I’m still not good at nano banana image creation. After 5 minutes… this is all I got.
It the words of a leadership teacher I had, it’s time to ask the check-in questions.
What went well
What didn’t go well
What can I do differently for 2026
What went well
It was my first full year of doing weeknotes, I started at the tail end of 2024. I wouldn’t say I’m prolific and on time with them, but they shake up the excuse for bigger pieces of perfection and got me hitting publish more often.
I touched on every one of Ongs Psychodynamics of an Oral Culture. My own thoughts on it all – the one characteristic of a literate society vs post literate one, is “words are not signs“. in post literate the word “stop” is no different than the emoji “🛑” Now’s the time to stew, fallow, and see what I can improve on and refine.
Finally formally ADHD diagnosed. Start seeing what I can do about that.
What didn’t go well
Let’s skim these to stay light:
The big elephant 🐘 of didn’t go well: furlough to layoff to WTF.
The body has been a struggle this year.
Started ADHD meds (yay) switch from private to public health and lost the ADHD meds (boo). All for OK reasons – caution and due diligence and all. But still… I was seeing benefits, and now I’m back to limbo.
What can I do differently for 2026
Not really what can I do “differently” more like, what am I already trying to do differently that I’ll continue or try more of.
Note: there’s aren’t resolutions, I don’t like resolutions. They are more like – I’m-saying-them-out-loud-in-public-so-maybe-I-might-do-them things.
keep on with the ADHD meds/exploration train
keep exploring AI to build more things
getting out into the world, maybe a meetup or conference
Given last weeks post… it’s been a struggling week. To top it off…
That’s what a close friend sent me!
and through it… I’m tinkering. If I’m going to build something and put something in the world, I’ve looked back and it’s likely in December. I get all pensive around my bday, asking what am I doing with myself? And then I go off and make something.
Minimum Vibeable Product
What have I been making? I’ve been sinking my teeth into a little pet project. It’s my own little ActivityPub corner of the internet. And love it or hate it… I’m vibe coding.
I’m working with Google Gemini through Antigravity. And After a couple weeks. It’s fun to be a micro manager of a developer sometimes and, that’s pretty much what you feel like.
I give it some vague detailed order; it does some translating of that order; makes a plan and a todo.; checks with me if I agree, and I do about 80% of the time; then goes off and does it.
I review the code and for me… it’s good enough. After all I’m not going for any developer accolades with my little project. Right now, I’m just going for an MVP.
Note: If you’re a developer and want to watch something funny, as it to unit test everything it builds. Watch it argue with it self, sure it’s built perfect code, and then see every unit test fail. And then it argue with itself.
Note II: I now always ensure everything it builds has a corresponding unit test.
I’ve found once Google’s Nano Banana gets an idea in it’s head… it has some trouble letting go.
Here’s how the prompts went:
Make me a picture in the style of Ren & Stimpy an interpretive picture of sleep deprivation caused by back pain, flu and children
That’s a little too scary for folks… try again more like Spongebob Squarepants, and you don’t need the text.
Hmmm. Can you start again? Make me a picture in the style of Spongebob Squarepants an interpretive picture of sleep deprivation caused by back pain, flu and children. No need to add any text where the person sick is a person
Ya, sure. I think I can say that’s been my week on a bunch of fronts. Ship it.
I’ve finally decided to pull the chord and give this whole AI stuff a real college try, as they say.
After some consideration, I used the highly scientific Eeny-Meeny-Miny-Moe method and landed on Gemini.
So how’s it going?
Images
Kids love it. The colouring pages are fun for them. Even the neighbours kids are coming over asking.
Though I find myself really needing to ask “can you try it again, but this time….” comments.
I’ve also been struggling a bit on dimensions. While the images look nice, I usually want them to be specific in shape, and it’s been a struggle to say the least.
I really wonder the long books length prompts that are required for some of the more advanced uses of these tools.
Here’s an image when prompted “Make an picture of Google Gemini”
Coding Agents
When I first started trying to code with Gemini, it was a small pain because I essentially was given step by step prompts on what to do and samples. Meh…
Cursor was fun… but felt like it added a bit of bloat – lot’s of code that maybe didn’t need to be there.
It cleaned up after itself and I though… well that’s interesting.
The way it does it’s briefs and summaries I find very intuitive to read through through the steps and thoughts the agent explored.
I gotta say, it makes some of the lighter work easier when you can give it the simpler tasks and it just does it. Give a quick read to make sure it went through the right mental steps as checks and balances.
I haven’t fully flexed it’s muscles, but I think I just might and see what comes of it.
I don’t have any other idea’s that need that deep of a data set, but if I did – that’s a cool tool.
Gems
Gemini has Gems, there are like little helper agents. I tried it for a few days for a bit for things like productivity and ADHD exploration.
Maybe it’s what I tried to have them help me with? However my overall take is that it would be so easy to have it hold my hand and tell me what to do next. But, that’s kinda one of those things that has my dooms day yellow flag going off a tad.
Overall Thoughts
I gotta say, this stuff is fun, and enticing. It’s so easy to see the time savers. I think I’ll keep playing for a bit more, however I’ll probably push it a little further out to an arms distance…
Just one full week in, and I can quickly see and even feel a little bit of the ethical pitfalls. Those psychological cracks it the mind that it can easily slip in through.
If not careful. If not resilient.
Being told that every question I have is a great question; that I’m always making great progress; that I am awesome. Doing it over and over, feels off. Like surrounding yourself with digital “yes” folk.
Giving up my own agency and asking it what I think I should do next. Maybe use its take on a subject that perhaps I should have my own take on. Perhaps the right course in life would be to make a left turn, zig when I should zag. If I’m not careful enough I might give it enough of my agency it will tell me to keep driving straight, and I’ll do it, even though into the proverbial lake straight ahead.
Changing how I communicate. How I ask questions or better yet, how I “prompt”. The novels I would write for it, to do the things I want it to. And it will get close enough. Though would I even give the same detailed prompts for the real people around me. I shouldn’t need to. They are humans and should just get it. The AI is a computer so it needs me to be more considerate than to those around me. It needs me to be more detailed because of it’s mind.
While this might feel like a bleak outlook, I like to sit in the grey. I can still see the good. I thing the ethical conundrums of our technology have up till now felt pretty small in comparison. This one I can quickly see and even feel the weight.
Though I’m just spit ballin’ – the good old classic “If I had more time I would have written a shorter [post]”
I’ve been doing a bit of AI experimentation and NotebookLM just… well…
Google Gemini Generated: “Mind exploding from Orality, Postman, McLuhan knowledge”
I added McLuhan, Postman, Ong and a few other papers around media & the Gutenberg era ( 1400-1550 ) as sources, and clicked the “Audio Overview” button. I’m still in a state of shock on what it made. Enjoy.
Boom. I’m bona fide! Just got the results today that I passed the exam!
I am an AIPMM Certified Product Manager.
What does that mean now? At this moment, no clue.
Tomorrow, it ties the room together. Maybe it can open doors. It says, yes, I have a diverse background in tech, marketing & business and, yes, I know a thing or two about building things.
This is how I’ve been feeling lately. High high’s and low low’s.
Signed up to get the final AIPMM CPM exam. It’s been a while since I’ve been exam nervous. Now… do I even have a quiet place where no one can bug me for a couple hours???
It’s that time of year! I do Movember every year for their support of mental health. I suggest and those i love suffer. And let’s be honest Men don’t speak up, and we should.
I like to keep people on their toes and mix up the how to watch along. I try to not bombard with daily feeds, but I also think it’s fun to see the progress over time. This year, I’m using pixelfed.
Turkey Weekend 🇨🇦🦃 has drained me so all you get for weeknotes today is a list:
revisit note system through obsidian for my adhd-ness – I’ve used daily template for years, but it’s not feeling right anymore. Time to change it up
Did some reading on L-theanine and ADHD and until I get any movement on re-diagnosis, though why not.
I’m also looking to improve my life pattern specifically trying to help ADHD patterns. Note: I fight patterns and routine on a good day – my ADHD abhors it… which makes things interesting. I’m already telling my Pomodoro timer to put that break in it’s tomato. And I’m only a few days in.
I wrapped up the final psychodamic of an orality culture. I think there’s a few I need to add clarity and revisit, but now what? If we are a postliterate oral culture, and everyone’s like “ya” then what? My comms background is consistently asking myself “why should anyone care?” And it’s a very valid question I still can’t successfully communicate.
Finished the class work on AIPMM CPM. Now it’s time to study up and get ready for the exam.
