Nicolas Ward<p><strong>Media — November 2024</strong></p><p>December has been busy with <a href="https://blog.ultranurd.net/2024/12/06/leaving-las-vegas/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">work travel</a> and getting ready for the holidays, so my November media review cadence is way off too. I am rearranging the sections a bit since the distinction between “movies” and “TV” is kinda blurry these days anyway and “serialized visual media” didn’t quite have the right ring to it. I’m also pulling interesting articles up to the top since that’s more what I want to focus sharing on anyway.</p><p>That means these monthly posts now have four sections: Reading (articles and books), Playing (video games and tabletop games), Watching (movies and TV and so forth), and Listening (music and podcasts). That last category is probably my most consumed form of media, since I listen in the background while doing chores or working but not in a meeting, but also the most routine in that there’s not a lot new there to highlight in these posts.</p><p><strong>Reading</strong></p><p>Kid and I continued reading Wildwood out loud although we’re kinda stuck on it and might DNF. As usual a lot of my online reading is about current trends in generative AI as well as the future of the personal web.</p><p><strong><a href="https://marketplace.dndbeyond.com/category/3710000?pid=DB3710000" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (2024)</a></strong></p><p>I will probably do a longer write up of the DMG like <a href="https://blog.ultranurd.net/2024/11/03/dnd-players-handbook-2024/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">I did with the PHB</a>. It’s a lot of the same review: they pulled in a lot of content into the core game but really focused on bringing new DMs into the fold with a lot of great advice that is useful even as someone who has run games on and off for 25 years. The art is excellent throughout. I’m excited to bring these updated rules to some games soon.</p><p><strong><a href="https://www.target.com/p/the-official-taylor-swift-the-eras-tour-book-target-exclusive/-/A-92901468" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Official Taylor Swift The Eras Tour Book</a></strong></p><p>We got up ridiculously early on Black Friday (first time ever!) to get to the downtown Target to pick up the anthology edition of TTPD on vinyl; they also had the new tour photo book available. It’s got some cool shots as well as some behind the scenes content that’s pretty interesting, like profiles of the dancers and information about the different costumes. This was a fun way to get even more excited about <a href="https://blog.ultranurd.net/2024/12/17/the-eras-tour/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">going to the concert</a>. Fun to look through together on the couch as a family.</p><p><strong><a href="https://ailogblog.substack.com/p/murderbot-ai-and-techno-capitalist" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Murderbot, AI, and Techno-Capitalist Futures</a></strong></p><p>Connecting the influence of sci-fi on some of Silicon Valley’s worst people, <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Torment Nexus</a>-style. (Plus I love Murderbot.)</p><p><strong><a href="https://www.wired.com/story/murderbot-she-wrote-martha-wells/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">How Murderbot Saved Martha Wells’ Life</a></strong></p><p>Speaking of Murderbot I’m glad these great books have finally brought Wells recognition and success. I’ve seen some criticism of this piece but some interesting details like buying their dream house.</p><p><strong><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-arecibo-message-earths-first-interstellar-transmission-turns-50/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Arecibo Message Turns 50</a></strong></p><p>A lot of interesting details I never knew about this <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_for_extraterrestrial_intelligence" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">SETI</a>-adjacent broadcast.</p><p><strong><a href="https://www.macworld.com/article/2525708" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Only Way Forward is the Mac</a></strong></p><p>Jason Snell writing for Macworld correctly calling out how our computers should be and how we need to move away from the locked down App Store model.</p><p><strong><a href="https://aftermath.site/website-musk-twitter-facebook-internet" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">For the Love of God, Make Your Own Website</a></strong></p><p>If you want to post, it shouldn’t be on corporate social media.</p><p><strong>Playing</strong></p><p>Mostly sticking to my trivia routine between <a href="https://www.jetpunk.com" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Jetpunk</a> with my dad and sister and of course <a href="https://learnedleague.com" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">LearnedLeague</a>. Board games haven’t been as much of a staple in the house of late.</p><p><strong><a href="https://thankgoodness.game" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Thank Goodness You’re Here</a></strong></p><p>It’s hard to explain this game other than to emphasize that it is a little gross, rather weird, and excessively British. It got a lot of buzz from my usual game channels. It’s short (a few hours) and linear (really only one correct path forward at any given time) but the minigames and art style and dialogue are a lot of fun. I played it on Switch. Definitely recommend if you like digestible games with a cool and weird vibe.</p>An actual liminal space<p><strong>Watching</strong></p><p>The late timing of Thanksgiving this year meant normally we wouldn’t start Christmas movies into December, but we started squeezing some in anyway, including annual favorites like <a href="https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/elf" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Elf</a>. We also tried some likely not repeats like <a href="https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81084350?s=i&trkid=258593161&vlang=en" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Princess Switch: Switched Again</a> and <a href="https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81594532?s=i&trkid=258593161&vlang=en" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Irish Wish</a> (not Christmas); it is nice to see a resurgence in family friendly rom-coms, that was a staple of my family’s Blockbuster rentals. We also started the last 😢 season of <a href="http://www.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Lower_Decks" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Star Trek: Lower Decks</a>.</p><p><strong><a href="https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/little-women-1994" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Little Women (1994)</a></strong></p><p>I don’t think I’d seen this since it came out, but it’s a favorite of Andrle’s and also Christmas-adjacent. Pretty impressive cast and a really good period drama. There’s a random fancy house stairwell in one of the ball scenes and I thought it looked like <a href="https://thecastle.ca" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Craigdarroch Castle</a>, which we visited last fall; the credits mentioned Victoria, BC so I’m sure I was right. It’s always weird how my brain works for recognizing architecture like that.</p><p><strong>Back-up Beepers: Obnoxious But Getting Better</strong></p><p>I complained about the noise from a construction site up the alley and got a reply with this interesting explanation. I didn’t know the newer delivery truck buzzers were a modern improvement!</p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bis_4MT5SSo" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bis_4MT5SSo</a></p><p><strong>Listening</strong></p><p>The Christmas music started early this year in part as some post-election therapy. Maybe I should put a tier list together. No other new music I can think of but did catch a few interesting podcast episodes.</p><p><strong><a href="https://podcast.play.date/episodes/s01e31/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Playdate Podcast — True Crime Edition</a></strong></p><p>The wild story of how Panic found hundreds of misdelivered and stolen Playdates using a Las Vegas private investigator.</p><p><strong><a href="https://engineered.network/causality/episode-55-crowdstrike/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Causality — CrowdStrike</a></strong></p><p>A good podcast episode overview of this summer’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_CrowdStrike-related_IT_outages" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">major CrowdStrike outage</a> and its root causes (mostly insufficient testing and deployment safety).</p><p><strong>Jon Batiste Hears Green Day for the First Time</strong></p><p>He’s so amazingly skilled with how he can just groove along with a track he’s never heard before.</p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0hSXIuPBwM" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0hSXIuPBwM</a></p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://blog.ultranurd.net/tag/crowdstrike/" target="_blank">#crowdstrike</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://blog.ultranurd.net/tag/dd/" target="_blank">#dD</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://blog.ultranurd.net/tag/green-day/" target="_blank">#greenDay</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://blog.ultranurd.net/tag/jon-batiste/" target="_blank">#jonBatiste</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://blog.ultranurd.net/tag/murderbot/" target="_blank">#murderbot</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://blog.ultranurd.net/tag/playdate/" target="_blank">#playdate</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://blog.ultranurd.net/tag/taylor-swift/" target="_blank">#taylorSwift</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://blog.ultranurd.net/tag/video-games/" target="_blank">#videoGames</a></p>