Skip to main content

Idea: Blind Debate

It has been a while since I last posted, and I apologise for that. The posts I was working on have turned into some writhing epic mess, exceeding even Wait But Why? (you should most certainly take a look if you are unfamiliar with the site) standards in length, so I'm currently re-writing them into some semblance of readability. Until then, I've a little game for you to try, to help exercise the little grey cells.

I call it the Blind Debate, it only takes an hour, and it goes like this: you and a friend, or two groups if you prefer, have a topic chosen at random for a debate. You both get 15 minutes to do some research and form your side of the debate. Then, 10 minutes a piece for opening statements, 5 minutes each for rebuttal and counterpoint, then 5 minutes each for closing arguments.

Naturally, you'll want to take some time afterwards to talk it over a bit more and see where everyone stands, but for the most part it can be done in 60 minutes, which is a great way to spend some time with friends in the pub during the dark winter nights.

It is only a little lighthearted fun, so don't take it too seriously!

Let me know if any of you try this and let me know how it turns out!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Alphabet Soup: A Quick Guide to Post-Nominals

This week, I’ll walk you through the ever-growing list of post-nominal letters you can add to your name through qualifications and certifications. Being a student myself, I’ll start with exploring the academic route, then go through the more popular, and best recognised, vendor and standards organisations’ certifications, highlighting their worth for your CV and career development. It’s not a comprehensive list, by any stretch of the imagination, and is geared towards a more general CyberSec professional, rather than focusing on any one aspect of the industry. I’ll try and shy away from too much debate by running away very quickly to avoid the one about CEH vs. OSCP, and leave it to you instead. *Disclaimer* I am a university student, and haven’t actually done any of the following certifications, at least not to completion. I have explored each in a reasonable amount of depth to see their benefits and worth and consulted with holders of a few to gain their insider opinions. I a...

Jumping the Pond: Making the sideways move into CyberSec

So far, a large portion of this blog has been dedicated to helping people begin their careers within the Cyber Security sector from the beginning, i.e. straight from college or university. This week, I’d like to explore the options for those looking to make the move from other career paths, specifically with an eye to those looking at managerial positions. If you are already coming from an IT background, this post might have one or two things you might find useful, but you’ll probably have access to other resources that might be better suited to your needs. I want to note here that while this will guide you through some of the options and a few certifications that will help move into CyberSec, some technical competency is a must. A good level of understanding of the technologies and principles underlying those technologies is unavoidable in this field, as you’ll see below. My suggestion would be to look at my earlier blogs and some looking around, as I won’t go into depth about t...

The Ancient and Venerable Art of Google-fu

Other titles considered for this post: How Not To Piss Off Entire Forums and Facebook Groups; Avoiding the Banhammer; Stop Being Lazy and Look it Up Yourselves. Before you can embark on a career in, well, anything even vaguely IT related (or do practically anything), you must master one crucial skill: information searching. In the days of yore, and even rumoured to still exist despite budget cuts, there were in of cult of specialists in this area, who guarded their domains jealously: the librarians. These knowledge-fanatics could divine what you were looking for from the ridiculously poor and mumbled explanation you gave them, then translated that into a secretive code which led you to a shelf in a library, and then to the book you were after. Just like magic. These days, while librarians are still a vitally important part of cataloguing knowledge, we also have another, less mystical, tool at our fingertips: the Search Engine. Unfortunately, very few people have bothered to le...