My 25th Hour

On turning 44…

Given how much I write about OpenAI these days, it’s easy to lose sight of just how truly great ChatGPT is as a product and service. Case in point: while thinking about my 44th birthday, I realized that because of daylight savings time ending this past weekend in the US, my birthday was technically one hour longer than a typical day. A 25-hour birthday!¹

This got me wondering if this has happened before on the day of my birth and while yes, I suppose I could have figured this out via Google Search, it’s just so much easier and convenient to do so via ChatGPT. And it led me down a bit of a rabbit hole, learning about how thanks to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the end of DST shifted from the final Sunday in October to the first Sunday in November.

Should DST go away entirely? That’s an entirely different debate that basically everyone on the internet is always ready to have.

Anyway, yes, my birthday has been 25 hours long in the past, but only twice before: in 2008 and 2014, because before then, the shift happened earlier. And actually, I was writing about my birthday back in 2014, when I turned 33, but didn’t realize it was a 25-hour day. Undoubtedly, in part, because I was in Ireland at the time.²

So while we all debate the use of AI and how much money is flowing into creating these systems, it is worth taking a step back from time to time and realizing how much we actually use them now for basically every little query, all the time. At least I do. And if you don’t yet, you will. Even if it’s Gemini or some other flavor. This particular world has changed so fast. And clearly it will change even more so in the next year.³

Thoughts on: 43, 42, 41, 40, 39, 38, 37, 36, 35, 34, 33…

¹ Alright, fine, technically I’m in England right now where the time shifted back a week or so ago. But let me have my fun (and hour). I was born in the US and stayed up late watching US college football (Go Blue) and Game 7 of the World Series (my god, what a game).

² And I remember that well because I had just written up some thoughts about GV’s (then still formally Google Ventures) investment in Slack at the time.

³ Also, 25th Hour remains such a great film (and presumably book, which I sadly have not read). Sort of wild that it was written by David Benioff, who most people will know as a showrunner of Game of Thrones, but yes, is related to Marc Benioff (cousins). Who acquired Slack.