Make your holiday wreath pop with a more personal touch

If there’s one holiday custom that never goes out of style, it’s hanging a holiday wreath on your exterior door. This tradition hails back to ancient times when wreaths were considered to be symbols of honor, victory and eternal life in Rome and Greece. In Europe, pagan rituals also used wreaths to represent the cycle of the seasons. By the 16th century, Christians in Europe began using evergreen wreaths during Christmas to symbolize eternal life and God's endless love. This custom spread throughout the continent and reached North America, where, by the 19th century, it became widely practiced, especially in the U.S., where wreaths came to embody the themes of hospitality and the holiday spirit.

Learn how to personalize your holiday wreath and create a more festive, eye-catching appearance by reading my latest article for The Daily Herald, available here.

Snap into action

Smartphones are handy for taking photos, but try using one when jumping out of a plane, skateboarding a half-pipe or snorkeling with sea turtles. Recording these, and other exciting activities, calls for a dedicated, compact, rugged action camera. GoPro-style cameras are designed to take high-quality footage in adventurous environments.

Learn more about action cameras by reading my latest Costco Connection magazine article on this topic, available here.

Set aside enough for your holiday budget: Here's how

Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year’s and other holidays that close out the calendar are fast approaching. That means you’ll probably need to accumulate more loot than you may think for customary things like gifts, decorations, travel, hosting guests, and charitable donations this time of year. And therein lies the problem: Making sure you’ve salted away enough scratch to afford these to-dos.

Consumers are expected to spend an average of $1,638 this holiday season on gifts, travel, and entertainment, PwC reports, reflecting a 7% increase compared to 2023 and a 15% rise from 2022. Gift budgets are expected to rise 9.9% from 2023, per JLL, and Mastercard anticipates spending during the 2024 holiday season to increase by 3.2% yearly.

Learn more by reading my CTW Features article on this topic, available here.

Speech tech poised to take a quantum leap

Artificial intelligence (AI) and its capabilities have significantly transformed speech technology in a short amount of time. But an equally exciting innovation is anticipated to be an even bigger game changer in the industry: quantum computing, which represents a groundbreaking approach to computation, using quantum mechanics to perform certain tasks much faster than traditional computers. It relies on quantum particles like atoms, ions, or photons to harness the principles of superposition, entanglement, and interference in quantum bits, or qubits. Unlike classical bits used by traditional computers, which are limited to a state of 0 or 1, qubits can exist in multiple states at once due to superposition.

Learn why experts are predicting that quantum computing will allow us to solve problems that are currently intractable with classical devices across chemistry, machine learning, finance, and so many other problems we’ve yet to even conceive by reading my latest article for Speech Technology, available here.

Cineversary podcast celebrates 50th birthday of Godfather Part II

Harlan Lebo and Glenn Kenny

In Cineversary podcast episode #76, host ⁠Erik Martin⁠ honors the 50th anniversary of the greatest sequel ever made, The Godfather Part II, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. This time around he’s joined by Harlan Lebo, author of The Godfather Legacy, and Glenn Kenny, film critic and author of Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas. Together, they explore what makes Part II an exemplary follow-up to the original, how the movie remains evergreen, key themes that resonate today, and much more.

To listen to this episode, click here or click the "play" button on the embedded streaming player below. Or, you can stream, download, or subscribe to Cineversary wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Learn more about the Cineversary podcast at www.cineversary.com and email show comments or suggestions to cineversarypodcast@gmail.com.

How to use a 0% intro APR credit card as an interest-free loan

Preparing for a major purchase? You could pursue short-term financing in the form of a personal loan, home equity loan or home equity line of credit. But if you can afford to pay off what you borrow in full within a year or so, a 0 percent intro APR credit card could be a better option. This type of card can save a lot of money you would otherwise spend on interest charges.

Learn more about how this type of credit card works — and how you might be able to use one as an interest-free loan on large purchases — by checking out my newest writeup for Bankrate, available here.