2024 - A Long Context Window Being Paid Attention To By A Transformer

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.