at Vue to watch Wicked - apparently along with the rest of Eastleigh... haven't seen the cinema this busy in ages!

#Strimzi 0.49.0 is out! 🎉 ⚠️ This release contains many important changes (including backwards compatibility impact), deprecations, and removals. Make sure to watch the What's new video and read the release notes carefully before upgrading! ➡️ github.com/strimzi/stri... 🎦 youtu.be/aIGZD8lk6vc

I got Grapple Dogs: Cosmic Canines this week - which I'm loving, but then I'm a sucker for a game with a good rope swing / grappling hook mechanic backloggd.com/u/dalelane/l...

#Wordle fail ☹️ 🟨🟨🟨⬛⬛ ⬛🟩🟩⬛🟩 🟩🟩🟩⬛🟩 🟩🟩🟩⬛🟩 🟩🟩🟩⬛🟩 🟩🟩🟩⬛🟩

I've shared a few photos from the Corfe Castle night run on Saturday. The TLDR is that I loved it dalelane.co.uk/blog/?p=5723

damn ☹️ #cloudflare

Pretty happy with the human-taste-based video game suggestions Ludocene is sending out on a daily basis. Want to get monthly game suggestions like this? Just sign up for free on ludocene.com.

between things like work trips overseas, helping at a schools residential, and going to Clubs Conference - I haven't had a free weekend in *ages* but today, I don't need to go anywhere 🥳 I'm making some fresh bread and a pot of coffee, and I'm going to sit and read. Bliss.

I'm in Wareham for the Maverick Dark Castle - an 11km night time trail run around Corfe Castle. 🏰🦇 I've not run a trail run or a night run before, so not sure what to expect 😬 www.maverick-race.com/products/the...

packing up at 5:30pm on a Friday... so clearly the most sensible thing to do is click Install Now on the MacOS upgrade 🤦

I went to meet the 'Rockstar 31', the developers who were suddenly fired from their work on GTA 6 for what the studio has described as gross misconduct. That's not what the workers call it though. They have another couple of words they prefer to use: union busting. www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9nO...

I'm finally back home after a youth residential at PGL Liddington that I've been helping out at since Friday afternoon. The kids were all awesome, but I am still knackered... it has been a busy and super long few days!

"Superintelligence" is an exploration of the dangers posed by future advances in AI. I first read it in 2015. Reading it in 2025, it's still as bleak and depressing as I remember, but with recent advances in tech it's much harder to dismiss than it was then. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

this weekend, I'm a parent helper for a residential school trip It's not a great sign that i'm already knackered - we've only been here a few hours! 😅

David Ware (CTO, IBM MQ) keynote on "The Power of Queues" Why developers are rediscovering queues & how to pick the right tool for the job.

listened to an interview with Jon Stewart on my drive to Swindon - lots of interesting ideas and turns of phrases here like (paraphrasing from memory): "quiet activism of living pleasantly" "social media is to speech as doritos are to food - it's ultra-processed speech" overcast.fm/+AA3KNhgbFXg

wtf?! #traitors

Yeah so they’re cutting flights at the 40 busiest airports starting with 4% on Friday and ramping up to 10% through the weekend, and that includes ATL. If you’re attending #KubeCon and you aren’t threat modeling around this and making contingency plans already, strongly recommend starting now

This is a photo of my desk. You can tell where I typically chuck my ground coffee scoop after making a coffee... but it's not a good look for my poor little desk monkey! 🙈🤣

"drivers must not park on a road at night facing against the direction of the traffic flow" I learned this one the hard way - getting a parking ticket for doing this in December 2016. 🤦

a quick example of using LISTAGG and ARRAY_AGG in #Flink SQL (and I managed to avoid mentioning how much the inconsistent use of underscores in SQL bugs me 😜)

lovely afternoon celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Design Studio here at Hursley... even if the fact that it's been 10 years has made a few of us feel a little old!

Wow, that got dark quick. My fields-and-woodlands walk home from the office has become an excitingly dark one... curse you, wonky tilted Earth! ;-)

on my way home after an inspiring two days in Cambridge for #ClubsCon25 www.linkedin.com/posts/code-c...

it was a bit ambitious to try and have a night out after being awake for 34 hours - I managed one pint then bailed before 8pm to walk back to my B&B and sleep 😴

experimenting with #LLM context in #Scratch at #ClubsCon25

I presented at #ClubsCon25 about introducing language models to Code Clubs by getting students to build and make stuff with an #LLM in #Scratch It was loosely based on what I was writing about in March, but was a more practical take now that I've run this in a few classrooms

I just landed at Heathrow after a busy week in New Orleans. Now I need to get through security, get to my car, and drive to Cambridge in time for the start of #ClubsCon25 Hopefully they have a limitless supply of coffee for when I get there... I think I'll need it.

My talk at #Current25 on Wednesday was an overview of the most common patterns for bringing #AI to #Kafka topics. The second pattern I talked about was using #agentic AI to respond to events, or the output from event stream processing.

Current is over, so I've started the journey back to the UK with a 7am bus to the airport. 🥱 I'm not heading home just yet, though - I need to be in Cambridge tomorrow morning for #ClubsCon25 codeclub.org/en/clubs-con...

fun in the French Quarter last night - I'm guessing Halloween week is partly responsible for the outfits and energy I saw... or New Orleanians just go all in for a night out 😆

sticking with my usual habit when visiting a new city for work and going for the tallest view I can find - with a drink at the top of Vue Orleans

My talk at #Current25 yesterday was an overview of the most common patterns for bringing AI to #Kafka topics. The first pattern I talked about was using AI to enhance what we can do with event stream processing.

I had a slow and fragile start to today after the fun of the Current After Party last night... Bourbon Street is a lively place! 🍻

I'm in New Orleans for #Current25 My presentation this morning was a high-level look at the four most common patterns for how people bring AI into event-driven architectures

used the flight to MSY to watch the new Superman film - really good - best superhero movie I've seen in a while

Haven't made it to New Orleans yet... yesterday was a bit of a comedy of errors with mechanical and staffing issues meaning my flight took off *8 hours after boarding*, and left me stuck at JFK overnight. Take two today. I just need to get from JFK to MSY... don't let me down again, Delta! 🙏

on my way to New Orleans for Current - first stop: JFK current.confluent.io/new-orleans

Today, I played my 100th video game this year. backloggd.com/u/dalelane/ That's a lot, right? I haven't tracked my gaming so closely before this year, but that feels like a lot.

no rain, so I've strapped my umbrella to the side of my bag partly so I don't have to carry it mostly so I can feel like I'm a ghostbuster

I've written a new worksheet for Machine Learning for Kids - using #Scratch to give a simple interactive introduction to LLM benchmarks, and how people choose language models for AI projects

watching my daughter run the Great South yesterday has got me looking for a run to sign up for... I'm tempted by the idea of running around a castle in the dark, mostly because it's so different to any run I've done before www.maverick-race.com/products/the...

curious indeed www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1916051855

in Southsea for the Great South Run (I'm not running - I'm here to cheer Faith on, in her first organised run)

I've written a new #MLforKids worksheet. This one gives a taster into LLM benchmarks, by getting students to compare how different language models perform with simple addition questions (eg. "What is 12 + 74?") machinelearningforkids.co.uk#!/worksheets...

These were interesting, about research into benefits of spending time in nature. I expected it to just be "exercise = good" but there was a lot more. I believe it though, as I think I get a lot of benefit from my couple hours each day www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p...

My ★★★★★ review on @backloggd.com after just completing Cyberpunk 2077 Masterpiece. Maybe my all-time favourite game, and definitely in the top three. It nails so much - graphics, story, character development, world building... there is so much depth... bckl.gg/o2v3

One of the neat new ideas from #IBMTechXchange this year was that we got water bottles with a Blockbusters-style grid of hexagons on it. Each activity at the event gave a different sticker - so the encouragement to explore was customizing a bottle instead of ticking off items on a list.

I made the most out of being in Orlando for #IBMTechXchange and stayed on an extra day - which I'm spending in the Kennedy Space Center. I'm so glad I did - the tech and engineering is seriously impressive, but the pervasive sense of ambition and determination here is kind of inspiring.

love this 🙃