This post is a continuation of my series of monthly review posts - what I've been doing and all that kind of good stuff. Other entries in the 2025 series:

Good grief, what a month. Welcome, spooky season. And goodbye, spooky season. Stay spooky!

FinOps Weekly Summit 2025

On the 24th, I presented virtually to the FinOps Weekly Summit 2025 on our FinOps efforts at work. This was a brief 20 minute talk, which I kept at a high level, covering how to set up a FinOps function at a Bank and how to avoid some of the common process-oriented traps that FinOps risks falling into. Some of our largest single-volume savings that we've made related to S3 lifecycle policies, especially for older buckets with object versioning in place. Hopefully the video will be online soon, and I'll post a link!

Aside from my monitor dying literally as my talk begun, I enjoyed the experience. Having not presented externally anywhere for a while, I'll admit to being a little nervois, and I really need to do more of this.

## Hogyween A bit of a manic one this year. The theme is a mad scientist's laboratory - please check it out on the Halloween site! This is one that has been on the planning list for some time now and I'd finally gained enough confidence to execute on the idea. Funnily enough, the pressure-activated strobe light idea didn't work out - I had the last-minute idea to replace the pressure plate with a motion PIR sensor, accidentally pulled out the wires and cba to solder them back in place.

I managed to get a third year of use out of the milk jug skulls, made from using a heat gun to 'shrink wrap' the milk jug plastic around a resin skull. These have now gone to the great recycling center in the sky though, as the paint washed away in the rain. Oh well, I'll make some more. The spooky skeleton I purchased last year made a return, this year being the scientist in the lab. I fashioned a 'mainframe computer' from the shell of an old greenhouse long-destroyed in a storm, covered in cardboard and painted. A laboratory table was fashioned from my workbench, the tablecloth from the 2022 display, and then adorned with various nicknacks I've collected over the years.

We had a slight uptick in Trick or Treaters this year, 68 compared to last year's 53. We'd moved into the house the day before Halloween 2023 and so it was a bit of a rush job then. It's really great to see that people are remembering previous builds, coming back, and the numbers are going up. Back at the old house, our high watermark was in the hundreds - although being a terraced house street compared to a sprawling suburban estate makes a difference.

The Halloween ideas board is still filled with ideas!

Media

Carrie by Stephen King

Guess what?! Up until this month, I'd never read any Stephen King. Shocking, I know! So I decided to rectify this post-haste and started right from the beginning, with the now-classic novel Carrie.

In the showers after a high-school PE lesson, Carrie White experiences her first menstruation. Having lived a sheltered and abusive childhood, she found this experience deeply traumatic, made even more so by the aggressive bullying from the other high school girls. This event triggers Carrie's latent telekinetic powers. This all culminates at the high-school prom, which Carrie secures a date for, and others plot revenge in the infamous scene. All hell breaks loose.

It's a relatively short book, but a deliberately uncomfortable read. Carrie is a miserable character in miserable circumstances, and miserable things happen to her which leads to utter devastation. Did I enjoy it? I enjoyed it enough.

The Reddening by Adam Nevill

A folk horror from Adam Nevill. From what I gather, the intent is for a slow build-up of dread, with the unveiling of an ancient and sheltered people and the animalistic 'reddening'. Unfortunately, I just didn't get into it and I'm too bloody stupid/stubborn to put something down when I'm not enjoying it.

Batman '89 Shadows, and Batman '89 Echoes by Sam Hamm

These graphic novels continue from Tim Burton's two Batman films, starring Michael Keaton, written by the scriptwriter of those two movies. Shadows came out a few years back (named just Batman '89') and Echoes has just hit the shelves in hardcover form. I'd read the original when it was published and returned to it when Echoes arrived in the post.

Part of the appeal of these graphic novels, alongside the nostalgia, is about exploring what could have been. Billy Dee Williams played Harvey Dent, but when Burton's directorship of the franchise ended they took a different direction and we never got to see Williams portray Two Face. Additionally, a Robin is introduced - a role that was booked for Marlon Wayans, but didn't materialise on film. Echoes adds to the Rogue's Gallery Harley Quinn (modelled on Madonna), The Scarecrow (Jeff Goldblum), and what I think is Martin Short as the Riddler. Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer), and Batman/Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton) return.

Shadows covers the downfall of Harvey Dent into the Two-Face character, against a potential meteoric rise for the District Attorney, were it not for a horrific injury sustained from a heroic act. With the introduction of Robin, and Dent's forays into politics, Shadows interweaves US race politics. It's a great story, one I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting.

Echoes though is a bit of a different beast. I didn't think that the Scarecrow character got the space he deserved. Harley Quinn's involvement was interesting - becoming a TV psychologist personality alongside her role in Arkham with Dr. Crane. When she's promised the big time, (and there's callbacks to the Weinstein/MeToo), things go a bit off the rails. Catwoman becomes involved. It's a bit of a sprawling mess of a story. Look, I do hope they continue this series. I'm here for it. But just slow down and don't cram too much in one go.

The New Age of Sexism by Laura Bates

Laura Bates' latest on sexism and misogyny covers its intersection with the frontiers of technology, with a thought-provoking exploration of robots, dolls, virtual spaces and Artificial Intelligence. But it doesn't just talk in hypotheticals, about what might be. It tracks back to the harm that this does today to both women and men, in terms of what is normalised and then reinforced through systems, products and services - fundamentally present

Dead End Tunnel by Nick Roberts

Of course, it's October so I read a kids on bikes-style novel. Nick Roberts keeps things simple in this short story and it's all the more creepy for it. There's a spooky tunnel on the edge of town, inhabited by some cosmic entity that kidnaps children, hides them in a pocket dimension and spits out doppelgangers to lure more prey. The Lovecraft is done very well here, it's kept simple and all the more chilling for it. As a fast-paced story it's not going to take longer than a day or two to consume.