Aura's Den

Aura's 2025 Goals

Posted 28 Dec 2024

Ah, boy. Here we are again. End of the year. And this is my fifth year doing these posts! Wow! How time flies! So, let's talk about the year, shall we?

Good things did happen this year. France kept the fascists out of power. Over in the UK, they finally gave the Tories the fucking boot. Those were good moments to see. We also had the Olympics this year. Yes, I know there's all sorts of problems surrounding the Olympics, but they're still kinda fun to watch. And, of course, Simone Biles really continued to prove herself one of the greatest gymnasts of all time! (Though, that women's balance beam final was painful to watch…But maybe it wasn't quite as bad as the men's high bar final…Eh, who's to really say. Both had some painful moments…)

I also had fun stuff happen in my own life! For instance, there was a solar eclipse whose totality passed over the area where I live, so I got to see a total solar eclipse! (I'll put a picture of totality below!) Related events had me find my new favorite arcade rhythm game, Tetote X Connect. It's a lot like osu!, but on a big touch screen where you get to pretend to dance with a character, like, say, a cute demon boy? It's really fun. I haven't played in a good few months, but I really enjoyed it. I literally would spend an hour or hour and a half just dancing with Yuhata. It was really fun! And speaking of fun, I got an HTC Vive! I'll talk about some of the games I've been enjoying later, but let me tell you, proper VR? It's really cool! I have to be careful to avoid motion sickness, so I can't do everything, but I have some games I've really been enjoying. Of course, I'm not sure my old Precision M4800 could have handled VR. But, it broke this year anyways, so I ended up getting a new laptop! It's a few years newer, a Precision 7510, and, well, it should easily last me long enough to build a proper PC. It's always incredible to see how much better things get with each new computer I get. (Granted, the next computer I get will probably be the last for which I get this experience, but it's been fun while it's lasted.)

A total solar eclipse seen through clouds
This was fucking awesome to see in person, let me tell ya! Even with the clouds, it was so cool!

Of course, unlike last year, I don't think I can avoid the negatives. There are, of course, personal negatives we'll get to. The Rangers, sadly, weren't even a wild card team for this years MLB playoffs. Oh, and the whole "The US elected a fascist" thing. That happened. So, yeah… Next year won't be great, will it? (Not not mention, of course, things like the seeming collapse of the left-wing coalition in the French government or the South Korean president's attempted coup, though at least that one got stopped pretty quickly.) Anyways, on to our regular annual posting.

2024 Accountability

Well, I'm still alive. Granted, at one point, I nearly rear-ended a truck, but I didn't! Me and my car are still in one piece. And, well, there's the other trouble, isn't there?

Yeah, I'm no longer employed. Granted, that was largely my choice. I was given options to keep that job, but I've opted for a hiatus longer than the 45 days they offered. Why am I no longer employed, you ask? I had a mental breakdown… Yeah, that was rough. I really wanted to kill myself that night. Thankfully, I'm doing better now. I'm back on lithium, and my psychiatrist has started me on lurasidone, which seems to actually be helping with the bipolar depression! It's taken five and a half years, but things are finally looking up!

I have done nothing on most of the rest of the medical issues. My psych and I are going to be keep an eye on my thyroid now that I'm back on lithium, but I never did talk to my PCP about other things. Also, the hospital that the clinic I was going to was associated with got bought out by HCA and they closed that clinic, so I need a new PCP. Yay… I also didn't do anything about my teeth and dental stuff is expensive, so I never did that, which is bad, because now my right top incisor is broken. That said, I did get a new pair of glasses, which is nice. Fun fact: turns out that my prescription was identical to when I last got glasses 5 years ago.

I did make a start on paying off my student loans. My servicer changed, so I didn't have to contact my old one to get back into my account. And I made my first payment! Unfortunately, my loans are in forebearance because heaven forbid we have anything nice in this gods forsaken country. Some jackass Republican challenged the Dept. of Education's ability to offer the SAVE plan I was on, and I don't expect the incoming administration to do anything to try to keep it, so god know what's going to happen with that.

I did not do any nursing pre-requisites this fall. Unless I'm really lucky, I probably won't be doing them during spring either. I've had months to deal with that stuff, but, you know, mental breakdown.

I had done a decent job washing myself and my clothes more, though that sorta fell through after I had that mental breakdown. Inversely, I did start brushing my teeth more after the breakdown. It's still only once a day before bed, and not 100% consistently, but it's more than nothing! I've started exercising more because VR headset, though I'm not really consistent about it. As for sunlight, the fact I worked night shift made that one difficult, but here lately, I've been awake during the day more and have been making use of "natural lighting".

Let's see here. I made no progress on Kitsune Fight or FENIX. Well, kinda. I did some work on typing up how I intend the mechanics of Kitsune Fight to work, but that's about it. Of course, I also want to change the main character to any of half a dozen other characters. Maybe I will, who knows?

I did make progress on other stuff. I've done more art this year, though some of it won't be posted because it's stuff that came out closer to the reference material than I'd be comfortable posting. But, I did post a bunch of pictures of Aura boxing to FurAffinity. (I still need to put them up here.) I also redid my PNGtuber! Remember that bit about not having lore? Yeah, I lied. He is not just me. He's a character. But, I did make a new PNGtuber and do a few streams, though that also fell through after the breakdown. But, prior to that, I streamed blindfolded Rhythm Tengoku, some arcade games, and I started Sonic Adventure 1 (Sonic's story) and Subspace Emissary. I should get back into that… Anyways, so I have streamed more. (If you want to watch me if/when I start again, my URL changed. You can find me at twitch.tv/ErinWolfeMoon.) I have, as you might've guessed, played more video games, though not more enough. I never even touched Halo!

I did not really work on anything else. I have not posted anything on Erin. I've started rewriting large chunks of Robin's story again, though I at least posted some art of him on tumblr. I never finished any of those things. Still no Aura ref sheet. Still no EBS. Never posted any of those blog drafts, though I have a few almost ready to go. And, while I did write up a couple of stories for that Fightbruary thing, I never posted them or the prompt list. Guess I'll have to wait for 2028…

Goals

Stay alive!

I've included this on every list for the past five years. It would feel wrong to leave it off. Though, anywhere new I end up working would still have a long commute, so there's that. I could also remark about having had a mental breakdown and all, but I'm back on lithium and the lurasidone seems to also really be helping, so I don't expect that to be another issue.

Get back on my feet

I had a job. It was a job I was good at. I was good enough that even after calling out for a week then no-showing, my boss gave me options to keep my job instead of immediately firing me. So, yeah. Clearly, I'm good at this whole phlebotomy thing. I need to find a new job doing that. I could probably try to go back where I was, though, honestly, I'd like to try to find a closer position if I can. That, and find a position that isn't doing morning run, because, like, I clearly can, but gods is it brutal. That, and I'd like to see the sunset more. I like late afternoon/evening. (That and my psychiatrist wants me to have a position where I can have a ~22:00 to ~06:00 sleep schedule, so that's a thing.)

Medical issues, take 5

Sadly, my insurance will actually cost money next year. But, it's still good insurance. I need to find a new PCP to talk about some stuff. Still need to go on something for migraines. (Though, putting me on a rescue med will be difficult. I don't think I can take triptans or ergots, and my insurance wants me to try other meds before trying a CGRP inhibitor.) Probably will need to go back on levothyroxine. I've got some heart issues to talk about. (Namely, I think I might have POTS, and I've got some weird issues with getting lightheaded on the floor at work sometimes.) I've still got those urological issues. And I'd like to get properly tested for penicillin allergy, because I've always reported one because I apparently had a reaction as a child, but it'd be nice to know if that's still a thing or if there is any reason for me to not take PCN. (Incidentally, given the high incidence of people reporting PCN allergy when they don't have one, if you think you have one and haven't properly been tested, you should look into that! It's a very important first-line antibiotic, and it's useful to be able to take it if you can.)

I got the glasses situation taken care of, but I still need to take care of the teeth issue. But I'll have dental insurance, and pretty good dental insurance at that. I only pay 20% on anything I could need done (including if, heaven forbid, I need a root canal), I don't have a waiting period on anything I could need done. It's pretty decent. So, finally, I can unfuck my teeth. I just have to actually, you know, get it done. (Paying almost 40 USD a month for that insurance is pretty good motivation to actually use it, though.)

There's also a minor psychiatric goal here of going off the Effexor. This was my psychiatrist's idea, swapping the venlafaxine for lurasidone, and I'm on board. We'll see how that ends up going. It should hopefully go well. As I write this, I'm on my second day of the first step down.

Not default on student loans

Gods, who knows what sort of payment plan I'm going to end up on when the Trump administration inevitably gets rid of the SAVE plan. If I'm lucky, there'll still be IDR, but who fucking knows. So, yeah. Going forward, defaulting is now actually a risk. Great.

ADN stuffs

I really need to talk to the college about what I need to do to be able to get in and start doing my ADN. Like, I'll have to take some pre-reqs. But I need to figure out how to go about doing that. I'll also need to do my FAFSA for next year. (On the bright side, at least I'll be able to take some co-requisites and some classes that I'd need for my BSN, since I'll have two semesters to do it in.)

Habits, take 3

Okay, so, keep up brushing teeth before bed (and become 100% consistent about it). Get back to regularly showering and washing clothes. Start exercising more consistently. And try to get more sun. (Maybe fly a kite more?)

One thing I learned with the teeth thing is that it's important to remove barriers to doing a thing. Like, I didn't brush my teeth because I snacked in bed and figured "Why bother if I'm just going to re-dirty them?" So, I stopped snacking in bed. So much for that excuse. I need to figure out what the barriers are to the other things. I know what the deal with exercise is (mom might walk in and I'll feel embarrassed), but I need to figure out the other stuff too.

Hobbies!!!

So, code, take 5? I need to set up my FENIX toolchain on WSL. I also need to decide what to do with Kitsune Fight. Will I keep Yumi? Will I replace her with another character? I don't know yet. But one thing I have learned is that, who'd have thought, drawing is easier when you use references. I need to make some references, basically some pictures of myself in the appropriate poses. That would make the assets part a lot easier.

I need to do some more drawing. I should also draw some stuff of Robin and Erin. I did one of Robin in his current role as Chief Medical Officer of the Knights of Favonius, but I have at least one other sketch I could clean up of him during his earlier days in Mondstadt when he was still just an adventurer.

There's a lot of blog posts I need to finish up and post. For instance, I've got one based off a paper I did as a physics major about the Michelson-Morley experiment, another with a description and examples of Kirai, another about how to draw ECGs, and a weird one about the odd exceptions to Texas's incest law. And that's just what I actually have put into HTML! There's more that still only exist as basic text files! Plus there's more I'm working on writing!

Get back to streaming!

So, I made a new PNGtuber: Erin Wolfe-Moon, gay slut, bane of Neo Aurora's authorities, and king of her underground rings. Granted, I'm not sure that I of all people have the confidence to play a character like that. I'm notably weak when it comes to improv, despite being a former stage actor. But, hey, I'll learn. Anyways, I did a few streams. I need to get back to it. I have a few fun ideas, plus a bunch of games I want to do.

(Incidentally, Erin Wolfe-Moon is not the same as the creepypasta OC I also named Erin, though there is a major design aspect of the latter that I ended up giving the former as a bit of a inside joke/easter egg. Maybe one day, you'll either be able to figure that out, or I'll tell y'all what it is.)

Fun and interesting stuff from last year

I'm bringing this segment back! I really like it! And, hoo boy, do I have a lot for you this year! (Reminder: these are not necessarily things from 2024, just things I found in 2024.)

Software

Let's start with a couple of MIDI-related things. First up, we have Kobold Choir, a fun little toy where Kobolds will sing for you. And, you can upload your own MIDIs for them to sing! Also on the subject of MIDIs, I got a copy of Sound Canvas VA, Roland's sadly now discontinued Sound Canvas emulator. Thanks to MidiPlayer6, I can use it to listen to MIDIs, which means I can finally listen to Touhou MIDIs the way they were intended—on an SC-88 Pro!

Next, we have Infinite Mac, a way for you to play with Macs from years past without needing to faff about with Mini vMac/Basilisk II/Sheepshaver/[Insert Mac emulator here]. It's really pretty cool. It's also got some old versions of NeXTStep, if that's more your speed.

I've got a couple of operating systems for you. First, we have Damn Small Linux 2024. That's right. The king returns, baby! DSL is back! It's not quite as "damn small" as it used to be, sadly. It really is a good example of just how bloated software's gotten over the years. But, it's a distro that fits onto a single CD that you can use on your computers that are too old to even have a DVD drive! On the exact opposite end of the spectrum is Ubuntu Unity. You know, I'll be honest. I really liked Unity back in the day. Granted, I spent a lot of time using it back when it was still simply the DE for Ubuntu Netbook Edition, but I really liked it. So, to learn that it's still kicking, even after it was abandoned by Canonical is nice. (Incidentally, there is a major pet peeve I have with Unity. See, back when it was the DE for Netbook Edition, there was an option for smart autohide on the panel. It would only hide if a window was trying to overlap it. And that was nice. But they removed that feature at some point, and it really annoyed me. Now, it's either always there, even when you've got something maximized, or it's never there, even if you've got everything minimized or nothing open. Anyhoo.)

On the subject of Unix-likes, time marches ever on, and the Unix timestamp continues to increase. How far out are we from it rolling over? Enter Epochalypse, a countdown clock for the Unix 2038 problem. Right now, you've got about 13 years to fix your shit. Tick tock. Clock's ticking.

This is a very niche interest, but maybe it'll be useful for someone else. See, years ago, my grandmother got me a Kindle Fire for Christmas. Technically, she got it for my brother, but my dad also got him one, so it ended up going to me. It's an…okay tablet. Not great. But, I like to install custom ROMs on my devices, right? Sadly, ariel only had an out-of-date version of CM 11 available for years. Then, this year, along came Rortiz2 with Lineage 12 for the fourth-gen Fire HD 7! Finally, a reasonably modern version of Android! I mean, it's still ancient by reasonable standards, but NewPipe actually works on it without needing to pass video to an outside video player! And you know what I literally just learned while writing this? In early November, they released Lineage 14! I've got some updating to do...

For those of you interested in retro computing stuff, we have a complete release of WordStar 7. I mostly use text files or maybe Word, but apparently some writers still swear by this software 30 years later, and, well, it is still pretty cool anyways. Apparently, this wasn't on the internet until this year, so it's really cool to have this available.

In other news, this is the year of bullshit. AI's taking over despite whether anyone actually wants it to, and I've got some people who are just as sick of it as we are:

I might as well also leave you links to Mystery AI Hype Theatre, a show from the DAIR Institute disecting a lot of this bullshit, and Ed Zitron, who spends plenty of time talking about what's gone wrong with tech management and how the AI bubble has been allowed to get so big.

Also on the subject of bullshit happenings, in the aftermath of the xz debacle, there was a lot of talk about the "software supply chain", and, well…I'll let Thomas take on that notion in I am not a supplier.

Anyways, enough bullshit. I have a couple of fun things for you as well. First, on the subject of "AI", The possibility of making $138,000 from shredded banknote pieces using computer vision, a humorous paper on using machine learning to try to piece together those bags of shredded banknotes you can get at various countries' mints (or, in this case, a paperweight containing fewer banknotes than promised). Second, I know I'm probably late on finding this, but A Conspiracy to Kill IE6. For some reason, lots of people were still using IE6 in 2009, even with IE8 out there, and, well, the guys at YouTube were sick of it. What did they do about it? Well, I guess you'll just have to read the article to find out.

Finally, want to make a website like mine but don't know how? Well, have HTML for People, which walks you through it, teaching you HTML and CSS along the way. (And, incidentally, leaving you with a nicer looking website, too).

Games

So, I got an HTC Vive! It's really cool! My computer isn't perfect for VR stuffs. The Quadro M1000M is a bit old, can't do "instanced stereo" in UE games that use it, can't handle newer versions of Unity, and can struggle a bit with some of the more graphically intense games, but it still works pretty well. Here are some games I've enjoyed playing on it:

Speaking of boxing games, I've got a couple of related things to talk about. First, Guilty Loving Boxing. It's an anime character boxing game much like Purin's, but, and get this, it's got anime boys in it! Wow! Anyways, I viscerally need to be knocked out by Renzi. Gods, I wish this also had a VR mode. … Ahem. Anyways. I also started playing Punch-Out!!! for the Wii. 1) It's really fun. 2) I figured out how to do the quick KO on Glass Joe. I'm not perfectly consistent. But I can generally get it within two or three tries. (Speaking of the Wii, I got a Dolphinbar, and it's really cool, let me tell you. I haven't been able to properly play Wii games in years, but now I can!)

On the subject of Nintendo, PokéRogue. I'll be honest, I haven't actually played it myself, but it's cool that it still exists. I'm surprised Nintendo haven't nuked it by now.

I've been playing some new arcade games. First, Neo Turf Masters. I ended up getting into this game after watching DigitalBasic play it, and it's quite fun. Also, it's got some really good music. Second, Tetris: The Absolute - The Grand Master 2 Plus. I've been playing TGM for years, and only bothered to try to find a TGM2 ROM after watching Digi play TGM2 on stream. I found one and have been getting into it. That said, it's much harder. So, going in, I could manage S1 on TGM reasonably consistently. Yeah, no. TGM2, I can barely get to grade 3. It expects much more from you. (Incidentally, guess what! I managed to hit grade S2 in TGM! Woo! In fact, I've done it not once, but twice! Neat!) Finally, having spent plenty of time watching dot_lvl play Armed Police Batrider, I picked up the game myself. I suck at it, but hey. It's pretty fun and has some good music.

TGM game over at 7 minutes and 55 seconds, showing a grade of S2, a score of 22305, and a level of 402
It took me two years to do this. It took two years to get S1 from when I started. Give me a decade and a half or so and I'll hit Master! Maybe even GM!

So, I happen to own a few "retro" consoles. Namely, I still have my childhood Gamecube and PS2. But, it's way more convenient to play my games for those on my laptop thanks to issues like having to use the TV on the other side of the room and loading times for discs. Thankfully, the Emulation General Wiki has some good information on getting various emulators set up. I also managed to figure out through them that there's even an emulator for my old TI n-Spire CX! (Unfortunately, short of finding the necessary ROMs out there somewhere, I can't use it because my calculator's on too high an OS version to install ndless, but still. Cool that I could in theory.)

Speaking of emulation and the necessary work of software preservation, a couple of software preservation projects for you as well. If you've got an old Blackberry like I do, Lunar Project might be of interest. They've got info on keeping these old devices working as well as a repository of old software for them. And if you've got an old iPod Classic, there's a project dedicated to preserving all the old games for those . So, yeah. Unfortunately, this work isn't always easy, but it's very necessary.

Finally, in much more niche interests, you know NAND Game? That game where you build a computer from scratch with NAND gates? Well, someone made that but for mathematical proofs. The claim a goal of eventually proving Fermat's Last Theorem, which, like, good luck. That's 109 pages of some of the densest, most advanced mathematics ever published. Still, it's pretty nifty, and you learn about mathematical proofs in the process. (Seriously, have you ever seen Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem? I know that Fermat's Last Theorem (there are no integers a, b, c, and n such that an+bn=cn) sounds simple enough, but the proof of that fact is anything but. Let me give you a quote:

We need to check that the induced map α:TH(N,p)mp ⟶S1,m1 ≃TH(N)m is surjective. The only problem is to show to Tp is in the image. In the present context, one can prove this using the surjectivity of φ^ in (2.12) and using the fact that the Tate-modules in the range and domain of φ^ are free of rank 2 by Corollary 1 to Theorem 2.1. The result then follows Nakayama's lemma as one deduces easily that TH(N)m is a cyclic TH(N,p)mp-module.

Yeah. It's 109 pages of that. That's what you're up against. Good luck.)

Entertainment

I've got a lot to throw at you here. Long lists of Youtube videos and Twitch streamers. So, let's get those out of the way. First, some cool songs and related:

Next up, cool videos:

And now, a bunch of silly videos:

I also have been watching Twitch again. I found a fork of TTV LOL, TTV LOL PRO, which does a really good job of getting rid of Twitch ads. So, I've been watching a bunch of Twitch. Here are some of the streamer's I've been enjoying lately:

In case you're curious, three of my five most watched streamers this year are on this list. Eltrioch was number 1, dot was number 3 and Chris was number 5. If you're curious, number 2 was Voxandra and number 4 was swirlDrop. Other honorable mentions include AshaTheGameGenie, berylberu, calamariichi, Depths_VT, Hani_Mitsubachi, LonestarColt, SwellTimeGPool, and zoiteki.

Finally, a little bit of stuff that is very NSFW. Specifically, leap of faith, an S&M smut fic featuring some guys from Honkai: Star Rail. I'll be honest, I never really got into HSR. It was very meh, and apparently, the plot kinda just sucks. But I do enjoy seeing what people do with the characters, including these two, Aventurine and Sunday. Though, frankly, with this, it might mostly just be wanting to be in Sunday's position.

Miscellany

Alright. We're almost done here. This is the stuff that didn't fit anywhere else.

First, this article on dealing with guys who use your question and answer time as their own personal platform . I don't know if you do any speaking where this would be relevant, but if you do, here you go.

Scarfolk Council. I'm, like, 2 years late on this, but I ended up finding it because of Matt Grey (yes, that Matt Grey) using something from this as a silly joke reply to someone noting how dystopian the UK feels.

I've been looking into getting my amateur radio license. I don't have any particular need for it or anything. I just think it'd be nifty to have. So, obligatory shoutout to ARRL, who have all kinds of info on getting into this stuff, both in the way of licensing for those in the US (Fun fact: they're the ones who actually do the testing for this!) and just general radio information. Also, because I've been interested on a related note, The Society of Amateur Radio Astronomer's getting started guide.

So, you might have noticed that I like creepypasta stuff. It started with those proxy story quizzes three years ago and, well, here we are now. I adore these…checks notes…serial killers. Anyways, we got something super exciting this year. Mamaporcupine, the creator of X-Virus, returned and has been making a bunch of stuff. Like, Look at this art of Liam! He's so cool! It's really good stuff!

If you've ever taken a physics class, you may have noted that the units for momentum are the unwieldy kilogram-meters per second. There isn't actually a unit for momentum, unlike, say, force or energy. You might have also noticed that there, uh, aren't any units named for women. Like, even the Curie is named not for Marie Curie, but her husband Pierre. Well, perhaps it's time to change both of these things. There was a Letter to the Editor in the American Journal of Physics earlier this year with the absolutely brilliant suggestion to create a proper unit for momentum and name it after Emmy Noether. A brilliant idea, honestly, especially since, among other things, Noether's theorem directly leads to conservation of momentum. So, yes. If you happen to be in a position to do so, perhaps you ought start using the Noether (Nr for short) as the unit of momentum. It's about damn time.

Incidentally on the subject of physics, we have lasers and radiation from Phil B's blog Funranium Labs. First, the story of his laser eye injury. Don't worry, it's nothing gory. But my gods is it just bad idea after bad idea. Just when you think it can't get any worse, well, it does. Second, we've got Choose Your Own Radiation Adventure. Granted, that link is more than just CYORA, though everything there is well worth reading, but it does contain CYORA, a bunch of questions with a bunch of answers, none of which are typically quite wrong, but also few of which are "right", per se, either.

Finally, to end on a downer, Trump unfortunately won the US election. And, well, we all need to be ready for what comes next. If you're not in the US, this technically does mean you. Sadly for you, the US is too important for you to just be able to ignore us. But you've got your own stuff to worry about in that regard. For those of us stuck here in the US, we've got our own, more immediate concerns for this. Molly White has a post discussing some of what comes next. It's well worth a read as we go forth into this new world that the prospect of an openly fascist US brings.

So, yeah. That's all I've got for you. Sorry for the down note there at the end. Have a crouton to make up for it. And have a happy new year's and a good (enough) 2025!

Keywords: Personal