Burning Through Claude Fable5 for 10 Days, a Kid on a Bike, and Me on Unrealized Losses
Burning Through Claude Fable5 for 10 Days, a Kid on a Bike, and Me on Unrealized Losses [Goal Progress 6/6-6/12]
This is one of those "let me check whether I'm actually doing the things I said I'd do" posts. Same as always, I'll look back on health, work, money, and a few odds and ends.
Health
Still can't make it to the gym
My injury still hasn't healed. So I still can't go to the gym. And I still haven't been to the hospital either. I know. I know I should go. And yet I keep putting it off.
The one thing I'm actually moving for is the morning routine with my son. He's completely hooked on the bike we bought recently, and tagging along with him means I end up walking or running alongside him. While he's happily pedaling away, I'm quietly getting a bit of exercise. Maybe that's just the right intensity for an injured guy.
Sleep is short, but daytime is surprisingly fine
Food is fine. Sleep, though, has been on the short side because I've been staying up late. That said, it's not like I'm zoning out during the day — I can rest in moderation and still get work done. Nothing's collapsing. Not exactly a lifestyle to brag about, though.
Work
Burning through Claude Fable5 in 10 days
This week's clear highlight is the launch of Claude's new model, "Fable5."
The window where I can use it freely, as much as I want, runs until June 22. Only about 10 days left. So at the company too, the mood is "let's use this hard while we can." Since the chance is right here, I've been building a POC for a new service I'd wanted to make for ages, and pouring energy into polishing up our internal tools. Full-on burn-it-all mode.
On the other hand, using Claude on GitHub Actions — which used to fall within our subscription — is probably shifting to extra charges. So I spent time calculating what it would cost at our current usage, and reorganizing workflows. Quietly time-consuming stuff.
The "luxury problem" born from AI being too good
Honestly, this is a luxury problem, but still.
AI implementation keeps getting faster, the accuracy keeps going up, and I can actually trust it now. I'm grateful. Grateful — but the sense of "having everything perfectly in my head" that I had back when I wrote everything from scratch is slowly fading. A vague unease lingers. Well, I guess I just have to get used to it.
The final flow of reading the code and guaranteeing it works is still done by a human, so as long as the behavior is fine, the quality is OK. I've also automated a good chunk of the performance and security reviews. So what a human looks at now is the parts that skills and rules can't cover, and the parts you can only evaluate because you have domain knowledge. The review work has shifted toward that.
What I actually have to do keeps shrinking. But it's become work that requires more specialization. And even that specialization will get absorbed someday, I think. That's exactly why every single engineer still fighting in the trenches has to think hard about their own value and act on it. That's the kind of conversation I've been having with the team.
Money
US stocks dropped, now sitting on unrealized losses
On the asset-building front, things were smooth up until last month. I bought more stocks this week too, but US stocks have been falling pretty much across the board, so the portfolio is now in the red — unrealized losses, with the P&L slightly negative.
Still, it's a company I have high hopes for, so I'll watch it a bit longer. I think it'll grow quite a lot, so I plan to hold for a while.
My paid side project is growing nicely
The paid personal-dev project I've been working on since March has gotten pretty interesting. It's slowly starting to bear fruit.
What I personally like is that it hasn't turned into a "build it quick and abandon it" thing. I've been able to keep improving it day by day. As a personal project, I think it's in a really good shape. I'll keep at it all year, and if the results come out nicely, I'm thinking of publishing it as a paid article around next year.
Other
English study: 162-day Duolingo streak
As for actual prep for moving abroad — honestly, nothing in particular this week. But I have kept my English study going on Duolingo: a 162-day streak.
Duolingo keeps getting updated lately — there are AI calls that switch between Japanese and English, and gamification that adds little bits of movement within the app. It's built in a way that's genuinely fun to keep up with, which I think is lovely. Touching English every day, I really feel that, compared to someone who does nothing, I'm getting at least a little of that "English shower." I'm looking forward to my next overseas trip.
My kid's growth got to me
The most memorable thing this week was when we went out as a family. My son has grown so much — "oh, he can do this now," "oh, he can eat this too" — I got to see so many new sides of him. It made me really happy. Parenting has its hard parts, but moments like these are genuinely happy ones.
Closing
Next week, I'll keep burning through Fable5. I'm subscribed to Claude personally too, so right now it's genuinely fun being able to aggressively take on the things I'd wanted to do myself and the things I'd wanted to do at the company. Only about 10 days left, but I want to go all in on this.