The last year was good for me but tiring. Been enjoying some time off doing just about nothing to charge up for the new year. To that end, as much as I like doing these, gonna whip through it with some briskness.

General

As I said, the year was good to me, as much as could be, but tiring. A lot going on.

Direction and trends wise, it continues to be clear that for app development, despite my grumblings about the platform, Android is big, and it’s where the users are. Both Tor Browser and Cwtch appear to have way more android users than any other platform. Thankfully Tor has been taking advantage of my past bits of experience with Android and kept me on Android work this year. And I’m becoming grateful. Didn’t intend to add “Android dev” to my long list of titles but it only makes sense going into 2025 and beyond to lean in so I’m glad work is feeding me those opportunities. At some point I may even feel comfortable with the title, but I feel I have plenty more to learn and master first. So that’s a goal for 2025.

Work / Tor

As I said, mostly Android related work. We got the new tor bootstrap launch screen lanuched in the first half of the year, large in part to our actual android dev’s work, but I def helped out. I handled the firefox-android rebase from firefox 115 to 128 over the summer and that was a lot of work. And in the fall I’ve been working on something else android for something new.

Work / Cwtch

Due to funding or lack there or the entire team is now volunteers with no paid staff, so work has definitely slowed. Still, we launched our new themes revamp and custom theme loading at the start of the year and refined it all across the year. Cwtch is as sharp looking as ever. Lots of bug fixes and small improvements, which can be seen in the changelog. We also partook in the Tor State of the Onion Community Day.

For 2025, I still have packaging goals left over from last year, and then I’d like to spend what time I have diving into performance improvements for android and helping our new managed groups get into the UI and more usable.

This work always feels needed and more, and this year is no different. It was nice to see in 2024 some volunteers emerge and contibute some code fixes too, so hopefully we’ll see more of that going into 2025. Thanks all!

Media

And here’s what I’m here for, listing all the media I consumed in the year and dropping some notes about it. This year was notably poor on the reading front, I am hoping to improve that in 2025 but we’ll see.

Before I get into the individual reviews, a small epiphany I just had was, part of the reason I seem to be enjoying rewatching older shows, well one of the many reasons, which also include episode counts being way higher, is that there were more shows where people got to be excellent at their cool jobs. Star Trek, Star Gate, etc, excellent smart people excelling. I look for that still in new shows but it’s so often mared by newer genre conventions forcing interjection of more interpersonal drama into everything and that bogging down, occluding, or just replacing characters being excellent at their work and instead their work is a back drop for a drama, and too often, one where characters are down right stupid, low EQ, etc. See my end of year notes on Mr and Mrs Smith for just the latest example. But also we can see that change when after Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis, we got Stargate Universe, and OMG the stupid interpersonal drama. It’s been a long forming trend but now it’s nearly everywhere.

TV

  • Lost (s4-6 rewatch): continuing from the end of 2023’s start of rewatching Lost, I finished the last 3 seasons at the start of 2024. I’m looking at the point form notes I took and briefly, season 4 seemed fine and enjoyable still, but s5 is where it started to turn, I wrote “both halfs of the story seem like filler”. I think this is when the character driven nature of the show that fans loved started to fall aways as characters just danced like marionettes from one contrived plot point to the next. And then season 6. I have a lot of angry notes that I think boil down to they just kept adding more unexplained shit that didn’t make sense and was used to “explain” previous mysteries but didn’t. And just frustration with the end game they decided to drive us to and just being unsatisfied at best with parts and just annoyed and angry bored by others.

  • Yellow Jackets Season 2: Pretty fun. Interesting to see how bad it was getting for the team in the past. I’m a little unsure if they had this fully planned out before they started or if they are just sorta feeling their way through this. Curious to see where it goes. The present time felt just a bit contrived I think but still fairly character driven. Will be back for season 3 to see where this goes but I feel they may be running out of material and hope they opt for ending it sooner than dragging it out.

  • Burn Notice: I rewatched most of Burn Notice. There’s a show that def didn’t have a plan and just got more ridiculous and nonsensical as it went on. I don’t believe I could even bring myself to watch the final season. Michael just makes less and less sense as a top spy which his goal to get “cleared” and “work for the good US gov” as we see season after season that the US gov spy shops are just shell games of corruption and he sure never was going “good” work and after all he’s learned why he could see some hypothetical optimal good to go work for. Rather than just throw in with any of a dozen parties. Michael’s main goal just loses all sense and becomes incoherent as we learn more about his world, life, work, and the agencies and etc. He had no growth as a character even under the weight of seasons.

  • Hustle: Tried a few episodes of this but it just felt so much like a “proto leverage” it made me want to watch that more than anything. They had a “lose” code instead of the Leverage team’s more concrete focus. And the heists often had a kind of wonky bit when it felt the writers were a bit stuck. If I’d watched this first 2 decades ago I’d prolly have enjoyed it more but I gave up after about a season.

  • The Stranger: I’m a fan of Hannah John-Kanen from her work on Killjoys so followed her into this miniseries. It was fine, reasonably intriguing. A mess of overlapping incidents to untangle. She was sadly not in it as much as I might have liked but oh well.

  • Origin: Streaming service freedom to be 50-60m is a double edged sword, lot of episodes feel slow and long and could be edited to be faster. The Lost style flash backs don’t provide enough character info, and aren’t as related to episode by episode dilemma. They do show some of old earth but not enough. Killed my favourite character in ep 8 so that was a bummer. Still the show had a little potential. Some ok characters but the last episode set up of the parasite learning about being human, compassion and connection, not killing and heading to the planet warnings coming from and the company knowledge… I’d have watched a season 2 if it wasn’t cancelled for understandably not being that good.

  • Beacon 23: JFC what to say. Ok. I came to it cus Lena Heady was in it, and I loved her performance in it. Her entire physicality was wonderful to watch, she had a wolf’s confidence and loped through scenes amazingly. Just really cool to see a middle age lady with such quiet physical confidence and command. Sadly her performance is the only good thing about this show. It’s got great ideas and aspirations and just shits the bed with them all. Starting by killing of Lena’s character at the end of s1 and then killing the other main character by the end of s2 with a piss take fake out where we think he could be ok and are following what we think is him trying to survive, but he’s ALREADY dead and it’s just someone else’s dream. I think some writer thought they were clever for that but omg wow no. And now if they want to do a season 3 they have 0 of their two main characters from the start of the show. Good luck with that. It’s a short show with just like 16 episodes and yet manages to be staggeringly time wastey with them. I found this show so frustrating for the potential it had that it kept squandering.

  • Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles (rewatch): Origionally: Show was good. I’m even more sad now it was cancelled. Unlike the other 3 T3 attempts, this one is probably advantaged by being a show and having more time to breath and explore characters and concepts but that is by no means a guarantee that would happen. But it did, and I think well. Exploring more the isolation and loneliness John might fall into, Sarah’s difficulties in raising essentially a teen messiah. Adding new characters was good and went well, I’m a sucker for AI in tv so Cameron was interesting at times. And as the show ends on a cliffhanger we get some good reveals for even more how the show was diverging from each movie attempt to follow T2, by showing more factions emerging and new successive timelines emerging with ppl being sent back from futures earlier time travellers don’t entirely recognize. All in all some fun stuff. And checking Rotten Tomatoes and other reviews I see I’m far from the only one to rank this as the next best entry in the franchise, by a lot in most cases.

  • Forever (rewatch): I know, it’s essentially a cop show with the format of “cop + $Weird partner” but in this one the focus is on an immortal of 240 years who doesn’t know why he’s like this working in the morgue and less by logic and more by TV tropes ends up working with a cop. The things I like about this corney show is it shows a few things we don’t get treated to too often in immortal fiction (vapires esp). Instead of showing him falling for some teen, he did fall for the love of his life, in the 1940s, and via flashbacks we see him aging and him not, and her eventually leaving him after being mistaken for mother and son on an anniversary dinner. They also had a kid, whos now 70s and appears much older than his dad. Just some fun quirky interactions we’re rarely treated too. Also the villain is played by the excellent Burn Gorman, who’s a 2000 year old immortal who’s just discovered our main character and is initially confused by his lack of disdain for humans till he realizes how “young he still is”. Just one season, then was cancelled, because, it’s not that good and had some pretty inconsistent characterization, like our lead’s son Abe, who most episode writers use as a stock 60s beatnik/protester son in references they talk about such as his protesting, 60s counter culture enjoying and partaking in etc, until inexplicably one pro military writer gives us a flash back to Abe proudly enlisting for Vietnam and hanging out with his old army buddys.

  • Imposters (rewatch): A Heist show with some twist, and absolutly tons of personal drama, but it’s not piss poorly written and is foundational to the show (three marks of a grifter catch up with her and then get drawn into her world). It’s fun.

  • Dark Angel (rewatch): Originally: Rewatching Dark Angel and it is weird the shift between season 1 and 2. I blew through season 1. They had good elements like the tension between Max and Logan, and not just romantically, but Logan’s overworking idealism vs Max’s survival instinct. They had a good story generating engine with Max being on the run, mysteries about Manticore, the other escapees etc, and it created tension and pressure. Episodes had little twists you didn’t always see coming. Then season 2 comes, Manticore is gone, Max and Logan can’t touch, and all the others have escaped. But Max isn’t looking for the rest of the original 12, even tho there’s no one ostensibly hunting her and them (I know White will emerge later this season), but yeah, the episodes are suddenly dragging. There’s no threat, no mystery, each episode is just a weird slice of life now? We’re not even really doing Eyes Only work for Logan. We even have so little idea what to do this season 2 we have a whole episode that is a dream. Even when an episode has an A plot, sometimes it’ll be so anemic the B plot will take up as much if not more time and I’ll get done scenes on the B plot only to get back to the A plot and have forgotten it was even happening cus pacing and tension are just… gone. Real weird and disappointing but it sounds like network interference (Fox) and show runner change just murdered the vibe, and style of the show and ejected and blunted the story. I can see why there would have been a ratings drop and then it got cancelled cus I’m not even half way into season 2 and it’s dragging so hard it feels like it’ll be hard to complete. Which is a shame since I blew through season 1 happily and felt pulled through it.

  • Evil (season 1 and half of season 2): I’ve seen some Good Wife and 3 seasons of Good Fight so its fun to see the King couple in their most “experimental” show, channeling some 90s XFiles vibes in an updated format. Also Michael Emerson is a delight in his easily most villainous role. Got distracted mid season two, need to get back to this and see where it goes. Tho that can be the challenge of modern shows. 90s shows were super episodic and could breath and didn’t have to have a destination. Modern tighter more serial shows kinda all get you in with a promise of a destination but then may not have one? As modern shows go this is actually more pleasantly episodic, but it’s still lightly in a weird place that made falling out of it possible. But I prolly will resume :)

  • The Strain: Started really interestingly. Vampirism as an infection, through the lens of a main character working in public health and infections for the federal government. Vampirism with nearly zombie underlings. Def some of the grossest vampires we’ve seen. And some fun cast members. Lots of good ingredients. And then in the season 1 finale they had the big bad on the ropes but somehow then shit the bed and let it escape just so the show could go on. And on it went, deeper into interpersonal drama and etc as the hope of actually defeating the big bad faded into the distance and we just had to roll on in this new status quo. And so I quit a few eps into season 2 as it lost all momentum for me.

  • Creamerie: A New Zealand comedy about a dystopic gendercide. Some pretty funny bits and fun. I think they retconed in transmen in season 2, so better late than never. And otherwise some commentary in the world building on stereotypes for both genders.

  • Doom Patrol: I was intrigued by the off kilter pacing and characterization and far back starting point in character development it started on (they are all disaster messes), but as the show went on, there was a lot less character growth than I’d have hoped and some of the characters I swear were worse by the final season. I enjoyed it for a while but the last season felt a bit of a chore to finish.

  • Twin Peaks: Finally watching this oldie and cult classic and I can kinda see why. It’s an odd mix of soap opera, horror, detective show, and supernatural show with some social commentary that provides a pretty unique vibe. The initial mystery wrapping mid season 2 was a little surprising and it sure seems like it left them off kilter too? Some of the character arcs after that went super no where, but as the season progressed it seemed to be starting to find it’s footing again, but then was sadly cancelled. I liked the prequel movie ok, kind of some genre shift and I’m not usually a fan of prequels as they show stuff we already know and have imagined and usually do a worse job pinning it down. This was ok as they go. And then there was “The Return” season 3. I think I get what it was maybe going for but just cus it had a conceit doesn’t mean it wasn’t boring and unfun (“hey that’s the point” lol). Still, it had it’s moments and banger lines “Fix your heart or die”.

  • Lower decks s5: More fun with the gang. Best modern Star Trek. Only sad it’s cancelled.

  • Devils Hour s2: More fun with this gang too lol. A few bits did feel a bit contrived (why she didn’t move her mother in with her, why then the cabin, but almost explainable, wish the show had left a line of dialoge or two for that). But yeah, the mystery is developing, Peter Capaldi seems to be having fun and I’m having fun watching him, and the show is building it’s mythology. I’ve got a pretty good idea who the mystery person is but I’m not sure the show was being too subtle about it, but if it’s who I think it is, fixing that in future loops should be easy? So not 100% sure where that’s going. The bigger surprise is her son. Anyways def looking forward to more.

  • Mr & Mrs Smith: I went in clearly mistakenly looking for a show about competent spys and assassins and ended up with a semi well written romance with semi adequate spy work and assassination as a back drop. It’s not bad I don’t think but it wasn’t what I was looking for. The two leads give great performances but I think their characters are overall dumb.

  • Utopia uk: Gave this a try. There’s some fun writing and characters but the overall conspiracy turn that vaccines are part of an evil conspiracy sat really poorly with me in 2024, and the second season opened with a completely superfluous full episode flashback that showed us nothing new, only things we knew from dialog in season 1, and not the most convincingly. Gave up in season 2 ep 2 but had some fun with parts of season 1.

Movies

  • The People’s Joker: Again, in theatres, with more friends, for the actual theatrical release. Super fun again.
  • Love Lies Bleeding: Not exactly my normal genre but wanted to check it out. Messy sorta stressful romance and drama. Interesting visuals.
  • Abagail: Delightful. Exceeded the trailer. Not setting out to do a lot, but doing well and slightly exceeding that, so good times
  • Polite Society: Pretty fun and enjoyed the lead actresses
  • I Saw the TV Glow: Oph wow. Well done but heavy and draining. Intriguing to watch to.
  • Bottoms: Absolutely silly fun times!

Games

  • Armored Core 6: Lots of vibes, that were neat and fun to be in. Haven’t really played a mech game before and this was fun. Heavy feeling but a surprising emphasis on manoeuvrability and movement, which I like. But the idea you should play it through 3 times with such tiny changes in missions all for 3 different endings that are like 30s cut scenes… you could youtube the last one esp, which I did.
  • Helldivers 2: Got in on the Starship Troopers inspired silly alien shooty with some friends at launch this year. It’s a decent blast but I at least started finding it a bit repetitive. But I believe it’s not that big a team, and I think they were incredibly smart with how the used their resources and I think the game is a good acheivment. Also there’s a whole new race added now so I may poke back in for a bit this year.
  • Warframe: Back on my long term looter shooter mmorpg-lite addiction. It’s been good to be back, or rather, after being away for a few years, a bunch of stuff has piled up that’s been fun to dig into. Duviri ended up being pretty fun, The Zaramin 10 was fun, the new mission types being added like Alchemy and Void Cascare and Flood have some nice new design, little bits more interactivity along the mission type. And the Whispers in the Wall end of quest had me gasp with how unexpected and cute it was. That was the summer, took a 4 month break, and then spent the last month playing Warframe 1999. What an amazing update. I’ve been gushing to all my friends IRL. The sound track was hilarious and excellent. The new romance system was a treat to engage with and it’s been delightful watching the entire community get into it and get VERY excited for their first New Years Kisses. What can I say. The game continues to innovate, add wildly new mechanics to the game, pull in all kinds of inspiration from across media, and stay fresh and exciting. Can’t wait to see what they come up with next.
  • Minecraft: Some friends spun up a server this year and that’s also been some fun! Especially since we made a choice to wait 2 months for nether and portals and 2 further months for end access (and elytra) so it forces us to dig into less used mechanics like horse taming and riding, path building, etc. Some small organic fun role play lite stories have also emerged. It’s been a good time, and as always, lots more new content to learn and engage with since the last time I played minecraft like 4 years ago.
  • Pacific Drive: Steph Sterling described it as a “comfy survival horror game” and I think that fits well. I’d like to sink into it more, but the first few missions didn’t quite suck me in and I fell into something else. Hopefully will come back to.
  • Remnant & Remnant 2: Came back to when some friends joined and also played the second DLC. Good times. Just a solid game. Still need to hit up the third DLC.
  • V Rising: Played with a few friends. Pretty fun routine of base building, teching up, boss slaying for progress, and repeating. We got a little stuck on the last 2 bosses and didn’t quite finish, but all had a good time. Def a fun time.
  • Metaphore Refantazio: Really interesting story unfurling here with some things to say. Really curious to see how it concludes the story and says in the end. However as it’s kinda my first JRPG and first Atlus game, I’m finding I’m def struggling sometimes with the mechanics and pacing. I’d love to be able to just grind out all the skills I want, but I have to actually… chose, as I have limited dungeon time? and then it’s like interspersed with like an hour of story. So I’ve gotten half way and run a little out of steam. I’m really trying to either work up the energy to dive back in and try and finish, or lacking that watch a playthrough to see where the story goes. Very attached to that aspect of the game. They really seem to be doing something nice and a little thoughtful there.

Books

It wasn’t a good year for reading. There are reasons for that. I’m looking to do better this year. One small home project is to create a dedicated reading nook. We’ve cleared a little space, and are looking into getting a nice reading chair, side table, and lamp. While it shouldn’t have been a real blocker, I am hoping it will help :)

  • Translation State - Ann Leckie: Another relaxing sci fi romp in the Ancillary Justice universe. Good times

  • Glasshouse - Charles Stross: Reread this one this year and it’s still a good time exploring some gender issues via scifi.

  • The Widening Gyre - Michael R Johnston - Scifi political intrigue but the story telling style felt shallow on characterization and more just characters going from place to place and plot point to plot point. Didn’t work for me.

  • Notes From a Burning Age - Claire North: More of a post post apocalyptic spy/detective slow burn as war breaks out in semi recovered age. Slow but kinda interesting?

Year Ahead 2025

I did the yearly look at my tools and try and find something better to help organize for heading into the new year. Between requirements for productivity tools that sync between desktop (linux) and android, ideally not a paid 3rd party service, self host instead (one day p2p), and open source, there weren’t a lot of viable contenders. I’m settling into using nextcloud deck and it’s going ok. At least it was a way for me to make a bunch of projects and dump the early thoughts on them all out of my head into somewhere, and have fairly well signposted “next thing” starting points for all of them.

Upgraded my main computer from 64GB ram to 96GB over the holidays for that extra bit of workspace.

As mentioned before, looking around the tech landscape, for better and worse, Android is by far the most widely deployed platform and for the things I work on, where the largest userbase is, so I’m going to lean further into to learning Android dev this year, which is great cus work has conspired to give me increasing opportunities to do just that!

Continuing various selfcare and self health projects so hoping those will both keep me in health to be productive and maybe even improve some on that front. We’ll see. Also even in a busier age in my life and with things still not recovered from the pandemic fully, still pursuing some small networking and community building efforts locally. I love making connections so riding some from last year into this year seeing where they go.

2025 is probably gonna be a tumultuous year so it’s hard to predict much. Let’s get into it I guess.