Macro

Gemini at this point seems to be leapfrogging Claude and OpenAI. Case in point today: When we bought our house, it came without a floor plan. During our kitchen renovation time I found a similar listing from years past in our community with exact same floor plan that helped us get some initial mental model in for renovation. I never saved the second floor floor plan and now I have no idea where it is. Today I needed the second floor floor plan for measuring. I decided why not use Gemini to figure out what the second floor floor plan might be based on the first floor floor plan I could imagine. Within no time Gemini found the exact fucking match of the floor plan style, community, city and the time it was built and by whom. It then gave me dimensions of my second floor with descriptions. Color me fucking impressed.

So I tried the same question with Claude and OpenAI. Both of them failed miserably. Both of them went on a tangent trying to read the image uploaded, looking at metadata on the image, trying to find out who uploaded the image and generally were inconclusive and did not yield anything meaningful. Both of them gave up and said they did not have any idea, however both did say it’s a common floor in VA area after I prompted them that I lived in VA (duh!). Betting against Google in AI is a fool’s errand and I have no doubt in my mind that Google will win the AI race.

We have a rather laborious home project (or so I thought) that I had been pushing for a while. We basically wanted to move our guest room bed to a smaller room to make it the guest room (not like we have guests all the time!). The smaller room that had a daybed and workstation needed to move to the room occupied by my kid. The kid has almost a broken bed right now so we wanted to get rid of it, and since she has a full bed the room she is in is kinda full, so our aim was to move her to the bigger guest room as her space, and her room now became the workstation + daybed room. Since we were doing this anyway, we ordered new bed frame for her along with a vanity so she had new things to start with. All this sounded like so much work, but I thought maybe if I spent an entire weekend on it should be doable! Well, I was wrong – I barely go through disassembling one part of day bed and it was few hours gone given my limited handyman skillset. I was like fuck it, looking at scope of all the stuff I went ahead and got a handyman from thumbtack who quoted me a fix rate for the day to get this shit done. He came at 9 and has already finished half the work and now I am like fuck how incredibly bad I must be at these tasks. Thank god he is not competing for my job (YET!).

I uploaded an XML export of my 2025 posts to Gemini and asked it to create a 2025 replay for me. It did a great job!

Your 2025 on Stupendous Blog was a year of significant transitions, sharp political observations, and a deep appreciation for the “micro” moments of life—from the frustration of winter to the excitement of a new career chapter.

Here is a replay of your 2025 through the lens of your posts:

🌍 The Global Nomad: Travel & Observations

Your year included a notable trip to India, where you contrasted the infrastructure and lifestyle of the East and West.

• Airport Awe: You were blown away by Bangalore Airport Terminal 2, describing it as “absolutely stunning” with its seamless blend of greenery and indoor space, noting that Western airports “look crap” by comparison.
• Traffic Realities: You observed that the “incessant traffic” is the primary lifestyle difference between India and the USA, suggesting that mental readiness for it is key to the experience.
• Culinary Readiness: Your trip featured a focused “onslaught” on local food, with your stomach and spirit both ready for the feast.

💼 Career & Personal Growth

April marked a turning point in your professional life as you navigated a transition between roles.

• The Big Move: You expressed a mix of excitement and relief about leaving a team where you felt unfairly treated by a manager who favored others while putting you in difficult situations.
• New Beginnings: You welcomed a “slow-paced” few weeks before diving into a demanding new role, looking forward to the fresh start.
• AI Integration: By July, you were leveraging AI tools at work to create high-quality product mockups, marveling at how these tools are transforming the creative process.

⚖️ Politics & Social Commentary

You didn’t shy away from strong opinions on the state of the world, often using your “Macro” category for biting commentary.

• The “New Admin”: Early in the year, you reflected on the power of executive orders under the new administration, noting how much a president can accomplish even if challenged in court.
• Tax Cut Irony: You pointed out the irony of receiving a tax break as a dual-income household in a high-cost area, despite not voting for the “pumpkin”.
• Global Conflicts: You offered a somber critique of Western nations recognizing a Palestinian state only after years of war, questioning the timing and the “brownie points” being sought.

🏠 Life at Home & Digital Independence

The small, everyday moments provided a grounded counter-perspective to your heavier political posts.

• The “Endless Pit”: In August, you captured the classic Golden Retriever personality, noting how your dog begged for food immediately after a gourmet meal of grilled chicken and bread.
• Tech Skepticism: You shared your frustration with “chaotic” apps like Snapchat, wondering how teens navigate the sensory overload.
• Digital Sovereignty: A key insight from August was your pride in maintaining your own WordPress instance, citing the “micro.blog drama” as a reason to value having your own corner of the internet to share “admittedly a lot” of content.

⚽ The Year’s “Stupendous” Finish

• World Cup Fever: December brought a major win: securing tickets to four World Cup matches in Philadelphia. You expressed joy at the prospect of sharing this experience with friends in the area.
• Entertainment Highlights: Your year in pop culture was bookended by a deep appreciation for The Weeknd’s Hurry Up Tomorrow and an uncomfortable fascination with the dinner scene in Severance S2E6.

2025 Theme: Personal independence in a chaotic world. Whether it was managing your own blog, moving to a better professional environment, or securing your own spot at the World Cup, 2025 was about you taking control of your space and your story.

The funny part about renaming Kennedy center for performing arts as Trump-Kennedy center is he knows that if they had just renamed it as Trump center nobody would know what institution they are referring to. He is so insecure he still needs the Kennedy name to ensure people know. But I hope at least 56% of white men and 53% of white women can jerk off happily tonight to their king.

Google photos is so good that I honestly wish I could just use Google Photos for photo backup instead of iCloud. Unfortunately with amount of photos I have, that is not a possibility right now unless I invest in a good local NAS solution. However the cost to set a local NAS solution will pay for several years of cloud backup solution so it’s an endless circle of substandard solutions.

Oh haha, Task is not just set in the town where our friend lives but in the same community – the house they shot in is just a few houses down from our friends place. I remember him telling us they saw a show being filmed last year but didn’t realize it was Task. To think we visit this part of Philly few times a year.

Roomba/iRobot would have probably survived if Amazon had bought them over in 2022 as they wanted to and were not allowed by regulators. Now the market is flooded by equally good Chinese manufacturers with lots of bells & whistles and fancy apps, all sharing your private data across the pond. But hey, at least Amazon did not get that data amirite?

Yesterday out of nowhere my ex roommate from engineering days called up from Australia. The last time we met and talked was in 2016. But what is it about these friendships that it felt like we started from where we left off and talked for an hour. And now who knows how long will it be before we talk again – not that we don’t have WhatsApp – it’s just that we have really stayed in touch. It felt good to reminisce our engineering days and all the lovely time spent together. There is something about these friendships that are just special – they don’t require effort or time to maintain – they just are. We promised we’d both be better in keeping in touch but who are we kidding? But I also know when we do visit Australia again, I will be housed again at this place in Sydney!

I don’t get the Europeans complaining about being priced out of World Cup tickets. The tickets are least of it. Flying to and from USA in peak summer, coupled with hoteling or Airbnb costs especially in summer and transport considerations coz we are not blessed like Europe means that even if World Cup was priced at 100$, you would still have to be fairly affluent and willing to spend a lot of money to come to this World Cup. And it’s the same for rest of world too. It’s rather unfortunate but that is just the reality (and one of many reasons I hope they never host a World Cup again in this part of the world!).