All's quiet ...

This week, there is little to add regarding personal explorations, book reviews, or entertainment. I've been a little quiet while adjusting to a new job, and the previous three months were an empty void of unemployment. I'll resume posting regularly as soon as things coalesce.

Gemini

This week's big news in GenAI has been Google's release of their Gemini family of LLM, said to eclipse OpenAI's GPT 4 in 30 out of 32 categories.

I've yet to fully explore this via the Bard interface or understand the trifurcated nature of Gemini as a product. The system is split across Enterprise, Developer, and General use tiers, and there's no doubt some nuance to explore here, along with related implications.

Books

I am already diving into my 2024 reading list. While posts for books on the 2024 docket won't go live until next year, I will post some more tea-related book reviews before the year ends. And not just stocking stuffers, either.

Games

I've recently dove into several new games. I'll cover one or more in upcoming posts. I've enjoyed deep, story-driven narrative games and lightweight, simple games like puzzles and survival or strategy games.

TV & Film

There have been some great TV shows these past few months. I'm still ruminating on a couple I think may be worthy of posts, which may not get due coverage elsewhere on the web.

In addition, a random excursion to Columbus for GalaxyCon last weekend reignited a taste for Anime, which has led to indulging in a variety of new shows.

I am very interested in recommendations for Anime, live-action shows, or movies.

Tea

I've mostly been drinking roasted oolong teas of late. The weather here in Cincinnati has been a bit cooler, and the roasted notes have a kind of extra calming nature in winter.

I also recently picked up some new teaware, with the new mug pictured below coming from TeaTsy. I've grown to love this mug already, though I would caution against using it with finer-grained teas and tisanes/herbals as the strainer holes are just a tad larger than I'd like.

Open Postulations

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Closing Arguments

I guess there was more to say than I thought.

You can look forward to a lighter selection of content through the holidays, but for things to pick up quite a bit as we transition to a new year.

Today's lead image was generated with MidJourney using the following prompt and image blending tactics.