Second week in April and things were starting to somewhat wind down at work as my boss was heading back to the states, but also definitely ramping up with the renovations and preparing for the move at the end of the month. Just taking each day as it comes and dealing with what we need to deal with.

Apr 6 – Day 95

Easter Monday is “Tweede Passen” (Second Easter) here in the Netherlands and is one of the few official holidays. David didn’t have school and Santi didn’t have work, so we all took the morning and went to watch The Super Mario Galaxy Movie with friends. He had a blast and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. 😀

That afternoon, Santi and I went for a walk to decompress a bit as we knew this was going to be a very stressful month. We walked over the water on this little long skinny island between the canals and then through the park for a circuit of just over 3 km. The trees were just starting to bud to give green hues to the branches.

Apr 7 – Day 96

Kitchen renovations continued apace and the electrician and the plasterer worked together to put in new outlets and then cover the new canals that were carved into the kitchen wall to put in more electrical outlets.

Apr 8 – Day 97

Coming back home from work in the evening and the tulips in our neighborhood were still going and the light was beautiful. I stopped my bike and crouched down to get this shot. I love that spring flowers just grow in the parks here.

Family in California shared this shot of the farmhouse, barn and the stars, including the big dipper right in the middle of the scene. It is such a beautiful place, I was so incredibly lucky to grow up there and I am glad to be able to share it with my little family too.

Apr 9 – Day 98

Internet Archive Europe had a “Vibe Coding” session explaining the miracle/magic/tools of using AI to bring ideas into reality via “vibe coding”. Basically learning how to use AI tools to create software. It opens up a whole new world for people who have never coded before and brings up an awful lot of questions whether you know how to code or not.

In order to successfully interact with AI, you have to have a basis of knowledge to pull from in order to evaluate what it spits back at you. AI doesn’t think, it doesn’t feel, it just spits back statistical predictions of what the math tells it comes next based on the data it has been trained on. We humans are not very good at reading thoroughly and also are very good at believing the first thing we read.

Mark Twain popularized the saying in Chapters from My Autobiography, published in the North American Review in 1907. "Figures often beguile me," Twain wrote, "particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'"

Apr 10 – Day 99

Friday was an intense long day at work with a special trip to Eindhoven where Brewster gave a brief talk on the history and evolution of social networks from viewing “pages” to “feeds” and then was on a panel discussion with the other speakers. The Facebook Museum was opening inside the Next Nature Museum and

Apr 11 – Day 100

Saturday night, I took what I learned at the Vibe Coding session earlier in the week and put it to use. I overhauled the website of Coup53.com It was an interesting experience - yes using AI makes me much more productive and I was really happy I was able to just talk with the AI as if in a conversation and it did all the "hard work". But the process is not as mentally challenging and I think that will be a problem for society and human development.

Santi shared an interesting article about this phenomenon by Tom Wojcik

"⁠Real flow produces growth. Rachel Thomas called what AI-assisted work produces “dark flow”, a term borrowed from gambling research, describing the trance-like state slot machines are designed to induce. You feel absorbed, but the challenge-skill balance is gone because the AI handles the challenge. It feels like the flow state of deep work, but the feedback loop is broken. You’re not getting better, you’re getting dependent"

Apr 12 – Day 101

I knew I was going to be busy preparing for the move, so I had a chill breakfast before the guys woke up. My overnight oats with berries and a large cappuccino.

Listening to Lofi Coffee vibes in the morning sets a wonderful relaxed mood to the day that I can get behind. Enjoy