Childhood nostalgia session complete. I just finished reading these fun books! Its been 30-odd years and I still miss Knightmare

For anyone interested, episode 3 of my podcast, Tech Film Noir (about tech films, good & awful) releases tomorrow & this time we're covering an obscure Al Pacino "comedy" about Gen-AI called S1m0ne: youtube.com/shorts/Xc1Yr...

Busy bank holiday weekend, mostly spending time with the kids. Last night I finished by catching up with the latest @hdtgm.bsky.social film - Mind Hunters. Have to say, this one was pretty bad

There's something very wrong with the UK. How is it you can get a multipack of pickled onion monster munch, but not the spicy ones!!!

Ok, I'm almost certainly going to regret this, but I've added Japanese to the list of languages I'm learning. What could _possibly_ go wrong. It's only one of the most complex languages in the world....

Thank Dog. Doctor Who is coming back Christmas 2026. I was worried we were looking at another cancellation. Nice to know it isn't the end

My oldest is off school ill today, so we're watching The Truman Show together. Great film, but it feels like there was a version of this that could have been super dark. All of Truman's friends & family are just paid actors. That's a pretty grim thought.

If anyone ever wanted confirmation that I'm an utter nerd - I just did my morning run, while listening to a BBC radio 4 program about statistics!!

I'm watching the new series of #DoctorWho with my daughters. We've reached The Smowmen. I love the matt smith Christmas specials. That's the doctor written 100% as a "magic time wizard". My youngest made this fan art:

Anyone know much about embroidery? I've got a kit I'm planning to do, but it's pretty complicated looking. I'm not sure what order to do the colours in!

Just scored a couple of art books in a charity shop! Result!

Anyone going to @bsidesncl.bsky.social know if there's a social happening tonight?

I'm off up to my family's ancestral home in Geordieland today for @bsidesncl.bsky.social . It's going to be an amazing event, but it won't be complete for me without pease pudding and stottie cake!

It's new computer game time. I finish finished Disco Elysium, which was absolutely incredible. Now I'm going for @inkle.co studio's Heaven's Vault, which - as a language nerd- looks like it's going to be right up my street!

For anyone interested in some functional code & retro computing, I'll be speaking at @dotnetnorth.bsky.social in Manchester tomorrow

🎉 Speaker Announcement — Simon Painter 🎉 We're excited that @simonpainter.bsky.social will be at BSides Leeds to present 'Hack the Planet! What Movies can Teach Us about InfoSec'. Catch Simon's talk at 14:05 on the 21st!

This week's #DoctorWho was awfully good!

Me, about 1/3 through the latest Doctor Who:

Tonight's film - the 1994 Wynona Ryder version of Little Women. Watched it with my oldest daughter. Was very good, but we both prefer the recent Greta Gerwig version.

I'be been a fan of the Divine Comedy since the late 90s, and this new video from them is really pretty good!!. youtu.be/jJ6N59FZ-6g?...

Anyone else remember the computer game Pandora's Box from the late 90s? I'm a little sad it's not available anywhere at all any more.

I'm off on a journey down to London to give my first ever workshop on Functional c# at @sddconf.bsky.social Sadly the British trains are being true to form & I'm not currently sure if or when I'll arrive!

Don't you ever get fed up with code failures in production? Don't miss @simonpainter.bsky.social 2-day, hands-on #workshop "Write Code that NEVER Fails - Functional Programming With C#" at #NDCOslo! ndcoslo.com/workshops/wr... ndcoslo.com/workshops/wr...

Apparently it's international Jazz day. So, here's my personal favourite modern jazz track if anyone wants to hear something amazing ^ a bit different: youtu.be/wtj6LaG1TZU?...

Just caught up with s2 of #DoctorWho. Quality of writing seems to have gone up rhus series. I especially liked Lux. I'm just hoping the finale isn't a let down, though

for anyone interested, I will not only be speaking at @techorama.bsky.social next month, but I'll also be giving a workshop on how you can stop unhandled exceptions from ever occurring in production! I'd be grateful if anyone would be kind enough to repost this. Thanks! techorama.be/workshops/wr...

My talk at #NdcSecurity last year about what we can learn about InfoSec from movies (including a slide or two about mitigating _literal_ dinosaur attacks) is now available as a video on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKHf...

Im trying to get back into drawing again. This is a mosque in saw in Antalya while I was on holiday last week.

Repost with the first album you bought with your own money

Don't you ever get fed up of #code failures in production? Don't miss @simonpainter.bsky.social 2-day, hands-on #workshop "Write Code that NEVER Fails - Functional Programming With C#" at #NDCOslo. #Earlybird offer ends Friday, February 14. ndcoslo.com/workshops/wr...

Rewatching Disney's Sleeping Beauty with the girls. Some observations: * amazing animation that's aged very well * it's really funny! * when did Malificent stop being green? Turns out she's actually light grey or something

Today's productivity brought to you by Julianna Barwick's album The Magic Place. It's odd, ethereal & minimalist. Amazing album & perfect for working to

If anyone would care to see it, my talk from #dotnetliverpool on 100 years of movies about computers is online now: www.youtube.com/live/n9KD--3...

I have decided to teach myself to knit, but why is casting on so hard!

I'm appearing in liverpool tonight at #DotNetLiverpool to talk all about the last 100 years of film history & how they have portrayed computers and techies in general. Its a fun talk & im quite proud of it. Do come along if you're in the area!

Today's productivity brought to you by classic 70s album "Hergest Ridge" by Mike Oldfield

Thank you, @sessionize.com . I'm fairly sure there are plenty of folks doing more than I do, but I'm honestly just grateful to be still able to do this 7 years on!

Has there been a data breach on Ancestry, does anyone know? I'm finding logging in isn't working from many locations, and it's determined to make sure i start using 2-factor authentication suddenly. Has something happened? I have no inside information, I'm just speculating.

I'm back to one of my passion projects at the moments - computer films. I've just watched one of the very earliest and one that escaped my attention until now - Hot Millions from 1968, Starring Peter Ustinov. Expect a blog or podcast discussion of this at some point in the near future!

Today's productivity brought to you by the album "Il Viaggio" by the amazing Belgian jazz musician, Melanie de Biasio

I've got kid duties tonight, so I won't be watching live, but you folks all have no excuse at all not to be there!

It's been a bit, but if anyone's interested, I've written a new blog article. This one's about how to not only fix Dictionaries in C#, but also turn them into a powerful tool for improving the efficiency of your algorithm: www.thecodepainter.co.uk/blog/2024121...

It's only taken me 8 months to realise this, but my talk "A Developer Goes to the Movies" which was a keynote at AppDevCon earlier this year is up on Vimeo! It's a look at 100 years of cinema history, and how they've portrayed tech. I'm quite proud of it! vimeo.com/936241705

Today's productivity brought to you by Miles Davis' soundtrack to "Ascenseur pour l'echafaud" (elevator to the gallows). Not a terrible film by any stretch, but the soundtrack is a million times more worth your time.

Finished Day 11 of the #AdventOfCode in #FunctionalCSharp. They said it was insane, but I did it and they were _right_. I had to create a custom dictionary class with an added extension method, and do some fairly crazy recursion, but by 'eck I did it. github.com/madSimonJ/Fu...

Day 10 of the #AdventOfCode done in #FunctionalCSharp. This was a rare example of part 2 being easier than part 1!! This aside, I'm quite proud of my solution to this one. github.com/madSimonJ/Fu...

I'm taking a break from reading Blake's 7 novelisations to something more appropriate to the season. Nothing Lasts Forever - which was lovely adapted in the early 80s as Die Hard with Bruce Willis. It doesn't get much more christmassy than this!

Bit of a slog today; but I finally finished day 9 of the #AdventOfCode in #FunctionalCSharp. github.com/madSimonJ/Fu...

I've had a busy few days; but just caught up with the #AdventOfCode in #FunctionalCSharp. Day 8 looked tricky at first glance, but there's a simple trick to it. I learned a neat couple of features of MoreLinq for part 2! github.com/madSimonJ/Fu...

We had a family cinema trip today to see wicked. I was a bit dubious of seeing a musical adaptation of Gregory Maguire's book, but honestly - I enjoyed it a great deal. I'm looking forward to part 2!