Freelancing on Son of Sun Tzu blog

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...

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