I'm often asked why I didn't pursue a career in physics, given that's what I graduated in.

At high school physics was my passion. Why? Because I was easily top of my class.

Passion is often driven by the ego - people love being great at things.

At university, I began to chill, and most of the competition didn't - my passion for physics quickly died.

But even if I had remained passionate about physics I wouldn’t have pursued a career in it - the pay was too low.

My parents were economic migrants - they came to the UK for money. That materialistic mindset rubs off on the next generation.

However, there was an indigenous British friend of mine at school who was even more passionate than I was about physics. He did a PhD.

But after years in research, he switched to investment banking.

And so did another physics PhD I know. He later told me it was a waste of his life.

The realities of not having enough money hit them.

Following your passion often doesn't work out as well as it sounds.

One day the reality of the world actually revolving around money might hit you, and by then it could be too late.

Money is power, a private education for your kids, the best healthcare, a big house, and perceived success.

Like in most things in life, you have to find your own right balance.

A few years ago I became convinced that the people who worked for me should work from home more. I was influenced in this by the work of Nassim Taleb, who argues that a high degree of variation may be better than monotonous pursuit of a supposedly optimal average. This led me to think it might be better to partition work into periods of high sociability interspersed with days of self--seclusion, as an alternative to the neither-fish-nor-fowl halfway-house of the open-plan office.

What I discovered was that it is not enough to ‘allow’ people to work remotely. You must actively encourage it. If remote working is merely ‘allowed’, it is perceived as a concession and people feel they are burning reputational capital whenever they take up the option. Only active evangelism normalises the behaviour.

I use ‘evangelism’ deliberately here. A glance at history shows that a huge number of socially beneficial behaviours have spread not in response to coercive legislation but by norm-setting, whether led by royalty or religion.

A J Wensinck - The Muslim Creed

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

It adds another straw to the camel's back...

Occams Razor

Jacob's Ladder

There is little real difference in the approach of the BBC, Sky News, ITV and C4 whilst committed Brexiteers have few friends in the newspaper world and Cummings, who has been abrasive and dismissive with the ‘lobby’ even fewer. Until some semblance of political plurality is restored to the media, the government needs to, with a few exceptions, treat them as the opposition.

DNS Management

Network Switching

Residential Network Services

Corporate Wireless Network

Visitor Wireless Access

Network Border Routing

Remote Network Access

Eduroam Wireless Network

Wired Networking

Wireless Access Points

So they drove north. Much has been made of the 270-mile journey, as if its length made it wicked, but the geographical fact is that Co. Durham is a long way from London. Only a comically Westminster-centred view of the world regards distance from London as a moral aberration.

I have two newspaper subs. One is the DT and the other is a concessionary deal with the Times. I was going to cancel the Times because once the deal is over it's expensive, and stay with the DT. But since the Telegraph decided to become a broadsheet version of the Mail Online I find that I'm actually avoiding it because I can't stand the hysterical headlines and useless journalism (Camilla Tominey, one of their main political correspondents used to be a royal correspondent ffs!). So I think I'll probably cancel the DT and stay with the Times, which at least keeps my bp near normal.

Now the nation is reopening and the Church of England still cannot manage to be any more relevant than it was at the beginning of this crisis. It has sat by while the nation’s garden centres have reopened and appears to be not at all bothered by this further relegation of its position in the nation’s life.

God, I loathe the bishops. Not Beth Rigby, Robert Peston and the other hacks who seem to be auditioning to guide the morality of the nation. I mean the actual bishops, who turn out to be even less use than these competitively incensed cross-examiners.


On the BBC, Sky and other channels, various presenters in need of something to talk about in this moment of national crisis have spent the last couple of days stressing that a number of bishops have come out as anti-Cummings. The views of the bishops have come up at press conferences and even the Guardian chose to report the thrilling news that ‘Bishops turn on Boris Johnson for defending Dominic Cummings’. If you care to read the Guardian or view Channel 4 News on a normal day you would be surprised to find them citing bishops in this manner.

People who talk incessantly - need to fill the air with words

TRIAL BY JUKEBOX JURY

Access ports

An access port is a connection on a switch that transmits data to and from a specific VLAN. Because an access port is only assigned to a single VLAN, it sends and receives frames that aren’t tagged and only have the access VLAN value. This doesn’t cause signal issues because the frames remain within the same VLAN. If it does happen to receive a tagged packet, it will simply avoid it. This is a simpler configuration, but not the most efficient choice if the network is even moderately complex. 

Trunk ports

Unlike an access port, a trunk port can transmit data from multiple VLANs. If you have a dozen VLANs on a particular switch, you don’t need additional cables or switches for each VLAN—just that single link. A trunk port allows you to send all those signals for each switch or router across a single trunk link. In contrast to an access port, a trunk port must use tagging in order to allow signals to get to the correct endpoint. Trunk ports typically offer higher bandwidth and lower latency than access ports. 

Layer 3 solution is more secure than Layer 2, where you can control the flow and direction of the packet more efficiently.

I think the question you want to ask is, "What is the difference between using a layer 2 vs. layer 3 switch to connect two floors and 170 users?". Spanning tree protocol is designed to close off forwarding loops and prevent broadcast storms. It will work the same on either type of switch.

In short, a layer 2 switch forwards packets based on MAC address only. A layer 3 switch can forward on IP address and provides additional features for filtering and QOS.

As for the effect on DHCP, that would depend upon your connectivity needs and your addressing scheme. All 170 users could be part of the same DHCP scope and use the same default gateway. You could also create vlans on the switches to isolate work groups and assign separate DHCPscopes to each. That works well for in-group communication, but communication between vlans requires a router. I hope this has helped clear things up a little. Write if you've got more questions.

 “So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.”

PUTTANESCA

Anarchist:

Right, everybody out! Smash the Spinning Jenny! Burn the Rolling Rosalind! Destroy the Going-up-and-down-a-bit-and-then-moving-along Gertrude! And death to the stupid Prince who grows fat on the profits! [he tosses a lit bomb to the Prince]


Prince George:

I say, how exciting! This play's getting better and better! Bravo! Bravo!


Blackadder:

It's not a play anymore, sir. Put the bomb down and make your way quietly to the exit.


Prince George:

Blackadder, you old thing, your problem is you can't tell when something's real and when it's not! [the bomb explodes]

Educational Services Education: continues to be plagued by errors, social engineering and inadequately secured email credentials. With regard to incidents, DoS attacks account for over half of all incidents in Education. Frequency 382 incidents, 99 with confirmed data disclosure

Top 3 patterns:

Miscellaneous Errors, Web Application Attacks, and Everything Else represent 80% of breaches

Threat actors External (57%), Internal (45%), Multiple parties (2%) (breaches)

Actor motives: Financial (80%), Espionage (11%), Fun (4%), Grudge (2%), Ideology (2%) (breaches)

Data compromised Personal (55%), Credentials (53%), and Internal (35%) (breaches)

In its basic functionality, a firewall monitors the incoming and/or outgoing traffic and decides whether to block a particular packet or let it through based on a predefined set of rules.

Nmap has been discovered in two new movies! It's used to hack Matt Damon's brain in Elysium and also to launch nuclear missiles in G.I. Joe: Retaliation!

Where you require the use of passwords, they should be easy to remember, but hard for somebody else to guess. An example strategy to use is three random words (for example, dogbluetree). You should not enforce unnecessarily complex rules on staff, as it increases the burden on them and rarely increases security. For example many users simply swap an I for a 1 or ! symbol, and hackers know this.

Karen Lynn - Old Town, Nice

The Haunted Manor - William Holman Hunt-  Wimbledon Park

Place Furstenberg, desde mi perspectiva

The Room, Manchester St - Hockney

Ed Hopper - 'Sunday'

'As he that taketh away a garment in cold weather, so is he that singeth songs to an heavy heart'.

No Sir, there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn. 

A tavern chair is the throne of human felicity. 

In contradiction to those, who, having a wife and children, prefer domestic enjoyments to those which a tavern affords, I have heard him assert, that a tavern-chair was the throne of human felicity.—'As soon,' said he, 'as I enter the door of a tavern, I experience an oblivion of care, and a freedom from solicitude : when I am seated, I find the master courteous, and the servants obsequious to my call; anxious to know and ready to supply my wants : wine there exhilarates my spirits, and prompts me to free conversation and an interchange of discourse with those whom I most love : I dogmatise and am contradicted, and in this conflict of opinion and sentiments I find delight.'
from Sir John Hawkins' Life of Johnson

Blue sky thinking

Middle-aged man in the making

Slave system - Calling black holes

OPEN SYSTEMS INTERCONNECTION REFERENCE MODEL:

The OSI model is device to show how protocols work with networks to carry data.

Also as a reference for organisations to use when creating new protocols - BY using the model organisations could be assured the the new protocols they created would fit in to an overall architecture without having to re-invent the wheel each time they did it.

Any port in a storm 

One famous quotation by Terence reads: "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto", or "I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me."

Hatreds are the cinders of affection

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

So far, the evidence for the effectiveness of the government’s measures is scanty. It is quite hard to explain why energetically throttling the economy and putting the nation under house arrest will save lives. And the fact that the deaths from Covid-19 peaked on April 8th, almost certainly too early to have been affected by the beginning of the Panic on the night of March 23rd, does not help this Cabinet of None of The Talents. The only thing on its side is the good old ‘Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc’ claim which even Mr Johnson (with his smattering of Latin) knows is a fallacy (It means ''Because B came after A, B was caused by A'. Everyone knows this is often not the case) . At the moment the premier is like some Druid who has sacrificed the village cow on the pretext of preventing a flood - and is now saying that the sacrifice was effectual, because there has been no flood. Are we really so credulous that we require no other evidence?

You can't manufacture passion.

Waking up everyday to work hard for something you don't particularly love - that's called stress.

Waking up everyday to work hard for something that you love - called passion.

Figure your most productive time >> Morning / late nights

Physical barriers /

HEADPHONE BLUFF

Work remotely from time to time

Book a conference room for personal work time

LISTENING >>

What often passes as listening is just waiting to speak until the other person stops talking so you can offer your brilliant opinion.

The two most important people at your job are your boss and the person in the payroll department who cuts your cheque. 

The company's org chart describes the formal lines of communication which need to be followed and respected but what I'm talking about are the informal lines of communication, the relationships you build with people in other departments > The informal network is often the way things get done in an organisation. 

Reach out to everyone and find out what it is they do and how you may be able to help them. 

Measure you performance - don't rely on smiles, pats on the back or kind words.

"I think they like me" strategy not reliable.

1) Get the metrics in writing - what will measure your performance

2) Design additional metrics to shoot for.

Reliability >

Admit when experience set-back, or need clarification.

1) Co-create a schedule

2) Help free up time. Take Care of Business

3) CLOSE THE LOOP

Has it been done, is it being done, do you need extra help have you ran in to some problems?

Focus on accomplishments and results.

I want to hit the ground running > anything you can suggest to ease that transition.

1 > Clear picture in writing of exactly what it is you're supposed to be doing. Nuts and bolts of JD.

2 > Say yes

 Behind the scenes, My function is to serve the greater good.

3 >  Be flexible > Formal job title / description may have little or no relationship to the real work you'll be doing.

"people join companies and leave bosses"

Relationship with supervisor important >

"Smart with energy and a willingness to get the job done whatever it takes" 

"Positive attitude" 

"Enjoy collaboration" 

"Sense of humour" Unless you're working in A&E if you make a mistake no-one is going to die. 

NEW JOB >>

Humility and BEGINNER'S MIND