This is a list of my thoughts on the particularly valuable points from the Georgetown University Wargaming Society (GUWS) talk: “Based on Mechanics & Theme: Synergies in Game Design” by Damon Stone. You can watch the whole thing on their YouTube channel. ( if you do watch it, there’s literally a couple of pauses due to intermittent connectivity; but they’re not a big deal, and are well handled by all ) GUWS event on July 7th 2022 Provoked thoughts: GUWS is pronounced “goose”?! ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ) ...

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? ...

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. ...

( My reviews are strictly aimed at helping you decide whether you should read something, rather than assuming your meaning of “good” or “bad” is anything like mine. ) As per my last 'weeknotes' I finished reading Rory Sutherland’s “Alchemy” recently. The overall point of the work, for me, is that economics and marketing ( in general, so with exceptions ) have failed to understand human nature and desire, and therefore their models are incorrect. These points are well made, well illustrated, well supported; I do like Sutherland’s use of “psycho-logical” to describe the approach he advocates for. The only place where it gets a bit wobbly in places is where he argues that free markets are good for most effectively indicating what people want - which is fair - but those neo-liberal capitalists have ruined it by being more profitable. But extrapolating the benefits of certain strategies within a market regardless of their overall effect is a conversation for another time. ...

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… ...

By Nick Drage, a cybersecurity strategist, and Indy Neogy, a coach who specialises in how we deal with the future. This is a “personal blog” version, where I’ve added a couple of pictures. Indy’s publication on LinkedIn can be found here. Comments welcome anywhere. Cybersecurity Strategy in the New Era The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been shocking. As a hot conflict it inevitably makes us focus on physical threats. However, it has also necessitated discussions that produced a lot of useful articles about how to improve personal and organisational cybersecurity - in particular how to improve them in response to a raised level of cybercrime and cyberattack activity. ...

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. ...