Not every tech "advent calendar" involves programming puzzles. Instead the geek tradition of programming-language advent calendars "seems to have started way back in 2000," according to one history, "when London-based programmer Mark Fowler launched a calendar highlighting a different Perl module each day."

So the tradition continues...

• Nearly a quarter of a century later, there's still a Perl Advent Calendar, celebrating tips and tricks like "a few special packages waiting under the tree that can give your web applications a little extra pep in their step."

• And of course there's a separate advent calendar for Raku programmers.

• Since 2009 web performance consultant (and former Yahoo and Facebook engineer) Stoyan Stefanov has been pulling together an annual Web Performance calendar with helpful blog posts.

• There's also a JVM Advent calendar with daily helpful hints for Java programmers.

• Another advent calendar promises daily posts about C#.

• The HTMHell site — which bills itself as "a collection of bad practices in HTML, copied from real websites" — is celebrating the season with the "HTMHell Advent Calendar," promising daily articles on security, accessibility, UX, and performance.

• There's even an advent calendar with tips for the reverse-engineering framework Radar.

• There's still a lovely web-design themed calendar at Designcember.com.

And meanwhile developers at the Svelte frontend framework are actually promising to release something new each day, "whether it's a new feature in Svelte or SvelteKit or an improvement to the website!"

But not every tech advent calendar is about programming...

• Adafruit's managing director is publishing a Retrocomputing Advent Calendar — daily looks at the ghosts of computers past.

• The Atlantic continues its 17-year tradition of a Space Telescope advent calendar, featuring daily images from both NASA's Hubble telescope and James Webb Space Telescope

• The gaming blog Rock Paper Shotgun has been counting down their favorite games of 2024...

Mozilla's developer blog is announcing "JavaScriptmas". [F]rom December 1st to December 24th, we will release a fun, daily coding challenge for you to solve on [code-learning platform] Scrimba. Each challenge comes with an introductory screencast called "scrim", some starter code, and then it's your turn to fill in the gaps.

JavaScriptmas is about coding, learning, and the chance to win exciting prizes. Two lucky coders will be chosen as winners at the end of JavaScriptmas, and each will win a MacBook Air M3, swag from MDN and Scrimba, and a lifetime Scrimba Pro membership (worth ~$200 per year). The Scrimba membership will give you access to all courses, including the Frontend Developer Career Path based on the MDN curriculum.

Most of the challenges will evolve around JavaScript algorithms. You will also practice subjects like DOM manipulation, UI design, CSS, accessibility, and even a bit of cyber security. The challenges are a collaborative effort from Scrimba teachers, mentors, and MDN content writers, all with the goal of turning you into a more well-rounded web developer.

Winners will be chosen randomly from everyone who submits correct solutions. We want JavaScriptmas to be accessible for both beginners and experienced developers alike. That said, the more challenges you solve, the better your chances of winning! To maximize your chances, try to solve all 24 challenges and submit them as both regular entries and social entries. You don't have to submit your solutions on the same day they're published — the deadline for any submission is midnight UTC on Christmas Eve.

"Okay, we're doing this," begins a new announcement at The Verge: Today we're launching a Verge subscription that lets you get rid of a bunch of ads, gets you unlimited access to our top-notch reporting and analysis across the site and our killer premium newsletters, and generally lets you support independent tech journalism in a world of sponsored influencer content. It'll cost $7 / month or $50 / year — and for a limited time, if you sign up for the annual plan, we'll send you an absolutely stunning print edition of our CONTENT GOBLINS series, with very fun new photography and design... A surprising number of you have asked us to launch something like this, and we're happy to deliver. If you don't want to pay, rest assured that big chunks of The Verge will remain free — we're thinking about subscriptions a lot differently than everyone else...

If you're a Verge reader, you know we've been covering massive, fundamental changes to how the internet works for years now. Most major social media platforms are openly hostile to links, huge changes to search have led to the death of small websites, and everything is covered in a layer of AI slop and weird scams. The algorithmic media ecosystem is now openly hostile to the kind of rigorous, independent journalism we want to do.

A few years ago, we decided the only real way to survive all this was to stand apart and bet on our own website so that we could remain independent of these platforms and their algorithms. We didn't want to write stories to chase Google Search trends or because we thought they'd do well on social media. And we definitely didn't want to compromise our famously strict ethics policy to accept brand endorsement deals from the companies we cover, which almost all of our competitors in the creator economy are forced to do in order to run sustainable businesses...

[W]e intend to keep making this thing together for a long, long time. So many of you like The Verge that we've actually gotten a shocking number of notes from people asking how they can pay to support our work. It's no secret that lots of great websites and publications have gone under over the past few years as the open web falls apart, and it's clear that directly supporting the creators you love is a big part of how everyone gets to stay working on the modern internet. At the same time, we didn't want to simply paywall the entire site — it's a tragedy that traditional journalism is retreating behind paywalls while nonsense spreads across platforms for free.
The print premium for subscribers is described as a "beautiful / deranged print product" that's drawn from a series of articles "about what Google had done to the web, capped off by a feature about search engine optimization titled 'The People Who Ruined the Internet.'" But it ships with a satirical cover that instead proclaims it as "The Verge Guide to Search Engine Optimization". A tongue-in-check announcement explains: [A] year has passed, and we've had a change of heart. Maybe search engine optimization is actually a good thing. Maybe appeasing the search algorithm is not only a sustainable strategy for building a loyal audience, but also a strategic way to plan and produce content. What are journalists, if not content creators? Anyway, SEO community, consider this our apology. And what better way to say "our bad, your industry is not a cesspool of AI slop but a brilliant vision of what a useful internet could look like" than collecting all the things we've learned in one handy print magazine? Which is why I'm proud to introduce The Verge Guide to Search Engine Optimization: All the Tips, Tricks, Hints, Schemes, and Techniques for Promoting High-Quality Content!
Whoops — slip off the cover and the real title appears: "CONTENT GOBLINS" (written in green slime). Again, it's "an anthology of stories about 'content' and the people who 'make' it." In very Verge fashion, we are meeting the moment where the internet has been overrun by AI garbage by publishing a beautifully designed, limited edition print product. (Also, the last time we printed a magazine, it won a very prestigious design award.) Content Goblins collects some of our best stories over the past couple years, capturing the cynical push for the world's great art and journalism to be reduced into units that can be packaged, distributed, and consumed on the internet. Consider Content Goblins as our resistance to that movement. With terrific new art and photography, we're making the case that great reporting is vital and enduring — and worth paying for.

This gorgeous, grotesque magazine can be yours if you commit to an annual subscription to The Verge — while supplies last.

"$15.8 million every 60 seconds. That's how much US consumers spent in two hours on Monday night," reports CNN, "capping off a five-day spending spree that smashed previous records." U.S. consumers spent a total of $13.3 billion on Cyber Monday, up 7.3% from the previous year, according to Adobe Analytics... Consumers spent a record $41.1 billion across the five days beginning Thanksgiving Day, according to Adobe. "While Cyber Monday remained the season's and year's biggest online shopping day, year-over-year growth was stronger on both Thanksgiving and Black Friday," Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said in a statement... The company's data projects that holiday spending from November 1 to December 31 will surpass $240 billion, up 8.4% from the previous year.

The record sales on Cyber Monday were boosted by US consumers shopping on their mobile devices, which accounted for $7.6 billion in spending. This year, 57% of online sales came through a mobile device, compared to 33% in 2019, as shopping on mobile phones has surged in popularity... Buy now, pay later" programs also contributed nearly $1 billion in spending on Cyber Monday, a record high. About 75% of these types of transactions occurred through a mobile device.

Cyber Monday shopping wasn't just confined to the US, either. Global sales reached $49.7 billion, up 3% from the previous year, according to data from Salesforce.
The top-selling items included consumer electronics like the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch OLED, the article points out (adding that "About 78% of all consumer smartphones and 87% of consoles were imported from China in 2023, according to a report from the Consumer Technology Association.")

More interesting statistics from CNN:

• "Discounts on apparel peaked at just over 23% off, while TVs and computers peaked at almost 22% off, according to Adobe. And the discounts might last: Adobe projects discounts of up to 18% off computers through the end of the year... "

• "For US retail sites, the share of revenue from affiliates and partners like social media influencers was 20.3% on Cyber Monday, up almost 7% from the previous year. "

• "Additionally, companies employed AI chatbots to assist consumers, like Amazon's Rufus. Traffic to retail sites from chatbots increased by nearly 2,000% on Cyber Monday, according to Adobe."

The long-running Advent of Code site just entered its 10th year, with 162,809 people completing both of its Day One puzzles (which involve a hunt for the missing historian of the North Pole). But its not the only site offering Christmas-themed programming puzzles:

• Hundreds of SQL lovers are trying the daily challenges from the "Advent of SQL" site.

• You can sign up for daily emails with webdev challenges from the Advent of JavaScript and Advent of CSS sites.

• The "Advent of No-Code" site challenges you to build something new every day using no-code tools like AI-powered dev environments or the social coding site Val Town.

• TryHackMe.com is publishing "beginner-friendly, daily gamified cyber security challenges" in an event they're calling the "Advent of Cyber."

• And Norway's biggest chess club (founded by world champion Magnus Carlsen) has even launched a site with daily chess puzzles called — what else? — Advent of Chess. (It promises at the end of the event someone will win a chessboard signed by Magnus Carlsen).

"The Portland International Airport in Oregon understands holiday travel is stressful. So this season, it invited a few specialists..." writes the Washington Post.

One TV station describes them as "therapy llamas... two 400-pound fluffballs serving as therapy animals" stationed at Portland International Airport (or PDX) earlier this week, for "travelers, in need of a calming moment."

From the Washington Post: Airports around the globe use a variety of methods to inject some Zen into one of the busiest travel periods of the year. They decorate their halls in holiday lights, host carolers and concerts, and bring in therapy dogs for group canine counseling.

Portland does all of the above. True to the city's quirky spirit, it also invites local camelids to the airport to canoodle with passengers. That's where Gregory, president and founder of Mountain Peaks Therapy Llamas & Alpacas, comes in. "PDX has an ongoing partnership with various therapy animal programs," said Allison Ferre, media relations manager with the Port of Portland, which operates the airport. "So this year, when we were bringing back holiday concessions programing, we just thought, "Who better to lead that parade than the llamas and alpacas?"

This year's theme was "reindeer." Gregory and her daughter, Shannon Joy, dressed the pair in antler headbands, glittery halters with tinkling bells and poinsettia-adorned wreathes. Red velvet banners worn like saddles were inscribed with their names and silvery snowflakes. "They looked pretty fancy," Gregory said...

Though the pair had to pass through security, they didn't have to submit to a pat down, which they might have enjoyed for the extra pets.

"It's easy to default to giving the tech gifts that retailers tend to push on us this time of year..." notes Lifehacker senior writer Thorin Klosowski.

"But before you give one, think twice about what you're opting that person into." A number of these gifts raise red flags for us as privacy-conscious digital advocates. Ring cameras are one of the most obvious examples, but countless others over the years have made the security or privacy naughty list (and many of these same electronics directly clash with your right to repair). One big problem with giving these sorts of gifts is that you're opting another person into a company's intrusive surveillance practice, likely without their full knowledge of what they're really signing up for... And let's not forget about kids. Long subjected to surveillance from elves and their managers, electronics gifts for kids can come with all sorts of surprise issues, like the kid-focused tablet we found this year that was packed with malware and riskware. Kids' smartwatches and a number of connected toys are also potential privacy hazards that may not be worth the risks if not set up carefully.

Of course, you don't have to avoid all technology purchases. There are plenty of products out there that aren't creepy, and a few that just need extra attention during set up to ensure they're as privacy-protecting as possible. While we don't endorse products, you don't have to start your search in a vacuum. One helpful place to start is Mozilla's Privacy Not Included gift guide, which provides a breakdown of the privacy practices and history of products in a number of popular gift categories.... U.S. PIRG also has guidance for shopping for kids, including details about what to look for in popular categories like smart toys and watches....

Your job as a privacy-conscious gift-giver doesn't end at the checkout screen. If you're more tech savvy than the person receiving the item, or you're helping set up a gadget for a child, there's no better gift than helping set it up as privately as possible.... Giving the gift of electronics shouldn't come with so much homework, but until we have a comprehensive data privacy law, we'll likely have to contend with these sorts of set-up hoops. Until that day comes, we can all take the time to help those who need it.

"Share this holiday fairy tale with your loved ones," urges the Free Software Foundation.

A company offers you a tool to make your life easier, but, when you use it, you find out that the tool forces you to use it only in the way the tool's manufacturer approves. Does this story ring a bell? It's what millions of software users worldwide experience again and again, day after day. It's also the story of Wendell the Elf and the ShoeTool.
They suggest enjoying the video "to remind yourself why you shouldn't let your tools tell you how to use them." First released in 2019, it's available on the free/open-source video site PeerTube, a decentralized (and ActivityPub-federated) platform powered by WebTorrent.

They've also created a shortened URL for sharing on social media (recommending the hashtag #shoetool ). "And, of course, you can adapt the video to your liking after downloading the source files." Or, you can share the holiday fairy tale with your loved ones so that they can learn not to let their tools control them.

If we use free software, we don't need anyone's permission to, for example, modify our tools ourselves or install modifications shared by others. We don't need permission to ask someone else to tailor our tools to serve our wishes, exercise our creativity. The Free Software Foundation believes that everyone deserves full control over their computers and phones, and we hope this video helps you explain the importance of free software to your friends and family.
"Don't let your tools tell you how to use them," the video ends. "Join the Free Software Foundation!"

For Epic's Christmas special this year, they're giving away for free "an AAA game that only launched back in 2022..." reports ComicBook.com — a game that invites players to "ally with a powerful spectral entity on theirâquest for vengeance."

ComicBook.com notes that the game giveaway is "not for long... Starting today and lasting until the late morning of December 25." The latest free game on the Epic Games Store is almost certainly the biggest title that users have received so far to coincide with the holidays... Initially released back in March 2022, Ghostwire: Tokyo is developed by Tango Gameworks and published by Bethesda. Since this is a AAA title, Ghostwire: Tokyo normally retails for $59.99 in total. As such, for it to now be free means that this is one of the best deals that Epic has had so far to close out the year...

Epic's ongoing holiday promotion is set to extend to January and should see 17 games in total being handed out at no cost. This promotion will continue tomorrow on Christmas Day when a new freebie lands on the PC platform.

An anonymous Slashdot reader shared this report from CNET: Marking its 60th year on television, the British time-travel series will close out 2023 with one last anniversary special that arrives on Christmas Day. Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor helms the Tardis in The Church on Ruby Road, which centers on an abandoned baby who grows up looking for answers... Disney Plus will stream Doctor Who: The Church on Ruby Road on Monday, Dec. 25, at 12:55 p.m. ET (9:55 a.m. PT) in all regions except the UK and Ireland, where it will air on the BBC. In case you missed it, viewers can also watch David Tennant starring in the other three anniversary specials: The Star Beast, Wild Blue Yonder and The Giggle. All releases are available on Disney Plus.
But what's interesting is CNET goes on to explain "why a VPN could be a useful tool." Perhaps you're traveling abroad and want to stream Disney Plus while away from home. With a VPN, you're able to virtually change your location on your phone, tablet or laptop to get access to the series from anywhere in the world. There are other good reasons to use a VPN for streaming too. A VPN is the best way to encrypt your traffic and stop your ISP from throttling your speeds...

You can use a VPN to stream content legally as long as VPNs are allowed in your country and you have a valid subscription to the streaming service you're using. The U.S. and Canada are among the countries where VPNs are legal

"It's like visiting an old friend for the holidays," according to this article: Approaching his 86th birthday, Donald Knuth — Stanford's beloved computer science guru — honored what's become a long-standing tradition. He gave a December "Christmas lecture" that's also streamed online for all of his fans...

More than 60 years ago, back in 1962, a 24-year-old Donald Knuth first started writing The Art of Computer Programming — a comprehensive analysis of algorithms which, here in 2023, he's still trying to finish. And 30 years ago Knuth also began making rare live appearances each December in front of audiences of Stanford students...

Recently Stanford uploaded several decades of Knuth's past Christmas lectures, along with a series of 22 videos of Knuth from 1985 titled "the 'Aha' Sessions'" (courses in mathematical problem-solving). There are also two different sets of five videos from 1981 showing Knuth introducing his newly-created typesetting system TeX. There are even 12 videos from 1982 of what Knuth calls "an intensive course about the internal details."

And on Dec. 6, wearing his traditional brown holiday sweater, Knuth gave yet another live demonstration of the beautifully clear precision that's made him famous.

"Millions of Star Wars fans get nostalgia pangs during the holiday season," reports the Washington Post, "when they are accustomed to seeing broadcasts of their beloved movies.... FX, now owned by Disney, has multiple Star Wars marathons on tap this month, including a marathon on December 23 and 24." The program-planning director at Disney's Freedom channel even calls Star Wars a "Christmas-adjacent" franchise.

And now, long-time Slashdot reader H_Fisher writes... Call it a Life Day miracle, even if nobody was asking for it. YouTube historian and retro-tech enthusiast Perifractic uploaded a restored, mostly-complete 4K upscale of the "infamous" Star Wars Holiday Special to his channel on Wednesday. From the video summary: "Using Topaz Labs [Video AI] with a few other techniques we've meticulously upscaled & restored the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special to 5120x3840, with stereo elements, to the best quality the technology currently allows."

Jokingly labeling the resulting file "5K" (8K video height, but tagged "4K" by YouTube due to its original 4:3 aspect ratio), the upscaled version unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) replaces some songs and omits some segments that were flagged by YouTube's copyright watchdog.

It's a geek tradition that started online back in 2000. Programming language "advent calendars" offer daily tips about a programming language (if not a Christmas-themed programming puzzle) -- one a day through December 25th.

And 2023 finds a wide variety of fun sites to choose from:

• For example, there's 24 coding challenges at the Advent of JavaScript site (where "each challenge includes all the HTML and CSS you need to get started, allowing you to focus on the JavaScript.") And there's another 24 coding challenges on a related site... Advent of CSS.

• The cyber security training platform "TryHackMe.com" even coded up a site they call "Advent of Cyber," daring puzzle-solvers to "kickstart your cyber security career by engaging in a new, beginner-friendly exercise every day leading up to Christmas!"

• The programming puzzles at Advent of Code are continuing through the 25th (though so far less than 30,000 people have solved both parts of Saturday's challenge.)

• Every year since 2000 there's also been a new edition of the Perl Advent Calendar, and this month Year 23 started off with goodies from Perl's massive module repository, CPAN. (Specifically its elf-themed story references the Music::MelodicDevice::Ornamentation module) -- along with the MIDI::Util library and TiMidity++, a software synthesizer that can play MIDI files without a hardware synthesizer.)

• Meanwhile, since 2009 there's also been an advent calendar for Raku (the programming language formerly known as Perl 6), promising an article a day. (Day One's entry was titled "Rocking Raku Meets Stodgy Debian...")

• James Bennett, from the Django project's core team, is even attempting a Python/Django Advent calendar.

• There's also a JVM advent calendar for the Java Virtual Machine, plus another advent calendar promising daily posts about C#.

• The HTMHell site — which bills itself as "a collection of bad practices in HTML, copied from real websites" — is celebrating the season with the "HTMHell Advent Calendar," promising daily articles on security, accessibility, UX, and performance.

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: For the soundtracks to their 2023 holiday season ads, both Amazon and Apple turned to music by members of The Beatles. Amazon's Joy Ride, which stars three older women reliving their youthful joy at a sledding hill, is set to a cover of The Beatles' In My Life. Apple's Fuzzy Feelings, which tells the story of a young woman with a grumpy boss, is set to George Harrison's Isn't It a Pity.

Product placement is present in both ads — Amazon features padded seat cushions that protect the seniors' tushes and the Amazon app used to order them, while Apple showcases the iPhone 15 Pro Max used to capture the ad's stop-motion animation scenes and the MacBook Air used to edit them.

Amazon's 60-second ad has 542K views on YouTube, while Apple's 4-minute ad has 16+ million views.

Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: It's a question that comes up all the time on Reddit. Etsy even created a special page for programmer-themed gift suggestions (showing more than 5,000 results). While CNET sticks to broader lists of "tech gifts" — and a separate list for "Star Wars gifts" — other sites around the web have been specifically honing in on programmer-specific suggestions. (Blue light-blocking glasses... A giant rubber duck... The world's strongest coffee... A printer that transfers digital images onto cheese...)

So while in years past Amazon has said they laughed at customer reviews for cans of uranium, this year Amazon has now added a special section that's entirely dedicated to Gifts for Computer Programmers, according to this funny rundown of 2023's "Gifts for Programmers" (that ends up recommending ChatGPT gift cards and backyard office sheds):
From the article: [Amazon's Gifts for Programmers section] shows over 3,000 results, with geek-friendly subcategories like "Glassware & Drinkware" and "Novelty Clothing"... For the coder in your life, Amazon offers everything from brain–teasing programming puzzles to computer–themed jigsaw puzzles. Of course, there's also a wide selection of obligatory funny t–shirts... But this year there's also tech-themed ties and motherboard-patterned socks...

Some programmers, though, might prefer a gift that's both fun and educational. And what's more entertaining than using your Python skills to program a toy robot dog...? But if you're shopping for someone who's more of a cat person, Petoi sells a kit for building a programmable (and open source) cat robot named "Nybble". The sophisticated Arduino-powered feline can be programmed with Python and C++ (as well as block-based coding)... [part of] the new community that's building around "OpenCat", the company's own quadruped robotic pet framework (open sourced on GitHub).

"Advent of Code" has begun. New programming puzzles will appear every day until Christmas at AdventOfCode.com — and the annual event (first started in 2015) has grown into a worldwide phenomenon. This year's first puzzle has been completed by over 150,000 programmers (with another 115,652 completing Day Two's puzzle). And 108,000 fans have also joined the Advent of Code subReddit.

Contest-related comments are popping up all around the web. Some participants are live streaming their puzzle-solving efforts on Twitch. Self-described computer nerd Gary Grady is tweeting cartoons about each day's puzzle. JetBrains is even giving away some prizes in their "Advent of Code with Kotlin" event. And JetBrains developer advocate Sebastian Aigner is also hosting daily livestreams about each puzzle.

It's hard to overstate how big this event has become. This year's event attracted 60 sponsors, including Kotlin (for the third consecutive year), as well as Spotify, Shopify, and Sony Interactive Entertainment (as well as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and American Express). Individual donors can get a special badge next to their name, and there's also a shop selling coffee mugs and t-shirts. But at its core is real-world developer Eric Wastl (plus a team of loyal beta-testers) sharing his genuine fondness for computer programming. Wastl is also the creator of a satirical web page for the fast, lightweight, cross-platform framework Vanilla JS ("so popular that browsers have been automatically loading it for over a decade") and also curates a collection of "things in PHP which make me sad".

And you can find him on X sharing encouraging comments for this year's participants.

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: In recognition of the innovation and unique nature of 1-Click, the U.S. Patent Office awarded Patent No. 5960411 to Amazon.com for 1-Click on September 28, 1999," boasted an Oct. 1999 Amazon press release. "First made available to Amazon.com customers in September 1997, 1-Click combines with Gift-Click and Wish List to make Amazon.com the most convenient, easiest-to-use shopping destination this holiday season."

The following day, Amazon weaponized its new patent, filing a lawsuit on Oct. 20th saying defendant and competitor Barnes and Noble had illegally copied Amazon's patented 1-Click ordering technology. "We're pleased that Judge Pechman recognized the innovation underlying our 1-Click feature," said Amazon CEO and 1-Click co-inventor Jeff Bezos in a Dec. 1999 Amazon press release celebrating a preliminary injunction that barred barnesandnoble.com from using its 'copycat version of 1-Click technology' while the lawsuit was pending (Amazon and B&N settled in 2002).

"The patent system is designed to encourage innovation on behalf of customers," Amazon had written in its 1999 press release, arguing that in 1997 its 1-Click technology "was a significant step forward for online shoppers that required thousands of hours of effort." It's been noted that B&N first threw down the litigation gauntlet, slapping Amazon with a lawsuit over its marketing claim as "World's Largest Bookstore" just days before Amazon's IPO in May 1997.

USPTO continuity records show a 'child' patent of the original Method and System for Placing a Purchase Order Via a Communications Network patent finally expired due to non-payment of maintenance fees on 10/10/2022, more than 25 years after Amazon applied for its 1-Click patent on 9/22/1997.

"The Perl Advent Calendar has come a long way since it's first year in 2000," says an announcement on Reddit. But in fact the online world now has many daily advent calendars aimed at programmers — offering tips about their favorite language or coding challenges.

• The HTMHell site — which bills itself as "a collection of bad practices in HTML, copied from real websites" — decided to try publishing 24 original articles for their 2022 HTMHell Advent Calendar. Elsewhere on the way there's the Web Performance Calendar, promising daily articles for speed geeks. And the 24 Days in December blog comes to life every year with new blog posts for PHP users.

• The JVM Advent Calendar brings a new article daily about a JVM-related topic. And there's also a C# Advent calendar promising two new blog posts about C# every day up to (and including) December 25th.

• The Perl Advent Calendar offers fun stories about Perl tools averting December catastrophes up at the North Pole. (Day One's story — "Silent Mite" — described Santa's troubles building software for a ninja robot alien toy, since its embedded hardware support contract prohibited unwarrantied third-party code, requiring a full code rewrite using Perl's standard library.) Other stories so far this December include "Santa is on GitHub" and "northpole.cgi"

• The code quality/security software company SonarSource has a new 2022 edition of their Code Security Advent Calendar — their seventh consecutive year — promising "daily challenges until December 24th. Get ready to fill your bag of security tricks!" (According to a blog post the challenges are being announced on Twitter and on Mastadon.

• Just as the Perl community spawned another language named Perl 6 — now called Raku — there's also a Raku-themed advent calendar. (It's now at a new URL, though it's been running since 2009.) Day Three's post tells the story of Santa and the Rakupod Wranglers.

• "24 Pull Requests" dares participants to make 24 pull requests before December 24th. (The site's tagline is "giving back to open source for the holidays.") Over the years tens of thousands of developers (and organizations) have participated — and this year they're also encouraging organizers to hold hack events.

• The Advent of JavaScript and Advent of CSS sites promise 24 puzzles delivered by email (though you'll have to pay if you also want them to email you the solutions!)

• TryHackMe.com has its own set of darily cybersecurity puzzles (and even a few prizes).

• For 2022 Oslo-based Bekk Consulting (a "strategic internet consulting company") is offering an advent calendar of their own. A blog post says its their sixth annual edition, and promises "new original articles, podcasts, tutorials, listicles and videos every day up until Christmas Eve... all written and produced by us - developers, designers, project managers, agile coaches, management consultants, specialists and generalists."

Whether you participate or not, the creation of programming-themed advent calendar sites is a long-standing tradition among geeks, dating back more than two decades. (Last year Smashing magazine tried to compile an exhaustive list of the various sites serving all the different developer communities.)

But no list would be complete without mentioning Advent of Code. This year's programming puzzles involve everything from feeding Santa's reindeer and loading Santa's sleigh. The site's About page describes it as "an Advent calendar of small programming puzzles for a variety of skill sets and skill levels that can be solved in any programming language you like."

Now in its eighth year, the site's daily two-part programmig puzzles have a massive online following. This year's Day One puzzle was solved by 178,628 participants...

For the last thirteen years the Free Software Foundation has published its Ethical Tech Giving Guide, notes a recent FSF blog post. "The right to determine what a device you've purchased does or doesn't do is something too valuable to lose."

Or, as they put it in the guide: It's time to reclaim our freedom from the abuse of multinational corporations, who use proprietary software and malicious "antifeatures" to keep us powerless, dependent, and surveilled by the devices that we use. There's no time at which it's more important to turn these unfortunate facts into positive action than the holiday season.

The gifts that we recommend here might not be making headlines, but they're the rare exception to the apparent rule that devices should mistreat their users.
For technical users, the guide recommends pairing the FSF-sponsored Replicant, a fully-free distribution of Android, with the F-Droid app repository, which has hundreds of applications including Syncthing, Tor, Minetest, and Termux.

They also praise the X200 laptop, "one of the few home user devices that's able to run fully free software from top to bottom." With easy-to-repair hardware, it's the laptop most frequently used in the FSF's own office — just one of several freedom-respecting devices from Vikings. And there's shout-outs to MNT's Reform laptop, products from PINE64 and Purism, plus a freedom-respecting VPN, and a mini wifi adapter .

The guide even recommends places to buy DRM-free ebooks, including No Starch Press, Smashwords, Leanpub, Standard Ebooks, Nantucket E-Books, Libreture (which also offers a storage solution). Meanwhile for print books, there's the Gnu Press Shop

And it also recommends sources for DRM-free music (including Bandcamp, Emusic, the Smithsonian Institute's Folkways, the classic punk label Dischord, HDTracks, and Mutopia).

And it also tells you where to find free (as in freedom) films...

I Programmer writes: December 1st is much anticipated among those who like programming puzzles. It is time to start collecting stars by solving small puzzles on the Advent of Code website with the goal of amassing 50 stars by Christmas Day, December 25th. Raku has also opened its advent calendar and there's a brand new Bekk Christmas blog with informational content on multiple topics... At the time of writing we are only 10.5 hours into Advent of Code's Day 1, almost 50,000 users have completed both puzzles and another 8,484 have completed the first. [Some programmers are even livestreaming their progress on Twitch, or sharing their thoughts (and some particuarly creative solutions) in the Advent of Code subreddit.]

We can credit Perl with pioneering the idea of a programming advent calendar with daily articles with a festive theme and the Raku Advent Calendar now continues the tradition. Now in its 13th year, but only the third with its new name this year's first advent post solves a problem faced by Santa of creating thumbnails of approaching 2 billion images...
Smashing magazine has pulled together its own exhaustive list of additional geek-themed advent calendars. Some of the other highlights:

• The beloved site "24 Pull Requests" has relaunched for 2021, daring participants to make 24 pull requests before December 24th. (The site's tagline is "giving back to open source for the holidays.") Over the years 26,465 contributors (as well as 25,738 organizations) have already participated through the site.

• The Advent of JavaScript and Advent of CSS sites promise 24 puzzles delivered by email (though you'll have to pay if you also want them to email you the solutions!)

• This year also saw daily challenges from the sixth annual Code Security advent calendar being announced on Twitter, while TryHackMe.com has its own set of cybersecurity puzzles (and even a few prizes).