Tech Stuff

I started creating this content earlier in the year, primarily to try and capture some of the portable/reusable pieces of tech knowledge I’d been working on.

Over the years I’ve learned, documented and forgotten tens, if not hundred, of bits of ‘how to do X’. Recently, working back in hands-on tech roles I was finding myself rediscovering/relearning things I’d written down years earlier but then left behind firewalls and DLP systems in company Wikis.

So this is an effort to sanitise, anonymise, capture and centralise these things as I go.

Cooking Stuff

I also like to cook. (And eat, and drink.)

I normally squirrel interesting recipes away in my mailbox with a recipes label but figured it might be useful again to have them more widely visible. This isn’t the full repertoire but just the ones I think are worth porting over as I go.

I don’t bother with any sort of fancy food photography but on occasion I capture some evidence before stuff gets eaten (or very occasionally, thrown in the bin).

Books

I read a lot, although I tend to do so in phases. I don’t have an exhaustive list of books, but it’s the usual Scifi and Fantasy suspects. I might flesh this out with some recommendations at a future date.

Gaming

Board gaming

I started playing modern boardgames around 2012-2013. I have lots of gamer friends so went from gateway Carcasonne to 12 player Twighlight Imperium in a relatively short space of time. 😬

I’ve always fancied trying my hand at something involving minatures too. The whole Warhammer schtick really doesn’t appeal (so. much. lore.) But I played a demo game of Legion at the UK Games Expo so that was my intro to painting little plastic dudes.

Role playing

Some of those friends form a semi-regular remote RPG group. This kicked off around July 2020 triggered partly by the pandemic. Over the last 4 or so years we’ve been through campaigns, one-shots (that almost never run to time), and a few abortive starts of some of:

  • Alien
  • Blades in the Dark
  • Cairn
  • Cast the Runes
  • Cyberpunk 2020
  • Limnal
  • Mutant Year Zero
  • Night’s Black Agents
  • Red Markets
  • Symbaroum
  • The Dee Sanction
  • Twilight 2000
  • Vaesen
  • Zweihander

If there’s a theme, it’s extensive planning followed by immediate rug-pulls.

Video gaming

I’ve been video gaming since the days of the Atari 2600.

I think some of the most formative gaming years were the Megadrive Years post-uni unemployment. Ploughing hundreds of hours ito NHLPA 93 and PGA European Tour.

Then following on from that, during the early days of the internet. (I mean commercial home internet dial-up, not ARPANET.) As UK and European Quake leagues were picking up, and the formation of communities. IRC and mailing lists. Running small LAN parties.

This also indirectly led to me working in technology.

My gaming tastes are pretty broad. Trad RPG, JRPG, action adventure, strategy, the odd casual game, FPS, love a Metroidvania (never played a Metroid), platformers, space sims, shooters, even the odd sports sim.

I’ve ploughed more time into Doom I, II and Quake I than just about anything else except maybe Civ VI.