Week of September 14, 2025
Looks like the weeknotes are a regular fixture. For now.
Work
Work hours took priority, just like last week. That being said, there definitely wasn't any of the urgency that I'd felt last week - since most of the heavy-lifting had already been done, this week was about making sure the landing stretch was alright.
Five full days of work this week - and then PyCon India over the weekend. I'm trying my best not to turn these weeknotes into a rant platform, but let's just say I have opinions about what I witnessed over the two days.
This was my first big conference post-pandemic, and I can't recall if people have been behaving this way since before the pandemic. I definitely wasn't ready for the mobs of attendees thronging the stalls to get freebies: umbrellas, t-shirts and the like. Sure, you've paid to attend the conference, but maybe chill out a bit with your whole mission to get as many freebies as you can?
The first day had everything that the cynic in me hated. Endless talks about AI, LLMs, Gen AI, and agentic (barf!) AI. There were little to no talks about Python internals or web frameworks like Django. Now, it's quite possible this is because frameworks like Django are mature on their own, but I didn't attend PyCon to be inundated with a wave of AI hype - I already get that a lot online.
Going on a bit of a personal rant here, but most of what I saw on the first day got on my nerves in all the wrong ways. Folks who were sincerely excited about using Gen AI and integrating it into their tools, not a care for all the ethical concerns that surrounds it. The whole vibe was that people simply wanted to add a "PyCon speaker" to their bio, so the talks themselves did not feel... polished, I guess?
Day 2 was much better, starting off with a keynote speech by Katharine Jarmul on "artificial information" and how to have open-sourced or private LLMs. The talks on day 2 were less about AI compared to day 1 - with talks focusing on load testing, Python internals, and a talk related to Django internals as well. I also met Vinay who gave me quite a few pointers on how to go ahead in my self-hosting journey, so that's a win.
Life
Work, and burnout-induced fatigue exacerbated the issue I had last week. Most of Monday was spent in a haze as I fought through half a day of throbbing headaches. No cycling done either - it scares me to think that the initial excitement has died down, and cycling will now join the hundreds of activities I've started and abandoned over the years. I could have done some cycling this weekend were it not for PyCon. But that's in the past.
Other than that, nothing much got done. Ran a few personal errands here and there. The migraine and carryover fatigue from last week led me to create a new bedtime routine.
- The phone goes into DND mode at 9 PM, the display turns monochromatic.
- I get into bed by 10 PM with an episode of the Sleep With Me podcast playing on a Bluetooth speaker. A timer is set to stop playback once the episode ends.
- The phone is kept on a table away from my bed.
And the results are... better than I expected. I've been waking up pretty much on time with little to no fatigue, and the extra time from waking a tiny bit earlier meant I could get breakfast in relative peace. On the days where I followed the routine, there was less brain fog than usual, I was usually full until it was time for lunch (and not before), and there were no headaches to report. It's almost as if following a healthy sleep routine is good for you!
In other news, I probably should be monitoring my inboxes better. My mini-rant about personal finance tools not meeting my requirements ended with a call-to-action that led to my contact page. But did I check the inbox? No.
Received a response from Srikanth Perinkulam where he recommended I use Firefly III - a FOSS personal finance manager that you can self-host! Given I was occupied with everything else, I didn't get around to actually deploying it, though I did play around with Firefly within a Docker container. Prima facie, it looks like it has everything I've ever wanted. Transaction entry is simple and it creates proper journal entries behind-the-scenes! I'll no longer have to fill transactions in triplicate. Oh, and it lets you split an expense right from the transaction entry screen.
There's still quite a bit more to explore - reports and budgets and piggy banks - but this looks like it could solve most of the pressing problems I've been facing. The only thing that remains is to fill the backlog of expenses and incomes that I haven't been tracking over the past month or so 🤦🏻.
Media
No reading got done, either. Caught on quite a few podcast episodes that had been gathering dust in my queue. Was overcome by a sudden need (?) to watch Matt Reeves' 2022 movie The Batman, so that's what I watched when I could. I did not finish the whole thing (obviously) - I got distracted by YouTube video essays that dissected the motifs of the movie. It's procrastination all the way down, isn't it?