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december 2023: happy new year

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---
title: "Favorites of December 2023"
date: 2024-01-01T13:37:00+01:00
tags:
- metapost
---
Happy New Year! Hopefully 2024 will bring the needed peace and solace to everyone. 2023 was a very difficult year for us, with lots of what you might call "low lows" and a few "high highs". We usually make fun of that saying, but this seems like the first time it's appropriate to use it.
As far as blogging goes, 2023 was a great year. See the Brain Baking [blog post archive for 2023](/post/2023/): with 90 posts last year, that's on average 7.5 a month or 1.875 a week. The best part about 2023 in blogging was the feedback I got, and the new friends and e-mail pen pals I made. As frequently mentioned before, [blogging keeps on giving](/post/2021/10/a-triumph-for-blogging/). If there's one thing I never ever intend to give up, it's blogging.
The following posts turned out to be the most popular of 2023:
1. [FPGAs And The Renaissance of Retro Hardware](/post/2023/11/fpgas-and-the-renaissance-of-retro-hardware/)
2. [Overlooked Reasons To Still Buy Physical Media](/post/2023/09/overlooked-reasons-to-still-buy-physical-media/)
3. [Goodbye, ProtonMail](/post/2023/01/goodbye-protonmail/)
4. [Phomemo Thermal Printing On MacOS](/post/2023/02/phomemo-thermal-printing-on-macos/)
5. [DOOM Turned Thirty](/post/2023/12/doom-turned-thirty/)
As for _Jefklak's Codex_, the most popular article was the one on [Freaky Trip](https://jefklakscodex.com/games/switch/freaky-trip/), a bizarre (and very buggy) single-screen adventure/puzzle game. That one got a few hits simply because I couldn't find any reviews online myself! As far as visitor counts go, the _Codex_ gets almost none, but I still have a lot of fun filling it. It's my own thing, and I've pondered on that subject recently in [On Writing For Yourself In Public](/post/2023/11/on-writing-for-yourself-in-public/).
Previous month: [October 2023](/post/2023/11/october-2023).
## Books I've read
Not much this month. Read my [2023 in books overview post](/post/2023/12/2023-in-books) to find out about the 22 books I managed to finish last year.
The _Malloreon_ chronicles by [David Eddings](https://www.eddingschronicles.com/index.html) continues to be my go-to bed-time material. Books 1 and 2 are done and although the tension doesn't exactly build up, I don't mind to keep on reading as it's a light read and entertaining enough.
## Games I've played
After finishing _Super Mario Bros. Wonder_, I continued with the 2D Mario strike with the _Mario Land_ Game Boy series that evolved into _Wario Land_ and _Wario Land II_. The best is yet to come, though, as _Wario Land 3_ is on my [25 Best Games of All Time](/post/2023/10/top-25-best-games-of-all-time) list! I know them all by heart but still breeze through these platformers once every few years.
My wife discovered a cheap Switch eShop code for _Mario + Rabids: Kingdom Battle_ and since I love tactical turn-based games, I eagerly dove in. It's okay so far: the core gameplay is very solid, but everything slathered on top is not my cup of tea. I'm nearing the end and will have a review up shortly. Meanwhile, Kristien insists on playing [Railbound](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1967510/Railbound/), a cosy railway puzzle game with sometimes devilishly difficult levels! Most of the time, I just don't "see it", but we're having fun together nonetheless.
## Selected (blog) posts
- Gibru writes several interesting articles on AI and LLM generation, including [Contextualizing the Artistic Process](https://elusivewordsmith.com/posts/Playground/contextualizing/).
- Jonas Downey is convinced that having [side projects is essential for creatives](https://jonas.do/writing/2023-10-05-side-projects/), and I agree. This could grow into a powerful manifesto.
- Cory Zue provides an overview on his side projects and why [building publicly in private](https://www.coryzue.com/writing/building-in-private/) works for him.
- Keith McNulty explains why [the MBTI tests are corporate astrology](https://medium.com/swlh/the-mbti-is-corporate-astrology-c132d93e684f) (Medum link).
- Michael Klamerus explains his process on [finding small indie games](https://virtualmoose.org/2023/12/13/finding-indie-games/).
- This sobering article at Eurogamer reminds us that in the video game industry, 2023 was also the year of low lows and high highs: [You Can't Talk About Games Without Talking About The Layoffs](https://www.eurogamer.net/you-cant-talk-about-2023-in-games-without-talking-about-layoffs).
- Glyph explains how to set up the best possible [Phython development environment for MacOS](https://blog.glyph.im/2023/08/get-your-mac-python-from-python-dot-org.html). Don't use `brew install` like I did.
- Speaking of Python, [why is Python so slow?](http://jakevdp.github.io/blog/2014/05/09/why-python-is-slow/) Jake VanderPlas deciphers the Python internals to figure out why.
- Vlad-Stefan Harbuz's blog is great: it's a combination between computing and philosophical work. Here's his [overview on resources on the philosophy of work](https://vladh.net/wage-labour-resources/) I still have to dig into.
- Here's an interesting piece on [Mickey Mouse and the Public Domain](https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/mickey/). As of today, _one_ of the earliest versions of Mickey hits public domain in USA.
- [You Don't Need Statistics On Your Blog](https://blog.yossarian.net/2023/12/24/You-dont-need-analytics-on-your-blog) says William Woodruff. Perhaps I should take on the challenge and ditch GoatCounter in favor of a few `grep` scripts in access logs, if that?
## Other random links
- [Déjà Dup Backups](https://apps.gnome.org/en-GB/DejaDup/) is a Gnome-powered UI-friendly backup tool for Unix.
- Did you know you can [Scheme in Scheme on WASM in the browser?](https://spritely.institute/news/scheme-in-scheme-on-wasm-in-the-browser.html) wait what now? The Spritely Institute also has cool info on Lisp hackatons if that's your jam.
- If you want to follow physical video game releases, look no further than https://www.physicalreleases.com/
- The [Into The Aether Podcast](https://intothecast.online/) released a six-hour long episode on the 2023 Game of the Year. It's great, but I have been slogging through it on and off all week and I'm still just over `03:21:00` hours/minutes in! Who decided that three-plus hours of jabbering about video games is a good thing? _Because it totally is!_
I hope to keep up the blogging rhythm in 2024. That's everything I wish for in 2024 besides the obvious ones.