2020

What did I learn in 2020?

  • Humans are terrible at assessing risks
  • The things that we often take for granted are fragile
  • There’s a lot we can do away with

Most of the year, I was just relieved to be employed, and in the comparative safety of New Zealand. I did do a little freelance work this year; it was nice to write some articles. The airline points that I earned in the last travel-heavy job are now being used to mend our decaying fences.

Most of my technology learnings this year have been about compliance and security: we got SOC2 Type 2 at work and I’ve done a lot of work on security assurance: helping to prove to the compliance departments of other companies that you’re responsible with their data.

2020 was the year that privacy law became the killer app for security.

With the third point in mind, this blog is now more simple and a little more brutalist; I’ve dropped the Bulma framework and gone with some very basic CSS. Flexbox is great and I hope to add CSS Grid shortly. It seems like CSS has become easier, browsers have improved, and I’m happier to make mistakes as I go.

Vercel is still a very easy way to host this site. My only wish is for some very basic privacy-friendly analytics.

Hug your loved ones while you can.

DevOps New Zealand