nationalcybershow

I spent a good chunk of today at the NEC for the National Cyber Security Show and, indeed, wandered into the general Security Event, the Fire Safety Event and the Workplace Event as well. In practice they all rather faded into each other. It turned out to be one large event with several different brands attached to it.

Nova had expressed a very clear expectation that I would bring home freebies. In the end she is going to have to make do with a yo-yo, some notebooks and a selection of pens.

In general I found it quite depressing. There were a lot of large stands selling what looked functionally like the same thing: software that monitors security and has AI built into it in some nebulous way. There were occasional interesting things tucked away in the cheaper stalls at the back, but not really enough to justify the effort of updating my lecture slides afterwards.

Helpfully, the NEC is almost exactly the right place for me to stop on the way to my parents’ house. I am actually writing this from there now. I have already put up some pictures and tomorrow I have some cupboards to fix. So I am trying to get into the habit of checking whether there is anything interesting on at the NEC when I am planning a trip home anyway. Opportunist but I think that I would have been disappointed if I’d have made a special trip to the NEC for this one.

I was more tired than I should have been today and ended up needing an extra stop on the motorway. There have been too many late nights recently.