Self-Referential

A review of the book “Leading the Rebellion” by Jason Kingsley.

Suggestions on when you should use randomness in your life.

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

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

Seahawks versus Vikings, and what it was like to watch it on DAZN as an NFL GamePass subscriber

A thoughtful listicle of the wide variety of things I read or watched this week, from March to August, from time-travel to sports.

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. ...

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.” ...

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. ...

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. ...