Monthly, 06/23

I really ~~need~~~ want to get better at publishing this type of posts at the beginning of the month, rather than halfway through the next one. Anyway, about June:

  • My workstation at the office broke. What started out as an intense, annoying debugging session to get to the bottom of network performance issues that were chaotic and random, eventually ended with the realization that the integrated network adapter of the motherboard was suffering from some form of issue. I’m not well versed enough in hardware to be able to pinpoint ecactly what the problem was, but it’s (almost) definitely a hardware issue.

    Having only used it as a testbed and a backup destination it wasn’t that big of a loss. I donated the machine to my development colleagues, for their hardware zoo & embraced the laptop-based lifestyle.

  • While being back at it with work after several weeks off was enjoyable, I’m still dealing with some issues. There’s a distinct lack of a challenge that I feel almost constantly, which culminated in me hacking together a 6.000 word analysis on the effect destructive cyber attacks had on the Ukrainian military performance since the beginning of the Russian invasion (spoiler: it pretty much didn’t have any). My work’s still exhausting at times, but it’s mostly for any reason but being intellectually overwhelmed. I’m really at a loss here how to move forward ..

  • .. which is probably one of the reasons I fell down the rabbithole of playing “Steel Division” a lot. Well, a lot for me that is, teenage me would laugh at the puny few dozen hours I spent on it, but adult me is close to considering it dubious. But it’s admittedly a lot of fun managing a comparatively huge frontline and complex battle situations with attention needed on both a tactical level to ensure that small mistakes aren’t collapsing your lines, and strategic levels, to be able to exploit similar mistakes committed by the enemy. But I definitely should not start Factorio. That would indeed be the end of my personal hygiene, continued employment and mental sanity.

  • I managed to complete working through the entire material for “Certificate of Intelligence Practice”, which took more time than I anticipated, but was generally very enjoyable. I got pretty much exactly what I had hoped for out of the course, a concise summary and “formalization” of the knowledge I gathered through practical analysis work during the last couple of years. The only thing left to do now is the final assignment, which consists of having three hours of time to complete an intelligence briefing which is then graded by the course authors.

    (Spoiler: I completed the final exam, successfully. But don’t tell anyone until the beginning of August. It feels kind of odd to hold a professional certification)

Because of the amount of time I poured into reading course material, and the increased amount of articles and papers I read, I didn’t spend all that much time reading books. Nonetheless, I finished:

  • “The Good Shepherd” by C.S. Forester; I enjoy the film “Greyhound” with Tom Hanks quite a lot - but please, don’t ask me why, because I can’t explain it objectively. When I realised that it was, more or less loosely, based on a novel I decided to get it - this was, if I remember correctly, in March. I finally got around to reading it now, and while, similar to the film, I enjoyed it, it’s objectively a pretty bland book. To sum up its contents, it’s roughly 200 pages of the protagonist missing his ex and trying not to let his crew know that he has human needs, like eating, drinking and sleeping.

  • “Tales of the Old World” by Marc Gascoigne - which was, as it’s usually with these books, an entertaining, light read. I really do miss the “Old World” of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, and I doubt that what Games Workshop is coming up with as part of their “Warhammer: The Old World”-revival is going to be as good, lore-wise, what the first iteration was. I’m just nostalgic, not a grumpy neckbeard, I swear.

I also got around to listen to more music again, mostly going back to my “comfort albums”. But I did buy the entire collection of music released by “Stray Gods”. I came across them them while browsing Bandcamp, and I really enjoyed tuning into a few of their songs. I’m very specific in my taste when it comes to Metal, but they hit my exact sweet spot between Power Metal and Heavy Metal.