Well, apparently it's been ten years now.
In late 2016, I created an account on Steem. It was at the height of #GamerGate, so as someone who liked games, I named it gamer00. I thought I was going to use it mostly for #Go and gaming videos. Little did I know that I would eventually be known for #photography and eventually, #onephotoeveryday on #Hive.
Of course I'd sometimes sprinkle it with those occasional game-streams, Go posts and even philosophy, every now and then. Then it all came to an end.
I suffered a huge financial loss in 2021. I lost almost all of my crypto currencies during the 2021 crash and the following fallout. The main problem was that I had used them as collateral for loans since 2018. That was devastating. I had no more motivation to continue doing almost anything.
And the following tax debt made it even worse. The tax office told me that instead of me losing 2 million Euros, I had actually made over 600k€ profit. And they told me I owe them 200k€. My world turned upside-down.
Cue five years passing... (Some failed attempts to get back on Hive ensued during that time. Even tried baking bread.)
It's now 2026. In the early spring, I finally managed to pay the last bit of my unfortunate 200,000€ tax debt. I had to sell an apartment to pay the last of it.
And then Leo left home. He's currently studying literature at the University of Turku.
Today, the account turned ten years old.
Ten years is a strange amount of time on the Internet. Platforms appear and disappear, companies change names, blockchains fork, children grow up and leave for university, dogs arrive, and apparently even snakes get old, or at least middle-age.
Kiemurainen is about ten now too. She's still here, although these days she seems to be at least half blind.
But having little motivation is not the same as having lost all motivation.
I don't think I have been using my time in vain lately. After Leo left, I seemed to regain some of my motivation, partly thanks to being able to plan my life and new projects using AI.
I've been learning about new technologies, like LoRA and ESP32, and I even ordered a few of those chips for my own homelabbin' projects, built a Home Assistant server, set up smart lighting inside our home, VPN connection for my phone using the home router as an adblocker, GadgetBridge to collect the data from my cheap Nothing CMF Watch Pro that I got basicly for nothing (pun not really intentional), after having purchased new tyres for the car and getting a gift voucher.
I've been walking on barefoot shoes for over 2.5 years now, and started gradually getting back into shape by using simple reminder software like Streak on my phone. (I lost 7kg in 7 months, from 90kg to 83kg.) And now I'm actually in a place where I want to bring it all together. I want all my progress recorded by my watch to be integrated with apps like Streak, GadgetBridge and Home Assistant, and my own personal assistant AI to be able to make use of it and keep an eye on it all.
So I installed Llama.cpp on my computer, and now I'm designing an app that will be a companion that's got its own memory, agnostic to any LLM it's using, and able to switch AI if needed. I am not telling more about the project, as I want to be able to produce a working prototype before making any huge announcements.
While I was designing that project, I grew more and more concerned about my taxes, again. And now I'm also creating something that might save me from future tax debts. Or maybe not, it'll be left to be seen. I'm creating my own digital accountant who understands both crypto and fiat investments in the same package. I'm hoping that I can chart all my cryptos, payments, hobbies, personal finances, kennel expenses, fuel, and all the other possible money sinks in my life, and eventually make sense of all of it when it's time to file my taxes.
So... Lately I've become interested in making stupid things slightly less stupid.
That has meant more ESP32 boards, LoRa, sensors and Home Assistant. It has also to do with my latest acqusition, Igor, our robot vacuum, who is currently intelligent enough to map the apartment, squeeze sideways underneath a kitchen chair, and occasionally attempt to vacuum a dog all while speaking Russian, and we don't understand a word it's saying.
Those ESP32 boards made me think about what it'd be like if Igor had a second brain, and eyes. Maybe Tessa would no longer fall victim to an overly enthusiastic robot vacuum sucking in her tail.
Igor and I may have different ideas about what his next ten years should look like.