I am not a morning person, despite being up and about before 7am every day of summer so far. Something about my brain makes it only efficient after a long warm up and stretching routine... I don't even trust myself to take a meeting until I've had a coffee.

But when I have my morning coffee, especially when I pay a barista to make it for me with nice beans and multiple shots, and I start to consume it, I get this overwhelming feeling of clarity and alertness. I feel completely energised, like I can complete all the tasks on my to-do list, follow every entrepreneurial whim to profitability, and masterfully produce any creative pursuit that crosses my mind.

This feeling only last about 15 minutes, and unfortunately I typically spend all of that time on the toilet.

If you set your interval timer for 4 rounds of 90 seconds with 12 seconds rest and a 5 seconds countdown and you start stretching at 11:53:18PM exactly you can start the new year with stretched hip flexors.

What is AI actually useful for? Can it really help with:

Morning strolls to the markets for good coffee and fresh fruit.

Dog walks in the rain.

Peak hour idling, listening to tunes, no stress.

Catching up with friends for BBQs.

A brief nap.

Dinner and drinks out to celebrate an engagement.

I guess yes, because I got to do all of that on a busy day, and in just an hour before bed I managed to build a FastAPI backend and React frontend for a custom docker container to host my utilities.

The value of AI will really be the time it saves for us to socialise, and get away from computers.

I could easily spend my free time between years generating code with AI to fulfil minor feature requests on my side projects. As fun as that is, this part of the year really should be used for reflection on a year that’s passed. And there’s a decent amount to ruminate on. While I’ve only posted about 100 entries in 2024, a lot has happened behind the scenes that is important not to forget.

For reflecting, I thought a review of my entries for the year so far would be a good place to start. That’s about 27,000 words which is quite a lot and only about half of that is me detailing my warm up routine before gym. So I decided to use AI to extract it into natural language, and then use code generation tools to write a python script which used a locally hosted instance of llama 3.2 to summarise the content. And finally I passed the overall summary to a larger Anthropic model to evaluate it and reflect on it for me.

This might be cheating, or maybe this is actually more effective because it cancels out my human biases and limitations. Either way, it is a microcosm of a large part of 2024. And I thought it was useful because when I think back on 2024 a big part of me gets stuck on Breath of the Wild…

So anyway, here’s what 2024 era Generative AI had to say about my year:

2024 appeared to be a year of significant transitions and self-reflection, largely framed by your 40th birthday milestone. It was a year where you seemed to be actively grappling with the passage of time - both embracing change and occasionally feeling its weight.

Your writing suggested 2024 was less about dramatic changes and more about deepening understanding - of yourself, your place in the world, and how to find contentment in both achievement and acceptance. The year taught you about adaptation and resilience, whether that was through learning to work with AI, managing physical changes, or simply appreciating a good sunset after a day of coding.

It seems pretty good, considering leading AI models aren’t adept for handling my Bradism brand of sarcasm through understatement. It missed that I got a new job and that I didn’t eat an almond the whole year.

I feel like 2024 was a good year, considering I didn’t leave the country at any point. Being forty doesn’t mentally feel any different to being twenty-two, but there are definite physical changes and part of the good year comes from managing those as best as I could.

I did a bunch of stuff with computers and I feel like I am prepared for success in the near future.

I had an enjoyable time in Sydney, Brisbane and Alligator Gorge at various points throughout the year.

I was happy with the way the Quiz Night turned out, it took some of the pain of aging away.

I played Breath of the Wild which was a pretty satisfying open world game.

I feel like every month has had more good things happen in it than bad things, but there have definitely been challenges affecting people and dog’s health, and relationships, and while none of that has been good I feel like I’ve helped manage those things as best as can be managed.

I miss my old teeth.

As Christmas comes up on 17 centuries of relevance, it sometimes feels like the true meaning is forgotten in all the festive planning and purchasing that's needed to try and ensure relationships with other humans can be maintained for another twelve months so we can all celebrate Christmas again.

And anyway, the true meaning of Christmas is a bit subjective, but...

"And lo, a child was sent, pure and unblemished, to bring unity to the nations and peace to the hearts of all men."

2024 was the first Christmas for my latest nephew, and while his name is not Jesus I feel like he has already done a great job of unifying the world because now instead of having to do one drive to the Barossa and another to the southern beaches I only needed to drive 20 minutes across town.

And jesting aside, it is nice to see the way a baby can provide a focal point for a gathering with much lower cognitive drain than a board game.

"Shortly after dawn Nash went out with them, walking on the lake."

Before the festivities, early in the morning, we took Nash for a short walk and paddle in the lake and a surprise meat puff. It was a hot day, so we took advantage of the angles to maximise our shade and enjoy the outdoors for as long as possible before we returned home for cooking and eating and gift arranging. I made a couple of braided pesto bread wreaths that turned out pretty good.

After a long day and lots of heat, we drove back west to end the day with a walk on the beach and a mid-strength beer to drink as the sun painted the sky.

"And he walked the sandy shore, a beer in hand, as the waves whispered peace to his soul."

(Thanks to ChatGPT for inventing some biblical-sounding quotes.)