I integrated a text-to-speech(tts) model into a chat interface for work this week. The challenge was not in working with voice, it was in the infrastructure that connects the llm(s) to the chat interface. The model we wanted to integrate didnāt have a native provider with vercelās ai sdk and for some reason I decided that I will simply write my own. So I wrote sentence buffers and I wrote semaphores and I wrote media players.
My Claude Code burn in the last three months has been in the $250-$400 range. My Claude Code burn in the last two days has been $250. This is because
We have week-long sprints at work now. Itās been good to be really focused, but having demo days on Friday is stressful and unpleasant, and Iāve done this two weeks in a row. Ideally we have 4 day cycles and day 5 is for polish/nits/tech debt/experiments with users. Last month it felt like I was paddling water in place. Now, it feels like I am running a marathon by sprinting. Will the ebbs and flows of work seasons fix this feeling of sustained exhaustion or will I have to make it happen?
Every time I have been employed, I have burnt out. Burn out is not a function of overworking, it is a function of putting in energy and not seeing movement, of caring too much and not being acknowledged. This time, Iām trying to channel my energy into the things I know I can do sustainably, and Iām telling myself that itās okay for other people to do the other things even if I donāt always agree with how itās done. This time I will build sustainable care patterns into my work, the way I have done so in my life.
(in reverse chronological order)
A friend has been staying with me and itās been strangely infuriating. Luckily, our friendship has roots too far in the past and we talked it out. Also luckily, they refuse to read my weeknotes so they will never know I feel this way. š (that is a joke and a lie, if you are my friend you will hear about my feelings)
I had a puzzle emergency (donāt ask) and Rosh and Pranav showed up beautifully to make it happen <3 Iām pretty late, but I made an advent calendar of sorts for the New Year Puzzle Along event Asma is running this year!
I enjoy going to Seedhe Maut concerts because the number of gaalis1/minute increases exponentially in that crowd. The innate dilli will come out from even the mallu fellows. Rap fans are like metal fans who missed the memo. They want to mosh but donāt know how, so theyāll mosh anywhere instead of asking for consent. But because these are Delhi rap fans, the moment they see that you are a woman they have accidentally pulled into the mosh pit they will grovel to apologise and shut all the swears deep where the sun donāt shine. Itās great. The concert was in the Phoenix Mall back area which I hadnāt yet been to. The sound was shit but the act was excellent and I continue to look forward to the next one.
Last weekend was Ankurās birthday extravaganza! Ankur, Shru, and I did a brunch on Monday morning to celebrate his actual birthday and it was so lovely. We ate too much excellent food at BrezelHaus, opened day one of an advent calendar, laughed too loud, sobbed a little (it was me I had a small breakdown), and felt seen by each other. With work taking up all of my time and enforcing good sleep etiquette, we donāt have our late night kitchen floor conversations as often as Iād like them. Friends, if you take any advice from these weeknotes take this: find people who will fight you in their love for you and hold on to them tight.
Day 8 of latest flare. I have been in so much pain this week. Iām really proud of myself because despite the pain I
The major symptoms this time have been the pain and appetite. I am not doing as much as I should to deal with the pain, but I am doing as much as I can. Give me the strength to do more.
I finished reading Dead in the Water: A True Story of Hijacking, Murder, and a Global Maritime Conspiracy.
What a trash book. The whole narrative is built the outrage one is supposed to feel upon hearing that someone died a British National!! was Murdered in Yemen!!!!! This book reeks of the kind of racism that is so routine in the Middle East it is overlooked as normal. The Yemenis and Filipinos, of course, are in the same tier as dirt. The filipino informant who corroborated most of the story (shows up about 70% of the way through) was paid a āfew hundred dollars for his timeā, but his name was not worth protecting one whit. Who cares if the mob kills his family? The Eastern European was allowed to negotiate, though not nearly enough, and even then his right to keeping his identity private was stripped (and it is unclear if he was compensated or not). The Englishmen, of course, were the best and most deserved and everyone should drop everything to bring to justice the entire mechanism surrounding one manās murder.
Maybe itās just because I was brought up in Dubai and witnessed so much of this inherent elitism but I cannot stand even a whiff of it. There is a difference between acknowledging the realities of a situation (like the authors themselves did when talking about the (lack of a) presence of women at Lloyds) and baking their version of a skewed reality into the narrative. The latter is not forgivable in a work of non-fiction. I am sorry I started reading this, sorrier that I didnāt have other audiobooks downloaded on my phone at the time, and wouldnāt recommend the book.
The narrator of the audiobook did a great job.
Itās Wrapped time! Interesting facts: I listened to 336 genres this year (but Spotify wonāt tell me what that means or how it defined a genre), 33 albums this year (but Spotify wonāt give me the list of all of them), and my Spotify age is 20, so I can no longer drink alcohol in Bangalore and should be ashamed of the skinny pants in my wardrobe.
swears in Hindi ā©