It didn't take much thought for me to land on my wireless headphones. They're a dual-function powerhouse in my life. Obviously it gives me a way to listen to music/audiobooks/the two podcasts I follow, which shouldn't be understated because if I'm ever in a horrible mental state the three questions to answer are 'Am I hungry?', 'Am I caffeinated?', and 'When did I last listen to some music?', so having the ability to fulfill that last one even when I'm out in the world doing stuff is a big help. Their other use is to connect to my gaming PC so I can stay on voicechat with my friends while playing VR games, since my normal headset doesn't work very well with with the strap on my Quest.

These particular headphones are a recent acquisition, they're open-back/air-conduction, which is slightly worse in terms of sound quality, but they let me keep more aware of my surroundings, which I count as a fair tradeoff for the scenarios where I use them. Also not having something inserted into my ear means they're quite a bit more comfortable for longer periods than my old earbuds.

When I built out my first proper trading vessel, I did the whole 'let's properly research,' thing and looked up what kind of lucrative routes/loops I could do with my fancy new frameshift drive and it's almost doubled jump range. Then I flew to the appropriate station, got myself all loaded up, and set out across the galaxy. Partway through my journey to the station I'm planning on selling to, I do my next jump then get up to grab a drink. What should be a 30 second task takes a bit longer when one of my roommates has something to talk to me about, and when I got back to my console, I was out of frameshift and piloting straight towards a sun while my ship screamed at me as it took overheat damage.

But I heroically pulled up in time and carried on my way, making the wise choice of finding a station to repair at....and on my way there I got interdicted and the lack of defensive options I'd given my slow, heavy transport, combined with the damage from the impromptu solar viewing, meant that I was easy pickings. Not a great maiden voyage for that particular ship, but it had many successful ventures after that.

There were several movies in 2024 that I'd consider a contender for my favorite, but the one that sticks out the most would have to be Wicked.

For those who may not know, Wicked is an adaptation of a stage musical that was one of the earlier examples of taking a classic villain and revealing/creating a sympathetic backstory for them. In this case, the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz. After a brief introduction set immediately after the Witch's death in the original story, we flash back to the Witch as a younger woman named Elphaba as she attends a school for magic and shares a room with the Good witch Glinda. The pair are eventually invited to see the Wizard in the Emerald City, where Elphaba learns the Wizard is behind a conspiracy to persecute the talking animals who live in Oz and decides to stand against him, being declared an enemy of the state (literally Wicked) and forcing her to flee bringing a close to the film at the end of what was Act I of the musical.

This sort of movie is a risky endeavor, look no further than 2012's Rock of Ages film adaptation, or 2019's Cats. The safer route may have been to simply film a production of the stage show a la Hamilton's release on Disney+, but director John M. Chu and the rest of the crew opted to give it the full 'film' treatment. And it seems to have paid off for them, with fairly positive ratings from both critics and regular film-goers, as well as a box office return of four and-a-half times the movie's budget. I'm not what you would call a big fan of Ariana Grande, but she put in an excellent performance, as did Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba. And as a fan of the Broadway show, I'd be lying if I said the cameos for the characters' original actors didn't get a small pop out of me.

Overall I'd say Wicked is a faithful adaptation of its source that does a fair job of broadening the reach of the three decade old show, and fully deserves the praise it's received.

Love me some microfiction. Here's roughly 542 words about a holiday get-together for a found family. I would also like to remind you, for no particular reason, that Saint Nicholas, in addition to being the origin of Santa Claus, is the patron saint of thieves.

Taylor was by no stretch of the imagination an extrovert, but he did have his people. They were a bit scattered these days, though, and the nature of their respective lives meant they couldn’t always keep in touch. That’s what made days like this so important. What were the holidays for, after all, if not reconnecting with those you care about?

Approaching the front door of the modest but well-cared-for house, the sound of raised voices alerted Taylor to the fact that he wasn’t the first to arrive. “What, so I’m not allowed to have hobbies?”

“I’m not saying that, Rebecca, I’m saying that if your hobby is going to be this then you’re supposed to ask one of us to back you up.” Taylor opened the door to see Matt gesturing to one of the walls while Rebecca faced him down with a stubborn expression her hands on her hips. Apparently he took issue with their host’s choice of decoration. Craning his neck around to see what the fuss was about, Taylor found an old painting hanging above the mantle.

“As much as you talked about it back in the day, I always figured you’d go for it eventually.” He said by way of greeting. Rebecca rushed over to give him hug before he’d finished taking off his coat while Matt continued to vent.

“That’s all you have to say? Going in alone was too risky, she never should have—”

“Chill, dude,” Matt was one of the best planners Taylor had ever worked with. That was great on a job, but it also meant he could be little… high-strung in day-to-day life. “That museum’s security is a joke. And I know you know Becks can handle a simple con like this would have been.” Rebecca was as good of a grifter as Matt was a strategist. Taylor had felt outclassed by the two of them back when they’d started working together, but that faded as he got more chances to show off his own skills in the digital realm.

“No fighting on Christmas!” Came the voice of their old crew’s final member. Quinn’s sudden appearance at his side would have startled most people, but Taylor was well-acquainted with their habit of popping up with no warning. The burglar was the subject of dossiers in at least twelve different nations’ law enforcement agencies, and each one referred them simply as ‘The Ghost.’ “Why don’t we let off some of this steam? Perhaps with a little holiday heist?”

“I do know of a place nearby that hasn’t patched a Zero-Day exploit in their security system yet…” Taylor chimed in. Retirement didn’t grate on him as much as it did Rebecca and Quinn, but all the same, he missed working with his friends.

“What? No. Guys, we’re retired, remember?” Matt protested, but they could all see it was just a token resistance.

“And retirees need hobbies,” Rebecca said, giving their de facto leader one final push. “It’s fine as long as we have back up, that’s what you said earlier, right? So back us up.”

“Alright, fine.” Matt conceded with false resignation as he ushered them towards the door, his face mirroring their excited grins. “Let’s go break the law, just one more time.”

Mine is a little niche, but I'm a big fan of Windows + R. This opens the Run dialogue box, and from there you can open System Info, Device Manager, Command Prompt, Powershell, etc. Without needing to search through your start menu.

A close second is the change made in (I believe) windows 10 to have the Print Screen key just open the ScreenSnip tool. I take a lot of screenshots on my computer, and sometimes I need just a single window or just part of one. For the former situation Alt+Print Screen was wonderfull, as another user has already mentioned, but for the later it meant I had to take the screenshot, open up Paint, do my cropping and other editing, then save it or select all and copy, and only then could I paste or upload it wherever I need it. Now I hit print screen, drag a box over what I need, and it goes directly to the clipboard and gets automatically saved to a specific subfolder in my Pictures directory in case I need it later!

Based on what I'm seeing from other folks, my prediction is a bit of a curveball.

I think that in the back half of 2025 we're going to see the beginning of the marginalization of generative AI. Aside from the potential host of legal/ethical issues stemming from how training data for commercial uses of genAI is sourced, I think there's a problem of optics as well. Regardless of your personal feelings on the technology or my own, the fact of the matter is that there's been noticeable backlash against it, and it's not just limited to independent artists and writers on sites like tumblr or similar niche social media platforms. Multiple unions in the entertainment industry have very publically voiced concerns regarding AI, even to the point of going on strike. Steam has begun to require the disclosure of any use of generative AI assets in games on their store in a similar manner they require for mature content. And this is still with the technology in a relatively nascent form.

I don't think it's going to almost entirely go away like NFTs, or be relegated to the domain of a diehard group of believes and scam artists like cryptocurrency, but I think you're going to see its implementation slow down or possibly stagnate for a time starting next year. It'll be largely used for LLM chatbots on corporate websites/social media pages and 'character RP' mobile apps. Someone else has mentioned the possibility of using AI to create stock footage for ads or vtuber-style avatars, and I could see that potentially taking off, but I doubt we'll see anything large-scale in the entertainment industry.

AI as a whole will continue to grow, but I think the majority of that won't come from the generative AI side of things and more from large-scale data analysis applications. Tech companies will still talk about AI cores on CPUs and graphic cards for the sake of getting their hardware into data centers, and I think AI upscaling/frame generation will become increasingly common as a way for gamers to eke out extra performance from their PC/console, but I don't see the hype for AI art/video/creative writing keeping its current pace as we move forward.

And I could very easily be wrong. In a year's time, the outcry against GenAI might just end up being 'Go Woke, Go Broke,' but from a different demographic. But I wouldn't be surprised if we see it become increasingly demphasized from this point onward.