Hey, it's Bernie!

In February I started using a little more of Gemini 3 Flash mode. However my verdict is I like Claude better than Gemini.

Feb 1

• “can you help me go through this website and save all the images in a zip file? https://www.sonnyangel.com/en/products/"

Feb 2

• “Hi, I would like to build a book collection database from scratch on obsidian. Can you show me step by step?” [NOTE: this became quite a long conversation with Claude because I had difficulty understanding how to use [[” on Obsidian to link my book cover images]
• “hello, can you explain to me what are ml data pipes”

Feb 4

• “Hello! Singapore is a small country with very little agricultural space, so I'm thinking of creating a mobile app platform that activates a decentralised network of nano-scale farmers who are experts at gardening and farming, give them access to a community marketplace, where sustainbly-conscious customers can come to buy or trade produce. There should also be a focus on stories about creating a new avenue for monetisation, encourage offline gatherings and foster a local-first buying culture. As a startup coach, can you share with me your thoughts about this idea, and guide me through how to start small with an MVP so I can share this idea with potential venture capitalists?” [NOTE: This one's interesting. I was actually sharing my startup idea with Claude, and the conversation continued to Claude advising me to do market testing first before starting to build my app. It suggested that I interview existing farmers about the outputs as well as conduct a survey on potential customers and their delivery preferences. He also proceeded to help me create templates and outreach messages on how to start. It was a very productive conversation.]
• “Hi! I would like to showcase apps built using AI help, so that I can get hired as an AI engineer, can you tell me step by step how I can do it in one month?” [NOTE: I haven't yet follow all the steps suggested, but I guess it was a good guide to refer to]

Feb 15

• “Hi Claude I'm trying to run an eda for the following dataset. It shows the earnings of a food delivery rider for years 2024 to present. Please help me create an EDA using python script to describe, clean and make sense of the data.” [NOTE: I exported my food delivery earnings into a .csv file and asked Claude to help me create a Streamlit dashboard that can help fellow delivery riders to predict potential earnings based on my past data. Took about 2 hours and the results were pretty fantastic. I will publish it soon]

#ai #lifewithai

Starting today I plan to document all that I've done with AI, whether it was helping me with troubleshooting, or giving advice or guidance, I will try to write some of the significant ones down here to share my journey. I hope it can inspire you to do your own prompts. Sound interesting?

Ok, let's begin from Jan 2026, where I used Claude more often ...

Jan 14

• “list the useful ai books to learn about ai engineering.”

Jan 25

• “I would like to create an online store to sell my products. I'm starting with one product, 100% raw mealworm frass, used a an excellent fertilizer for plants. My customers are hobby gardeners who are looking for organic alternatives to fertilizers for their garden. They are usually knowledgeable about fertilizers for sale so I will need to highlight frass value proposition and why they should use it versus the synthetic fertilizers in the market. The ability to integrate a checkout function where they can purchase the product onsite, also have ability to include marketing features like landing pages, discounts and newsletters.” [NOTE: Claude wasn't very good at web design, but it did build me a decent website. I didn't manage to follow through on building the checkout process. This was more of an experiment to see how well it can help me create a website based on marketing objectives.]

Jan 27

• “how do you reduce the file size of a powerpoint file?”

Jan 29

• “Hi Claude I'm trying to learn everyting about DDL and DML. Can you create a cheatsheet for me on all the definitions and sql statements with a quick explanation of each into a concise PDF file?”
• “Can you help me compile a list of free IDEs and coding agents that I can use while I'm starting to learn AI and machine learning?”
• “What is NumPy?”

Jan 30

• “I'm a budding new enthusiast into AI technology. I've heard about the event NVIDIA GTC coming up with March 2026. Can you highlight what will be the key benefits of attending such an event virtually as someone who wants to learn as much as possible about AI?”

Jan 31

• “Hello I'm trying to connect to a server on pgadmin but it seems like the app is unable to recognise that I've installed postgresql@18. What can I do?”
• “Hi Claude, if I want to stop using Notion and migrate to obsidian, does it have feature for feature matching? Can you let me know the pros and cons of each?”
• “Hello! how can I change my brew services settings so that it doesn't start on login on my MacBook?”
• “if I want to collaborate on a repo in github should I fork or clone?”
• “Hello! I have a .csv file that I would like to import into dbgate. May I know the steps to do so?”

#ai #lifewithai

I've built my career on the wave of digital transformation. When I came back to Singapore in 2008, she was just figuring out what social media and Web 2.0 was. Me back then, hell, I was all about digital and social media, and very easily I was able to help companies migrate their systems, not sitting in IT, but in marketing and communications. Everywhere I went, it was convincing leadership about what SEO was, what content marketing was, what social media accounts to create, what is email marketing, what is inbound marketing, is cloud hosting safe, the list goes on. As I write this I could feel an adrenaline rush while remembering those moments, it was definitely an exciting time. I went from a web developer to creating a small agency, and then to the client-side, working with the agencies to scale digital and social media.

Fast forward to 2020, Singapore was now well-versed in digital and social media. I could feel the wave starting to subside. I've led the launch of two critical systems – a fully rebranded website, and a fully migrated intranet for SUSS, I was fatigued, jaded and bored. Somewhere along the way I had this goal of becoming a Chief Marketing Officer, but then I realized that my passion lies in figuring things out, solving problems, experimenting, building and launching. I don't want to build people, I want to build systems.

Then I got this fancy idea to launch a business and a mobile app for the urban farming community. So I quit my job, left corporate life, and went solo – started Bernie Studio. After a few months I realized that the idea just didn't have legs, I also wasn't able to prototype anything even though I swore to build it with no-code or low code. The business model was bad from the start. So I stopped. I didn't want to go back doing what I initially ran away from, so I spent the next few years pivoting. First I took a diploma in Urban Agriculture Technology, hoping that in understanding more about the landscape and topic I could get back to pursue my initial business idea. Then I started an online business with a friend, which gained quite good traction, I was surprised that we were able to make it a profitable business. It definitely gave me a sense of satisfaction based on my personality and motivations. I continued to potter on with various different projects that I was familiar with – content creation and marketing. I built up two niche YouTube channels, which taught me the discipline of publish frequency and sticking to a formula. On the agriculture front I realized my passion lies in insect farming, but once again, the market is not ready. So I started Bernie's Bug Farm as an experiment on producing high quality frass as well as eating mealworms as an alternative nutritional source.

I was getting bored by now without something big enough for me to build. Then circa 2023, after watching the keynote by Sam Altman and about OpenAI, I started thinking about AI and how it was going to impact our future. I tried using ChatGPT, like the rest of us, and wasn't really fully utilizing its capabilities. Early 2025, I had a nasty road accident with a car (I was riding an e-bike), which had me down in recovering for about 2 whole months before I was able to be back fully functioning. 2025 became my pivoting point. It was also the year I graduated from my diploma program. I slowed down content creating on my e-bike, and did more research into how I want to utilize my newly acquired agriculture cred. Nothing much hit, except for my bug farm, and freelancing as a workshop instructor for pre-school, primary and secondary school kids, which I quite enjoyed. It was nice, but I wasn't building, I was just doing. I was bored again.

Late last year, I stumbled upon a course from NTU that offered a certificate in Data Science and AI, which also offered career transition opportunities. After attending the briefing, I signed up. I thought, ok so now I have to really dig deeper into the AI stuff. lol, AI stuff. Just shy of 2 months ago I didn't know any of the terms used in the industry. Now, I understand the landscape, the connections between the different layers, and where it's heading. Not completely, but it's a start. Guys, I'm feeling all tingly again, the same feeling I had in 2008 with digital and social media. Excited about AI, but also aware of the implications and challenges to the environment, to people, and all that. This is what excites me – being part of a wave of transformation. I want to build stuff again. I don't have the full suite of skillset yet, but I now can “partner” with AI to help me get there faster than ever before. I literally spent January 2026 ramping up. My goal for this year is to complete up to 50 online courses, finish up the 6-month NTU course, while at the same time look out for apprenticeships, mentorships and just build stuff with AI tech. That, together with my bug farm, we can hopefully find the ultimate solution for food resilience in Singapore.

Time to ride.

Follow my blog if you are interested. Thanks for reading.

#reflection #ai

I've always been told I have “too many interests” and why don't I just “stick to one thing”. I have a business idea every month, a new hobby every other week, etc etc, you get the drift. My mind never stops thinking and scheming. I've not met another person like me, which is fine, because if I did we would both be irritated by each other living in our own worlds.

Anyway, I've resolved to document as much as I can, for myself. I say this every beginning of the year, and somehow life always gets in the way. lol. Chicken and egg, without life's moments there's nothing to document, but with life's moments there's no time to document. Oh well. That's life.

#whoisbernie #reflections

I love building things, creating things, customizing things, ever since I was a little girl. If you looked at my books, shoes and school files, they will all be “marked” with all my scribbles and artwork. I was an avid gamer and would spend all my free time getting “999” on all the game and watch handhelds, first in Game A and then in Game B (hint: Game B is harder).

Then as I grew up I discovered computers and there I got to learn software, install programs, run them, and work with text on the screen, data, and graphics (remember Lotus 123, Wordperfect, dBase). Then the World Wide Web came along, and I was just hooked. I leave traces of my work all over the Internet, from building my a blog from scratch using an IIS server with .asp backend, to the coming of AJAX, javascript, CSS, then PHP, building forums like phpBB, those names sure bring back memories.

All of these things I did were self-taught, and done without any like-minded friends or family members. It was like my secret world where I thoroughly enjoyed, and yet, the world I had to leave behind every time the responsibilities of real life calls.

Then today, I just spent 4 solid hours just talking to Claude (the free version). I wanted to install a self-hosted blog using AWS Lightsail and WriteFreely. So I just started a chat with Claude and asked

"I'm looking to install my own blog using lightsail and write freely. Can you guide me through it?"

What followed was 4 hours of hyper-focused step-by-step guidance and troubleshooting between Claude and me, where we first signed up for AWS and me asking how I can get the free trial, and him giving me suggestions on which option to choose, and why, then when I had trouble installing the nginx packages, it told me to use the Singapore mirror instead. O.M.G. Honestly I wouldn't have done it without him. If Claude wasn't there I would be going through all the help files, YouTube videos, and I'm sure I would get stuck on what commands to run on the CLI.

I've never had time to just jam and install stuff, and even build stuff. I've always dreamed of building my own servers, my own mobile apps, but never ever got around to do it because development requires large chunks of focus time, the bulk of it involving troubleshooting and figuring out what went wrong.

But now. All has changed. With all these AI coding partners, I feel that I can let my creativity and builder-mind flow, and if I ever encounter any issue, I'm just one question away. And at lightning speed too! I just had to show him the error message and he knows what went wrong. Freaking amazing.

I will be sharing more of what I'm building in the coming months. I'm not sure if I will end up hitting the session limits (which I did hit today, but fortunately I managed to get everything configured and launched before that happened), but I'll hold out for just one more day on upgrading.

Have a great night.

#confessions #whoisbernie

As I dive deeper into the world of AI engineering, I'm beginning to discover the plethora of tools available, and that's not all – every single day there's a new name of a new tool to download, check out, etc. The pace is just slightly too fast.

Initially I was thinking of Claude Code as a coding agent, then I realized there were other options, like Codex, Cline, GitHub Copilot and Jules? Ok ok, hold the phone. I need a moment to think.

I don't need such a sophisticated agent right now, so I'm not going to put down any money for subscriptions until I get stronger in my CS foundations. Playing around with VS Code, Cursor, Antigravity, then hooking up to Frontier LLMs via APIs is enough for me right now.

#ai

You've seen them everywhere – Hello Kitty, Cinnamoroll, Kuromi and other Sanrio characters, Sumiko Gurashi, Sonny Angel, Fugglers, Labubu, Hirono, Space Molly ... the list goes on. There's an explosion of cute things in our post-pandemic years, I have some, you have some. Cute things make us happy, we look at them and we say “Awww, so cuuuute!”

But therein lies our weakness. What if one day, the very thing that's going to destroy all of humanity is a cute thing? I'm pretty sure we will all be dead meat.

#iwonder

This year I'm going all in to learning about AI, not just as a user, but to really build domain knowledge about how to implement AI in business. This could be a multi-year learning journey, but here's what I'm doing now:

1. Get a certificate from a credible university in Singapore
2. Enroll into as many online courses there are about AI, machine learning, and data science
3. Follow podcasts and YouTube channels to listen to experts in the field
4. Work side by side with a coding agent to build up my portfolio
5. Build 2 AI-related products from scratch

The models I'm working with right now to assist me in research are:– Claude, Perplexity, ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini and Copilot.

I will be blogging my progress here so feel free to subscribe and follow along. My goal is to get hired as an AI engineer some time in the future.

Today I started my course in Data Science and AI at NTU, hoping to have a better understanding on how AI works behind the scenes so that I can move forward into this brave new world with open eyes.

The lecturer mentioned something interesting. He said that the technical elements of the course is easy, as we can always use AI to assist us in getting those answers. The real challenge is not “what we learn”, but “how we learn”.

Which got me thinking about how knowledge and our access to it has evolved through the past few decades. They say “Knowledge is Power”, and I still believe this. I was born in an era where TV, radio and textbooks were sources of knowledge. Then the Internet came along, and suddenly we had free access to knowledge from all over the world. When we don't know the answer, we “Google it”. If you were to absorb all of the world's knowledge on the Internet you would be unstoppable. But that was impossible.

So now we are on the journey as a human race to create the ultimate knowledge machine, not only to digest all of the world's knowledge, it will also help categorise, summarise, and explain. If we feed this machine enough knowledge, it can take over what we have spent our lifetimes doing – categorise, summarise and explain knowledge. If knowledge is power, then who eventually will have the power?

How will we fit into this brave new world of knowledge superiority? I believe we will become “knowledge switches”. This term is taken from various industries like networking, and trains, where a switch controls the flow of data, or control the direction of the tracks. As knowledge switches we will take the knowledge flowing from the source aka the oracle of AI, and channel it to the change we seek to make.

So this changes how we need to behave in the acquisition of knowledge, we will no longer be rewarded for the access of knowledge, but how well we can control the flow of knowledge into our industries. The ones who do that effectively will succeed.

I told my daughter the other day “you learn from your mistakes”.

And she asked “Do you always need to make a mistake before you learn something?”

That got me thinking ...

Recall the times when you don't make mistakes, what happens? You were either following instructions, processes, culture, societal norms. You don't learn during those times, you were FOLLOWING. Then one day you did something wrong. You made a mistake. Suddenly you realised that whatever you were doing was flawed. What do you do next? You changed your actions and fixed the mistake. You LEARNED.

So yes, you only learn when you make a mistake, because “learning” comes from within, “following”, on the other hand, originates from the outside. Which means that in order to learn more, you have to make more mistakes.

So, are you a follower or a learner?