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.

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…

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.

I’ve just been helping a friend think through buying a new “home office” PC, mainly because I’ve got through a similar set of thoughts myself recently, rather than having specialist knowledge anymore. So on their suggestion I’m putting those questions up here, so they’re easy to refer to in future… “Pre-flight questions” Can you upgrade your existing machine instead? RAM upgrades, or moving to an SSD, can make a substantive difference What is the actual requirement? For example, if you just need more storage, buy a NAS instead? Criteria Budget - how much can you spend? This is usually the most intractable limiting factor Case - this affects a couple of factors fans, can you run several large and slow ( and therefore quiet ) fans rather than smaller noisier ones? for a Micro ATX case, for example, this will affect where ports for cables, and fans sit Future requirements - what else might the system be used for? Photo editing? Streaming? Graphics - do you need a dedicated “GPU”? Watch for the new AMD Ryzen processors, only some have a graphics capability As far as I can tell, online streaming is CPU intensive, not GPU intensive Noise - Do you want a quiet PC with passive cooling, or are fans OK? What do the other people in your shared space think? Operating System - do you want Windows, or would a ChromeBook be the best option? Portability - apart from a laptop, will it be useful to move the system around the house to change your working environment? Space - how much space do you have? Do you want a micro PC, a desktop, or a tower? Surroundings - a few things to consider: think of all the cabling that will have to go in and come out, will there be space around the system? where are the air intakes and fans, will a PC under the desk be warming your feet? Upgradability - how easy is it to improve the system in future, when you have increased budget or demands? the number of memory slots will affect what memory you add to the system in future. the number and location of SATA or M.2 ports will decide how many disks you can add in future. Where to buy it from - that’s a whole different conversation… Resources Trying to figure out which processor or graphic card is the best is difficult due to the sheer variety ...

Thanks to Phil Huggins for putting me onto this episode of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. Dan discusses his background in miniature wargaming and then talks to one of the architects of a popular Second World War themed video game about the genre, its development, growth and challenges. Do listen if you: Just want to listen to someone with a great podcast/radio voice. I’ve not listened to Dan Carlin before, but within 30 seconds I knew he was a professional. ( I’m reminded of meeting Dave Lewis a few years ago at BSides London ) If you want to learn more about the new WW2 video game Hell Let Loose that I mentioned a little while ago. It’s an interesting idea, especially that players are attacted to such a constrained environment compared to the popular Battle Royale format Right now I can’t justify the time the game appears to demand, and don’t have the computer power - if you can’t either this is a really good insight. The highlights for me: Kriegsspiel being described as the Germans’ secret weapon in the 19th century; echos of Matt Caffrey's theories Carlin made a good point on modern gaming taking the arguing out of miniatures, it being much better to let the computer figure it out Maximillian Rea, the lead developer of Hell Let Loose, made a great point on modern computing finally being good enough to have massed players, and a more realistic size for the battlefield. As fun as that format this, this isn’t CoD's Nuketown It’s the briefest of mentions, but what you can discern from the naming schemes of militaries involved in WW2. Rea’s point that the infliction of pain isn’t the appeal for the majority of players, it’s more about strategy and tactics and out-playing an opponent. Unfortunately this interview ended just as they were getting into expanding this idea… imagine a game where your battle could be won through logistics

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: ...

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

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

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

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