2025 was the year I...

… did quite a lot, actually. Apparently, when you sit down and think about it, happenings start to surface.

‣ Hated on commercials and the attention-grabbing algorithms more than ever. The coming years will strongly need high-quality, tightly curated information sources to counter the AI slop.

The hate fueled the idea for some sort of “Trust IDs” or a trust network. Maybe a bit like the original Facebook and LinkedIn, but without content. If a person in my network seems to “like” stuff without reading more than the headline or rarely questions the source, I want to be able to filter (or at least downrate) their “promoted” content automatically. I don’t care what everybody else thinks or how many likes it got.

‣ Finished listening to Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari, Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams, and The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey. All recommendable.

Also, read the final two books in the series Skammerends Datter (The Shamer’s Daughter) by Lene Kaaberbøl, titled: Slangens gave (Gift of the Snake) and Skammerkrigen (War of Shame). My kids grew up too fast and didn’t want me reading for them in the evening anymore 😭 but the story was too good, so I had to finish the series.

Lastly, I’ve started listening to Foundation by Isaac Asimov at my wife’s recommendation. The audio experience is not that good, but to be fair, she only recommended the book/story.

‣ Got hooked on Civilization 7 on the Xbox for 3 weeks just when it released. It was all-consuming… just one more turn.

‣ Planted an appel tree with my wife - our apple tree.

‣ Assembled a home server for local LLMs, but didn’t use it as much as I had expected.
— Still very sceptical of the AI hype.

‣ Bought more Lego, both new and second-hand. New Lego consisted of two of pick-a-brick boxes and a couple of Lego Friends sets (42656, 42663 & 42639). While, the second-hand purchases included some Harry Potter without minifigs (at 40€) and Rivendell (at 250€ including minifigs). Haven’t built Rivendell yet, maybe a sign of Lego fatigue? I suspect it is more about the hunt and especially the sorting of the second-hand stuff. At least my brother and his son had some fun building Rivendell, so not entirely wasted.

‣ Attended a strength training class throughout the year. The other old farts are growing on me, I feel right at home.

‣ Caught the winter blues a couple of times. I suspect skipping breakfast for weeks could have attributed to mental fatigue. Wasted time over a couple of months playing an online game in a web browser (refused to install it on my phone as an app but still got sucked into it).

‣ Wrote 21 blog posts compared to 11 the previous year, and I put a substantial amount of time into several of them. I want my blog to feel genuine and authentic, and for every sentence in the content to be deliberate. I believe that you should put thought, effort, and time into the content you share, or it is not worth sharing. I want the blog to feel like a modern take on the old days of the internet. Before Google. Before shitification. I know it is a privilege that I don’t need to make money off my blog.

Regardless, it feels good that people seem to find my blog helpful. Search impact of the blog grew from 150 clicks each month in the beginning of the year to 1.3k near the end. Most of the traffic was attracted by A very small PDF for testing, an almost two year old blog post, which has become what my wife calls “cornerstone content”.

‣ Slightly improved a family relationship, which had needed it for some time.

‣ Went to my parents’ summerhouse as the sole adult with my kids and their two cousins of the same age.

‣ Exited an investment in CUBS A/S (a former employee), and reinvested the money in a venture capital fund. I have a dream of getting solar panels and paying off the house in less than 10 years (it is a cheap house). Hopefully, that will free up a lot of time to work on small open-source projects and volunteer work.

‣ Kept advocating for quality over (perceived) speed at work. It is a tough sell for some reason. Apparently, I haven’t made them tired of listening to me yet, because they extended my contract for the seventh year in a row.

I’m also a missionary for “Fleditor”, an internally built tool for generating advanced templates for PDF generation. Fleditor has great potential in other parts of the public sector due to the high level of digitalization in Danish society — every ministry needs to generate and send PDFs. Again, a really tough sell… “sharing” doesn’t fit into the culture of silo thinking in the public sector. Maybe 2026 will be the year when Fleditor takes off.

‣ Got an appointment at the doctor because the knees still act up when running or taking really long walks. Doctors don’t seem to make much of it, though.

‣ Took walks in the forest at least 1-2 times a month. Saw deer almost every time.

‣ Should have visited my neighbours a bit more to say hi. It would be the right thing to do, they are always so nice.

‣ Saw my parents a lot more than in previous years. I would work from their house 1-2 times a month. Always super cozy and fun during lunch. I should deffo keep this up.

‣ Neglected the podcast Koden Backstage, which I started at the beginning of the year with my old friend and colleague Claus — I think it was shared neglect, though.

‣ Enjoyed seeing my wife for following her heart, finishing her education for Phytoterapy, and getting out of a bad “work relationship”. Looking forward to supporting her on her journey into the exciting unknown. Also, I never get tired of seeing her waving to me at the door when I drive to the office 🤗

‣ Explored the potential of a product for well-being surveys in the non-public schools. The Danish public schools already have a free (but mandatory) system for this. Wasn’t able to determine whether there could be an actual demand.

‣ Maintained a couple of open source Clojure libraries: Wet and aws-simple-sign.

‣ Fell on the stairs. Is that a sign of getting old, or just that I shouldn’t wear slippers?