This is a good bundle of security books. I can vouch for Threats and Security Culture Playbook being worthwhile, and Software Transparency is on my to-read list.
Testing out Lillihub!
Currently reading: How to Measure Anything in Cybersecurity Risk by Douglas W. Hubbard 📚
Two chapters in, and I really appreciate learning about:
Currently reading: Game Programming Patterns by Robert Nystrom 📚
I need to study this some more, but there are some good ideas in this cATO playbook, and the manifesto it links to: rise8-us.github.io/cato-play…
(hey, look, it’s an infosec post!)
Deadly Class
Finished reading: Deadly Class Vol 12: A Fond Farewell, Part Two by Rick Remender 📚
Some of the late-middle volumes were a bit of a drag for me, the characters and their exploits didn’t seem that interesting after leaving school. In this final arc (volume 11 and 12), I enjoyed seeing how these people turned out as adults, and the ending was pretty satisfying.
Long after I’m dead, there will still be articles using this picture I took in 2004 www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2…
Personal SEO
I’ve been spending some time trying to clean up search results for my name (yeah, kind of douchy, sorry), and one thing that’s been vexing me is my old Twitter name. I deleted my ‘rossk’ account a while back, but I guess 15 years of google juice means my name will forever be linked with twitter.com/rossk, even though someone else owns it now.
All of that is to say, I’ve created a new twitter account, which I hope becomes more prominent in search results for “Ross Karchner”, and which links back to this site.
Back to making
One week turned into three weeks, but I feel like I’ve worked that particular digital addiction out of my system (and diving in to Snap has actually helped crystalize an idea I’ve been thinking about, so it wasn’t entirely a waste). OK, back to making stuff.
My current idea for the 20 second game jam is really simple and pretty wonky: a trainer for being able to differentiate times shorter than a second (say, 500ms vs 700ms). Back in 2015 I went to some Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) training where this was mentioned as a useful skill for SRE’s. I didn’t entirely give up, but at that moment my dream of ever being an SRE seemed a little more remote.
There are some optional themes for the jam, but I think time itself is a sort of implied theme, and pondering that brought the SRE training back to mind. Thankfully, this isn’t a judged competition, so nobody else has to necessarily get it. Since the idea itself is so simple, I do want to lean in to trying to make it as fun and engaging as I can.
I’ve also started futzing with a micro.blog client written in Godot. We’ll see if that goes anywhere.
DragonRuby, which usually costs $48, is free right now, as part of the 20 Second Game Jam
I let myself get sucked into Marvel Snap this week, so spent more free time playing games instead making them. I have started experimenting with Godot features I’m not familiar with yet, starting with navigation meshes.
Next on the list is 2D lighting and shadows, maybe this weekend!
Currently reading: Deadly Class Vol. 5: Carousel by Rick Remender 📚
The first four volumes were a pleasant surprise. I was expecting a sort of “Hogwarts for Assassins”, and there’s a bit of that– but the stories being told are much more complex and personal.
On the same day I learn about this gallery of Internet Artifacts, I also come across this bit about the worlds oldest continuously-seeded bittorrent file.
As part of Space Day the kiddo and I got to check out the observatory at George Mason University. 📷 🚀
Probably my last post about Ludum Dare 54 maybe
The results are in, and… it’s nothing to brag about. I do like that innovation is my strongest category again.
I don’t know exactly how many entrees I’m ranked against. The stats say that there were 1597 entries in the “jam” competition, and 66% of all entries (“jam”, and a separate competition, “compo”) met the ratings threshold for getting ranked, so maybe I’m ranked against 1067 or so “jam” entries? That puts me in the top half for most categories, and not far from it on the Overall. In a competition that includes professionals, hobbyists, and teams, I feel OK about that.
I took the plunge– this is now my “home” on the fediverse. I think micro.blog has a healthier vision for social media, and I’m really drawn to the idea of my blog and my social media presence being all one thing. Worst case, I’m not locked in!
The post-jam, cleaned up version of Don’t Get Crushed is now on itch.io rosskarchner.itch.io/dont-get-…