[unofficial weekender] Last of 2025

[blinky465 17208xp 3]

It’s 9pm on 30th December and I just officially finished off our last mince pie.
It’s weird not knowing what day it is. There’s still sliced turkey in the fridge and I’ve eaten almost nothing but processed pork products, cold leftovers and biscuits for days. Tomorrow is still 2025 apparently.
I’m ready for everyone to go home. I want my house back and I want to just sit and paint and do “hobby things” until someone tells me it’s time to get up and go back to work.

How’s everyone else holding up ?

[limburger 22392xp 1]

I somehow managed to avoid going outside for the past few days.

It can’t possibly be because I’ve been argueing with Gemini just to have it hallucinate changes to my design when I don’t pay attention for a few seconds.

So flippin’ annoying to not get the idea I have in my head into some sort of design that I can reference and improve.

It’s like talking to a computer with alzheimers’ disease.

Seriously. I thought all I needed to do is figure out what materials I needed to order, but the moment I open the conversation on the website half the files are missing. Anyone who thinks that ‘AI’ is going to replace jobs is hallucinating.

It is good at being a politician or sales person as it can lie with the best of them though.

I shall also blame the weather as it was too bloody cold outside.

So *aarrrrhg*

and of course all of this meant that I’ve done f*ck all and my hobby room still isn’t finished.

[grantinvanman 9325xp 2]

@blinky465 I managed only ONE family event this year! Christmas Dinner – that’s it. I’ve been monstrously productive as a result, my partner has been working on her next course for professional certification for work during the holiday and doesn’t want interruption. Paint and build it is.

Today was a distraction, new guitar day, a Tom Morello signature “Arm the Homeless” Fender, with the hippos on it. It’s fun! But mostly a collector piece for me, as I’ve switched to playing bass in my band:

the Denis Waterman Experience – a doo doo doo…

[sundancer 44302xp 1]

How’s everyone else holding up ?

@blinky465  just wrapped up the last stream of 2025. We had 2 family christmas dinners. Over and my mothers place and one over at my mother in laws place. Tomorrow will be all ours. 🙂

[blinky465]

@limburger – I used ChatGPT to explain code sometimes. Sometimes I ask it to validate syntax for things I’ve written (I work in so many different languages, I find it really hard to remember the syntax for all of them – so write almost “pseudo-code” and ask for the syntax). In almost every case, my conversations with ChatGPT end up with me calling it a twat and reaching for a reference book off my shelves.

ChatGPT summarised 2025 for me – it said I’d worked on electronics projects, written software, and swore a lot.
It wasn’t wrong. AI *will* replace jobs in the immediate future – it’s already happening. We’re all just hoping we can survive the next five years or so – if I’m still employed/employable by then, I’ll be worth a fortune, fixing all the slop it’s generated and called “code”.

Good luck with the hobby room.
I was supposed to start Bungalow 2.0 during my time off this Xmas. I haven’t even begun the foundations.

 

@grantinvanman – playing bass sounds like great fun. Booby-de-boo-wop-de-bomp-bomp.
I played the bass line for “the time warp” at an open mic a little while back and it was amazing fun.
How I wish I’d managed to get away with just one engagement with family this year!
On a sort-of-related question – how often do you change your bass strings? Do you prefer fresh and “clanky” or that old and mellow sound that comes from 18 months of bacon grease build up on the underside of the strings?

 

@sundancer – hope you enjoy your NYE.
If it was just me and Nick, I’d have booked us a surprise visit to see her daughter (who is in Naples atm) for NYE. But I’m still “entertaining” until my sister decides it’s time to take her kids home (or, more likely, until her kids decide that Uncle Chris is too boring to hang around with and they want to go home – I’m working on it…).
I’m slightly envious of you having the entire day to yourself – you lucky sod! 🙂

 

• This reply was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by blinky465.

[grantinvanman 9325xp 0]

@blinky465 – there are certain bass lines that are so classic that it’s a BLAST to lay it down! I change mine every couple of months, still poppy but not dead, if that makes sense? Flatwound also will give you more mellow, less bacon fat. My guitar strings way more often. They almost have to be new for me to like the sound. Bright!

[sundancer 44302xp 0]

12 hours to go. Things still to do:

• clear kitchen desk
• extend kitchen desk
• play board games
• build LEGO
• watch Dinner For One at least once
• have a nice dinner
• have some colourful but quiet fireworks
• sleep (a lot)

 

[zoidpinhead 12811xp 1]

I’ve had a lovely holiday season with lots of good food and plenty of board games, thanks for asking @blinky465 .  We’ve particularly enjoyed Terraforming Mars: The Dice Game which is similar to the main game but easier for non-regular gamers to pick up.  Finally finished the 1,000 piece Moomins jigsaw  – too much plain white which made the last 100 pieces less enjoyable than they might have been.

I’m looking forward to an afternoon of board games and nice food.  Your day sounds very cozy @sundancer

watch Dinner For One at least once

If there is a more German thing to do, I don’t know what it is 🙂

Have a great last day of 2025 everyone.

 

[limburger 22392xp 1]

@blinky465 I use Github Co-pilot at work (I think it uses Chat-gpt as an engine).
It is usually brilliant for the small boring bits like adding documentation or creating a class from json-data.

It’s predictive qualities can be a hit and a miss.

I doubt it will ever get better that this, because it simply doesn’t grok what it is doing and relies on humans having written stuff before.

(it is also supposed to not provide copyrighted code … so the one time I asked it to help me create a HTML table it refused to do so because it considered it part of ‘forbidden’ examples … 😀 )

The bigger issue with ‘AI’ is how it has made idiots in charge think that it can replace a human at the helpdesk.
So instead of getting real answers you get to talk to a chat bot that doesn’t know anything and refuses to let you talk to an actual human.

And yeah … while it may replace jobs in the short term, we will have to undo a lot of the damage it does either in the background or suffer the consequences of companies going bankrupt due to not being fast enough at mitigating the problems (there already are stories floating around … ).

It kind of is like this with any new tech, but I suspect the disaster curve will be much steeper with this one.

// —

Last day of 2025 … let’s try and do some hobby for real.

[blinky465 17208xp 1]

Happy New Year you ‘orrible lot.

Here’s to lots of hobby fun in 2026….

[grantinvanman 9325xp 0]

Happy New Year from Canada, eh. First post of 2026!

[danlee 22831xp 0]

Happy new year everyone!

[pagan8th 14050xp 0]

Happy New Year

[sundancer 44302xp 0]

Yeah, I made it too. What a surprise XD

So, what’s for dinner?

[limburger 22392xp 0]

it was a floggin’ warzone out there …

my security cameras could use daylight mode instead of the usual infrared/black&white view.

I hope no limbs or vital body parts were lost.

Mine are all present and correct.

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