Farewell, 2024
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On the final day of the year, I wanted to reflect on the changes & things that have happened over the past 12 months.
Journaling
About midway through this year, I wanted to get into journaling / planning physically. I've used tools like Notion & Obsidian for years already to digitally store my thoughts and knowledge, but I wanted to give it a try using physical notebooks again for the first time since my college days. I have been trying a lot of different styles of journaling (stream of consciousness journaling, topic based entries, bullet-journal / todo lists), and I will have to see if I stick with some or drop others into the new year, but I definitely have enjoyed the process.
I'd say most of all, slowing down with the process is one of the key results I've seen going from digital to analog. Being able to put away my devices, distractions, and just sit with my thoughts has been an empowering thing that I have gotten out of writing things down with pen and paper. I can write a ton of content on a keyboard, but adding friction to the process I think can bring forth more deep ideas to the page.
Cloud -> Local
In January this year I got a Synology NAS to centralize my data across many devices to a single location. With this, I have been slowly starting to shift my mindset about side projects where previously I would start with AWS as the deployment method, but in reality these tools could as well just be deployed to a local computer on my network. As part of this, I have been using Kubernetes on my Mac Mini, and I have been able to use the tooling and techniques that I have been learning over the years both at work and in my personal development that I can build apps and solutions that are cloud-like, but not explicitly subjected to vendor lock-in.
That said, using cloud-based solutions still are useful in certain circumstances. Syncing Git repos to GitHub or backups to Google Drive or AWS S3 still is a part of my workflow, but it is a shift of using a cloud product when it makes sense rather than it being the default.
AI
Like the past few years Generative Artificial Intelligence is one of the biggest stories in tech, and I personally have been using it more and more, but I am still skeptical of the ramifications and effects of it across society. Both Humane and Rabbit completely flopped on both of their AI products and although agents possibly being a powerful tool coming down the road, it is clear that the tech just does not exist in a useful capacity today. Apple Intelligence so far as well has been a flop in my opinion as personally I do not really use any of the new features on a daily basis after trying things out for the past few months.
The key thing that really needs to get better with AI in general in my opinion is regulation and public understanding & trust. In a society ridden with misinformation to the point that people are caring less and less, I feel we need to empower people in a direction where they understand the limits of these tools and how to use them effectively. I've been thinking about writing a piece about media literacy at large, and I think it is really important now as more and more content is being either completely generated or assisted by AI.
Now in certain circumstances, I do think the concept of AI has been powerful. Being able to digest data in niche topic areas or answer questions where traditional tools like Stack Overflow or Google fall on their face has been useful, but I feel due to the way LLMs are built, you always have to be wary of the answer. It usually doesn't get me to the end result I want, but these tools can be a good stepping stone to where I actually want to get to.
Visiting Friends
I took 3 trips this year to visit friends from out of town and all three were definitely worth it. There definitely is a stronger connection to people that you get with a face-to-face interaction compared to just talking with people over the internet. As well, it can be difficult to keep up with those connections with everything else in the world going on, so I am hoping in 2025 I can keep on finding time to travel and spending time with people that are important to me.