Silicon Valley has a lot of very bright people, but there are very few who ever reach the level of Steve Jobs. One who might come close is Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who has actually been able to use his visionary take on the future to snatch away senior execs from Apple to come and work for him.

According to a Musk employee writing on Quora, however, it’s not just employees that Elon shares in common with Apple’s late co-founder and former CEO.

Much like Jobs, Musk is described as having a ‘reality distortion field’ that helps him convince others that what they view as impossible doesn’t have to remain that way.

And it’s not always a pretty sight.

This week, on our maiden episode of 2015: The story of an iOS developer who gave a gift so generous, it went viral; discovering new apps and podcasts on iTunes is an awful experience, but we know how to fix it; plus, how Steve Jobs contributions helped rebuild a struggling Disney…

And stay tuned for an all-new CultCast 2nd Hour, where pro photographer David Hobby shares his favorite tips and tactics for taking great travel photos, his bag-worthy gear, plus his street photography advice will help you not get punched…

Our thanks to lynda.com for sponsoring this episode! Learn virtually any application at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at lynda.com.

Full show notes ahead!

One of the selling points of a Mac these days is the ability to run Windows software on it, via virtualization or Apple’s own Boot Camp. Running Windows lets you play PC games that haven’t been ported to the Mac, or stay completely compatible with your documents from a PC-centric workplace.

Virtualization software like Parallels or VMWare Fusion (two of the best apps to run Windows software on your Mac without partitioning your hard drive for Boot Camp) isn’t free, though these applications do allow you to try before you buy. Windows 8.1, the current version of Microsoft’s operating system, will run you about $120 for a plain-jane version.

You can run the next-gen OS from Microsoft (Windows 10) on your Mac using virtualization for free, however. We took a quick run at doing just that, as originally sussed out by the fantastic folks over at iMore.

While most of us are still a day away from 2015, in New Zealand, New Year has already happened. Celebrating with an amusingly offbeat message, Steve Wozniak took to Facebook to engage in a bit of numerical fun for the year ahead.

Having turned 64 this year, 2014 has seen Woz on vintage form: from his controversially suggesting Apple should create an Android device, to penning an open letter to the FCC asking them to keep the Internet free, to raising eyebrows by dismissing the Apple Watch as a “luxury fitness band.”

With plans for a reality TV show and his heart set on becoming a fully-fledged Australian citizen, it seems 2015 is likely to be just as eventful.

Until then, you can check out Woz’s “unique” New Year’s message after the jump:

Real estate in New York? It just ain’t cheap. In fact, it’s so expensive that even if you have a successful business you might not be able to afford it.

Case in point? Look no further than Restoration Hardware. The American chain of home furnishings, hardware, and outdoor and garden products may be worth over a billion dollars in revenue as of 2012, but Steve Jobs once had to personally bail the company out.

A great TV commercial will often be remembered for a lot longer than the product it’s trying to sell, so it’s no wonder companies spend hundreds of millions every year in pursuit of that one ad that will be a huge success. Some of the best ads we’ve seen this year come from the likes of Budweiser, P&G, Save The Children, and of course, Apple — and you’ll find them in the roundup below.

The Apple blogosphere was ablaze yesterday with reports that the ripoff artists at Xiaomi had come up with the Chinese company’s most brazen copycat product yet. A supposedly leaked image showed a MacBook Air lookalike that was virtually indistinguishable from Cupertino’s offering with the exception of a Xiaomi logo.

Well, the picture is a fake, according to a Xiaomi representative.

While it’s great to hear that Apple’s intellectual property is upheld in this instance, however, it’s still less than ideal for Xiaomi for one very simple reason: just how believable the rumor was.

We love GIFs here at Cult of Mac and 2014 did not disappoint in providing us with twelve months worth of hypnotic images that deserve to be watched, over and over and over.

We already highlighted the most GIF-able moments of 2014, but in our final GIF roundup of the year we’re busting out the best images of the year that came out of Cult of Mac’s GIF making factory (also known as Buster’s underpowered MacBook Air). We GIF’d everything from Tim Cook’s ice bucket challenge, to the hilarious Bendgate controversy that was the Internet’s joke du jour for weeks.

Here are the best Cult of Mac GIFs of 2014:

There were more viral videos in 2014 than you can shake a stick at, and you could spend weeks watching them all. From John Oliver to the Ice Bucket Challenge, we were absolutely inundated with stuff to watch throughout the year, and that’s a great thing.

Wishing you could relive some of the best viral video moments of 2014? We’ve collected some of the best for your enjoyment:

2015 is nearly upon us, but before you pop the bubbly, listen up for the tech, apps, movies and TV shows that delighted us in 2014. You’ll get it all in this very special, far too long, last-episode-of-the-2014 … CultCast.

Our thanks to lynda.com for sponsoring this episode! Learn virtually any application at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at lynda.com.

Click on for the show notes.