Hello once again, and welcome back to Fast Companys Plugged In.
I didnt buy a new phone this year. Or a new laptop, tablet, or smartwatch. That hasnt been a hardship. Ive just been perfectly content with the gear I already ownboth a satisfying feeling and a boon to my pocketbook.
Instead of being splashy budget busters, the new products that made me happiest in 2025 have been relatively inexpensive items that bring clever twists to seemingly mundane categories. This week, Im going to tell you about three Ive found especially rewarding. (Im citing their list prices, butthis being Black Friday weekall are widely available at steep discounts as I write this.)
The mother of all power banks. Most of the innumerable external batteries Ive owned have been thoroughly unmemorable. Not Ankers $119 Laptop Power Bank, a recent gift from my wife, who bought it off TikTok.
As its name indicates, the Laptop Power Banks massive 25,000mAh capacity is enough to charge a computer. It can also handle a tablet, such as my iPad Pro. Or a smartphone. Or other gadgets such as a digital camera. Or how about all of them at the same time?
Even if you do charge four devices at once, you wont need to lug four USB cables. Along with two portsone USB-C, one full-size USB-Athe Anker has a built-in cable that retracts into its case, and another that doubles as a wrist strap. Most power banks use LEDs to give you, at best, a vague sense of how much juice is left; this one has a fancy color display with a gauge that indicates precisely how much power remains, a battery health indicator, and other useful stats.
Now the Laptop Power Bank is decidedly chonkymore of a briefcase or backpack accessory than something youd slip in a pocket. If all youre looking to do is occasionally top off your phone, its way more battery than you need. But by providing enough power to last through the busiest of workdays, its liberated me from hunting for wall outlets at conferences and running my fingers along the undersides of airplane seats in hopes of finding a power jack there. I get a little thrill every time I use it.
The best smartphone wallet Ive owned. I used to carry a wallet so hopelessly overstuffed that George Costanza himself might have pointed and laughed. That was until I managed to downsize to one of those magnetic wallets that stick to the back of a phone. I carry my drivers license, one credit card, an ATM card, the badge that gets me into my office building, and maybe a $20 bill or two, and thats about it. Its the one place in my life where I feel like a preternaturally organized person.
But I havent been wild about most of the phone wallets Ive used. Some were too tight: Only two to three cards fit in, and they were almost impossible to extract. Others were too loose, so cards went flying whenever I dropped my phone. And they were all made of leather that tended to end up looking battered and disreputable.
Peak Designs $50 Mobile Wallet is unlike any other phone wallet Ive triedand much, much better. Made of sturdy cloth, it handles as many cards as I ever carry, and protects them from accidental exits with a magnetic flap. Most ingeniously, tugging on the flap causes the cards to travel slightly out of the wallet, where its easy to pluck the one I want. Its like having it delivered by a butler.
The Mobile Wallet pairs with Peaks Everyday Case, which also sells for about $50 and is equally worth it. Wrapped in a similar fabric-y material, its easy to get on and off my iPhone and remains in mint condition after months of use. The case features Peaks SlimLink, a mounting technology that secures the case to a variety of accessoriesincluding a mount I installed on my e-bike to let my iPhone double as a GoPro-style action camera.
A book light I actually use. Early this year, I pledged to read more dead-tree booksespecially the ones piled in a Jenga-like stack on my nightstand. Im still behind, in part because I like to read in bed after my wife has dozed off. Ink and paper do not mix well with utter darkness.
This problem was theoretically solved decades ago by tiny clip-on book lights. But theyve always struck me as plasticky, fragile, and inelegant. The fact that they use AAA batteries doesnt make them any more appealing.
Not long ago, however, a new generation of snakelike, USB-C-rechargable book lights came to my attention. Instead of clipping one onto a tome, you drape it around your neck, then bend it to direct beams of light from both ends at the pages youre reading. The one I bought, Kikkerlands Hands-Free Book Light, lists for $35. Other options exist, including ones from a company called Glocusent.
If theres a downside to wearing a book light twisted around your neck, its that it looks pretty goofy, as my wife has helpfully pointed out several times. But shes the only person whos seen me using mine. Did I mention that shes usually asleep when I have it on?
Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on fastcompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged In on Flipboard.
[A note on last weeks newsletter, which discussed my experiences with Googles Gemini 3 Pro LLM: A couple of the issues I cited involved the earlie Gemini 2.5 Flash model, which still powers the Gemini chatbots Fast mode. Ive updated the version of the newsletter on FastCompany.com to clarify this.]
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Ive worked for myself for nearly a decade, and in all but one of those years Ive earned more than the U.K. average salary. Some years its been a little more. Im naturally frugal, and even during the rockiest stretches, theres always been enough to cover the basicsplus a safety net if I ever truly needed it.
Yet I worry about money constantly, gnawed by the sense that Im only one missed invoice from financial collapse. Although Im generally wary of self-diagnosis, the term money dysmorphiaa disconnect between how we feel about our finances and the realityfits me like a glove.
From the rise of HENRYs (high earners, not rich yet) to the boom in income stacking, todays workplace trends illustrate just how messed up our relationship with finances has become. While money dysmorphia isnt a clinical term, its a shorthand that many workers now recognize.
Credit Karma reports that 29% of Americans experience it, especially millennials and Gen Z, so Im in good company. But could the nature of solopreneurshipthe feast-or-famine cycles, the autonomy, the pressure to slay in your own lanemake us even more prone?
Its absolutely heightened for solopreneurs, freelancers, and anyone with an unstable income, says Alex King, founder of financial education platform Generation Money. Without a fixed monthly salary, they normalize volatility and uncertainty, which can create a sense of inadequacy or inflated confidence in their finances.
The numbers paint an intriguing picture. Advice site Freelancing Support reported that 41% of freelancers struggled with poor financial well-being in 2024, and a 2025 study found that three in four U.S. solopreneurs have less than six months worth of savingsor no safety net at all. Plenty of people have good reasons to be anxious.
But a surprising portion are on solid ground: The number of six-figure solopreneurs has almost doubled since 2020, and research from the Minneapolis Fed shows that self-employed workers earn significantly more over their careers than those in traditional jobs.
Everyones always thriving, innovating, scaling
Kim Berndt, cofounder of the fashion tech collaboration lab We.art studio in Cologne, Germany, has been a solopreneur since 2017. After three years of not paying herself a salary, her numbers finally look stable. Emotionally, though, she feels anything but. Social media plays a significant role in warping her sense of financial reality.
Its the biggest scam, because it creates the illusion that everyone is always thriving, innovating, scaling, she says. The two industries I straddletech and fashionglorify speed and visibility, yet theyre the Wild West when it comes to pay.
Berndt has accepted that she may never feel stable, especially in an emerging field that many still dont understand and that offers little clarity around value. I chose self-employment, so I have to find ways to cope, she says.
I identify with Berndts me-against-the-world mentality, so I was curious to hear what financial therapist Elana Feinsmith had to say about this predicament. I told her about the ripple effects of my own money dysmorphia: oscillating between avoiding my bank balance and obsessively checking it, hesitating to charge fairly, and feeling guilt and shame over basic spending.
Finances are like an iceberg, she says. The numbers sit above the waterline, but below is where the dark, murky feelings live. She encourages me to examine not just the volatility of my work but also the money scripts I learned earlier in life. It doesnt take her long to extract that being the eldest daughter (surprise!) has something to do with it.
Figure out the amount that would calm your nervous system, then project a few years down the line to see the real picture, she tells me. A panic alarm sounds in my headif only it were that simple. Feinsmith says that reaction is typical of money dysmorphia. It makes long-term planning seem impossible, and she sees clients grapple with it at every income level.
Addressing the iceberg
There are now 72.9 million independent workers in the U.S., and almost everyone wants to leave corporate jobs to start their own businesses, amid the fifth year of persistent inflation. King warns that these conditions are likely to breed more widespread money dysmorphia. But it doesnt have to define the solopreneur experience. Small structural changes can help close the gap between perception and reality.
Have separate accounts for personal and business finances, King advises. Combining them distorts whether you feel rich one month and poor the next. Avoid months of paying yourself nothing, and dont overpay yourself when things go well. Ideally, work toward a baseline salary or a fixed minimum to cover costs.
As the end of the year approaches, Im particularly beguiled by other freelancers 2025 roundups, where they highlight their wins, earnings, and learnings. Im all for championing the wins, but after ingesting a few, I fall into catastrophizing my own balance sheet. King points out that many of these updates confuse revenue with profit.
Theyre not saying I made X amount, but then had to deduct what I spent on outreach, subscriptions, and training, because thats not sexy, he says.
This year, Ill be approaching the freelance wrap-up posts with caution. And after consulting the experts, Im more convinced that theres no quick fix for financial dysmorphia. Yet just the idea of taking a pickax to my financial iceberg makes me feel calmer.
Perhaps thats the best economic stability a solopreneur can ask for: not perfect peace of mind, but the confidence to keep moving anyway.
If you loved the Lego Game Boy but couldnt get yourself to buy it because it was only a display piece that couldnt play actual Game Boy games, I’ve got great news for you: It’s no longer merely a clever block of bricks.
Substance Labs, a merry band of Lego and gaming lovers based in Switzerland, have created a kit that retrofits the official brick-perfect Lego set into an unofficial pixel-perfect playable Game Boy. The name of this wündertronics is BrickBoy. Yes, its a Kickstarter project, so the usual may not deliver caveats apply.
Substance Labs calls itself a team of creators and engineers who grew up building with Lego and gaming on the classics [who have] spent the last years working across hardware, software, and product design, from open-source projects to custom electronics. I need to believe they will deliver on their promise because I need to believe that dreams do come true sometimes. And apparently, given the more than $500,000 that they have collected so far from project supporters, many other people feel the same way.
Substance Labs says the prototypes are built and tested. We have shipped a naked kit to early testers, creators, and magazines, the company says. Now we are ready to move into the next phase together with you.
The technical implementation of the BrickBoy kit is modular, allowing users to install the electronic core into the Lego chassis in under 10 minutes without soldering or coding. The hardware fits directly inside the assembled model, activating a functional display and speaker system that runs freeware, home-brew titles, and legally obtained ROMs. While the base unit relies on digital files, an optional third-party cartridge reader add-on allows the system to interface with physical Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance cartridges.
The nonfunctional Lego kit [Photo: Lego]
Kits start at $115 for the essential edition, which will make your Lego model play original Game Boy games. A $196 collectors kit model plays every Game Boy title, including Classic, Color, and Advance, without any limitations. The Substance Labs designers say it has accelerable gameplay for faster sessions (so you can pace through long Pokémon games), a customizable backlight, Bluetooth audio, wireless game loading, and system updates. They have other versions, like the Gamer and Collector editions, which have additional features like Bluetooth audio and an “Exposition Mode” that keeps the unit powered and lit for display purposes.
A 3D rendering of the Substance Labs Gamer Kit [Image: Substance Labs]
I dont care much about the display purposes myself. My home might be the closest thing to the Lego Housecomplete with a Lego brick minefield all over the floor, thanks to my sonso I welcome the idea of turning all these Lego nostalgia sets into functional gear. The Danish company has been milking the 80s and 90s with sets like Lego Atari and Lego Pac-Man, which are cool and all, but do nothing but sit on a shelf gathering dust.
The BrickBoy is a perfect example of how Lego could perhaps think of a way to make its sets actually usable objects. Not all of them would be possible to turn into a real thing, but models like the Game Boy, with its spot-on dimensions and proportions, are ideal.
I get it, though. Theres probably not enough business to justify the engineering effort to mass-produce something like this. So Lego will leave it to the obsessives. Now Substance Labs better Miyamoto the hell out of this thing and hurry up with the deliveries, because I really need to get it for my son this holiday season. Hes already a Mario junkie, and he will become a Tetris addict too, just like his dad.
As the midterm election primaries inch closer, some candidates are focusing their campaigns on how theyll regulate artificial intelligence. On the right, populist Republicans are warning that the AI industry stands to undermine the Make America Great Again movement. On the left, theres worry about the sectors growing political and social power. Across the spectrum, theres near-universal concern about what the technology might be doing to children.
The donor class is now getting involved: A super PAC called Leading the Future backed by OpenAI executive Greg Brockman and Andreessen Horowitz plans to spend as much as $100 million in the midterms to support its preferred candidates. Another bipartisan super PAC, focused on pushing for a national framework on regulating AI, formed earlier this week. These fights come as the Trump administration pushes to limit the ability of states to regulate the technology.
Alex Bores, who authored legislation on AI in New York state and is running to represent its 12th district, has become an early target for Leading the Futures political spending during the midterms. It’s a badge of honor, he says, comparing the effort to an F rating from the National Rifle Association.
This is not tech versus everyone else, he tells Fast Company. This is one small subset of the tech ecosystem that, instead of engaging in collaborative discussions on bills and how we can work for all, has decided they want to drown out the voices of anyone who isn’t them by spending hundreds of millions.
Fast Company chatted with Bores about AI in politics, his time working at Palantir, and what it might take to modernize the government. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
One of the things the draft executive order talks about is creating a federal approach to regulating AI by the Trump administration. How seriously do you take that?
It’s a cliché in D.C. that when you want something to not get done, make a commission to study it. And so making a proposal to study a thingto maybe put a policy forwardis silly. I want to be clear, the correct answer to these questions is a federal standard. The only reason the states have been acting is because the federal government hasn’t. If they want to actually work on a federal standard, they will find partners across the aisle. What they are prioritizing is stopping any state from taking action, not actually solving problems.
We’re in a moment when there’s a lot of criticism and debate about what the future of the Democratic Party should look like. In New York, a liberal stronghold, Im curious about where conversations about how we should handle emerging technologies and AI might sit in the remaking of the Democratic Partyand the push to focus on issues that speak to younger voters and disaffected voters who havent been so into what the Democrats have been offering.
We should always be human first and human focused. The specific ways that plays out in AI policy are ones that speak to younger people. The biggest impact of AI on the job market right now is on entry-level jobs, and you’re seeing a rise in unemployment of people in that cohort looking for their first job.
One of the most popular things we did in New York this year was phone-free schools and making it so that we could actually change how tech is used in the classroom and make sure that it’s been used for education and not for screening or scrolling on social media. [Earlier this year, the state instituted new rules on electronic devices during school hours.]
We shouldnt shoot for one big grand bargain on AI, as if it’s a static issue. It is something that infuses everything we do, and we need to continually be updating our protections as the technology grows.
Can you talk a little bit more about what you did at Palantir and your decision to leave?
I was at Palantir for four and a half years. I spent the vast majority of that time on the federal civilian team, and so it was working with the government to better serve the American people. I worked with the Department of Justice to go after the opioid epidemic. . . . I worked with the Department of Veterans Affairs on better staffing their hospitals and better serving veterans. I worked with the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] on understanding epidemics.
I’m really proud of the work that I did there, because it was all about actually making government work better. Separate from tech, I think that’s the thing that the Democratic party and the country as a whole needs to see more of, is people who are willing to push through the obstacles and make sure that government is actually a force for good and serving people, and not just the political mudslinging that is most of what they see on TV.
I left in 2019 when Palantir renewedor soon afterPalantir renewed their contract with ICE. Palantir had a contract with Homeland Security Investigations to help with fighting cross-border drug trafficking and human trafficking. During the first Trump administration, they started using that software for Enforcement and Removal Operationsfor what most people think of as deportation. That’s a different department within ICE. . . . That wasn’t something that was foreseen when the contract was signed in the Obama administration. And when Palantir renewed that contract, without cutting off that work or putting in protections that would step up in the future, that motivated me to leave.
What do you make of the conversation surrounding Palantir right now? The company has insisted that its worked through multiple administrations, but the work with ICE, as well as with Israel, has sparked major criticisms of the company.
I haven’t been there for six years, so I don’t have more detail on how they currently operate than anyone reading the news, but I’m proud of the work that I did there and very public with the reasons why I left.
How hard is it to buy technology in government to make things faster, more efficient? Government modernizationupdating government software and providing better customer servicecontinues to be a big challenge.
No one asks about government acquisition. This is amazing. It’s horribly inefficient, and that hurts the American people. It takes the government far too long to be able to sign a contract, so the costtherefore what the American people end up payingrises.
It then benefits sort of the insiders who know how to do contracting more than the people who can deliver useful services, so then the American people don’t get the benefits from startups and others that might have cheaper, faster ways of solving problems.
It is a problem at every level of government. One of the first bills I passed in New York, as an Assembly member, was making it easier for the government to actually use cloud computing instead of buying servers and always running on hardware, which slowed down getting services to New Yorkers. . . . A program called FedRAMP was supposed to make it easier to get tech to the government: You would do one security screening, be certified, and then be able to sell to each [federal] department, so they didn’t have to do their own [screening]. But it has become an incredibly onerous process that just makes it much more difficult to actualy work with the federal government.
Should politicians be using generative AI in advertisements?
I haven’t done it. But I have written the laws in New York that regulate it, and what we came to was it has to be disclosed. And if you use it to make deepfakes of a candidate, the candidate has the right to sue for injunctive relief with expedited review to pull that ad down if it’s going to deceive the public into something that actually happened.
The problem of deepfakes is one that has a technical solution, and policymakers just haven’t kept up. Historically, we’re told it’s . . . just going to be a cat and mouse game where you have better detectors of deepfakes and then better AI generators [or that] we’ll never win that battle. But the industry has created a free, open-source metadata standards of data called C2PA that can be attached to any standard audio, video, or image file type that cryptographically proves whether that piece of content was taken from an actual device, was generated by AI, and/or how it’s been edited throughout the process.
If you got to a place where 90%, 95% of people were using that standard, we’ve solved the problem of deepfakes, because anytime you don’t see that credential, you would immediately be suspicious of what’s being shown.
After Thanksgiving, brands will bombard you with Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions. It can be overwhelming to know what to buy. After all, some deals aren’t actually all that good. And besides, you don’t want to make impulse buys that you’ll regret later and that will end up in a landfill in the near future.
To help cut through the noise, we’ve picked out the best deals from design-forward brands. They create beautiful products that are thoughtfully designed to last for years. We’ve even picked out some of our favorite classic products that you will enjoy using for a long time. All the prices below are before discounts.
[Photos: MoMA Design Store]
MoMA Design Store
20% off site-wide
Might we suggest these quirky espresso mugs ($50) or these toasty Jeffrey Gibson-designed slippers ($85) or this gorgeous color-saturated Japanese toolbox ($145)?
[Photo: Boll & Branch]
Boll & Branch
25% off site-wide, with up to 50% off select styles
Boll & Branch has some of the most beautiful bedding on the market. But more impressively, each product is fully traceableso you know that neither workers nor the planet were harmed in creating them. Their soft blankets are worth the investment. We recommend the signature hand-stitched quilt (from $498) and the new woven icon ($699).
[Photo: Brightland]
Brightland
25% off site-wide
It’s not just olive oil; it’s olive oil in an elegant bottle adorned with art. The Artist Series ($170) features labels featuring exclusive art from independent artists that Brightland commissioned. There’s also a Classic Minis gift set ($89) that serves as a sampler. The boxes are packaged so beautifully that you don’t need wrapping paper.
[Photo: Terra Kaffe]
Terra Kaffe
Between $250 and $400 off
If you’re in the market for a new coffee maker, this beautifully designed, high-tech automatic espresso machine by Terra Kaffe could be your answer. It doesn’t require any pods (just beans), which saves plastic. The Wi-Fi-enabled, fully loaded machine goes for $1,995 (now $400 off), and the compact Demi goes for $795 (now $250 off).
[Photo: Everlane]
Everlane
Up to 50% off everything
Skip the impulse buys and shop for classic, minimalist pieces, which are Everlane’s specialty. You can’t go wrong with a wool rollneck sweater ($228) or a pair of classic leather booties ($298) or the brand’s new fully recyclable jacket, the Everpuff ($348now at half price).
[Photo: Baggu]
Baggu
25% off site-wide
It’s time to stock up on some of the best-designed reusable bags on the market. The Duck Bag ($42) is an icon. Don’t sleep on the limited-edition three-packs of standard Baggus ($42), which now come in Miffy and Western designs.
[Photos: The Citizenry]
The Citizenry
25% off site-wide
We recommend the brand’s architectural vases that are handcrafted by artisans in India and Mexico, like the Vati ($79) or the Terranova ($429). The home decor company is also famous for its Mercado baskets, which start at $105.
[Photos: Larroudé]
Larroudé
50% off site-wide (exclusions apply)
Larroudé is known for making comfortable shoes designed by the former fashion director at Barneys. They are high quality and manufactured in the brand’s own factories in Brazil. Now is the time to pick classics you will wear for years to come, like the block-heel Ricky Boot ($550), the party-ready Ari Pump ($395), or the Verona Ballet Flat ($315). The brand’s new sneaker, the Stella ($250), has been a bestseller this year.
[Photos: Clare V.]
Clare V.
Special deals across the site
The brand’s iconic designs include the Moyen Messenger ($485), the Simple Tote ($575), and the Remi Backpack ($485).
[Photos: Alessi]
Alessi
Up to 50% off everything, plus an additional 10% for Black Friday
The Italian housewares brand Alessi is very popular among design nerds for good reason. Over the years, it has collaborated with industrial designers and architects to make thougtful products for everyday lifefrom a flyswatter designed by Philippe Starck ($30 now 25% off) to iconic kettles in the shape of a cone, originally designed by Aldo Rossi ($435 now 25% off).
Its that time of year again. My mailbox is stuffed with catalogs. Targeted seasonal ads from Amazon, Walmart, and Target are following me around the internet. And every other email in my overflowing inbox offers me the go-to 2025 gift guide for everyone on my list!
Anyone else out there starting to dread gift-giving?
Sometime in the past 30 years, cheaply made stuff became easily available at the click of a button on our phones, and that took a lot of the shine off of gifts.
Not only did online shopping make it much easier to buy things for ourselves (whether we needed them or not), but also it was much easier to buy things for other people. And that influx of stuff has also helped illuminate the very short life cycle of thing I covet to dust collector to trash.
Why would I spend money on a gift thats just going to end up in a landfill?
If you, too, are sick of the gift guides hawking next years refuse, heres the anti-gift-guide gift guide that will help you survive the 2025 holiday season without losing your mind or all your money.
Define your gifting ethos
This may sound ridiculously obvious, but my goal with gift-giving is to find something that the recipient will appreciate and use. I want the gift to show that I was thinking about them and that I pay attention to their likes and dislikes. (Groundbreaking, I know.)
But if youve ever gotten a sweater that is wildly the wrong size in a color best described as baby diarrhea umber, you know not everyone adheres to such giving goals. In fact, many of us give gifts for reasons other than wanting to please the recipient.
If you are giving presents to people because of obligation, because of habit, or because its a complex dance of meanness disguised as altruism, remember that you dont have to. Figure out who you want to give presents to, and go from there.
That doesnt necessarily mean you can just bow out of giving gifts to everyone who expects it. You may still need to continue the long-standing revenge gifting with your sister-in-law until the heat death of the universe. But you can at least put more thought into the gifts you give to the people you actually care about and dial back the effort and money on those obligatory gifts.
Think beyond objects
Figuring out what your recipients want often starts with understanding what they dont want. In many cases, thats clutter. If you know your friends and family well enough to identify a charitable organization thats close to their hearts, making a donation in their name could be a great gift.
But you may not be on So whos your favorite charity? terms with everyone on your list. To find the right present for those recipients, check out our anti-junk gift guide below. These are all gifts your loved ones and friends will appreciate that they generally dont have to find a spot for in their home.
Heartfelt words
Believe it or not, letting people know how much you appreciate them is often the best gift you can give. This is especially true for anyone who occupies what might be described as a thankless position.
This former educator would especially encourage you to write a heartfelt note to your childs teacher, rather than give them a mug with an assortment of teas and hot chocolates. (You know who else is probably giving Juniors teacher a mug? Every other parent in the classroom.)
It doesnt need to be long or poetic. Just relay a quick anecdote about something your kid said or did as a result of the teachers hard work and sign your name. If you attach a small piece of chocolate to the card, youll elevate it to the best teacher gift ever.
But this isnt just a gift for teachers. Writing a letter to your significant other, to your in-laws, to your kids, to your parents, to your best friend, or to anyone you want to acknowledge will probably be one of the most memorable gifts you could ever give. Tell them how you feel and share a memory. Tell them something they may not know about your relationship. Tell them what you hope for the new year. They will cherish your words.
Experiences
Even though my sister is possibly the easiest person in my life to shop for (she has impeccable taste that is easy to identify), I find its more meaningful for both of us if I buy experiential gifts for her instead of another piece of art or jewelry.
Thats why my Hanukkah gift for her this year is a pair of tickets to see Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter in Waiting for Godot on Broadway. Because watching Bill and Ted perform Samuel Beckett is the kind of experience that must be shared.
Similarly, I like to purchase concert tickets for my husband, who loves live music. He returns the favor by buying me tickets to see some of my favorite comedians live.
But there are plenty of other experience gifts that could be the best present under the tree: cooking, art, language, or music classes; museum or zoo memberships; camp registration; a vacation or weekend getaway.
Photos
It is a truth universally acknowledged that all our favorite photographs are never framed and put up on the wallespecially since the invention of Instagram. An easy and inexpensive gift that your friends and family will appreciate is taking the time to print out some of the best photos of you all together and getting them framed.
For a bigger gift, you could create an entire photo book if youd like to commemorate your relationship over the years. These kinds of photo books are relatively easy to make and print using sites like Shutterfly.
Consumables
Giving consumable gifts is an easy way to ensure your presents dont have a subtext of Here, you throw this away. And the holiday season is a traditional time to exchange gifts of cookies, wine, and other treats. But remember, there are other types of consumable gifts.
This gift guide is 100% affiliate-marketing free: Were not giving you specific items or linking to stuff to buy. Just consider consumable gifts like these for your loved ones:
Candles or incense
Essential oils
Bath bombs, bath salts, or bubble bath
Hand soap nd lotion
Infused olive oil or vinegar
Gourmet spices
Coffee, tea, or cocoa
Temporary tattoos (for kids)
A more practical gift guide
We all need things like socks, sunscreen, an ice scraper, a warm hat, a tool kit, and a first aid kit. And while most people probably already have most of these at home, they probably dont have high-quality versions of them.
High-end practical essentials from brands that you personally love can be a great gift, especially if you know the recipient would never spend money on little luxuries for themselves.
You can personalize these kinds of gifts. For example, my son and I recently tie-dyed some white bucket hats for an older relative who needed some additional sun protection. Making these sun hats one-of-a-kind made her even more delighted with the unexpected present.
Books
While some people may consider books to be clutter (blasphemers, all of them), many booklovers are happy to accept literary giftssince most methods of getting rid of a book are unlikely to contribute to environmental pollution. If you know your recipient is an avid reader, dont be afraid to give them a book.
Of course, as any booklover who has been given books that did not in any way reflect their reading taste can attest, its not enough to simply pick up whatever book du jour is getting the most press and give it to your friend. And while no book aficionado will ever turn down a gift card to a local small bookseller, its a little impersonal. The best book gift is one youve read yourself that made you think of the recipient. I still treasure a book I received nearly 25 years ago, because the narrators sarcasm reminded the giver of my sense of humor.
A guide to more joyful gift-giving
When were all awash with too much stuff and anything we need is a one-click overnight delivery away, gift-giving loses a lot of its meaning. We can put the meaning back in if we embrace an anti-junk gift ethos for the holiday season.
Instead of buying stuff just to have something to exchange, lets try to really give our loved ones things they will appreciate and remember, rather than something that will become the 2025 layer of municipal solid landfill waste.
Social media has become inexorably intertwined with our daily lives, but not all platforms are equally popular. For every cultural phenomenon like TikTok, there’s a Mastodon.
It would be easy, based on the news media’s borderline obsession with TikTok and X, to assume that those platforms are, if not the most used social media tools in America today, then very close to the top. They’re not. In fact, they’re squarely in the middle, according to a new study from Pew Research.
Instead, it’s YouTube that is the most commonly used social media platform in the U.S.by a landslide. Pew reports that 84% of U.S. adults use YouTube. (The platform is also the most widely used by U.S. teens.) Facebook ranks high in usage as well, with 71% of adults saying they use it. Roughly half of U.S. adults say they visit each of these platforms at least once a day.
Another Meta holding, Instagram, comes in third with 50% of the 5,022 adults surveyed saying they use it. Things fall off from there, though. YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram are the only platforms with usage figures above 50%.
TikTok, which ranks fourth, is used by just 37% of the adult respondents (usage numbers by teens and tweens are almost certainly much higher). WhatsApp comes in at 32% and Reddit at 26%, which is just a fraction above Snapchat’s 25%.
While X comes in with roughly 20% of respondents saying they use it, Meta’s Threads is used by just 8% of the people Pew surveyed, Bluesky by 4%, and Truth Social is last among the ranked sites, coming in at just 3%.
Pew’s study looked beyond which sites are the most popular to also give a demographic breakdown of who’s using what. As you might expect, adults younger than 30 are more frequent users of social media than older adults, but that also can vary by platform. (For instance, while YouTube sees heavy usage from all age groups, Instagram is used by 80% of adults between 18 and 29, but only 19% of people 65 or older.)
Here’s how usage breaks down by other demographic fields.
Gender
Women are much more likely to use platforms that lean toward communication and interaction. Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are most used by that demographic, while men opt more for X and Reddit.
Ethnicity
While people of all races and ethnicities use social media, some groups favor certain platforms more than others. Pew reports that TikTok and WhatsApp are used more frequently by Black and Hispanic adults. Among the survey pool, Instagram is used regularly by 62% of Hispanics, 58% of Asians, and 54% of Black adults versus 45% of white adults.
Education
Americans with higher levels of education are more likely to use Reddit, WhatsApp, and Instagram, the study found. People with less education lean toward TikTok. Roughly 40% of American adults with a college degree say they use Reddit, compared to just 15% of people with a high school diploma or less.
Political leanings
You can probably figure this one out without the study. Democrats and left-leaning folks are more likely than Republicans to use WhatsApp, Reddit, TikTok, Bluesky, and Threads. When it comes to X and Truth Social, things are reversed. Just two years ago, though, things weren’t as cut-and-dried. In 2023, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to use X (which was still Twitter until July 23 of that year).
What does it mean to be a courageous leader in 2025? Stanley McChrystal, retired four-star general in the U.S. Army, joins futurist and culture critic Baratunde Thurston to discuss McChrystals new book, On Character, the responsibility of leaders today, and the weight of being an active citizen in democracy. Considering President Trumps deployment of the National Guard, McChrystal explores the role of the military in civil society.
This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, recorded live at the 2025 Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.
I was moved by your book. I was moved by your philosophical exploration, the concept of characternot just pushing a specific version of it, but breaking it down into component parts. Character is conviction plus discipline, and the thing that you argue for is to be curious about our convictions. Why is it important for you, for us, to not just have character or have good character, but to challenge the components of it in our lives?
If you break character into the convictions, the strongly held beliefs you havetimes your discipline to live to them, because anything is zero if you don’t have the discipline to live to itthe convictions matter a lot, but they’re not the things that someone just told you. And if you think about it, most of us are the religion we were raised in, were the nationality we were born into. We are a product of the experience we’ve had. So much of what we believe is what was sort of handed to us as we went along, and that doesn’t make it right.
I remember in the counterterrorist fight we would be against members of Al-Qaeda who were extraordinarily effective, and they were killing people and they were trying to kill us. At the same time, the best they had were loyal, they were brave, they were focused on a cause that they believed in. And the only difference between me and my people and them was the life’s journey. Had we switched life’s journey, every probability is we’d have been at the other place.
And so once you get there, you step back and go, Well then, maybe they’re not entirely wrong. Doesn’t mean I agree with them, it doesn’t mean I support them, but it means that my convictions need me to pressure-test them to the greatest degree possible.
Part of that comes with philosophy, and I didn’t do it through much of my life. I did a few things, but then as I get older [Im] realizing how important character always was. It was always the thing. At the moment, you didn’t always consider it that way. You were trying to be more proficient in this or more successful in this or more powerful. And then at the end . . . the common denominator of getting it right was always character.
The decisions that I’m most proud of were good character and the ones that I regretand there are somethey were places where I didn’t live to the character that I knew was the right answer. And so I think we’ve got to be humble enough to decide what we think we believe and then challenge it.
I want to follow up on the humility and on what we do, and I use we intentionally. I know I have not always lived up to the character I profess and deeply believe in. I’ve put my emotional needs before someone close to mean act of small but significant selfishness. And maybe you’ve had your own versions and people here have. What have you found works when we recognize that we haven’t lived up to our character, to recover from that and still maintain a good path forward?
I think the first thing is we say, “Well, that’s not me.” But if any of you flew here and you made the mistake of checking your luggage, you had to go to the turnstile where the bags come out. And what do you typically see? You see people crowded right up next to it, like wildebeests at the last watering hole in the Serengeti. And there’s this idea that my bag’s going to come out faster if I’m closer. But the people down below putting the bags on the thing, they don’t care. If we all stepped back three or four feet, everybody could see it, we could calmly get in and reach our bag when it came out, and we could move on.
Yet why are we that way? Not because we’re bad people, I don’t think. It’s because those people in that moment, we are anonymous to. We’re tired, we want to get home, we’re never going to see them again, so we can be that way.
And how many times do you deal with somebody or some instance where you just think, I’m going to be this way because I’m angry or it serves my purposes? Things you would never do around people that you see routinely or your family. And then you realize we have lapses. So I think that the key thing for me isand I’m pretty self-criticalat the end of every day I literally say and think of the times in the day when I was not the person I should have been, when I responded incorrectly to somebody. I got mad, I was short . . . you name it, there’s just a litany.
And the key is not to make that the new standard. The key is to say that was wrong, and tomorrow I’m going to try to do better, knowing you’re never going to get to perfect. . . . And I think the other thing that we desperately need in society are norms where we hold each other accountable, where we’re willing to do that. Your mom would do that, but if your mom’s not around, who will do it?
Sometimes we need to look each other in the eye and just go, “That’s not the way we do things. That’s not the way we treat other people. That’s not what we would consider the standard that we all want to hold ourselves to.”
Since you brought up how we treat other people, let’s talk about what is happening with the U.S. government right now, which has a duty of care to treat people a certain way and is making really radical decisions on how to deploy the services of the government. How do you respond to the deployment of armed forces in American cities, particularly those run by Democrats, but really any city, or the deployment of immigration officers dressed as special operators? How do you see this, and how do you feel [about] this use of our military right now?
Well, I think it’s unfortunate and I think it’s a big mistake. But if we stepped back and sort of antiseptically said, someone looks at you and you didn’t like it, and they say, “Well, you don’t believe in illegal immigration, do you?” And I sort of don’t believe in anything that begins with illegal, but that’s really not the issue here.
The issue is how we’re treating each other, how we’re treating people. And there are probably two levels to it. The first is people are human beings and there should be a standard that we all decide we’re going to treat people, particularly people who are less strong than we are, who need to be supported, who need to be respected, who need to be helped.
Then the use of the miltary, and this is of course personal to me, there’s a tradition of not using the military in the streets of the United States, the Posse Comitatus rule, and it’s got a really good reason. It’s because you don’t want the American people to identify the military with people that come and police. . . . We dont want the American people to grow to fear or be resentful of our own military.
Now, are there instances where the military can do things other organizations cant? Absolutely. There’s a common-sense point of this, but I think the apolitical nature of our military is one of the sacred norms that we have respected for most of our historynever perfectly, but pretty darn well.
When I was a senior officer, actually at all ranks, I never knew the political persuasion of any of my peers. I didn’t know if they were liberal. I didn’t know if they were conservative. We didn’t talk about it. It was considered inappropriate to do that. And of course it was inappropriate to talk about it with your subordinates because that’s undue influence. You just didn’t because the military wasn’t part of that.
The problem is if a military gets politicizedwe need only to look around the world for examples where that happensthen suddenly it has a different role in society, and we won’t like it. I guarantee it.
Every year, companies and space agencies launch hundreds of rockets into spaceand that number is set to grow dramatically with ambitious missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. But these dreams hinge on one critical challenge: propulsionthe methods used to push rockets and spacecraft forward.
To make interplanetary travel faster, safer, and more efficient, scientists need breakthroughs in propulsion technology. Artificial intelligence is one type of technology that has begun to provide some of these necessary breakthroughs.
Were a team of engineers and graduate students who are studying how AI in general, and a subset of AI called machine learning in particular, can transform spacecraft propulsion. From optimizing nuclear thermal engines to managing complex plasma confinement in fusion systems, AI is reshaping propulsion design and operations. It is quickly becoming an indispensable partner in humankinds journey to the stars.
Machine learning and reinforcement learning
Machine learning is a branch of AI that identifies patterns in data that it has not explicitly been trained on. It is a vast field with its own branches, with a lot of applications. Each branch emulates intelligence in different ways: by recognizing patterns, parsing and generating language, or learning from experience. This last subset in particular, commonly known as reinforcement learning, teaches machines to perform their tasks by rating their performance, enabling them to continuously improve through experience.
As a simple example, imagine a chess player. The player does not calculate every move but rather recognizes patterns from playing a thousand matches. Reinforcement learning creates similar intuitive expertise in machines and systems, but at a computational speed and scale impossible for humans. It learns through experiences and iterations by observing its environment. These observations allow the machine to correctly interpret each outcome and deploy the best strategies for the system to reach its goal.
Reinforcement learning can improve human understanding of deeply complex systemsthose that challenge the limits of human intuition. It can help determine the most efficient trajectory for a spacecraft heading anywhere in space, and it does so by optimizing the propulsion necessary to send the craft there. It can also potentially design better propulsion systems, from selecting the best materials to coming up with configurations that transfer heat between parts in the engine more efficiently.
In reinforcement learning, you can train an AI model to complete tasks that are too complex for humans to complete themselves.
Reinforcement learning for propulsion systems
In regard to space propulsion, reinforcement learning generally falls into two categories: those that assist during the design phasewhen engineers define mission needs and system capabilitiesand those that support real-time operation once the spacecraft is in flight.
Among the most exotic and promising propulsion concepts is nuclear propulsion, which harnesses the same forces that power atomic bombs and fuel the Sun: nuclear fission and nuclear fusion.
Fission works by splitting heavy atoms such as uranium or plutonium to release energya principle used in most terrestrial nuclear reactors. Fusion, on the other hand, merges lighter atoms such as hydrogen to produce even more energy, though it requires far more extreme conditions to initiate.
Fission is a more mature technology that has been tested in some space propulsion prototypes. It has even been used in space in the form of radioisotope thermoelectric generators, like those that powered the Voyager probes. But fusion remains a tantalizing frontier.
Nuclear thermal propulsion could one day take spacecraft to Mars and beyond at a lower cost than that of simply burning fuel. It would get a craft there faster than electric propulsion, which uses a heated gas made of charged particles called plasma.
Unlike these systems, nuclear propulsion relies on heat generated from atomic reactions. That heat is transferred to a propellant, typically hydrogen, which expands and exits through a nozzle to produce thrust and shoot the craft forward.
So how can reinforcement learning help engineers develop and operate these powerful technologies? Lets begin with design.
Reinforcement learnings role in design
Early nuclear thermal propulsion designs from the 1960s, such as those in NASAs NERVA program, used solid uranium fuel molded into prism-shaped blocks. Since then, engineers have explored alternative configurationsfrom beds of ceramic pebbles to grooved rings with intricate channels.
Why has there been so much experimentation? Because the more efficiently a reactor can transfer heat from the fuel to the hydrogen, the more thrust it generates.
This area is where reinforcement learning has proved to be essential. Optimizing the geometry and heat flow between fuel and propellant is a complex problem, invlving countless variablesfrom the material properties to the amount of hydrogen that flows across the reactor at any given moment. Reinforcement learning can analyze these design variations and identify configurations that maximize heat transfer. Imagine it as a smart thermostat but for a rocket engineone you definitely dont want to stand too close to, given the extreme temperatures involved.
Reinforcement learning and fusion technology
Reinforcement learning also plays a key role in developing nuclear fusion technology. Large-scale experiments such as the JT-60SA tokamak in Japan are pushing the boundaries of fusion energy, but their massive size makes them impractical for spaceflight. Thats why researchers are exploring compact designs such as polywells. These exotic devices look like hollow cubes, about a few inches across, and they confine plasma in magnetic fields to create the conditions necessary for fusion.
Controlling magnetic fields within a polywell is no small feat. The magnetic fields must be strong enough to keep hydrogen atoms bouncing around until they fusea process that demands immense energy to start but can become self-sustaining once underway. Overcoming this challenge is necessary for scaling this technology for nuclear thermal propulsion.
Reinforcement learning and energy generation
However, reinforcement learnings role doesnt end with design. It can help manage fuel consumptiona critical task for missions that must adapt on the fly. In todays space industry, theres growing interest in spacecraft that can serve different roles depending on the missions needs and how they adapt to priority changes through time.
Military applications, for instance, must respond rapidly to shifting geopolitical scenarios. An example of a technology adapted to fast changes is Lockheed Martins LM400 satellite, which has varied capabilities such as missile warning or remote sensing.
But this flexibility introduces uncertainty. How much fuel will a mission require? And when will it need it? Reinforcement learning can help with these calculations.
From bicycles to rockets, learning through experiencewhether human or machineis shaping the future of space exploration. As scientists push the boundaries of propulsion and intelligence, AI is playing a growing role in space travel. It may help scientists explore within and beyond our solar system and open the gates for new discoveries.
Marcos Fernandez Tous is an assistant professor of space studies at the University of North Dakota.
Preeti Nair is a master’s student in aerospace sciences at the University of North Dakota.
Sai Susmitha Guddanti is a Ph.D. student in aerospace sciences at the University of North Dakota.
Sreejith Vidhyadharan Nair is a research assistant professor of aviation at the University of North Dakota.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The day after Thanksgiving is a holiday in itself for retailers.
Historically, Black Friday has been a time when shoppers wake up early and head to stores for the best deals of the year. More recently, though, more and more consumers have been opting out of the mad rush in stores and turning to online deals, many of which started a week ago and now extend all weekend long till Cyber Monday, December 1.
For those who like to be there when doors open, this is for you. Here’s everything you need to know.
What time do Target, Best Buy, Kohl’s, and Walmart open?
Many major big-box retailers open their doors nice and early for Black Friday, starting with Kohl’s and JCPenney, which open at 5 a.m.; followed by Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Walmart at 6 a.m.; and T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, Petco, and PetSmart at 7 a.m. Costco opens at 9 a.m., according to USA Today.
Are there any stores closed on Black Friday?
REI stores are closed not only on Thanksgiving but also on Black Friday.
Are banks closed on Black Friday?
Most banks are open on Black Friday, as it is not a federal holiday. However, check your local branch, as hours may vary.
What about the U.S. stock market?
The NYSE and Nasdaq Stock Market are open on Black Friday, but only for a half day of trading, ending at 1 p.m. ET.
Isn’t there a Black Friday boycott?
Yes, there are two boycotts: Mass Blackout and We Aint Buying It. The first boycott protests billionaires and the Trump administrations policies, and urges you not to participate in this years extended Black Friday sales, already underway, that run through Tuesday, December 2.
The “We Aint Buying It boycott urges consumers not to buy anything from three companies: Target (for its rollback on DEI), Home Depot (for working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has been arresting, detaining, and deporting immigrants), and Amazon (for allegedly funding the Trump administration to secure corporate tax cuts).
