Looking forward and back, 2nd 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

• 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