Slate has relationships with various online retailers. If you buy something through our links, Slate may earn an affiliate commission. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change. All prices were up to date at the time of publication. It shouldn't be surprising that my list of my favorite books of 2024 includes a number of works by older writers working out what it means to make art as a career--what their creative future might look like.

There's a new Star Wars show coming out, and it'll arrive sooner than expected. The show was originally scheduled to debut on December 3, but Disney moved it up just a few days beforehand. New episodes will drop at the same time each Tuesday for the remainder of the season. For the uninitiated, this is a live-action show set during the same time period as The Mandalorian and Ahsoka, or around ten years after the events of Return of the Jedi. We don't know too much about the plot, other than it involves some suburban kids finding a spaceship and going on an adventure.

But the default voices for these assistants are often white American--British, if you're lucky--and most definitely speak English. And if you're one of the billions of people who don't speak English, bad luck: These tools don't sound nearly as good in other languages. This is because the data that has gone into training these models is limited. In AI research, most data used to train models is extracted from the English-language internet, which reflects Anglo-American culture. But there is a massive grassroots effort underway to change this status quo and bring more transparency and diversity to what AI sounds like.

This special edition is part of our Guest Prudie series, where we ask smart, thoughtful people to step in as Prudie for the day and give you advice. Today's columnist is number one New York Times-bestselling author Leigh Bardugo. She is the author of the books The Familiar, Ninth House and the creator of the Grishaverse (now a Netflix original series) which spans the Shadow and Bone trilogy, the Six of Crows duology, the King of Scars duology. Her short fiction has appeared in multiple anthologies including The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. She lives in Los Angeles and is an associate fellow of Pauli Murray College at Yale University. We asked Bardugo to weigh in on "romantic" gestures gone wrong, conversational vampires, and vocal dogs: I recently met a man on a dating app. We hit it off quickly. We were texting all of the time about work, writing, and the world--often getting pretty flirty. I was having tons of fun. He was charming and seemed to me conspicuously brilliant.

The Oscar-nominated actress is known for her roles in hit movies including Young Frankenstein and Tootsie.

Teri Garr, known for her work in "Young Frankenstein" and "Tootsie," died Tuesday in Los Angeles. Garr's publicist confirmed to The Associated Press that the comedian died of multiple sclerosis. She began her career in the entertainment industry as a background dancer in a number of Elvis Presley movies, and went on to earn an Academy Award nomination for her role as Sandy Lester in the 1982 Dustin Hoffman comedy, "Tootsie." Actress Teri Garr died Tuesday of multiple sclerosis. She was 79. (Getty Images) The daughter of Eddie Garr, a well-known vaudeville comedian and Phyllis Lind, one of the original Rockettes at New York's Radio City Music Hall, Garr seemed destined for show business.

Janet's voice crackles in Tascha's ear as they dangle off their rappelling lines, swinging from point to point in their harnesses. "How are we in Atlanta, sucking smoke from fucking Canada?" Do we not have a long and honorable tradition of blockades, border checkpoints, and deportation? If we can keep Texas and Florida out, why not Burnt Canadians? Put up a sign: BC: Not Fucking Welcome." The mix is meant to make a lovely pattern (azaleas, in fact) on the face of the arcology structure, but the architect should be shot, because the electronics are a hassle and Tascha's crew is behind schedule. Most of the arcology is fast-attach, standardized like Lego blocks, built in factories, then autonomously shipped to the site and popped together, as simple as a kit. In the early stages, Azalea was just swarms of bots digging, grading, and auto-assembling according to plan, knitting together the bones and skin of an entire new city of 10,000. Now that they're at final finishing stages, though, humans are taking back the site. The complex patterns of varied electrical components still need a clever human touch, which is why Tascha's crew is out in the Atlanta swelter, nearly mummified in Day-Glo frigrigs to keep the heat at bay. It's one thing to bike to work with just a filter mask and a chilled helmet to keep you cool; it's a whole other thing to hang off the side of a building all day when wet-bulb temps push into the 40s. "I heard someone was camping up in Alberta and lit a bunch of beetle kill on fire.

Sebastian Garrido was traveling to visit his dying grandfather in the hospital when he had what he calls a'time slip' that changed his views on what happens after we die. Often dramatized in science fiction, a'time slip' is defined as a moment when someone accidentally travels through time -- but Garrido said his all too real'time slip' hit him on the street when he noticed a mysterious figure standing nearby. 'Fancy meeting you here, everything will be okay. Tell your dad I'll be fine,' the man said before disappearing. During the eerie encounter, Garrido, 26, said he'got goosebumps and then threw up.'

Scientists have brought science fiction one step closer to reality by achieving the first two-way communication between individuals during lucid dreaming. In an experiment that sounds like a scene out of the movie'Inception,' REMspace - a California-based startup that designs technology to enhance sleep and lucid dreaming - reportedly exchanged a message between two people who were asleep. The company used'specially designed equipment' which included a'server,' an'apparatus,' 'Wifi' and'sensors,' but did not specify the exact technology they used. The study participants were asleep in separate homes when REMspace researchers beamed a word created through a unique language between them. REMspace CEO and founder Michael Raduga said: 'Yesterday, communicating in dreams seemed like science fiction.

The soundtrack to the spider-bot-crawling 1997 Ghost in the Shell game adaptation is coming to the West for the first time. Titled Ghost in the Shell: Megatech Body (as an ode to the Fuchikoma mech you pilot in the game), the soundtrack was produced by Takkyu Ishino. The PS1 game adaptation had late-90s gamers piloting a spider-like mech (first appearing in the 1991 manga), blasting enemies to smithereens with twin machine guns and guided missiles. Masamune Shirow, the original manga's author, wrote and illustrated its story and art design. But as 90s shooters often figured out, firing guns nonstop for hours on end is much better with a badass techno soundtrack pumping in the background like an energy drink for your ears. In addition to Ishino, it includes "warehouse-shaking bangers" from Mijk Van Dijk, The Advent, Joey Beltram and Brother from Another Planet (among others).