I just realized today that some of my posts on this blog are now 20 years old. Exactly 20 years ago today, I wrote about how frustrating it can be to write a song when you feel forced to be creative, but nothing comes out.
Crazy how times change. I wonder what it will be like another 20 years from now, on October 17th 2045. I will be in my 60s then, if I still exist.
In recent months, I have improved on my Indonesian language skills which I started working on in December of 2023. I have a 600+ day streak on Duolingo, although I use that app only for that reason and the rest ist mostly listening or a bit of reading. I still consider myself a beginner.
The big breakthrough currently for me is an online software called NotebookLM by Google. You can feed it sources of different kinds: PDF, websites, youtube videos, text. Then you can ask it to do something with it: Help you understand the material, analyze or make assumptions, or even make an audio podcast out of it. And it's great for both language learning as well as learning stuff for my current qualification (Verwaltungslehrgang).
The way AI is improving is remarkable. I wonder where we will be in 20 years. Yes, I know, the terminator timeline is still in the cards. But maybe we are lucky. Some people are already making memes online about how old people in the future will talk down on their children:
"No child of mine is marrying an AI chatbot"
"Oh dad, you are so robophobic".
It's basically the same as other types of relationships in the past. You get the idea.
All kinds of crazy things are going on around me. I should drop them in my yearly review in November or December. It will be interesting to look back.
