Two thousand and twenty-four

❦ First Published on Monday, 23 December, 2024
❧ Edited 13 January, 2025

2024, a better spin around the sun and behind the moon than the previous one here at HyperTextHero Headquarters.

Visited friends, found more help for mom, started playing piano, and late in the year, with the help of new accessories, got my livestream back on schedule, even if temporarily as 2025 is looking busy for In Real Life movement.

Here are some of my favorite things done or discovered:

Books

The Creative Act by Rick Rubin. Maybe the best book about creative process in everyday life and art I’ve read. Positive vibes and meditations. Speaking of which…
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Timeless advice about life and death from a ruler/philosopher who seemed to have been actually good and uncorrupted by power. And speaking of that, at the top of my to-read list for 2025 sits On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, also available in a visual graphic edition.
Drawing on the Dominant Eye by Betty Edwards. Worthwhile, even if not as much as Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.
Not finished yet, but The Art of Game Design, A Book of Lenses by Jesse Schell is eloquent and erudite so far.

Films & Series

Perfect Days. The day of a janitor who likes trees and music.
Oppenheimer. The final scene where he closes his eyes.
Station Eleven. Strong characters surviving a post-pandemic apocalypse in Chicago and around lake Michigan.
The Holdovers. The delicate kiss.
Moonstruck. The intense kiss.
Blitz. On racism and bravery.
Conclave. On standing up to corruption.
Evil Does Not Exist. On fighting the profit-based destruction of nature and communities.

Songs ♫

Heathens and Everything Matters from Aurora’s The Gods We Can Touch, one of those albums that come along once in a while, where every song is good.
The two title songs, and the others in Blonde Redhead’s melancholic Sit Down For Dinner.
Andromeda by Weyes Blood. The multi-instrument editing touch in the first three seconds followed by wavy-raspy synth.
Echolocation by a band called La Cerca I saw live on my first trip to Seattle.
Luck and Strange by David Gilmour. Almost 80, still rocking.

Video Games

Dedicated pages with links to each episode of video games I play were made this year. Scroll to the bottom of this page to see a list of the current ones, or visit the Articles page. Variety seems to be the true name of the HyperTextHero video game game.
Helldivers 2. An action comedy troupe theatrically powered by the best sound track since the original Star Wars and Rambo II: The Mission.
Delighted to have a new Flight Simulator, but waiting for creases to be ironed off my pilot’s shirt before begining my flight around a digital Earth in 2025.
Starfield didn’t reach the heights of the hype, but I still enjoyed its soundscapes and occasional wild low gravity combat to finish it.
Kithack Model Club keeps improving. I see a bright future for this one-of-a-kind radio controlled plane, car, and boat simulator and aeronautical enginerring and 3D modelling piece of digital education by the creator of Kerbal Space Program.
Arma Reforger is better, too, out in the light of day, with only desync during vehicle collisions remaining in my “particularly annoying” bug list.
Sneaking into this list a few minutes before 2025, the strategic layers of Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, along with a rekindling of Jagged Alliance 3 gave a welcome break from the always-moving nature of simulation action games I’m partial to.

Visual Art & Objects

Tove Jansson: Bird Blue, 1953 (detail). © Tove Jansson Estate. Photo: HAM / Maija Toivanen.
Trips to visit friends with a decade+ old X100S, and then the lovely X100VI, rekindled my candid photography. The VI is my first new dedicated, non-phone camera in over a decade. Thank you for making this thing, Fujifilm people!
Bozeman Tall winter boots (thanks, babe!)

Websites

Hacker News, still one of the very best places to find and discuss interesting things on the internet, thanks to moderators like dang.
PAXsims, “devoted to the development and effective use of games and simulation-based learning concerning issues of conflict, peacebuilding, and development in fragile and conflict-affected states, as well as to the policy application of gaming and simulation techniques.”
My favorite blog writer of 2024 was Simon Willison. Clear, thoughtful, expert commentary about technology, including AI.

Todo list for 2025

In the beginning of the day, don’t look at your phone or computer. Avoid news especially, and instead write your thoughts, draw something, work on a song, make something, anything. Don’t let your day get sucked away with things that you can’t control
Excercise every day. Also 20–40 minute walks or 100 basketball jumpshots, if possible.
Publish first original song, publish first EP.
Draw daily, even a 5 minute drawing. Try more drawing streams.
Write daily, even for 5 minutes.
Learn a new song or practice one or two from existing set two or three times a week.
Write postcards to people.
Continue editing YWAB.
Set up a weekly “office hours” stream to help people.
Cold water on face after any shower to help keep sinuses clear.
Add any streamed video game episode to YouTube and link to it from articles about the game here. Don’t worry about not finishing games. Keep going with ones you like. Let others go.
Set up bird/nature cam for Sound Space streams.
Make a 1 minute stream trailer and a 5 minute film.

Wishing you a good 2025, dear visitor!

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Prior entry: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Next entry: Noticing nature