My Years at Sun Microsystems: From Dream Job to Oracle Redundancy

A memoir of nine years at Sun Microsystems, from the revelation of “The Network is the Computer” and parachuting into nasty projects, to the culture of contrarianism, the pressures of leadership, press training in Nice, and the slow decline into redundancies that culminated with Oracle’s takeover. It closes with reflections on philosophy, craft, people, and the enduring value of diversity and neurodiversity in engineering.

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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Ian Dunmore’s Punk Ethos in Government IT

A personal reflection on my friendship with Ian Dunmore and the rise and fall of Public Sector Forums, exploring how his punk, do-it-yourself ethos created a space for civil servants to speak truth to power, and why those edges still matter today. Follow-up articles will touch on some of the hijinks he got me into (I got myself into), like being sacked and reinstated from my dream job, all within one day.

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Same As It Ever Was: Microsoft’s Office 365 Trap And Why Industrial Email Users Are Being Let Down

Microsoft is undermining Outlook’s role as the backbone of professional communication by forcing heavy users through the Office 365 funnel. Add-ins like MailMaestro, Copilot, and Boomerang are locked away, the product line is fragmented across multiple Outlook clients, and serious multi-inbox management is ignored. Rivals such as Spark, Canary, Mailbird, Superhuman, and even newer “hip” tools like Hey! show more imagination. The lost promise of Google Wave reminds us that integration, not fragmentation, is the real opportunity, while Microsoft’s current short-sighted strategy leaves it weaker than ever. Email remains the killer app of the internet, so why, after all this time, is it still so shite?

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Cyber Clusters and Regional Powerbases: Influence Beyond London

From Cheltenham to Belfast, regional ecosystems are quietly shaping the future of UK cybersecurity. When people think of UK cybersecurity, they often picture Whitehall meetings or Canary Wharf boardrooms. But real influence increasingly lies outside London, in regional clusters, civic innovation groups, and place-based partnerships that combine skills, startups, and strategy into powerful local ecosystems. These clusters aren’t just delivering training or running meetups. They are shaping national policy, securing investment, and building sovereign capabilities in collaboration with local government, academia, and industry. This article maps out the regional powerbases transforming the UK’s cybersecurity landscape, and how to engage with them.

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West Midlands Cyber Hub Diaries: Day One (Or Perhaps Day Sixty)

The West Midlands Cyber Hub marks a long-held ambition to give the region a central home for cyber. Building on the rebooted West Midlands Cyber Working Group (WM CWG), the Hub is designed to strengthen community coherence, increase investment, and connect students, SMEs, enterprises, and universities in a neutral space. Supported by DSIT, Innovate UK, Aston University, TechWM, and the Innovation Alliance for the West Midlands, the Hub will open its first phase at Enterprise Wharf in Birmingham, forming the core of a hub-and-spoke model across the region. The project team, led by Sevgi Aksoy and I (Wayne Horkan), with Rebecca Robinson as PM, is preparing for a pre-launch event on 30th September 2025.

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It’s the End of the Internet and I Feel Fine

Every few years the internet collectively rediscovers an old conspiracy theory. This month it has been the so-called “Dead Internet Theory”. The idea, put simply, is that most of what we now encounter online is no longer produced by humans but by bots, scripts, and automated systems. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, recently hinted that he thought there might be something in it, which was enough to trigger a storm of hot takes across Twitter. So what exactly does this “death” mean, and is there anything to it?

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A Comprehensive Comparative Guide to Kebabs: From Nargis to Shami and Beyond

I quite like a kebab, and it turns out I’m not alone. From Turkish shish to Indian shami, from Mughal nargis (possibly a forerunner of the noble Scotch egg) to Iranian chelow, kebabs are a culinary tradition that has travelled, transformed, and taken root in dozens of cultures. This article explores their history, compares famous types, and shows how a single cooking method, grilling or shaping seasoned meat, became a global family of dishes spanning empires, migrations, and modern street food.

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UK Cyber Skills Landscape: The Real Gatekeepers of Talent and Training

Beyond bootcamps and degrees, who actually shapes how the UK finds, trains, and qualifies its cyber workforce? The UK cyber skills gap is well known, but less discussed is who actually defines what “skilled” means, who sets the standards, and who controls the flow of talent into real jobs. From formal certifying bodies to regional academies, neurodivergent networks to employer-led bootcamps, this article maps out the real gatekeepers of UK cyber skills and training, the organisations, programmes, and influencers that determine who gets hired, funded, or fast-tracked.

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De’Longhi Magnifica S brewing coffee into a colourful mug

Quick Start Guide to the De’Longhi Magnifica S

A simple, step-by-step quick start guide to making great coffee with the De’Longhi Magnifica S (for instance model ECAM22.110.B). Covers setup, beans vs pre-ground, brewing, milk drinks, cleaning, troubleshooting, and pro tips for perfect coffee every time.

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Gartner’s 2025 Hype Cycle for Enterprise Architecture: A Critical Review

Gartner’s 2025 Hype Cycle for Enterprise Architecture catalogues trends and buzzwords but fails to grapple with core challenges. It overstates AI as the answer to everything, recycles old concepts under new names, and sidesteps long-standing fundamentals like bi-modal IT, plumbing vs business enablement, and the EA reputation problem. A better hype cycle would cut the noise, confront EA’s accountability gap, and ground guidance in practical playbooks, cost discipline, and measurable business outcomes.

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Therapist Fight Club: Carl Rogers’ Person-Centred Psychology for the Neurodiverse Mind

This article reinterprets Carl Rogers’ person-centred psychology through the lens of Asperger’s and systems thinking. Stripping away sentimental language, it presents Rogers’ model as a structured feedback loop, a “Therapist Fight Club” where both therapist and client co-train, honing coherence and self-consistency. Written as an interest piece for the neurodiverse, it reframes therapy not as emotional fixing, but as optimising a system to run with fewer contradictions.

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From Policy to Procurement: How Standards Bodies Influence UK Cyber Buying Cycles

It’s not just what’s secure, it’s what’s accepted, assured, and approved. Here’s how standards quietly determine what gets bought in cybersecurity. In cybersecurity, buying decisions are rarely made on features alone. Especially in the UK public sector and regulated industries, procurement is often shaped by frameworks, certifications, and official guidance issued (or heavily influenced) by standards bodies. These organisations, from NCSC and NIST to IASME, ISO, and CIISec, may not sell products, but they define the guardrails within which procurement happens. They help determine what “good” looks like, what qualifies as “secure enough,” and what’s required to win a bid. This article breaks down how standards bodies and frameworks influence what UK organisations actually buy, adopt, and fund when it comes to cybersecurity.

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The Shadow Ecosystem: Alumni Networks, Closed Groups, and Whisper Influence in Cyber

Beyond public policy and LinkedIn posts lies a quiet web of influence, trusted groups, off-book referrals, and unseen signals that shape who gets funded, hired, or heard in UK cybersecurity. Cybersecurity in the UK has a formal face: policy frameworks, standards bodies, public panels, and professional networks. But beneath that, there exists a shadow ecosystem, informal, invitation-only, and often more influential than any official organisation. This is where reputations are made (or unmade), where partnerships are brokered before anyone sees a press release, and where quiet nods matter more than job titles. This article explores the informal infrastructure of UK cyber influence, the alumni groups, private chat channels, Slack collectives, and backchannel referrals that quietly shape decisions in hiring, procurement, investment, and policy.

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What CISOs Really Read: Reports, Forums, and Signals That Shape Decisions

Forget the vendor hype. Here’s what makes it to the top table when security leaders plan, buy, and act. Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) are drowning in noise. Every week brings new whitepapers, vendor webinars, analyst reports, and threat briefings, but only a handful cut through and shape decisions at the enterprise level. So, what do CISOs trust? What do they read, bookmark, cite, and share internally when building strategy or justifying spend? This article examines the forums, publications, briefings, and individuals that significantly influence CISO thinking in the UK, beyond vendor brochures.

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Brothers Against the Day: Dostoevsky, Derrida, Pynchon and Baudrillard at the End of the Sign

This article weaves together the philosophical contours of Derridean deconstruction, Baudrillardian hyperreality, and semiotic theory to interrogate the literary universes of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Thomas Pynchon. A Semiotic Descent into Hyperreality, Paranoia, and the Collapse of Meaning

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The Quiet Power Players of UK Cybersecurity: Who Really Shapes the Agenda?

Behind the acronyms and front-facing roles lies a network of advisors, committees, and convenors quietly setting the pace for cyber strategy in Britain. When we talk about power in UK cybersecurity, we often mention the big institutions… NCSC, DSIT, UK Cyber Security Council, or heavyweight companies like BT, BAE Systems, and Microsoft. But step closer and a more nuanced picture emerges: one shaped less by job titles and more by trust, networks, and proximity to policy formation. This article explores the real power players… not always in the spotlight, but instrumental in influencing policy, procurement, public guidance, and funding flows. These are the advisors, secondments, committee members, and convenors who quietly shape the UK’s cyber agenda.

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Entropy and the Implosion of Meaning: Pynchon in the Age of Baudrillard’s Hyperreality

This essay explores the work of Thomas Pynchon through the critical apparatus of Jean Baudrillard, with particular focus on the concepts of simulation, hyperreality, and the implosion of the real. Rather than offering a totalising reading, this essay stages a dialogue between two elusive figures, Pynchon, the postmodern novelist of paranoia and systems, and Baudrillard, the post-Marxist theorist of simulacra and the symbolic collapse of the real.

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Cyber and Academia Worldwide: Where Research Meets Real-World Impact

From Singapore to São Paulo, academic institutions are becoming key players in the global cybersecurity landscape. While the US, UK, and EU often dominate discussions of academic cybersecurity, universities and research institutions across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania are rapidly gaining ground, shaping national policy, developing sovereign cyber capabilities, and launching novel technologies tailored to regional challenges. This article explores how academia across the world is influencing cybersecurity practice, producing talent, and collaborating across borders to tackle today’s most pressing digital threats.

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Unravelling the Double: Dostoevsky Through the Lens of Derrida

This article explores Fyodor Dostoevsky’s literary and philosophical contributions through a deconstructive lens, guided by the thought of Jacques Derrida. The aim is not to superimpose Derrida upon Dostoevsky as if one were merely a tool to decode the other, but rather to explore the dialogic potential of their proximity, where the one haunts, and is haunted by, the other.

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Reviewing the 2025 DSIT Code of Practice for Enterprise Connected Device Security: A Critical and Constructive Analysis

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the UK Government’s proposed 2025 Code of Practice for Enterprise Connected Device Security, published by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). It unpacks the structure, rationale, and policy intent behind the Code, outlines its 11 lifecycle-aware security principles, and evaluates its strengths and limitations. Drawing on lessons from the earlier NCSC Cyber Resilience Testing (CRT) programme, it offers a set of practical, actionable recommendations to improve uptake, scalability, and long-term impact. This is a roadmap for policymakers, manufacturers, and enterprise buyers navigating the emerging landscape of connected device security in organisational settings.

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