In 2025, I want my (career? life?) focus to be to "learn whole systems programming". By this I mean making a conscious effort to understand what is happening at the layers in the stack that I do not usually pay attention to in my daily work as a web developer. I want this to include "systems programming" itself (e.g. operating systems, databases, compilers) as well as electronics, physical manufacturing (e.g. CAD/CAM, industrial processes) and "higher level" areas like finance, business, the mind (which necessarily also involves understanding the body and our beliefs around it).
This is admittedly a broad and ambitious goal - but I think that even partial success will be worth it. Learning about one level of abstraction requires you to know at least something about its neighbouring layers - but then in order to understand those layers, you have to understand their neighbouring layers, and so on. If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
This goal also aligns with my other goal, which is to (re)build my social life. My girlfriend and I recently moved to Amsterdam. We know barely anyone here - in order to make friends it is necessary to have some idea where people one might get on with might be found. I've found some of my people at TechInc, the local hackerspace. I feel like over the past few months I've become part of the community, just by turning up at the social nights every Wednesday and talking to people, mostly about technology. I want to learn all I can from them - at the very least I want to know how to 3D print things, engrave/cut material on our CNC router, improve my woodworking abilities, build electronic circuits, program microcontrollers, etc. It's also just a nice place to hang out, it feels a bit like being back in university.
Other things I wish I had the time/energy to write about: Python 3.13 free-threaded mode, what I want to achieve with my Bluesky account, good food in Amsterdam, writing a tiny game for the Nintendo DS, etc.