Now that Thanksgiving in the United States is in the past, we are squarely in the holiday season. With December starting, it is now time for my reading list for November. Before diving into the books that I listened to, it should be noted that this is the second to last Reading List that I will be posting. There are a couple of a reasons for this.

The first reason is that I have cancelled my Audible subscription. Part of the reason why I cancelled my Audible subscription is budgetary, but not entirely. An Audible subscription is approximately $15 a month and when you look at it over the course of a year that is $180. I am absolutely not getting $180 worth of value from the service.

In case you are not aware, an Audible subscription comes with the ability to purchase titles through the use of a credit system. At one point earlier this year I had six credits, which means that I had not purchased anything for six months. It has become a struggle to find items to purchase with these credits. While Audible credits do not expire, for the plan that I am on, I cannot have more than six at a time. If you do not use the credits, you forfeit a credit, which means that you are effectively paying for nothing at that point.

One aspect of an Audible subscription is Audible Plus. I do not utilize the Audible Plus catalog because most of the books there are not ones that I am interested in. I have tried a number of titles I have stopped listening to each of them after a bit of time and just removed them from my library.

The second reason is that there has been almost no feedback when I post them. I initially thought this might be a way of providing a non-Apple post every month, but without it getting any traction it does not make sense to continue posting these.

The third reason is that if you look over the three years of reading lists, a majority of the books are ones that I have listened to before and not that many books are new ones.

Even though I will not be posting everything that I read over the course of a month, I still will be reading books. Instead of a subscription, I will likely be a bit pickier about the books that I purchase. I may still post about titles that stand out, but this definitely will not be on a monthly basis.

And now, on to the items that I did read in November.

In November I listened to 14 books total, of which three were new. I want to highlight one of the new titles that I listened to, All Souls Lost by Dan Moren.

Say hello to Mike Lucifer, Spiritual Consultant. He’s back in town to take care of business. Unfortunately, when business is good, things must be very, very bad.

After two years trying to run away from his past, Mike Lucifer’s back in his office less than ten minutes when a persistent young woman shows up asking for help: her boyfriend’s been possessed by a demon.

That’s exactly the kind of mess that drove him from his hometown of Boston to a sunny beach—and the bottom of a bottle—in the first place. But there are some problems that even booze can’t drown, and while Lucifer may be no hero, his dwindling bank account provides a thousand reasons to take the case.

No sooner is he back in the game then the complications and corpses start to add up. The boyfriend’s not possessed—he’s dead. The tech company where he worked is looking shadier by the second. And Lucifer’s client definitely knows more than she should…about everything. The deeper Lucifer digs, the more he wonders if whatever sinister entity lurks behind this case wants him to be the last to die…

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If there is one thing you should know about me, it is that I am constantly listening to music a significant amount of time throughout the day. If you thnk I am joking, we will get to that.

Today Apple began offering Apple Music users a recap of their listening habits for the year through a feature called Apple Music Replay. This is not the first year for this. In fact, last year at about this time was the first time Apple provided Apple Music Replay.

The way that you access your Apple Music Replay is not intuitive at all. In order to see your highlight reel, you may need to go to https://replay.music.apple.com. It may be possible that it will show up within the Apple Music app, but it is was not shown for me.

When you visit the Apple Music Replay site, you will need to log in, but once you log in you will be offered a highlight reel. The highlight reel shows seven different sections. These are:

1. Total Minutes listened
2. Top Artist with the number of minutes listened
3. If you were in the top 100 listeners for any particular artist.
4. Top Song with the number of plays for that song.
5. Top Album, with the number of plays for that album.
6. Top Genre
7. Recap with Top Artist, Top Album, and Top Song.

Along with the Highlight Reel there is a dashboard with a bit more information. The sections expand upon the items in Highlight Reel by providing your top 15 artists, albums, and songs, replete with the total minutes listened, number of plays, and number of plays respectively.

Milestones

One of the new features this year is a new section called "Milestones". Milestones will provide you the dates when you reached certain milestones. As an example, here is what my Milestones looks like.

I think this is a good addition, but more insight would be useful. As an example, I would like to know if there are more milestones, like maybe 1000 artists, or 100,000 minutes. I would presume there are milestones for that, but they are not listed anywhere that I could find. Let us now look at my top items.

My Top Items

I thought I would share my statistics. According to my higlight reel I listened to 85,931 minutes of music. I am presuming that is through yesterday, or 331 days for the year. That averages out to 259.6 minutes per day, or 4.32 hours per day. Compared to last year, this is about 14,000 fewer minutes.

My top artist was Taylor Swift, with 7,410 minutes or 22 minutes per day. This honestly seems low given how much music of hers that I listened to this year. Including listening to the song "You're on your own Kid" many many times on repeat. This compares to last year when I listened to 9,379 minutes, or 28 minutes per day, on average.

My top album was "One Thing at a Time" by Morgan Wallen, this is due to the me listening to my top song "'98 Braves" 125 times, as well as the title track to the album "One Thing at a Time" 103 times.

As mentioned above, it is possible for you to be a top listener for an artist, I fell into the top 100 listeners for a band called "Lucky Boys Confusion". This also happened last year.

Issues

I initally watched the highlight reel on my iPhone, and it did indeed work. However, I wanted to rewatch it on M2 MacBook Pro, so I signed in and guess what, none of the graphics loaded. I tried a private browser, same thing. I do not run any extensions, so that is not the issue. My MacBook Pro is not on any beta software, it is running on the macOS Sonoma 14.1.1. I do not understand why this is a problem, it's just web content, but for some reason it is.

My Thoughts

Overall I think Apple Music Replay is a perfectly fine way of being able to show Apple Music subscribers some of the listening habits. The additino of milestones is good to know, a bit more information about each could be helpful. I cannot think of any additional features that could be added, but having one additional item added every year would be a way of building up the information that is provided.

I honestly cannot recall if the Apple Music Replay will be updated throughout December or not. I hope it does, because otherwise it is missing an entire month worth of listening.

Today Apple has announced that the next Swift Student Challenge. This is much earlier than in previous years, but this is by design. According to the Apple Developer site,

We're releasing new coding resources, working with community partners, and announcing the Challenge earlier than in previous years so students can dive deep into Swift and the development process — and educators can get a head start in supporting them.

There is an additional change, according to the "The next challenge will open in February 2024, and will include a new category recognizing 50 Distinguished Winners, who will be named for standout submissions."

In order to help everyone learn to code, Apple has provided some new resources for educators.

Apple's new Everyone Can Code Projects provide step-by-step resources to help educators guide students through every step of their coding and app development journey, and develop essential skills while creating apps that solve problems they care about.

Everyone Can Code Projects can be integrated into any subject area, and are perfect for the classroom or coding clubs. They introduce students to SwiftUI — the modern way to build user interfaces with surprisingly little code — and use the latest app-building technologies in Swift Playgrounds. As they code, students can see how their app changes in real time with App Preview.

Four new Projects available today include:

• Design a Simple App: Students can create an app prototype in Keynote to learn the fundamentals of app design, practice rapid prototyping, and collect feedback, following the same steps as professional developers.
• Build with Stacks and Shapes: Students can take the first steps of building an app in Swift Playgrounds and code a self-portrait or a work of art using SwiftUI to learn the fundamentals of user interface design.
• Build Custom Shapes: Students can bring an app interface to the next level by designing a shape, learning how to plot the coordinates, and coding their custom shape using SwiftUI and the About Me sample app within Swift Playgrounds.
• Design an App Icon: Students can learn and apply app design principles to create a unique and memorable app icon that communicates an idea; practice rapid prototyping; collect feedback; and upload the icon to Swift Playgrounds to become part of an app.

If you are a student you will be able to apply for three weeks in February, so stay tuned to the Swift Student Challenge site to find out when applications open.

Source: Apple Newsroom

If you look back at the history of video games, there are a few iconic characters that would easily come to mind. It would likely include PacMan, Master Chief, B.J. Blackowicz, Gordon Freeman, Link, and of course the most iconic, Mario. Over the entire lifetime of the character of Mario, which spans more than 40 years now, he has changed. The character of Mario was one of the first games that we owned. I vividly remember getting a Nintendo for Christmas complete with the Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt cartridge.

While he may have started as JumpMan, he quickly evolved into his own character, first in Donkey Kong, but in 1986 Mario came to the United States with ‘Super Mario Bros’. This game, along with the Donkey Kong game, is a two-dimensional side-scrolling game. While the early games may have been limited due to hardware, but time has moved on and many Mario games have been 3D games, including Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy.

The latest Mario game has been highly anticipated, not just because it is a Mario game, but also because it is the first new game starring Mario game on the Nintendo Switch since 2017’s Super Mario Odyssey. That game is Super Mario Wonder.

Super Mario Wonder harkens back to the original 2D side-scrollers, but it is designed for the Nintendo Switch. Super Mario Wonder takes the best of the side-scrolling Mario games and brings

Story

Prince Florian of the Flower Kingdom wants to show Mario, Luigi, Toad, Peach, and Princess Daisy the Wonder Flower, but they are interrupted by Bowser and he steals the Wonder Flower and takes over the Castle. Mario volunteers to defeat Bowser and free the Flower Kingdom from Bowser.

This is a brief recap, it does, of course, go into much more depth, but I do not want to provide any spoilers, if I can help it.

GamePlay

As with previous Mario games you start off with easy levels and they can progressively get more difficult. The idea for each level is to gather Wonder Seeds. Once you have gathered enough Wonder Seeds you will be able to get a Royal Seed. Each Royal Seed will remove one of the snakes protecting the Castle that Bowser took over. Once removed all of the snakes, you can enter into the last castle and defeat Bowser.

Each level has many of the things that you com to expect from a Mario game, including pipes, boxes, vines, and a variety of enemies.

Through each of the levels you can get flower coins, which will provide you with 10 flower coins. Flower coins are used to purchase items from shops throughout the different worlds.

Let us look at some of the various aspects of the game, starting with Power Ups.

Power Ups

As with other Mario games, you can get some power ups while playing. These can include:

• Mushroom
• Flower
• Bubble
• Drill
• Elephant

Each of these power ups provides a different ability. The first two power ups, Mushroom and Flower will make Mario bigger. The Flower will give you fireballs, so you can more easily eliminate enemies. The Bubble power up will give you bubbles, which you can use to eliminate enemies. The Drill power up allows you to move underground so you can bypass enemies and you can also use the drill to eliminate enemies as well. The Elephant power up will let you become an elephant that can use its trunk to eliminate enemies. You can also hold water in the trunk of the elephant, which can be useful in some levels.

Badges

Mario does not travel alone through the Flower Kingdom, instead he travels with Prince Florian. Prince Florian has the capability of wearing a Badge. As you progress through the game you will have the opportunity to get badges that each provide their own ability. A few examples are Parachute Glide, Coin Magnet, and Sensor, just to name a few of them.

When you apply a badge, it will apply through the level. You can use badges strategically to help you accomplish levels. If you manage to lose a life, you can change the badge that is used before you continue with the level.

Features

There are a few items that I would like to highlight about the game in general. The first is that each level has its own difficulty rating. These are depicted with solid-colored seeds. This can go from a single seed, for the easiest levels, to five seeds, for the most difficult.

The second item is the timer. In the earliest Mario games, including Super Mario Deluxe, there is a time that you are required to finish the level in. There are no timers in Super Mario Wonder, for which I was glad. Some of the levels can be quite difficult and not having a timer adds a bit less stress for completing the level.

The third item is related to Power Ups. With previous side-scrolling Mario games if you already had a power up and you grabbed another one, you would no longer have access to the Power Up that you just had. That is not true in this game. Instead, you have your current power up, as well as a second. If you have a power up (other than a Mushroom), your current Power Up will be moved to the extra spot. You can swap between them at any point, but be careful, you can still get hit by enemies.

Complaint

There is one small complaint that I have, specifically about the Invisible badge. This badge makes playing as a character almost impossible. Yes, you can use it to hide from enemies, but you really do need to be an expert at the game in order to use it. I would have liked to have a slight outline of the character when using the badge. Due to the difficulty of using the badge, I did not end up using it that often, due to the difficulty of using it.

Closing Thoughts

Mario is one of those characters that will forever be burned into my psyche. The two dimensional nature of the original Super Mario Bros is one of the games that started me on my journey of playing video games. Therefore, Mario will always have a special place for me.

If you, like myself, are a fan of Mario and have enjoyed playing previous Mario games, in particular the side-scrolling games, then you will likely enjoy playing Super Mario Wonder. The game can be somewhat frustrating at times. The power ups and badges can help you get through every single level. If you do find a level to be a bit too difficult, you can use a Yoshi or Nabbit to make things a bit easier. However, these characters will not transform if they get any power ups.

I finished Super Mario Wonder in just over a week. I did not 100% the game, but I did finish the main story and it is a good one. While some levels were difficult, more so than their difficulty level indicated, it is a solid Mario game that is good for players of all skill levels because you can use any of the assistance items to help complete the game.

Halloween is now over, and Thanksgiving in the United States is quickly approaching. That means that it is now time for my reading list for October. I did not listen to that many books last month. However, out of the ten books I did listen to, two of them were new. I want to highlight one of those, Armor of Light by Ken Follett.

The Spinning Jenny was invented in 1770, and with that, a new era of manufacturing and industry changed lives everywhere within a generation. A world filled with unrest wrestles for control over this new world order: A mother’s husband is killed in a work accident due to negligence; a young woman fights to fund her school for impoverished children; a well-intentioned young man unexpectedly inherits a failing business; one man ruthlessly protects his wealth no matter the cost, all the while war cries are heard from France, as Napoleon sets forth a violent master plan to become emperor of the world. As institutions are challenged and toppled in unprecedented fashion, ripples of change ricochet through our characters’ lives as they are left to reckon with the future and a world they must rebuild from the ashes of war.

Over thirty years ago, Ken Follett published his most popular novel, The Pillars of the Earth. Now, with this electrifying addition to the Kingsbridge series we are plunged into the battlefield between compassion and greed, love and hate, progress and tradition. It is through each character that we are given a new perspective to the seismic shifts that shook the world in nineteenth-century Europe.

I will admit that this book starts off a bit slow, but it does pick up and become a bit more fast-paced as it goes on.

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Previous Reading Lists

Today Apple held their "Scary Fast" event. The event was a short one at 30 minutes and it focused on just one family of items, the Mac. Specifically, there were two products that Apple focused on, the MacBook Pro and the iMac.

M3 Family

Before introducing the hardware products, Apple unveiled their new family of chips, the M3. They did not introduce just one chip, instead they introduced three, the M3, the M3 Pro, and the M3 Max. These chips utilize the latest 3-nanometer technology, which can hold up to 2 billion transistors in the width of a single human hair. All of these transistors means that the chips are up to 2.5x faster, when compared to the equivalent M1 product.

The M3 family has a few new features called Dynamic Caching, Ray Tracing, and Mesh Shading. Dynamic Caching is a technique that allows the hardware to allocate the proper amount of memory for each task. This can mean that more of the graphics processing unit will be utilized. Hardware accelerated Ray Tracing allows for more realistic shadows and lighting in any app, but it is particularly useful with games, like Myst.

According to Apple, the M3 is up to 50% faster than M1, and significantly faster if you are coming from an Intel-based Mac. The Neural Engine is up to 60% faster than than M1, and up to 15% faster than the M2.

MacBook Pro

Today Apple unveiled new M3-powered 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros. The 14-inch MacBook Pro comes with an M3, M3 Pro, or M3 Max. There is a new color option for the MacBook Pro, Space Black. The Space Black model is reserved for the M3 Pro and M3 Max 14-inch model, and all 16-inch models, which only come with the M3 Pro and M3 Max.

For the 14-inch M3 Mac, it comes with an 8-Core CPU and 10-Core GPU. The base model comes with 512GB of storage, and can be configured up to 24GB of memory and 2TB of storage. Because of the M3, the entry level price for the 14-inch MacBook Pro is now $1599.

The M3 Pro comes in two flavors.. There is an 11-core CPU and 14-Core GPU model that has 18GB of unified memory and 512GB of storage. This model starts at $1999.. The second is a 12-Core CPU and 18-Core GPU model with 18GB of unified memory and comes with 1TB of storage. This model starts $2399.

The 14-inch M3 Max MacBook Pro has a 14-core CPU and 30-Core GPU. It comes with 36GB of unified memory and includes a 1TB SSD. This can be configured a 16-core GPU, 40-Core GPU, and up to 128GB of memory and 8TB of storage. The starting price for this model is $3199.

The 16-inch MacBook Pro only comes in M3 Pro and M3 Max models. The M3 Pro can be a 12-core GPU, 18-Core GPU, and either 18GB of memory or 36GB of memory. The 16-inch MacBook Pro comes with 512GB of storage. The prices for each of these is $2499 and $2899. Either model can be configured with a 14-core CPU and 30-Core GPU SOC, or a 16-Core CPU and 40-Core GPU SOC. The amount of storage depends on the SOC, but possibly up to 128GB of unified memory and 8TB of storage. The New M3 Max can support up to 128GB of memory, this is an increase from the previous 96GB of memory.

You can order any of the MacBook Pro configurations today. The M3 and M3 Pro machines will arrive next week, but the M3 Max MacBook Pros will ship later in November. The last thing to note about the MacBook Pro is that the 13-inch MacBook Pro with TouchBar is no longer available.

iMac

Along with the MacBook Pros, Apple updated the 24-inch iMac. It still comes in the same 7 color options, with Orange, Pink, and Purple being reserved for the higher-end configurations. There are two configuration models, the 8-Core CPU, 8-Core GPU model and the 8-Core CPU and 10-Core GPU model.

The pricing remains the same, starting at $1299. You can configure a 24-inch iMac with up to 24GB of unified memory and 2TB of storage. This is higher than the 16GB unified memory limit with the M1 iMac. The M3 iMac does include Wi-Fi 6E and BlueTooth 5.3.

My Thoughts

As mentioned above, the event video was short, 30 minutes. But that is not a problem. Apple leaned heavily into the Halloween theme. If you watch the video you will see a number of things, like skeletons, bats, fog, and even some candy corn.

The new MacBook Pros are good updates if you have an M1 MacBook Pro, and are great if you have an Intel-based machine. The M1 iMac update is a solid update to the iMac. Not much has changed, beyond the processor on the iMac. You can order any of the models today with delivery starting next week for the M3 and M3 Pro, and later in November for the M3 Max MacBook Pros.

Sources: M3 Family, MacBook Pro, iMac

Today Apple quietly increased the price of some of their services. The price increases are effective today for new subscribers. For existing customers, the new prices will be in effect in 30 days, or at their next renewal, whichever is first. Here is a breakdown of each of the services and the costs since 2021.

You are able to save a bit of money with an Apple One bundle, but these prices are also increasing. Here are the new prices for the Apple One bundles. For the Apple One bundles, this is the second price increase, with the first one being in October of last year.

The overall increases since 2021 are 33.4% for the Individual plan, 30% for the Family plan, and 26.7% for the Premier plan. This is quite a bit.

My Thoughts

Included with the Apple One bundles is iCloud storage, which is good given how laughable the free offering of 5GB is.

This price increase is not really surprising given that other services are raising their prices as well. And just like the other services, Apple is not indicating why prices are increasing. The price increase is just another hit to consumers at a time when other services are also raising their prices.

Even though prices are increasing, I do not think a lot people will be cancelling. I am currently on the Family Apple One plan because at the time it made sense because I need the additional iCloud storage, however with the difference in price between the Individual plan and the Family plan, it might make more sense for me to go back to the Individual plan and pay for the 200GB of additional storage that I need. Although, to be honest, if I could pay for 500GB of iCloud storage for $4.99 a month, I would probably do that.



Source: MacRumors

Today Apple has announced a virtual-only event taking place on Monday, October 30th. Apple has given the event the moniker of "Scary Fast". Typically, events take place at 10:00 am Pacific Time, but this one is different. This one will begin streaming at 5:00 pm Pacific time on October 30th.

It is suspected that Apple will announce their next generation of processors, the M3 line, and some new Macs that will run them. The reason for this is bcauseif you watch animation on the Apple Events page, you will see a dark version of the Finder icon.

I will have a write up of the event sometime after the event has concluded, likely sometime on Tuesday.

Via: 9to5Mac.

Today Apple has announced a new product in the Apple Pencil lineup, the "Apple Pencil (USB-C)". This Apple Pencil joins the Apple Pencil (1st Generation) and Apple Pencil (2nd Generation) in the lineup.

The new Apple Pencil (USB-C) is designed to be a lower-cost option for the Apple Pencil. There are some tradeoffs that come with the lower cost. The Apple Pencil (USB-C) still connects magnetically, but it does not charge nor pair wirelessly. This is done with a USB-C cable. The USB-C por is hidden behind a sliding cap, which is probably how the 1st generation Apple Pencil should have been designed.

The Apple Pencil (USB-C) does have pixel-perfect precision, low latency, tilt sensitivity, and it supports Apple Pencil Hover. It does not include pressure sensitivity, the aforementioned wireless charging and pairing, double-tap, and it cannot be engraved.

The Apple Pencil (USB-C) is compatible with all iPad models with a USB-C port. The full list of supporte iPads includes:

• iPad (10th generation)
• 4th generation iPad Air (4th and 5th generation)
• iPad Pro 11-inch all generations
• iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and newer)
• iPad mini (6th generation)

The Apple Pencil (USB-C) will be available for purchase in early November. It will cost $79, which is $20 cheaper than the Apple Pencil (1st Generation) and $50 cheaper than the Apple Pencil (2nd Generation).

Source: Apple Newsroom.

Even though we are early in fall, it does not yet feel like fall, but it will be soon enough. The beginning of October means that it is time to provide you a list of the books that I listened to during September.

Last month I only listened to a total of five books last month. This may be the fewest number of books that I have listened to in a single month. Now, four of those books were 40+ hours each. None of those were new titles but I wanted to re-listen to the books in order to listen the latest in that series, which I was not able to finish in September and hope to finish in October.

I did manage to listen to a single new book last month and that is the book to be highlighted this month. The book is titled "Starer Villain" by John Scalzi. Here is the description of the book:

Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.

But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.

It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyper-intelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.

In a dog-eat-dog world...be a cat.

This was a funny book that is in somewhat similar to another of John Scalzi's books, The Kaiju Preservation Society

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