Silence before the storm. This month I celebrated my birthday again. Ana also celebrated her birthday, and apart from that it was quiet. Luckily so, because the coming months the peace will be over.
The kids have two months of vacation ahead, so that will be an interesting period. They both received their report cards, and it was a very pleasant situation: they each had a list of perfect results or near perfect results. They’re very smart boys, and they’ve earned their vacation.
Last year I turned 50, and now another year has passed and I’m hitting 51. Compared to last year, little has changed; the daily routine dominated. Still, I managed to spend some time on the things I enjoy. Together with the kids we built a few LEGO plants, I set up a couple of coconut orchids, and I released my new hobby project into the world. Enough to make me feel very satisfied with the past year.
In terms of health, things are still going well. I still faithfully take my gram of vitamin C every morning, and the pills I used to buy in the Netherlands are now available in Spain as well. Together with the occasional little health experiment, I’m happy to say that I feel very good.
Half a year ago I really started benefiting from AI. Together we built my little game. Night after night I worked on small details: polishing options, smoothing out bugs, expanding functions, images, music. Normally, an hour in the evening wasn’t enough to make real progress, but with AI help, an hour was enough. It felt like having an extra pair of hands, a smart colleague you can ask anything and who immediately gets to work.
But that time is over now. Copilot has new rules. I still pay every month, but now you work with credits. And they evaporate the moment the AI has to do anything more than complete a simple sentence.
Where I used to be able to develop almost every evening for an entire month, I can now work for three evenings… and then my balance is gone. It feels like my creative flow is being squeezed shut by a meter that drains faster and faster. But well, it is what it is. The holiday period is coming up again, so I’ll finish my last update and then it’s time for some rest, to reset my focus a bit. I will take it as a sign by a higher power, that I need to focus on something else. Something less oriented on the digital world, and more anchored in the real world. Maybe a good (paper) book.
With the Android release, a whole range of issues immediately came to light. Android runs on an enormous variety of devices, and pretty much everything that could go wrong did go wrong somewhere. Hopefully, the new version has resolved a large portion of these problems.
On top of that, big improvements have been made to the overall app experience. Small tweaks here and there. The sound effects have been reworked, and the vibration feedback is now set up in a more logical and consistent way. New installations now start with sound enabled, but subtly, at 50% volume.
I bought four AirTags and have been using them for a few months now. One of them is in the car. That’s the one that gets used the most, and I specifically use it to easily find my parked car again. Alex can now track it with his phone as well, which is handy, and it works well and simply.
Another one is in my suitcase. On our trip to Lanzarote, I used it to check whether the suitcase had arrived in the same place as we had. Everything went smoothly, so it was reassuring to know, though not really a surprise. For the other two, I haven’t yet found a truly useful purpose.