How many games did I play this year?

It's no secret that I play board games. I own quite a few of them. But how many did I play this last year? A few. Not as many as I'd hoped to. But then again, there is this whole plague thing going around, and it's only this latter half of the year that I started going out and about a bit more.

So most of these games were played via Boardgame Arena. But here's a list:

Splendor (6)	7 Wonders Duel (5)	Coup (5)	Takenoko (5)	7 Wonders: Architects (4)	Bärenpark (4)
Century: Spice Road (4)	King of Tokyo (4)	PARKS (4)	Potion Explosion (4)	7 Wonders (3)	Azul (3)
BaristaCat (3)	Jaipur (3)	Kingdomino (3)	Patchwork (3)	Ramen Fury (3)	Santorini (3)
The Spill (3)	Carcassonne (2)	Century: Golem Edition (2)	CuBirds (2)	Get on Board: New York & London (2)	Lost Cities (2)
Nidavellir (2)	Sobek: 2 Players (2)	Solar Storm (2)	Sushi Go! (2)	Via Magica (2)	Viticulture (2)
Creature Comforts (1)	Dice Hospital (1)	Dice Theme Park (1)	Escape the Dark Castle (1)	Expedition: Northwest Passage (1)	Forbidden Desert (1)
Hike! (1)	The King Is Dead (1)	Love Letter (1)	Lucky Numbers (1)	Race for the Galaxy (1)	Res Arcana (1)
Saboteur (1)	Space Base (1)	Sushi Go Party! (1)	Tapestry (1)	Ticket to Ride (1)	Wingspan (1)

Grand total: 112

Hopefully there will be a lot more games played next year.

Making things.

So I just had my eyes opened. I've been following a Youtuber and fellow allotmenteer for a while now. Steve Richards, and he recently uploaded a video which made me stop and think.

I spent my career writing software. Over 30 years writing for one particular system - Lotus Notes - which to be fair is an extremely powerful and flexible database system, that even before it's hay-day, it encompassed everything that the modern web now strives to meet. Encrypted communications, digital signatures, database flexibility, user authentication, email, and so much more. It's the system I still turn to whenever I need to make things. I've made computer mice. I've worked with other people to make software. I've created more websites than I can shake a stick at (only a few are still standing and in use).

And even at my allotment I'm still making things. Stackable raised beds. Raised Flower Beds. Troughs made from Estate Agents signposts. Replacement windows for the shed. Building greenhouses, and the shelves to go in them. Even fixing up neighbours' dilapidated sheds. I even bought a 3D printer for making stuff at home.

But what really made me stop and think about the latest video, was just the sheer fact than many people consume, not create. They spend their time slumped in front of a TV watching things and not making.

Get out there and make something. And make something of yourself.

I created a monster...

I have an allotment. Now it's not often that Allotment and 3D printing overlap, but in this case I grow a lot of courgettes. So following on from the idea of square watermelons, I decided to see if I could grow the courgettes into something monstrous.

First find your model. I turned to Thingiverse to find a bust of Frankenstein's Monster. Once chosen now I need to apply it. This was done before the latest Alpha release of PrusaSlicer which seems to have a lot more options for creating negatives.

I started with a simple cylinder on the build plate. Then applied the model as a modifier. I set the infill to 0%, all layers and perimeters to 0.

After that it involved rotating the model by 90° and performing a cut.

Once I had the two halves, I could then rotate them back and re-arrange the pieces on the build plate.

Now it's time to actually print the mould. Once done I placed it around a growing courgette and waited. The end result didn't turn out too badly.

There was a slight issue in the way the mould was held together. I made the cut from nose to back of the head. The tape I used to secure it stretched under the pressure applied. I should have made the cut ear-to-ear which would have kept the face intact. And of course there was a discolouration because the mould was printed in grey PLA and no sunlight could get to the skin to make it dark green. But anyway, overall I was happy with the result.

After all, it's not often you get to 3D print a courgette.

Hacked 3D Printer?

It's not often that my job skills and my hobby collide. But this is a lesson in why you need to get anything that connects to the Internet tested, and how to handle a cyber security incident.

So user Ok-rub-449 posted on Reddit today about how they woke up to a strange print that appeared overnight on their printer.

The user in question uses Octoprint and has also enabled The Spaghetti Detective as a plugin to spot whether the prints are failing. Now normally this is only enabled for your particular printer as it requires a special authentication token to allow access. However it would seem that during some updates that occurred on the developers side a serious security flaw was introduced.

Now this leads me on to how you should respond to issues like this. Whenever you get a security incident the best policy is to acknowledge it, inform people, make it public and learn from it. It's no secret that I used to work for BlackBerry for nearly a decade until I was made redundant due to downsizing in 2018. And I certainly had my fair share of Security concerns drummed into me by a Company that puts security first. But even they are not immune to hiding and not publicly acknowledging issues.

But to go back to the TSD issue, the Developer and Founder of TSD found the issue relatively quickly, fixed it and made sure that the affected users were aware of the situation. Moreover they actively responded to the reports and discussions that occurred regarding this. It's not like other companies who just clammed up about issues.

Apologies for the graphics light, link heavy writeup. But it needs to be said. Security by obscurity is no security at all.