Does life feel like it’s speeding up? How to slow down time in 2025

The experience of getting older and feeling like you have less time is practically universal. It's not just the shackles of adulthood and capitalism wearing you down; there's a science to the way your mind perceives time. The richness of new and novel experiences makes time feel slower, while routine and repetition can make days speed by. It only starts there, so read on if you don't want 2025 to pass you by.

It’s the time of the year for endless cliches. From “tis the season” and “the gift that keeps on giving” to “new year, new you”, there’s nowhere to hide from tired old phrases. One of my favourites is “Christmas comes around quicker each year” — which ignores the fact that one year equals one trip around the sun.

There’s often a kernel of truth in a cliche, though. A recent study by Ruth Ogden from Liverpool John Moores University and colleagues showed that the vast majority of people in both the UK and Iraq really did experience Christmas (or Ramadan) approaching more rapidly every year.

How to Read a Whole Damn Book Every Week

Every year, many people resolve to read more as part of their New Year's resolutions. Reading is an activity that ebbs and flows for many of us throughout our lives. I, for one, used to read 20-30 books per year. I truly enjoy reading, which leads to me reading the equivalent of over 100 books (by word count) of blog posts and articles per year — a habit I'm reluctant to give up. However, I could replace the time I spend reading social media posts on my phone with reading a few pages of a book instead. Although I probably won't manage to read a book every week this year, I've already finished one, thanks to the tips in this GQ article.

Every year, I read over a hundred books. This means I polish off somewhere between two and three books a week. I'm not saying that to brag (okay, I am), but I really believe that anyone can make time to read. Chances are you wish you read more, since everyone feels this way (except me, I’m amazing). The secret is to not think of reading as a precious thing. If you’re only going to open a book on the off chance you have several hours to kill in a comfy chair with a glass of scotch, it’s only ever going to happen when you have several hours to kill in a comfy chair with a glass of scotch.

Things we learned about LLMs in 2024

It's not an exaggeration to say that 2024 was a monumental year for AI. Even if you're already familiar with AI, I guarantee you'll still learn a lot from this blog post. And for those who haven't been keeping up, now's your chance to catch up and discover everything that transformed in just one year. Here are just a few of the subjects covered in what is an exceptionally comprehensive post.

• The GPT-4 barrier was comprehensively broken

• Some of those GPT-4 models run on my laptop

• LLM prices crashed, thanks to competition and increased efficiency

• Voice and live camera mode are science fiction come to life

• Apple Intelligence is bad, Apple’s MLX library is excellent

• The environmental impact got better

• The environmental impact got much, much worse

• The year of slop

• Synthetic training data works great