and more

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 15:30:06 +0000

A couple of recent comments about games, and being immersed in them, really got me thinking.

Firstly - in this comment on LinkedIn, Vikki McCall of the Socialudo social enterprise was commenting on my post about using fictional scenarios for serious games. She said “when the fictional scenarios are driven by research and real lived experience that can add some real impact”.

This is absolutely true. I think a benefit of an imagined scenario is that it removes a lot of the baggage people might bring to a game, so players can concentrate on the issues and decisions abstractly, without being caught up in either an historical context, or their own personal experience.

Water Water Everywhere

Wed, 17 Apr 2024 13:55:00 +0100

A prediction of what will be underwater when the sea rises two metres.

Water Water Everywhere

I helped run this session as part of the CLWG design conference; CLWG being the Chestnut Lodge Wargaming Group. I believe the organisation is around forty years old, and is much more focused on the design of new games rather than playing existing ones. Well, I say “helped run” the session, I mainly took notes while my co-designer, Terry Martin, asked the questions.

"Leading the Rebellion": not what I was expecting.

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 11:25:00 +0100

A review of the book "Leading the Rebellion" by Jason Kingsley.

Using randomness to enhance your life

Tue, 22 Aug 2023 14:55:00 +0100

Suggestions on when you should use randomness in your life.

I skipped half of this book, but you should definitely buy a copy.

Mon, 21 Aug 2023 23:20:00 +0100

A review of the book "Billion Dollar Lessons" by Carroll and Mui.

Alternative operating systems for your phone

Thu, 17 Aug 2023 16:59:00 +0100

A summary of URLs for figuring out if your old mobile phone is supported by an alternative operating system.

My experience of DAZN

Sat, 12 Aug 2023 12:10:00 +0100

Just a quick summary of what it was like watching the new version of NFL GamePass

Time travel, contrasts, insights, and all the sports documentaries.

Tue, 08 Aug 2023 17:15:00 +0100

A summary of a wide variety of things I read or watched this week, from March to August, from time-travel to sports documentaries.

Getting around a Discord problem

Thu, 03 Aug 2023 19:51:00 +0100

Problem

Discord

I have sound issues on Discord, an occasional background humming or similar noise - that I can’t hear, and that doesn’t manifest when I’m using Discord’s “mic check”. But others have notified me about it, and then I notice my picture in meetings showing a green border, as though I’m talking, when I’m clearly not saying anything. So that means I’m making an online meeting just a little bit harder for everyone else.

Why use dice in serious games?

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 00:51:00 +0100

I was working through The Handbook of Cyber Wargames, that I co-wrote with John Curry, and came across this section on why dice should be used in professional games:

From the book.

“The use of dice here represents the influence of many unknown variables on the success or failure of a particular attack. In the real world, sometimes it is just chance that allows an attack to succeed or get stopped. For example, did the phishing attack target a particularly susceptible member of staff who was having a ‘bad day’, did the attackers choose the one server the System Administrators were troubleshooting, and they immediately noticed the unusual activity? This will help illustrate to the players that cyber security is risk-based, and that they must account for the different possible outcomes from an attack. Dice are a simple way of modelling the role of chance in cyber security.”

A week of fun spread over months.

Thu, 06 Jul 2023 16:50:01 +0100

Playing.

These are the weeknotes¹ on the games I’ve played² purely for fun³ in the last few months. There’s very few listed below, which is very disappointing to look back on… I can’t help thinking I’ve missed a couple. But I do have a “new” Xbox360, and I’ve been tidying up some space, so maybe that will change. It kind of needs to change, considering how much time I spend thinking about games and game design.

Wardley Mapping Cyber

Wed, 21 Jun 2023 12:55:00 +0100

On Wardley Mapping Cyber Security

If you’re not sure what Wardley Mapping is, this two minute video is a good and very short summary. It’s basically a way of thinking about technological solutions and how they are likely to evolve in future, to enable you to make decisions about those technologies. In particular it’s designed to be used by groups so they can have better conversations in this area.

A few weeks ago I participated in online Wardley Mapping sessions of the Cyber Security industry, hosted by Simon Wardley of DXC Leading Edge. This was interesting and thought provoking for all kinds of reasons, which I’ve listed below.

My work mostly involves playing games?

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 11:21:00 +0100

Prologue

An intentionally browseable set of weeknotes from my previous week¹ of work, with different subjects introduced by bold text. The subject matter might not seem appropriate because I think I’ve finally acknowledged that the dividing line between work and not-work is fairly arbitrary, and based on which account I’m using to talk to someone more than anything else. Because of the amount of business development I have to do, any traditional division like “am I being paid for this?” isn’t a useful way to define what category an activity fits in.

My Dilemma on The AI Dilemma

Wed, 31 May 2023 10:53:00 +0100

The AI Dilemma, some thoughts

Because it was mentioned in a discussion group I’m on, I made time to watch “The AI Dilemma”. It can be found here on Youtube.

From the YouTube description:

Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin discuss how existing A.I. capabilities already pose catastrophic risks to a functional society, how A.I. companies are caught in a race to deploy as quickly as possible without adequate safety measures, and what it would mean to upgrade our institutions to a post-A.I. world. This presentation is from a private gathering in San Francisco on March 9th, 2023 with leading technologists and decision-makers with the ability to influence the future of large-language model A.I.s. This presentation was given before the launch of GPT-4.

More whimsy, more drama

Tue, 07 Mar 2023 14:05:00 +0000

Prologue

This is an intentionally browseable set of weeknotes regarding things I “beheld” over the previous “week”¹.

I hope you find something in here that sparks your interest in a piece of media, or encourages you to avoid something when your time could be better spent elsewhere. I write weeknotes mainly to practice a style of writing that isn’t work deliverables or quick emails - but if this helps you please let me know on whatever medium I mentioned this on.

An old man's advice on how to break into a new industry

Sun, 29 Jan 2023 10:06:00 +0000

Recently on the Generalist World Slack channel, another member asked me advice about entering a new industry. I thought through some fairly standard “old man” advice - moving professions isn’t one of my areas of expertise, but I’ve seen enough and read enough to get an idea of what can improve your chances of success. So, with the other member’s permission, I’ve posted a modified version of my advice below, so I can cite it in future, and in case you find it useful:

Some books that mean a lot to me

Mon, 02 Jan 2023 16:31:00 +0000

Inspired by this toot¹ from John Willshire I thought I’d also jump on this idea he references, that has its roots back in 2005. I like the questions, I think I’ve finally got back into reading so I have answers worth sharing, and also I support John’s push for people to start blogging rather than posting on more interactive platforms.

The questions from the original post are:

How many books do you own?
What is the last book you bought?
What is the last book you read?
What are 5 books that mean a lot to you?

My answers are below:

What I beheld since my last weeknotes

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 22:01:01 +0000

An intentionally browseable set of weeknotes for my previous “week”¹.

I beheld

I’ve decided that “beheld” is the best word for “things I read such as a book, or watched such as a movie, but didn’t play like a game, or didn’t engage with for work”. Suggestions for better terms are expected, but I’ll probably ignore them, “beheld” feels worth writing about.

Stewart Lee.

I read March of the Lemmings by Stewart Lee ages ago, but only found my notes on it recently. This is definitely for you if you like Lee’s relentless demeanor, political stance, and whipsmart phrasing. I’m reminded of TV series such as Community, or Ted Lasso, when sometimes you have to hit Pause and let a phrase sink in. It could be a bit much all in one go, so a good bedtime read when you just want a fun chapter or two to put the day behind you.

Things I've played since July

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 09:02:00 +0000

These are the weeknotes¹ on the games I’ve played purely for fun² in the last few months. There’s very few listed below, which is very disappointing to look back on… I can’t help thinking I’ve missed a couple. But I do have a “new” Xbox360, and I’ve been tidying up some space, so maybe that will change.

Board games

With some more overdue tidying needed, and with a Dining Room that is essentially a wide corridor, I struggle to play board games, even solo ones, but here’s a couple I made time for:

Looking for a new keyboard

Fri, 02 Dec 2022 16:21:00 +0000

My current keyboard is a Perixx PX-1200 Illuminated Gaming Keyboard but it’s wearing out, and they don’t make them any more, so I’m looking at different models. As is often the case with technology, I don’t think my requirements are that unusual, but then I start looking for something I think is common, and it doesn’t exist. So in the hope that someone who reads this ( probably because I pointed them at it ) has better knowledge than I do, I’ve listed my requirements here.

How Can We Help Each Other?

Mon, 08 Aug 2022 11:00:00 +0100

How can we help each other?

Introduction

What’s your preferred working situation - completely alone and self-driven? As half of a pair, as a leader or advisor in a group, or as a “cog” in a much larger hierarchy?

For me I believe I’m much better at working in a pair, or in a small team, rather than purely on my own, be it co-writing something, or brainstorming with a customer on a project or solution.

feeling like I'm not doing enough

Sun, 07 Aug 2022 17:41:00 +0100

Introduction

This question was asked in the Generalist World Slack a little while ago:

Quick Question - I often find myself feeling like I’m not doing enough. There are just SO many things I want to do that I feel like time is running out and I should get at it. I often end up in confusion, panic and anxiety. Does anyone else struggle with this? How do you calm yourself or redirect yourself to focus on ’top priorities'?

Lessons From Running a Hybrid Megagame

Thu, 28 Jul 2022 17:30:00 +0100

Prologue:

As I wrote up in my recent weeknotes, earlier this month I helped run a hybrid megagame called Bad Moon Rising, organised by South West Megagames. This was a megagame based in an alternate history of the world, set in the 1970s during the Cold War, but with all the nuclear powers having also established bases on the Moon. If you’re not familiar with megagames do watch this video, or think of a “megagame” as just being a board game or tabletop role playing game, except with anywhere from 20 to 300 players.

Battle of Tuyệt Quá HởTấn After Action Report

Mon, 25 Jul 2022 23:06:00 +0100

From about July 2021 until June 2022 I played “Battle of Tuyệt Quá HởTấn”, one of the “Section by Section” games by Hearts of Oak. This was played online over WhatsApp and Google Slides.

The setting is a small village during the Vietnam War. Both the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army are defending the civilians in the village, with American soldiers coming to interrogate them using four platoons from two companies. That’s about 200 hundred soldiers on each side. Before any pieces are placed on the virtual board, the game looks like the image below. The village to the North of the map, the darkest green is jungle, the light green is brush, the blue is paddy fields.

If only bestselling authors were employers

Mon, 11 Jul 2022 10:20:00 +0100

An intentionally browseable set of weeknotes for my previous week¹.

I worked:

Cynefin, the sense-making framework, was covered in a personal introduction by Greg Brougham, which I was able to access as part of my membership of Liminal. While I’ve read or watched introductions to Cynefin before, to get a rough idea of the core concepts, this was more of a personal view. It covered the origin of the concept, and what appealed to Greg about it, some of which I understood, some of which I needed to read up on. But - as with much other systems thinking, and conceptual advances in general - I was struck by how much of the knowledge and theories were attached to their main creator, or to a single book or other piece of work. Personally I’m both aware of how much those concepts, and their authors, must owe to the team around them - and also I tend to be far more interested in the concepts than the people, so the strength of that link feels like unnecessary baggage.

Another month long week

Sun, 26 Jun 2022 21:22:00 +0100

I worked:

I attended DSET - an online military training conference. It was good to see them go hybrid, although I found their chosen platform Hopin disappointing. The event was well handled by Ruddy Nice Limited, especially the issues such as intermittent connectivity and an emergency alarm in the middle of the very first session.

Similarly I was at CPCF 6, the Cyber Physical Convergence Forum. I was particularly impressed by Helen Sutton of Dataminr and their presentation, and the emphasis on selling through demonstrating knowledge rather than hard marketing. And also impressed by the overall aim of the event to be hybrid, even with a relatively small space representing the physical side of the event. CTG Intelligence is worth keeping an eye on if you work in any part of security.

Weeknotes for Wargames, Wizards, and Warriors.

Thu, 26 May 2022 12:40:01 +0100

As fifty percent of my readership complained about the breathless bulleted format I’ve been using, which is a very fair point to make, I’m experimenting with different formatting this “week”, although I’ve much less material.

Considering how I create these blogs I should be able to generate an index easily, so it’s trivial for people to see if there’s something of interest each time. ( A newsletter that does this really well is the tl;dr sec newsletter, the format actively encourages picking and choosing the sections relevant to you, I aspire to do the same. )

When is a card deck a card deck?

Mon, 16 May 2022 10:30:00 +0100

Mainly as a result of discussions at the CardStock meetups, along with Nick Kellet’s release of the Deckible platform, and a couple of projects I’m working on, I got to wondering what makes a card deck recognisable as a typical deck of cards, rather than something else?

So…

What makes a card deck a card deck?

Is this what you see?

In no particular order…

Cards are two dimensional
Viewable areas are single or double sided only
All cards within a deck are the same shape
All cards within a deck have the same finish
All cards are flat
All cards are solid
Cards are intended to be handled
Cards are opaque
Cards are of sufficient size to be handled comfortably by humans
Detail on the cards can be read unaided
The cards’ shape is symmetrical
Cards are divided into suits
Each card is individual, and are not duplicated within the deck ( arguably, what about Uno? )
Cards are made of paper or a paper-like material
Cards have the same style of design throughout a deck
Decks contain approximately fifty cards
Corners are rounded, mostly
The back is usually different to the front
They can be shuffled
They can be dealt
Cards are interacted with through visual and tactile stimuli only

What did I miss?

If work is fun it's still work

Mon, 02 May 2022 15:20:00 +0100

A summary of what I’ve done over the last month or so.

I attended:

I went to a Sarah Le-Fevre event where Nick Kellet demonstrated some aspects of his new product, Deckible. It’s an interesting idea, putting card decks on your mobile device, especially the aspect of making card-decks as accessible to everyone in the same way that Spotify does for music. Using an app doesn’t replicate all of the functionality of a card, but there were good demonstrations of the audio and video capabilities. It was interesting to see what the technology is capable of, but I’m not sure these are card-decks now, but also I’m not sure they’re not. Also I was reminded of this tweet thread, and many recent conversations about interfaces and form factors. As per the military trainees in the picture below, while surrounded by laptops, sometimes you need a pen and a shared map to make sense of the environment:

picture courtesy of Jim Dawson on Twitter

I was in another meeting of the PlaySecure organisers. We decided on ticket prices and discounts and some other administrivia. Follow this for the conference details and we’re using Papercall for content submissions. Ostensibly the conference is about game-based methods to improve decision making in cyber security, but anything related to game-based methods for training or planning will be welcome… especially anything half-complete that would benefit from audience feedback, or something unusual that won’t fit in elsewhere.

The Lost Key

Tue, 19 Apr 2022 13:40:00 +0100

Once Upon A Time

I’ve updated a small interactive game I wrote, you can play the Lost Key game in a browser window.

There’s a feedback form at the end, but any constructive thoughts are welcome on Twitter or similar platforms where I know you.

Why?

Why a fairy story? I can save space, which helps maintain the player’s interest, because the tropes are so familiar. Also I can save time by not doing any research, because there’s very little I need to explain to the player, but also the setting is so vague. As for the “lost key” theme…

Electricity and I are not friends

Mon, 04 Apr 2022 17:10:00 +0100

The last three… threeish… weeks…

I played games

I finished Untitled Goose Game - well, the main storyline anyway. It’s a fun game, about being a goose… if you’re a gamer looking for something different, or a non-gamer who thinks video games are all Call of Duty or Super Mario, do look it up. Sometimes it was a little perplexing, so I had to “research” solutions online, but mainly this was really enjoyable and relatively gentle puzzle game based around an engaging concept. There’s a whole set of one player games waiting for me once I’ve stopped my Xbox360 being so noisy, so this was a welcome diversion while that task sits on a “to do” list. As I think I’ve mentioned before, I do enjoy online multiplayer games but due to financial limitations I can only play the fun but weird but twitchy Fortnite; or Rocket League - where I’m facing Real Madrid one match, and the Rose and Crown 2nd XI the next. I would imagine a multiplayer “Untitled Geese Game” would be fun, but I’m trying to think how competing gaggles of geese would work.

memeable

I did work

The usual collection of promising and interesting conversations, but with a poor hit rate. I choose not to wonder “is it me, or is it everybody else” most of the time.

Gossamer Aphorisms

Sun, 03 Apr 2022 13:45:10 +0100

There’s a lot of “thought leadership” online, especially on Twitter. Much of this consists of what I tend to call “gossamer aphorisms”.

They are aphorisms because they are usually stated plainly without explanation, with an implication of the presenter nodding sagely as they type, as if bringing the wisdom of the ages to this particular situation, or a heaped dose of good old fashioned common sense.

They are gossamer because they’re beautiful when you look at them, but flimsy - and dissolve under even the gentlest examination. Usually they are far too binary or linear in their analysis, don’t fit this circumstance, or a moment’s thought reveals numerous examples where they don’t apply as universally as is implied.

Weeks Where Decades Happen

Sat, 12 Mar 2022 21:30:00 +0000

Edited highlights of the last couple of weeks or more.

There’s a war on, and I’ve a few relatively well informed opinions… but so does everybody else it seems. I say relatively because the online dIsCoUrSe is horrible, misinformed, and over-simplistic. If you want to watch one thing to understand why this is happening at all then I recommend this video from the Real Life Lore YouTube channel.

A very 2022 war

More personally, my favourite sports team, in the space of 24 hours, has either traded or cut two of their best players - leaving no players from their Super Bowl victory of just over eight years ago. Similar to the Russo-Ukrainian War, I’m cautious of spending time on more commentary when there’s so much of it online already; I’ve all sorts of half-formed thoughts on apparent issues with the team - how it treats its players and how it plans ahead, when there’s so much expertise and money on hand… another time perhaps.

Photo by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images

Even more personally, I GM’d a role-playing game for the first time in decades. While I facilitate or co-facilitate exercises or megagames, running a small game is much more difficult. Thankfully the one page RPG The Witch Is Dead gave me all I needed, and the game went reasonably well - the pacing was variable and the experience was a little obtuse for the players playing animals in a human world, but it reached a spectacular conclusion and the players mostly had fun most of the time I think. Definitely something to keep to hand should the need ever arise again.

Barely one page of rules and a lot of imagination

As always, looking back I realise how much media I consume, and I find it useful to look back and consider what I did or didn’t like, and what made me think. In no particular order… future work thought exercise Severance is intriguing, maybe makes no more sense five episodes in that it did at the start - and will either be a wonderful spark or will give me a new found understanding on why so many were disappointed in Lost; I’m particularly enjoying the world it’s in, which appears to be our own, but without familiar anchor points. More adult themes, but cartoon peril, The Owl House is delightful, recommended if you’ve children, or just want to watch something with a magical theme and endearing characters. To enjoy it you’ll need to have some empathy for people not like you - I’m guessing this blog isn’t often read by teenage girls; the same applies to the film Turning Red - which is similarly well made, and well paced, and certainly accessible if you’ve got a little empathy to flex and interested in seeing someone else’s experience of the world. Meanwhile nostalgia quilt Picard is very… very something… I won’t be surprised if we forget to watch it every week - not for you unless you’re a trekkie, the trailer tells you far too much, but is fair warning. If you’re interested in video game design then hbomberguy’s three and a half hour treatise on the game Deus Ex: Human Revolution is extremely well argued and edited, easy to watch in a single sitting - and with insights if you’re in an obviously related profession like game design, but for me the analysis stretches to any creative endeavor, or even to related disciplines like general project management. “science fiction action horror film” Underwater was good but not great - but far better than its online ratings would suggest; unfortunately I suspect it’s a one-off, when actually it would be interesting to see where creators would go with this if it was positioned as a franchise. I finally watched MoneyBall, being a big fan of sports analytics and the kind of insights that approach can generate and the myths it dispels - I’m only really familiar with this from the NFL side, but I did particularly like the clash of computer based analysis against the comments of the agents on prospective players. And lastly, the recent series not the older film, High Fidelity is very well executed which makes it even more puzzling that so few episodes were made, if you like smart dialogue and cool characters, and a surprisingly effective breaking of the fourth wall, make the most of it.

Inexplicably just the one series

Everything else I’ve been doing is designing incident response exercises for work, or just trying to make my life more organised. Still.

The Good, The Bad, and The Meh

Tue, 22 Feb 2022 10:30:01 +0000

Edited highlights of the last couple of weeks.

I finally made time to attend an online meeting of Liminal again, a provider of and example in and experiment with Collective Intelligence. As usual thought provoking conversations and quite weird challenges… for example, think of your two favourite things, then split into randomised pairs and mash one of your favourites with theirs to come up with something new. That was quite forced, a little uncomfortable, but also different, which makes it stimulating. As with analytical red teaming, for all sorts of reasons I think there’s all sorts of benefits in engaging in, and thinking about, collective intelligence… but also I think most organisations that need it won’t be willing to try it, choosing to fail slowly in known ways.

obligatory graphic alluding to complexity

As per my last weeknotes my disappointment at the lack of innovation was shared by a couple of people attending that Liminal meeting too. I see no way to improve this situation except through persistence.

Weeks, and therefore weeknotes, are of an arbitrary duration.

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 23:55:00 +0000

The edited highlights for me over the last twenty days or so.

I’m still catching up on email and Twitter bookmarks and other backlogs or overdue business development. I still think I’m “winning”, but also it’s all still still taking much longer than I envisioned… you’re familiar with Hofstadter's Law aren’t you? Looking at everything I’m working through, even when “necrobumping”, it all feels too interesting and useful just to declare a total “inbox zero” to start again. Especially as I’m working and thinking in varied areas, so I’ve no strict criteria to judge what I should or shouldn’t concentrate on.

A week too far...

Wed, 26 Jan 2022 11:00:01 +0000

Highlights from the first few weeks of January

I finally missed writing up a week of weeknotes, so here’s what I’ve been doing for the last couple of weeks or so…
I watched Eternals … well, I liked it. I think I’m far less critical of the MCU than most because of how much time I’ve invested in the stories while having read so few of the comics, and who I tend to watch the films with. Also I’m more intrigued by how the film-makers keep such a large universe coherent, than in finding plotholes or other issues. I tend to overthink, relative to other people, a lot of the time, but counter-intuitively I find Marvel films relatively relaxing.

Strategy and games in all their forms...

Sat, 15 Jan 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Edited highlights of week 1 of January 2022

Putting together more thoughts around a series of impasse-breaking strategy cards, to prompt people on stratagems to deal when they’re stuck. I’m probably going to use tarot as inspiration for the format and layout of the cards, while being very conscious of all the negative connotations that comes with. I’m inspired to do this by attending Cardstock and especially working with Indy Neogy on some ideas.

I believe Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies is one of the OG decks on inspirational cards, along with the work of Marshall McLuhan

A particularly interesting discussion on helping another company write a paper and presentation, and maybe some game design too.
I would say a “failed” catching up, but I’m slowly working through a backlog of people to contact and things to read and ideas to get down… I don’t think I’m winning yet, but no longer feel like I’m losing.
Some concentrated thinking around a planning game, where between five and ten players are given a role in a fantasy context, with a set of resources and aims, and given a short deadline for a plan to conquer the Dark Lord’s forces. I think these kind of games can be really engaging and revelatory; but convincing stakeholders before the event, and participants during the event, to take away abstract lessons from a fantasy scenario can be a challenge.
I lost a few more times at Tharsis. I’m wary of games that make me feel stupid, especially with my increasingly personal emphasis on strategic decision making and problem solving, and I find Tharsis exasperating. We’ll see, hopefully there will be a victory screenshot on here at some point soon…

In space no-one can hear you sigh disappointedly at your dice roll

This presentation from Eva Summerfield of Unusual Systems was an interesting watch - mainly for me because someone considerably different to me, in age and cyber security industry experience, had come to roughly the same conclusions on issues with the industry in a much shorter space of time. In particular this presentation is worth your time, as is are BSides rookie tracks in general… and also check out this presentation by my occasional co-conspirator James Bore on future threats from bio-engineering.
Through various means I watched A Time To Die, Fast and Furious 9, and Matrix 4 in the same week… more or less. As very short reviews I’d describe them as “involving but perplexing”, “fun but undemanding”, and “better than expected, and thought provoking” respectively… and also it’s useful to think of if and when I’d rewatch a film, which is “rainy bank holiday, as is traditional for Bond films”, “channel hopping when I should have gone to bed”, and “yes” probably applies.

Sometimes you just lean back in your seat, stop thinking too much, and enjoy the ride...

Magic Houses, Magic Swords, and Santa Claus - Crimbo Limbo 2021

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 23:10:00 +0000

Edited highlights from my previous week

I finished Passenger to Frankfurt by Agatha Christie, a surprise “Jolabokaflod” present. I wrote up my thoughts here, it was a weird and entertaining ride of a book.
Appropriately for the time of year, I finally watched some more MST3K by viewing their interpretation of The Christmas That Almost Wasn't. As Twelfth Night has only just passed I think, do take a look if you want a seasonal introduction to the, er, oeuvre/method of MST3K and RiffTrax…. “It’s like watching a movie with your funniest friends!”.

Losing, squeezing, bending.

Wed, 29 Dec 2021 10:02:00 +0000

My previous week:

Teams and teamwork was a bit of a theme last week… this week, due to NFL scheduling shenanigans, the team I follow played twice in the same week. The Seattle Seahawks lost both games, taking them out of playoff contention for the first time since I started following them again “full time” back in 2012. It’s been interesting to dip into “Seahawks Twitter” and similar commentary while analysts hypothesise as to why the team is so bad this year; especially to see in another arena how several smart people I trust all have different but well supported opinions.
Personally experiencing poor service from several suppliers, and the same at work but from customers. Nothing really to be done about it, it just seems unnecessary and doesn’t benefit anyone involved - I mention it here because that kind of unnecessary friction in life wears me down more than I feel it should, but I don’t know what to do about that.
Not much else due to Christmas… which I enjoyed. Thanks to Santa, for dealing with the above friction, I now have access to a Giant Stress Brain.
I watched the live action version of The Last Airbender, having finished the excellent Nickelodeon cartoon series earlier in the year. And also because I’ve a definite interest in bad films. I found the film interestingly awful on how it just didn’t work and why - I think there were poor choices all around in plot and pacing and direction and dialogue… I don’t think I know enough to comment on sound design or cinematography. But most notably, the key capability of element bending in the cartoon was astoundingly badly handled in the film… in the cartoon it just worked, in live action the actors would perform a tai chi like set of moves, and there would be element bending happening, but the connection between the two only worked a couple of times throughout the entire movie. They’re not videos I’ve watched myself, but if you want to see it dissected I trust Hello Future Me to do so by reputation alone.

earth bending... apparently

Team sports as an emerging theme...

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 15:00:00 +0000

My previous week:

Looking back on the previous week, I only realised that “playing as a team” was a common thread through the most significant and/or interesting events when I was putting together this weeknote.

I watched a presentation by CrowdSec a “free and open-source collaborative IPS”. I need to experiment with the software, but I was impressed by the team behind it, and their approach to making something like this work while also keeping one eye on the business model. I’d be interested to hear from anyone using it, or with strong experience in how well crowd sourced threat intelligence works out.
I took part in a couple of playtests of the Minimator game - operated as part of the work of the Research Institute of Sweden. This is a well put together game, probably aimed at policymakers, to explain basic concepts in how cyber defence and zero day markets work. There’s a lot of work gone into the game, and still a lot to do; but there’s definitely something in this and I’m optimistic about what the project will achieve in future.
I was a sounding board for someone working through their career options, and they highlighted how much leading and being part of a team meant to them. I realise that aspect of work probably means more to me than I expected, my involvement in PlaySecure being the most obvious… but increasingly I find myself pushing to work with others before I’ve a fully formed idea. This has led to some promising concepts, but there’s also been many times that hasn’t worked at all after auspicious starts. At some point, but only after something has paid off, I should work out my “completion percentage” on ideas.
Separate from that team based theme though, I watched Vivo; a delightful film, well paced, engaging, suitable for children if you’re up for “adult themes” and some definite peril.

Not quite at the level of Hamilton... but still... definite peril...

Lies and Circuses

Thu, 16 Dec 2021 01:00:00 +0000

My previous week:

Various tribulations with online stores. Maybe I’m getting old and weary, but it seems harder and harder to just pay for something and then get what you paid for; or to trust any of the online review sites, which are obviously being gamed.
I attended the National Cyber Deception Laboratory’s symposium. This was a good day, with some useful and quotable points of view - I expect to blog some summaries of different presentations as they go online. I’ve always been puzzled and frustrated why cyber security, as an industry, doesn’t engage with deception more, hopefully this event is the sign of a change in approach.
I attended, and kind of helped run, and spoke at, the Enterprise Circus, which operated under the PlaySecure brand. This was a lot of fun, and I think like main event back in March 2021, it got a few people thinking something new. As always the aim is to just try something a little different, rather than just being yet another conference saying the same thing.

A different approach to video call backgrounds

The future of trucks, and of photography.

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 01:40:00 +0000

My previous week:

I attended a really interest critical thinking exercise by Sara Penrose Optimisation Training. Myself and several others just brainstormed through how to design a driver’s cab for a truck. The ideas went in all sorts of directions, and it was really illuminating to see how creative people could be given the time and space to work together, and also how that innovation was down to process rather than some kind of innate quality. I learnt a lot, and was struck by how much “path dependence” there is in the design of truck controls - from the steering wheel to the gears to the pedals all being based on outmoded mechanical systems, to “paperwork” still being made of paper.
I stepped back from a few things, trying to catch up on a lot of older email and other messages, while also implementing systems that make it easier to filter out the signal from the noise in future. I think I had some success, but also this is a process I’ve been trying to do for years and years.
Spent an enjoyable evening just playing Animal Crossing and realised it’s one of the few things I do that I don’t try and turn into something productive. Having turned many of my interests into presentations, and with an increasing interest in the commercial production of game-based exercises, this is one thing I just do. Making the most of the new tripod mode I developed an innovative photography style in the game which… well… it makes me laugh.

Mostly my massive head

A new contact got in touch to discuss some business ideas. This is particularly promising, but often I make contact with similar “ideas people” who are “time poor” and so our conversations are interesting but not profitable. We’ll see…
I helped someone think through their career options, I think mainly by just given them space to think, and helping them apply their consulting skills to their own situation. I’m more the catalyst than the reagent.
Another interest that I’ve turned into a presentation… the Seattle Seahawks had the Seahawkiest of games so far this season, “sloppy but thrilling”.

The Cult of the Inventor

Fri, 03 Dec 2021 11:00:00 +0000

Three episodes of the WB40 podcast to listen to if you’re into Cyber Security

Episode 209 - if you’re part of The Great Resignation, or considering moving out of cyber security, or coming in, it’s worth listening to the hosts and Lee Cox thinking through this kind of career change. Although not directly related to cyber I’d expect you to find the decision process, and the successes and failures, very relevant; as well as the importance of an ability to learn, rather than being a life-long subject matter expert in just one area; as well as the importance of transferable skills… as well the lack of innovation from employers… and and and… convinced yet? Go listen.

Games, circuses, CISOs, and anti-submarine warfare.

Thu, 02 Dec 2021 10:00:00 +0000

My previous week:

Provided some feedback for a game/exercise design, which was enlightening because it’s rare that I’m in that situation, rather than being part of the design or operational team.
Some thinking around the forthcoming Enterprise Circus. I’ve some trepedation about whether we can make the Circus metaphor work, but I think that is what makes this event work doing. As per our “pitch”, written by Phelim Rowe, using this metaphor is an “engaging prism”, which I hope will spark some new ideas.
I enjoyed attending Level Up: Gamification as an innovative tool for public service design; this was particularly enjoyable due to the talent and experience on display - I essentially watched three people build a pitchable business idea in a little over half an hour. There’s some really interesting things happening in game-based methods right now.
I was on a panel at the CISO Ensemble, and ran a panel as well. Running the panel was particularly difficult and enjoyable, great to get a range of views, and to figure out on the fly how to give everyone a chance to speak, forewarn them when they were “up”, while paying enough attention to the conversation.
On that particularly busy day I also attended Cardstock; very useful, very interesting, I came out of with lots of ideas and a connection or two. One thing that particularly struck me, it might be observation bias, but for a generally skeptic-minded person like me, some of the greatest insights and mental leaps seemed to come from those with the greatest affinity to “magical” concepts such as astrology and tarot. Something to ponder.
I finally made time to watch the Georgetown University Wargaming Society’s recording on WATU, presented by Sally Davis of DSTL. Good points well made, and also packed with useful academic references to strength through diversity.
And I continue to play fantasy football, which I find such an interesting way to follow the NFL. For me in-particular it brings home just how big a part injuries play in the game, and the operation of the teams.

A team figuring out CISO as a Team at the CISO Ensemble event

Quiet.

Thu, 25 Nov 2021 14:00:00 +0000

My previous week:

Thinking through different and underused game formats: board games that support simultaneous or asynchronous movement, where a wall-mounted magnetic board would make “Play By Video” easy, and so on.
A great chat with someone looking to use me as a cyber security associate, who asked all the right questions… such as “what are you interested in?” rather than “what do you have five years’ experience in?”.
Other useful conversations about forthcoming projects and events, or working on existing ideas.
Some “cyber security strategy” work, just helping someone think through their security roadmap and highlighting what they might have missed, or giving them a chance to explain their choices out loud to me before they face their stakeholders.
And as always, I’m finding it useful to write up these weeknotes.

I just wanted a free pixabay graphic about studying or thinking... but now I have to know why she's studying on a roof...

A good week for games... well, mostly...

Wed, 17 Nov 2021 22:00:00 +0000

My previous week:

I was kind of thrown into the role of Game Control for an online playtest - which I found a little stressful, but illuminating and useful as well. Lots to think about, especially running other people’s game designs.
A really useful conversation on how to make money out of game design. I’ve been put off the idea because so many game designers make a point of explaining that it’s not well paid, but as always I’m trying to find a different angle.
The online services provider for my work went down temporarily. While there was really no harm done, and I was kind of covered, I was reminded that we all need to test all fallback procedures in advance. I was reminded of this recent post on hybrid gaming when your Internet connection goes down.
Inspired by this tweet I’ve been thinking of how to design Play By Video games, both as the desired format for the game, and as a way to playtest them. It’s a particularly difficult design problem for anything beyond a simple game like chess because the players have to trust each other with anything hidden or shared… lots to think about. Also I don’t have the space to leave these kind of games out, but I’ve ideas around that too.
I was the remote adversary for the Ransomware workshop at BSides London. The event went well, I’ve received some good feedback, so I’m looking forward to where we go with the idea in future.
Also I’m looking forward to seeing the recording of the presentation my rookie presenter mentee put together, a cross reference of penetration testing and Persona 5.
We watched Shang Chi and the legend of the ten rings; in some ways not a typical Marvel film, and the better for that.
We also watched Red Notice and, as many have said - an unsurprising film by numbers. It works as an “enjoyable romp” if you’re drinking, or not particularly awake.
And lastly, with the unscripted excitement of a game but the budget of a movie comes watching the Seattle Seahawks. After navigating poorly described and outdated contractual restrictions I managed to get access to the game… was it worth that level of effort? Every week Lee Sharpe creates these great gifs, that map each team’s Win Probability as the game progressed, which give you a really great idea on the flow of the game. You can figure out the flow of this one pretty easily…

So little time on the Seahawks' side of that 50% chance line...

Cops and Robbers

Tue, 09 Nov 2021 17:00:00 +0000

Last Week:

A very thought provoking conversation with a former Police officer about innovative tactics to use against organised crime.
A useful conversation with someone in a similar position to me, a square peg looking at round holes, and the attitude required for that kind of situation. While there’s a lot of nuance required, “keep going” is an effective summary.
Providing training on assessing and using penetration testing results, it was interesting to see how much I still know - and how far some aspects of the practice have gone, and how many haven’t changed in the last decade.
Finishing off plans for the Ransomware workshop I’m helping run at BSides London, I’m very much in the “sidekick” role, helping James Bore think through the idea, and he’ll be onsite on the day.

Resting a little...

Mon, 01 Nov 2021 15:00:00 +0000

Last Week:

I used FreeBusy to schedule some meetings, there’s still some problems with the way I use it to be ironed out, but I still think it’s been relatively smooth rather than trying to organise multiple meetings simultaneously.
I attended BeerCon3, which had an impressively diverse range of mainly “rookie” presenters. I kind of drifted in and out so need to catch up with the recordings once they’re on YouTube.
My car was in for an MoT, which was a mess for a variety of reasons… a “wrap around” for the service which appeared to just add a two to three hour delay to all communications, inconsistent interpretations of the MoT criteria, and a vehicle manufacturer embracing the concept of built in obsolescence. No-one to really point the finger at, and I think I’ve found a new garage to use much closer than my previous choice, but still a lot of additional overhead I didn’t need.
I had a bit of a rest for at least a day, which might be why this post is so sparse. I often advocate for framing such time as “recharging” to others, so decided to heed my own advice.

How I felt over the weekend...

Is it me, or is software just awful?

Mon, 25 Oct 2021 19:30:00 +0100

Weeknote 25th October 2021

Taking a cue from Sara Campbell of the Foster writing community, I’ve come up with a more interesting title than “Weeknotes”, but maybe this isn’t the most appealing title. Baby steps.
I finished watching The Goes Wrong Show which has to be one of the funniest things I’ve watched over the last decade or so, along with Ted Lasso, and Community. I think I tend towards angry and/or painfully intelligent comedy, but we had to institute a house rule not to eat or drink while watching this, to prevent any unfortunate accidents.
I’ve been drained and disappointed by the poor threat modelling that leads to the response to the death of Sir David Amess being a call for less Internet anonymity, and the response to the death of Sarah Everard being a call to contact the Police; but I suspect I’ve been naive about the intention behind those suggestions.
I gave that training I mentioned last time, on common threats from the Internet, and only had time to scratch the surface when covering ransomware. I can only see that situation getting worse.
I thought far too much about The Chair Game; a very simple idea, but surprisingly revealing in what thoughts it prompts. I look forward to playing and/or discussing it at some point.
I fell behind on meetings, then fell behind further while looking at automated scheduling services to help me suggest times to several people, without getting into multiple simultaneous games of “email tennis”. I was disappointed at how many were just simplified clones of Calendly, requiring you to spend time in your calendar interface and scheduling interface simultaneously to manage your avalability, when the aim is to save your time. It took quite a while, But I was finally impressed by FreeBusy; particularly by its Guarded Availability functionality.

Weeknote 18th October 2021

Mon, 18 Oct 2021 13:30:00 +0100

Last week

Gave some training on common cyber security attacks, moving on to ransomware next session, where the challenge is limiting so much available material.
Discussions on exercises with James Bore, other collaborators welcome.
Some mentoring of a rookie speaker for BSides London on an interesting analogical approach they’re taking
One of my game designs is getting out of hand, I’m regarding a lot of what I’ve done as “design notes” listing intriguing but rejected ideas once I publish something.
I’m behind on scheduling meetings so I worked through some automated and semi-automated scheduling services, which just made me more bitter about the state of the technology in general; and also means I understand why virtual assistants are still so popular.
I had my last coaching session with a kind of business coach, which has helped change my mind on the benefits of coaching. Get in touch if you want a recommendation.
I attended the Autumn virtual meeting of Wargame Developments, a couple of sessions anyway. They/we are putting an updated version of the “WD Handbook” together, to act as a guide and introduction to the group. I’m very interested to see what comes out of that process.
For years I’ve had an idea for a kind of “psychic massage” app, something that would give you an emotional boost when needed and/or at random - a lot of people, myself included, find those “you’ve got this” messages inspiuring even though we know how vaccous their source is. But it’s on the big pile of possible ideas, whereas Sarah and Leila have done something with their Feel Better Cards; worth checking out.
In having done these weeknotes for a while now, I realise how often I would type out the same thing every week - for example trying to build something to make money, while also needing to earn money doing “day rate” work; also I realise how much I achieve, but also how unrealistic my plans are for what I can achieve each week. I wonder if the bottom of each weeknote should have an “ongoing whines” section, with a counter…

Weeknote 11th October 2021

Mon, 11 Oct 2021 08:30:00 +0100

Last week

Mostly work I can’t discuss.
I’m behind on a lot of meetings, and thought it would be a good time to finally look at automated scheduling services rather than email everyone the same options and hope there’s no clashes. All the scheduling services appear to assume you work in just one way - you’re available unless specified otherwise, and free time is offered to all contacts or none. Disappointing, but I might play around with scripts a little, or search a little harder…
A really thought provoking demonstration of a business game, lots of ideas around how it did and didn’t work, and where it could be used.
Attended very little of a NATO conference, but got lucky and caught really intriguing ideas on modelling cyber conflict, and python based efforts to run through those models. This fits in with similar ideas I’ve discussed with people elsewhere, I just need to glue them together.
And again trying to square the circle where I need a lot of time to work on products and ideas and games that would make money and make a difference, but having to spend most of my time and energy earning money to pay the bills doing “day rate” consultancy has doesn’t have such long term value to me. Suggestions or investment welcome.
On a happier note, I had a very wholesome weekend, watching the funny and lovely Free Guy, and it was also my birthday in Animal Crossing…

Happy Birthday to me...

Weeknote 04th October 2021

Mon, 04 Oct 2021 00:30:00 +0100

Last week

Mostly work I can’t discuss.
Worked Control for another wargame, lots of thoughts about how to run a megagame with highly variable parcipation. Working with Stone Paper Scissors again.
Oh, it’s going to be one of those seasons.

Weeknote 27th September 2021

Mon, 27 Sep 2021 23:30:00 +0100

Last week

I appeared on the Circuit Podcast, describing the benefits of wargaming in all forms of security practice.
I had a sales call that meant I didn’t get the work, just due to me not being the right fit. However the customer thanked me for being “candid”; which is now my favourite descriptive term for my approach behind “external security brain”.
I attended some of another CTG Intelligence conference, always interesting to hear what a different aspect of the security industry has to say.
I attended the second set of 44Con talks; I was disappointed that this game was cancelled but I’m seeing more and more signals that there’s a strong future in cyber wargaming.
It was a particularly busy week, so I combined a business meeting with James Bore’s open office - I like to think that worked out well, and useful conversations were had.
I was one of the members of the Control Team for “Last People on Earth”, a megagame set in the 1st century, working with Stone Paper Scissors.
I enjoyed watching the third week of the NFL season, although my team were disappointing.

Weeknote 20th September 2021

Mon, 20 Sep 2021 23:30:00 +0100

Last week

I attended two days of the profesional wargaming conference Connections UK. This was well done, very interactive, with the team figuring out online problems as they went. More engaging than I expected, with some useful and interesting contacts made to take forward.
I attended the Fourth Annual Managed Security Services Forum London MSS London. An interesting event to dip in and out of, especially with the reoccuring theme of building relationships and trust between all the parties involved. Also, as cliched as it might be, that the evolution of Managed Security Services is a journey in developing those “soft skills”, rather tnan focussing on technical ability.
I also spoke at MSS London, that panel might be online in future. But if you’re in Cyber Security and have limited time, I have to suggest you check out Megan Gooch’s presentation instead, she made many excellent points based on her experience in counter-terrorism.

Me looking thoughtful at MSS London

I enjoyed watching the second week of the NFL season, although my team managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
After falling down a “gas lift” hole last week, this week I spent far too much time trying to find a piece of hardware that will support quad displays for VGA over DB15 on a single monitor, more to follow…

Weeknote 13th September 2021

Mon, 13 Sep 2021 12:30:00 +0100

Last week

Enjoyed watching the first week of the NFL season, my team had a relatively calm beginning.
Helped a friend think through their new PC options, details here.
Lots of moving around cables and computers, to basically try and fit more objects in the same amount of physical space. Reasonably successful, so depending on the state of the world I should update talk on my home setup at some point.
More work than usual coming up, so some time spent on getting up to speed on the project, and planning on the best way to deal with it.
Having to learn far too much about the different types of gas lifts available for office chairs, after an organisation I bought a new chair from was a little “optimistic” about seat height. This and this were useful.

Weeknote 06th September 2021

Mon, 06 Sep 2021 12:30:00 +0100

Last week

Did my fantasy football draft for the year. I have less time than I’d like for following the NFL, so I find fantasy football a good way to stay in touch with the league as a whole
James Bore’s open office on Thursday morning was interesting and useful. If you want to keep an eye on future meetings the best way is to follow James on LinkedIn
I attended a meeting about a thing that is bad. That’ll go public this week. What do you call an APT that’s more A, more P, and more T than all the other APTs?
Took part in a regular informal meeting that’s kind of a podcast, but with only hosts and no listeners
I got over-excited at a potential customer, but I’m less worried about leaning into that these days. As I said at that “podcast with no audience”, if you want 20 ideas I can give you 20, if you want 3, I’ll also give you 20. It’s probably inadvisable commercially, but also “standard issue” consultancy appears to be devoid of any enthusiasm or joy, so my attitude is a market differentiator too
Attended a hybrid ( online and remote ) meeting of the Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group. It went reasonably well, but I think the benefits and the issues around hybrid meetings are still being explored; and the participants’ enthusiasm and familiarity with each other made a huge difference. I was reminded once again of all the benefits of the format, especially the remote side :- being able to chat afterwards with two contacts, who had to be several hundred and several thousand miles away on the day. Thanks to Andrew Hadley for this picture he took on the day at the location; but due to some of the kit being used our remote impression wasn’t far off this level of clarity:

The Normans besiege Winchester and London after the Battle of Hastings

This week

Probably stop doing weeknotes with a “this week” header, they’re increasingly optimistic

On that, this article by Oliver Burkeman is worth your time. I particularly liked:

Weeknote 30th August 2021

Tue, 31 Aug 2021 10:30:00 +0100

Last week

Continued thinking on the American War of Independence mashup, this rapid summary on YouTube was thought provoking
Acknowledged that maybe hexagons are sometimes the bestagons, as per this video
More discussions on running or helping to run exercises
Attended a seminar by the UK Fight Club on deception in warfare, which is an interest of mine. It was well done, and while mainly for a military audience they don’t exclude civilian interest at all
Attended James Bore’s open office; if you’re in Cyber Security or related industries it’s worth considering on Thursday mornings UK time
Watched Dr Sara Ulrich presenting on negotiation and business wargames ; I really liked the emphasis on knowing yourself, what I would call “situation substitution” in negotiations, and her enthusiasm for business wargaming
Saw the result of bringing together two separate geek groups I’ve been part of for a while, which was interesting
Started learning Python again, and thanks to my partner I’m being a bit more organised this time
Particularly enjoyed watching military experts analyse TV and movie scenes relevant to their speciality, which I find a really interesting way to learn
Pushed lots of tasks back to the next week while making difficult purchasing decisions. Intellectually it’s interesting to see how much information we have now on what choices are available, but still how difficult it is to make those choices
Played Townscaper. Contrary to some discussion online, I’d argue that it is a game. It is very enjoyable and wholesome

A screenshot from one of my creations

This week

Still 90% done with a new layout for my company website, but still with what feels like 90% of the work left to do
Still fighting software, mainly rdiff-backup I expect
Actually read a book, again
And yes, I still nedd to update that Inky game, make it a little easier: Lost Key
A lot of tidying of my physical space, which is always good because the results are so clear, but always dull because it takes so long

Weeknote 23rd August 2021

Mon, 23 Aug 2021 12:30:00 +0100

Last week

Continued thinking on a “mashup” game ( maybe manual, online, or megagame ) about the American War of Independence… but that has expanded to include a magic system
Bought a copy of the Dune board game, I’m more interested in the mechanics than the lore. If you’re interested in the lore check out Nerd Cookies on YouTube.
Discussion with a customer on running a megagame, I’ve some ideas already
I attended an online meeting of the Foster community. They’ve some very interesting ideas around tokens, there was a great Q and A, and I’m really interested to see where this goes. I do, however, think failure is as likely as success - which considering the nature of the community, I ought to write up…
My work laptop seems to handle video calls badly while doing something simultaneously, for example running OBS to obscure the background. It was useful to work through Smart Choices to determine the best way to fix the issue rather than just buy a more expensive problem. I’m not quite there yet though.
This was further evidence of the “law of repulsion”, soon after wondering if I want to spend my working life fighting technology I received a great call out of the blue
I played and enjoyed Monopoly Deal, it has an interesting mechanic, which led to a few game ideas; but similarly, some intriguing gaps in the simple rules when edge cases occur. Monopoly Bid is less good, but still an interesting game that’s quick to pick up and play.
I watched a couple of good videos on the Vietnam War on YouTube, both intriguing and horrifying
Read this short article on being an “Uncertainty Killer”, which explains what I want to achieve with my business, and why my approach needs refining

This week

While realising how useful weeknotes are in seeing what I’ve achieved, also looking at the unchanged set of plans brings home how over-ambitious I am
Still 90% done with a new layout for my company website, but still with what feels like 90% of the work left to do.
Keep fighting software, mainly rdiff-backup I expect.
Those work opportunities are still “hovering”, this is the best and worst aspect of freelancing.
Condense the scribbled set of “to do” lists next to me into one list, preferably by doing some of the things on it
Actually read a book, again
Update that Inky game, make it a little easier: Lost Key

Weeknote 16th August 2021

Mon, 16 Aug 2021 10:30:00 +0100

My further attempts at “working out loud”. I realised this should be called “weeknote”, learnt from Matt Ballantine’s latest post; I appear to be three years behind the trend.

Last week

90% done with a new layout for my company website, but still with what feels like 90% of the work left to do.
Looked for a new office chair, but I appear to be the wrong shape with the wrong height table
Apparently random things starting to fail due to age, my Xbox360 and my lower back being the most notable this week
Looked again for a new keyboard, my requirements don’t feel that unusual but I can’t find anything that matches; I’ll blog about that at some point
A few nice chats with new contacts and new customers; I appear to have been carrying out “relationship marketing” by accident over the last few years
I’m still amazed, thinking about a couple of communities I belong to, on how such smart people can under-estimate or downplay their own abilities
I’m still surprised, even after so long, on what smart and useful friends I have if I just make the time to ask them something
Ostensibly to relax, I played some Rocket League and Spellbreak for free on Nvidia’s GeForceNow service. Doing so is partly just a break, but it’s always interesting to see how well or how badly ad-hoc teams work together, I’d love to see some statistics. Similarly, I wonder how well teams co-operate in Hell Let Loose under more organised conditions.
Contined playtesting of an online game set in the Vietnam War, interesting to see how far the game has diverted from the direction I expected already

This week

Keep fighting software, mainly rdiff-backup I expect.
Those work opportunities are still “hovering”, this is the best and worst aspect of freelancing.
Condense the scribbled set of “to do” lists next to me into one list, preferably by doing some of the things on it
Actually read a book, again
Update that Inky game, make it a little easier: Lost Key

9th August 2021

Mon, 09 Aug 2021 09:00:30 +0100

Looking forward and back, 9th August 2021

I’m very wary of journals and journalling, but “work out loud” keeps being recommended more and more, and I’ve seen friends and contacts manage to navigate the line between self-promotion and bluster successfully.

Last week

Kept fighting software, won as often as I lost this week I think.
Contined playtesting of an online game set in the Vietnam War, had to change my initial plans immediately.
Continued discussions of what a general course on strategy would look like with some contacts.
Continued thinking around bots, either written in code or “card based”. These would be for my own games, or as an unauthorised addition to other’s games. But this looks like a deep area that should be a sole area of study, and I’m not sure its financially viable.
Discussions of applicability of traditional Business Continuity Management and Disaster Recovery principles to a modern organisation based on cloud services.
Had that weird freelancer thing when opportunities look bleak, and then three people contact you in the same morning ( and therefore laughed at the Law of Attraction once again ).
Moved and resized some logical volumes and re-learnt just how easy that can be.
Learnt the difference between microboredom and existential boredom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEQTrW9NP68
Watched Alita Battle Angel, which was underwhelming, but I was temporarily intrigued by how the sport of Motorball would work - for example, how to stop it just being a fight but on a track, what strategies teams would use, how to balance teams but allow variation, and so on… I’ve an initial idea together.
Watched Ted Lasso, still too dangerous to watch while eating.
Finally finished a little “game” in Inky: Lost Key

This week

Keep fighting software, mainly rdiff-backup I expect.
More chats with the consultancy umbrella.
Other work opportunities are “hovering”.
Try to take off more items from my “to do” lists than I add - that didn’t go so well last week.
Read a book, again

2nd August 2021

Mon, 02 Aug 2021 13:50:30 +0100

Looking forward and back, 2nd August 2021

Last week

Fought backup software - rdiff-backup - ongoing
Fixed, mostly, Manjaro blanking a screen by default
Continuing playtesting of an online game set in the Vietnam War, I particularly like the double-blind play
Being an “external security brain” for a customer
Put in some technical restrictions to stop me playing “just one more game” until too early in the morning
Mashed my sleep schedule because of how Linux handles fonts
Fought Linux and poor IO handling… still fighting
Started discussing red team thinking with a new-ish contact, I have my usual doubts that organisations are interested in this kind of service without it being bundled with many others, if at all
Continued thinking around bots, either written in code or “card based”, for either my own games, or as an unauthorised addition to other’s games. But this looks like a deep area that should be a sole area of study, and I’m not sure its financially viable
I learned that YouTube advertising is in-stream now
Spent far too long trying to make some old hardware useful
Finished all of Ape Out… at the “softer” level. If you’ve played it, you’ll know how important that last level is
Tried the Long Journey Home, an interesting idea but really dissauded by the training mode before I even started the game
Replaced some hard disks on a server like some kind of 20th Century IT version of the Sealed Knot

This week

Keep fighting rdiff-backup
More chats with the consultancy umbrella
Catch up with some old friends online
Try to take off more items from my “to do” lists than I add
Read a book, again

26th July 2021

Mon, 26 Jul 2021 11:00:00 +0100

Looking forward and back, 26th July 2021

Last week

Tried to figure out the antonym of terrorism
Thought about a “kind insurgency” organisation and how it would work
Made inroads into an umbrella consulting organisation
Had a great conversation with a CISO about their career plans, and where the cyber security industry is going
Caught up with an old friend who’s a CISO now, and the difficulty of finding the right position, even when you’re in demand
Helped umpire an influence modelling wargame, impressive in terms of Control and attendee engagement
Attended DSTL’s “Supercharging Science” event, which confirmed a few opinions, and led to useful conversations
Attended the CardStock meetup, thought provoking and useful
Been rather impressed at the creativity in the Masters of the Universe release
Caught up on a lot of newsletters, closed a few tabs

This week

Act as an “external security brain” for a customer
Various dull technical projects
Slightly more interesting technical projects, looking at automating some things
More chats with the consultancy umbrella
Catching up with others… I’ve taken a step back recently and, as naff as it sounds, realised just how many really smart people I know…

The Coxswain

Fri, 19 Mar 2021 10:59:40 +0000

The ( former ) subtitle of this blog is a bit much isn’t it, “I am the coxswain on my boat of thought”. But the phrase “train of thought” is common, implying something that travels from one station to the next, on well established and solid tracks, to exact destinations. And if it goes off the rails at all, everything is lost.

Whereas I have a “boat of thought”, it goes in a general direction from one port to the next, but it’s buffeted by waves and storms, and sometimes is forced to take interesting diversions. Wikipedia says that the coxswain is the person in charge of a boat, particularly its navigation and steering. The etymology of the word gives a literal meaning of “boat servant”, which I kind of like.

Feedback Welcome

Thu, 18 Mar 2021 10:00:00 +0000

What do you think of the colour scheme? I like the green, black, and white - based on the graphic I chose for my Twitter avatar an age ago. It looks fine on my machine, but how does it look to you?

If it’s particularly egregious please @ me on Twitter, or drop me an email.

Thank you.