Reviews

The Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro represents a significant step up from consumer networking gear, offering enterprise-grade features in a package that’s actually manageable for technically-inclined home users. After three years of continuous use, it’s proven itself as the backbone of a demanding home network running four VLANs, approximately fifty devices, nine cameras through Protect, and automatic WAN failover. The centralized management interface handles both networking and Ubiquiti’s camera system from a single console, replacing what would otherwise require command-line configuration or separate tools. The cloud login trend and occasional UI hiccups are annoyances worth noting, but they haven’t undermined three years of reliable operation. If you’re comfortable managing VLANs and understand why IoT devices belong on a separate network, this delivers.

This eight-week CyberLeadership program from the CyberLeadership Institute guides experienced security professionals to operate at executive level, ending with a practical board‑facing capstone project that simulates the presentation of a 2-year plan by an incoming CISO to the board. Each week focuses on a distinct leadership domain, and includes practical action items and templates to be incorporated into the capstone. The course offers 40 CPE towards renewing my CISSP .

Week 1 — The role of a CISO

Week 1 orients participants to the program and the cyber resilience mindset, and introduces the CISO role through lived experience and practical lessons. Participants explore the many variants of the CISO position, clarify their ideal role, and begin building a personal brand and interview readiness. The week covers essential first‑100‑day priorities, ways to engage the C‑suite, and personal resilience practices.

Ship of Destiny concludes Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders trilogy. Having committed to the series after enjoying her Farseer books, I finished it—but my reservations from The Mad Ship carried through to the end.

The finale brings together the various plot threads: the Vestrit family drama, Kennit’s pirate ambitions, the serpents’ journey, and the truth about liveships and dragons. Hobb ties things up competently enough, but the journey there continued to frustrate me.

The Mad Ship is the second book in Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders trilogy. I came to this series after enjoying her Farseer trilogy (though finding it quite depressing), and read all three books in sequence shortly after publication.

The premise of living ships made from dragon cocoons has potential, and Hobb’s world-building remains detailed. However, several aspects didn’t work for me.

The trilogy leans heavily into themes of mental illness and trauma. Characters spend considerable time processing their psychological wounds rather than taking action. If you enjoy character introspection, this may appeal to you. I found it slowed the narrative and made the books feel like they were about suffering rather than adventure.

The author of The Stars Came Back , a Heinlein-esque young-adult work of science fiction with a heft side dose of life philosophy, has a new book Komenagen in that same universe. The title is based off of the Platean society’s rite of passage into adulthood. If you like Heinleinian juveniles, this will scratch that itch.

Daredevil’s Season 3 on Netflix has a lot to offer, despite some early warning signs suggesting it might be overly political. The overall plotline involves the return of Wilson Fisk (now openly known as the Kingpin), and Daredevil’s attempts to keep him from regaining control of the city’s criminal underworld. We have an excellent guest villain from Daredevil’s rogues’ gallery, and there are many well-done and subtle callbacks to that character’s earlier appearances in all formats. We get a bit more backstory for Karen Page, which is interesting but awkwardly inserted. We get some significant revelations for Matt Murdock himself.

Season 2 represents a clear improvement over Season 1 of this show in every respect. The dynamic between Danny Rand and Christine (his girlfriend and sidekick) changes significantly for the better, with Christine’s (or rather, the actresses’) noticeably superior martial arts skills getting recognition. Danny’s own moral failings are pointed to and wrestled with. Some problems are recognized as unsolvable, at least by vigilante superheros. Like Season 2 of Luke Cage , there’s some significant moral ambiguity present, but it’s somewhat less drastic.

I don’t have much to say about this one. It was better than the first season, but had too much focus on the criminals. There was significant moral ambiguity, particularly towards the end, which could either be a bad thing or a deliberate storytelling choice that will be redeemed next season. This season, it left a bad taste in my mouth. The cameo appearance by Iron Fist was good, but did not mesh well with Iron Fist Season 2 as a whole. (I’m not sure of the chronology). An improvement over the first season, not least because it was shorter and thus had less time to waste. If they had cut it down to 6 episodes instead of ten, it might have worked.

Elliot Kay’s new book Run Like Hell asks and answers the question: “What is it like to be the monsters when an adventuring party kicks down your front door?”

Although the book is technically game-related literature, it doesn’t have the usual hallmarks of character sheets or explicit rules elements. It’s just set very solidly in the generic fantasy game setting, with the perspective reversed. Gaming fans will have a lot to recognize while finding quite a lot of new and interesting elements from the perspective shift. It’s definitely light reading, and quick at just under 200 pages.

Brandon Sanderson has had a series of stories featuring a character named Legion (real name, Stephen Leeds) whose “superpower” (in a thinly defined world mostly similar to our own, but with science fiction elements) is a form of multiple personality disorder. In essence, he hears voices and sees things, specifically, other people. These “aspects” encapsulate and represent the information and expertise that his own own mind cannot itself contain and represent. Think of them as a coping mechanism for a supergenius.