I just started a new job. A mix of JS, WASM (C++) and Python. It's been a blessing to help understand and explain an unfamiliar codebase to me. Sometimes the analysis isn't deep enough but I've been able to create enough guiding documents to get it right most of the way through, and for the rest I can continue and dive deeper on my own with further prompting.
I've started using it to write some code, which I then use further prompting to review before my own final review. I feel a lot more productive, I can focus on high level ideas and not think about tiny implementation details.
Having instrumentation code magically created in minutes and being able to validate assumptions before/after making changes by doing manual testing and feeding AI logs has been a great use for me - this kind of stuff is boring and would kill my motivation and productivity in the past. AI helps here so I can move on to the fun stuff, helps me stay engaged and interested.
It's great for writing unit tests and doing log analysis. The usual AI pitfalls apply like going into loops that lead nowhere and hallucinating things, but I've gotten better at spotting it and steering it away. I try not to take what it gives me at face value and use follow up prompts to challenge assumptions or verify things.
So overall, it's been an immense help for me. I've got some interesting projects coming up that are more greenfield work, we'll see if this holds up compared to an existing codebase.
I bought a Creality Ender 3 V2 a little over a year ago, spent 6 months printing things and fiddling with it and finally had it with how primitive it is.
If you have the time and patience for tinkering, the Voron is great.
I built a Voron 2.4 and Voron Trident this year. Both printers are designed with automatic bed leveling as a base feature and I modded them right from the start to have automatic z offset calculation as well with a fancy probe. With these 2 features I have print it and forget it operation 99% of the time with no issues. There have also been some open source multi filament/material projects that you can add to the printers since you have full control of the hardware and software.
You can't imagine how empowering it is to be able to say "No." to food. I stopped eating dessert except once a week. I can be in the company of other people and surrounded by delicious food and not feel the compulsion to eat until I am nauseous.
I've been on tirzepatide (Mounjaro) for 4 months now. I'm down 13% of my body weight. I realized that frequent cannabis consumption interferes with the weight loss, so I've kicked the habit from daily to occasionally on weekends. I've started walking 2-3 miles a day, 2-3 days a week regularly, in addition to eating less and being more motivated to calorie count.
All this to say, this drug has been life changing for me. I spend more time doing things I want to do, depression and anxiety have less of a hold on me now. I feel that this drug has allowed me to be the best version of myself I have been in a long time. The only side effects so far have been positive. I do worry about what I will do once it's time to titrate off the weekly dose and the best I can think of is that the habits I'm forming in the time on the drug I will have the resolve to continue after cessation.
I say this because I have battled depression, anxiety and obesity issues my entire life. I've had many failed attempts at getting back to a healthy, productive and non-obese lifestyle. I don't know what is so different about having the drug help me, but I can tell you that it has been different.
58843787 Managed to remember it along with my password from 20+ years ago and it allowed me to login! Really amazing actually it's been around this long.
I think I remember seeing calls for pieces of this on the SomethingAwful forums back in the day, it was a collaborative art piece. There was a template with specific frames where the ball enters and leaves each square and it was up to forum members to fill in the rest and then it was all stitched together.
Before using a password manager (1Password), I often reused passwords out of convenience in order to not have to remember a lot of them. After switching to a password manager, every password is a strong randomly generated password, I get autofill, syncs across all my devices and most importantly I only need to remember only one super long complicated password. I've got hundreds of stored passwords at this point and I honestly don't think I would be able to manage without it. The 1P family plan is great, shared vaults are super useful to allow me to share certain logins with my wife. Additionally, I like the ability to store arbitrary information securely into my 1P such as credit card info, bank account numbers, drivers license and insurance details, etc. One convenient place to store all my important info with an easy way to share it amongst those who matter most to me.
I'm not going back to a life without a password manager.
I've soured on Musk, but I still love driving my Tesla. I enjoy it enough that I find excuses to take it on night time trips with no destination in mind, driving for the sake of driving. I've only had it for 4 months, but I'm hoping the novelty doesn't wear away anytime soon. I thought I would hate the extreme minimalist interior, but after renting a new ICE vehicle for a little bit on a trip I had severe anxiety seeing all the buttons and knobs and controls littered everywhere, longing for the simple cleanliness of my Tesla.
I didn't particulary find RimWorld to be very fun, but I did end up enjoying Oxygen Not Included, which is a side-scrolling 2d colony management sim that's a bit less serious and way more quirky.
At least with FSD you have the option of paying once for the entire feature (currently 15k) or paying a subscription ($200/mo or $100/mo if you paid once for enhanced autopilot feature (currently $6k). And it's an actual software feature, not unlocking your hardware. Though I think an acceleration boost unlock is/was offered for certain Tesla model 3/Y, which I guess is similar to what Mercedes is doing here, but it's a one time thing instead of subscription.
/MuskRatOut
Best laptop I ever owned was a maxed out Dell XPS M1530 (2008-2013). Wonderful hinge design, WUXGA screen, that thing was a workhorse. Unfortunately it died due to issues with the nvidia gpu warping off the solder joints. I fixed it temporarily by baking the motherboard and got 6 more months out of it.
Building the little probe used to read the x360 dvd drive key out of discrete components with zero knowledge of electronics was probably one of the most fun technical things I did in my early 20's. It was a logic level shifter if I remember correctly, wired to my PC's serial port.
Bought a refurb Dyson cordless V7 on a whim - Didn't want to spend full price because this is the first cordless bagless vac I've owned and I wanted to test the waters. It's been going strong 2+ years, total game changer - will not go back to bagged/corded. Once this thing dies I'm buying the newest one.
I actually got a 10% raise which management was all to happy to say was the best thing they had ever done for a single person. The problem is 10% is nothing if your base pay to begin with was 50% below market rate.
I've started using it to write some code, which I then use further prompting to review before my own final review. I feel a lot more productive, I can focus on high level ideas and not think about tiny implementation details.
Having instrumentation code magically created in minutes and being able to validate assumptions before/after making changes by doing manual testing and feeding AI logs has been a great use for me - this kind of stuff is boring and would kill my motivation and productivity in the past. AI helps here so I can move on to the fun stuff, helps me stay engaged and interested.
It's great for writing unit tests and doing log analysis. The usual AI pitfalls apply like going into loops that lead nowhere and hallucinating things, but I've gotten better at spotting it and steering it away. I try not to take what it gives me at face value and use follow up prompts to challenge assumptions or verify things.
So overall, it's been an immense help for me. I've got some interesting projects coming up that are more greenfield work, we'll see if this holds up compared to an existing codebase.