With still growing popularity of AI and content created by AI there's a trend that's emerging. It could have been seen in before, but now it grows into a form that could be realized into a more extreme version of it.
It already had been a thing when you could see certain cults of personalities growing ever more present through the use of social platforms.

I have specifically in mind the youtubers, streamers, podcasters and something I'm less knowledged about - the creme de la creme of tiktok, instagram and the likes. All relying on strong personalities that rely on their continuing production of content to keep and grow their fandom.

Well, specifically I'd like to talk about the growing epidemic of loneliness. I don't think I'm wrong calling it that way.

The need to belong is inherent to human condition, there's certainly an allure to these platforms. It's convenient, you don't have to put the work in to consume said content. You don't have social friction, you don't need to sharpen your social skills. It is very well achievable that you could become a complete shut in. Current world of convenience is very much allowing you to do that. Work from home, order groceries and food to your door, your basic needs needed to exist are met and you can very well sit within this safe space of yours. The social needs are met by seeing the familiar faces, smiling, talking, involving you passively in their activities - all of that through the face of a screen.

The social circles over time turn into the algorithm led circles of people that consume the same type of content. Your favorite go-to person is out there, posting the next thing that will keep your mind occupied. It will keep your mind busy enough long enough that you become entangled with what you expect from that virtual person.

The effect

It seems to be the case, where the convenience of replacing your social connection is strong enough for you to not really want to try and look for the "real thing" in the real world. The people you can get to know and befriend. To build a circle of friends that could be your "go to" rather than the virtual persona you grow accustomed to.

It is even worse that if you do want to try, it is way more difficult, since you effectively grow up in a bubble that seemingly fits your needs just right and all the others that you see also do the same. What is tragic, all the other people you might have connected with are shut out from the physical world. You might have met a person in the street, waiting at a bus stop, doing the mundane of buying groceries. The people are all there, with their goals and anxieties, but they serve as background noise. There are no persons in these people, not for you unless you really try - and attempts take effort.

I am not saying it wouldn't be similar without the internet - the fact we live in ever bigger cities, with ever more people ironically makes you more disconnected from each person you pass by.

What there is to convey is that the feeds served right just for your type of an user might be a crutch for the social connections you might be missing.

The case of AI

The push companies try to make towards only ai-generated feeds doesn't seem like an option that would help in this situation. Ignore that right now a grave amount of websites are just generated, even ignore that generated content grows in popularity on current "social" medias.

What seems to be the direction this is heading, is a complete capture of user's time. With content good enough for them to be able to consume it whenever they feel like it. It is even worse than the influencer case since there, you still might become a part of some community and you might still find people you relate to - it seems that's where the social pubs of the world came to be.

The fact that you might be consuming something that no one else has ever saw is just such a lonely vision that I can't grasp my head around the complete effects of it.

Hopefully it doesn't become an actual thing. I hope that the companies that try to push it will not succeed in this capture of human psyche. I really wish it didn't go this way, where companies with wealth of countries have such significant power, fighting over your time and attention.

Attention sells.

Let's have it a different way

If you have a friend, talk to them. Try to meet up if you can, just spend the time together.

Try finding social clubs and activities around you that allow you being there frequently. Something that you might like doing. Be that sports, pen and paper games, even becoming a regular to a certain set of restaurants builds you some kind of network.

Do arts, find groups of people that do arts as well, be a bit of a normie sometimes - watch a series that has been popular, that's one thing in common then you can strike a conversation about.

People that would never think they'd like each other let alone befriend them, become accustomed to each other and actually see them for more than they thought of them at first glance.

I do not know how to make the world go this way, but I do know there's still space for actual human connection. There's space for a world where people don't need to be alone in a room full of people.

It takes effort, you might not find yourself in the right spot sometimes, be careful but don't rule out the people you pass by.

Others might have much more in common with you than you realize.

Just ended my little Switzerland tour, 500 kilometers later through Zurich, Lucerne and the more pronounced Swiss Alps.

Before getting to Switzerland I've been rolling around southern Germany, not much to see there, people with what feels like stick up their butt, a bit. Probably something to describe in another post, retroactively.

At first, same as Germany, the fog was so severe I couldn't see for past a few cars and this kept being like this for a week. Finally, when the weather cleared up, I could finally start seeing what's so beautiful about these lands.

Zurich

The architecture is a mix. They like their brutalism and you'll find plenty of it in Zurich, at the same time you'll see some more typical "European" architecture, but there's no single way of building a structure it seems like in any Swiss part. You might have influences but the same town will have a mixup of 5 different places you've seen somewhere else.

Exotic import "Żywiec".

Cranes will become a common motif thorough the journey.

Road to Lucerne

Took my time, wasn't sure if I am even going to go to Lucerne. Didn't need to sweat since getting a bit outside of Zurich it was still milky white.

I spent the night in the forest there. There were plenty of cars of hikers, the lot was completely empty during the night. There was a certain event though...

Early in the morning, heard a muffled clap on the back of the car, woke me up confused, was trying to figure out what was going on. There was no one to be seen, not even a car - and it was quite a remote place - and so I kind of ignored the event. Maybe thought to myself that was an empty water bottle at the back just changing because of the temperatures but it couldn't be it, as it was way too loud and muffled.

In the beautiful fresh morning, took a walk around and checked out the back of the car, and there indeed was a mark on the car window, with size reminiscent of a hand... Quite creepy, maybe some early hiker was curious and they slipped an smacked the window to gain back some balance? Or maybe I was disturbing the peace by snoring too hard??

After a week of fog stealing my vision ever since Germany, I finally got some views. And what nice views these were!

This is quite a "flat" land when you compare it to all else you can see in Switzerland - or Alps in general for that matter, but it gives a very cozy vibe, with your eyes being able to reach out far.

The mountain outlines are a little bit of foreshadowing what's to come.

A little drive away from the little by the lake village, there was a little lake at which you had a bench and a single not so little tree. There you could sit down for a bit, enjoy the views. See the high Pilatus mountain in far in the distance and the lake close by.

I was lucky to have the sun shining straight at me and the weather being slightly cold but still quite enjoyable in this uncertain fall weather.

Popped a drink and got a book that was left unread for way too long now. An older man stops by on a bike to enjoy the views as well. He sat down, I asked in whatever mime language I could, whether it was OK i enjoy a little bit of the bench to myself. He hastily went "bitte, bitte" in a manner I could understand easily since it was quite similar to what you could say in Polish.

So I sat down and slowly the silence grew up to be a slight chatter between me and the senior. Turned out he was doing a round trip around the lake on a bike - that's as he said 20 kilometers, he might have mentioned doing 40 kilometers total, not sure that's one of the places where our conversation abilities would not be quite sufficient enough.

Still, either 20 or 40, both are quite impressive distances, even if the bike was electric, I really don't recall ever seeing an 85 year old on a bike, especially one doing round trips around lakes.

We've had some talk on what my plans are, what the Switzerland is about and to our demise it kind of came to politics somehow?? Well, to however much our language barrier would allow us of course.

Didn't manage a picture of the place, but it was the spot where I shot the lake picture from, north from Lucerne if you care to find it.

crane, crane, crane...

The differences between the different architectural styles and the contrast with beautiful mountainous landscapes is what still gets me.

Pilatus and Lucerne

You have yourself a fondue, something that you came to like when you tried it a few days ago. There's something simple yet great about having the flowy stinky cheese roll around your bread piece. Something not too great is the fact you didn't expect your van to absorb the essence of fondue for the next few days (somehow especially most felt from the car ventilation??).

In the morning you have tea and a nice talk with a british bloke and (I assume) his american girlfriend. They're doing a little european trip, similarly to you, but their vacation time is running out and they gotta be in london and back in the states (CA) in just a week, and so you wish them good travels and they do likewise.

Anyway, you bear the cheese stench, you do your work and you head out to the base of something you've been driving towards since yesterday.

On the radio there's generic american 80's rock and other hits of the era, but on the horizon what you see is something that has been holding your attention for a while now. You are now close enough to see much of it's detail, but just the sheer volume of it makes it feel like you and the town are just some small pest to this big ass rock.

You get to the destination, get yourself a ticket, enter through the gate...

And off you go!

When I saw the church on the hill, I felt like I saw it somewhere before. You know the feeling that you get, it doesn't necessarily hit you right there at the moment, but it gets to you, just after some time?

Can't be sure I didn't create that memory after the fact, but I did have a certain feeling I seen photos of this little hill church somewhere. Apparently there was a big building next to it, a hotel which in its history housed Richard Wagner and Queen Victoria? There's a wikipedia article about it, but only in German. But there's some old photos of the hotel there.

...

Two gondolas away, you get to the top of the mountain and you can absorb all that's around it, the proper alps starting just past that point, the vast lands that look just flat from up there (these don't feel like it when you're driving down these roads).

It's a beautiful view.

I'll let the pictures talk for themselves. Sorry not sorry for no color correction on any of the pictures. I found writing the blog already taking soo much more time than I would expect.

After you enjoy the view for a few minutes too long, you realize the gondola trip you were supposed to take, finished right before you came back to the lounge, of course it did.

(in your defense, there was a voice broadcast saying that it's about to be the last gondola departing and you came back as quickly as you've heard it)

Thankfully you get your gondola ticket got turned into a ticket for the last train (you can see it on one of the vertical pictures) that was the last reasonable option to travel back to the bottom of the hill. The only problem is that it drops you off at a different town than the one you started from and you need to go back there.

In the meantime however, you make some friends, you're on a roll that day, making friends with British blokes, and so you chat up a Brit a woman of Bulgarian origin that they travel with. The whole way down you chat, and even then, in the regular train back to Lucerne, you never stop yapping with them. Fun!

The trains and public transport works well so getting back to your car is not much of an issue. You pay for the parking, you get somewhere cozy, on the edge of town and the mountain and spend some time there then.

Taking note you also did your work hours the same day, this was still a densely packed in experiences day. More of that please!

Lucerne

You take a single day in Lucerne, the biggest nearby town at the base of the mountain, nothing too fancy, just walk around, breathe the air, enjoy some bits of the towns novelty that sill linger on you.

Now necessary crane section

The night then was spent an hour away, a comfort purchase!

The margarita was goood, replenished the nightly morale well

The deeper alps

The more south you go, the more turns you need to make to traverse through the ever so more hilly terrain.

The houses turn into more cozy, wooden shacks, you smell the money of this place in the air since it starts feeling like the proper "tourist" zone.

Before venturing off to a region where you need to get to camping spots, there's police knocking on your window, checking your ID and giving you a friendly warning to find a campsite tomorrow. Despite not breaking any rules of the county you were in, they seemed to be a bit hasty to look for something to fine you for. They let you stay, but also leave you with a warning.

Further on, you need a paid camping anyway, since anywhere there on the southern region, you really don't want to be wild camping and you especially don't want to pay the Swiss fines. They take it seriously.

Next day you travel a bit, and you see more of the sweet views caused by verticality of that place. But first, a little forest hike.

You're finally getting close to the place where these views are becoming the regular.

These rocks were pretty cool, you can have some.

Water is great.

What's up with this guy?

Crane intermission

Idk, there's been just so many cranes everywhere.

You enter the vertical land (and the camping)

Before I continue I just need to say that I didn't writing think such blogs would take so much effort! It's been a few days already where I'm compiling this journey Also time to drop the third person (for now)

And you know you're getting closer the real hills, driving itself becomes much more of a pleasure it already was. And you know you're in a Swiss countryside because every other village has at least two new car dealerships and one used car lot.

I've already accepted the fact that every other gas station has brand new cars looking at you just to buy them, but it is even the case for the more rural places, it felt like there's just so many dealerships. In other countries you'd see those dealerships at best in bigger towns.

I landed at a camping I was at going to spend a day. Instantly befriended a Belgian friend that was stationed there. He admired my van and seeing him have the same one, I went all out on the model, mods, what I've done to the performance aspect of my car and all that. He got it as a cheap van to get by with his tools and he said that driving for two weeks now he came to like it and is curious on some tuning possibilities, very cool.

It was in the evening so I perfectly enjoyed my time with the hot shower, a campervaning luxury that never gets boring. Especially a few days where you've been growing into ever more of a bum. Anyway, found my way around the camp, made myself a dinner in a pretty cozy kitchen. Managed to have some chat going with some French vacation hikers. They showed me where they been to and what hikes I could take.

They were smart enough to see I'm a lazy ass and so also they given me spots I could go with the car. A lovely couple.

Having a dinner with a nice fully featured kitchen is also something you forget having before departing on a journey like this. It is as of right now a bit over a month since leaving my homeland and this been a wild ride mixed with quite mundane, day to day work (I work both on regular work and personal projects, the blog being one).

It is not for everyone, but being able to see so much variety by just getting behind the car well and pushing the gas pedal is astounding. I find this to be a somewhat rewarding (?) experience. There's a certain hunger within me to do a bit more "extreme" drives around the world, maybe having some more "advanced" routes.

A trip through balkan wilderness is something that was on my mind for a while. I wouldn't do it with a van though, maybe in a proper season. All that to say, this kind of life is a mixture of certain tedium, of slight claustrophobia caused by the tight space (especially during the cold season where you're shut in for the most of the time and you gotta work), the chores of taking care of the humidity within the van so it doesn't go bad, then the chores of having to figure out where you're going to have a shower and take care of some of your physiological needs (especially an issue with quite severely limited space, where you fight for every centimeter).

But it is still something that feels rewarding. Maybe partly because of the troubles but I am not so sure. It feels like something that is just exciting. Keeps you wanting more. There's so much to see and there's only so much time in a day... In a life, really. So the journey is something that you come to want more of. Don't want to go wishy washy here, but it's just plain ol' fun, sometimes a bit scary, sometimes a bit tedious, but most the times quite fun. With the new views you have in the morning, with the new faces you talk to the next occasion, there's so much to this that you just feel like a kid who's learning to see the world again.

Oof, there goes a wall of text. I will probably try to keep the future posts more atomic, so there's not that much content within just a single article. We'll see how that goes.

So the next day I woke up, thorough the night the rain was falling. I had the roof window open just so slightly (should be open so you get rid of humid air and you get some fresh air in). It usually doesn't pass light rain, but when it does I hear it.

So everything was fine.

Went on to put on my pants and those were the coldest damn pair of pants I felt in a long time. Turns out half of them is wet.

So not everything was fine. Worse so, it was a bit bad since half my laundry bag was damp. Turns out, the rain was falling down, and where I'd usually hear it hitting the surfaces, now it just landed on a towel that niiicely transported the whole water load into the filled laundry bag below it.

Now I did dry the clothes with my diesel heater, it actually does a pretty good job at it. But the problem now is - humidity. Humidity in your van is a constant battle and so if you dry out the clothes, unless you dried them outside (and that wasn't an option due to the whole day being rainy) the humidity in your van shoots through the roof (or it actually doesn't which is precisely -- the problem).

Anyway, there were moments thorough that day that it felt like a little rainforest, the higher temperature and the humidity just sit in your nose a certain way. If you've been in a wet sauna, you know the smell. It was getting to that point. Yeah.

Anyway letting it be like that wouldn't be of help, and so I took a little trip.

The trip was to a store in a nearby town and - as for a person that is known for their great and safe ideas - a little lake you have to take quite a curvy uphill road which was during a reasonably heavy snow. Not necessarily worth it for the views, but it was a bit of an adventure on its own. And I needed the car running on full heat and AC to just get rid of the humidity anyhow.

The results of that you can see above, in the less presentable, gray due to snow fall pictures. The nicer pictures are from a day later which blessed me with clear skies.

Came back from the hill (the whole trip didn't dehumidify fuckall, but maybe it would be way worse if I didn't try?), claimed my spot on one of the campgrounds and took my laptop to do some work in the lounge area. A bunch of blokes came by and one thing to another spent the rest of the evening playing billiard to some good company of them and a few percentages. Good fun.

Recovering? Remember to hydrate - and even better - hydrate with salt added in (really!). Usually works. Also, tomato juice is something that can sometimes work quite well, potassium and salt? Idk, at least that's my experience.

Maybe I just really love salt.

The third day, the weather as you can see cleared out, and it was beautifully clear.

What was also beautifully clear is the fact that there was way more humidity in the car that it could handle. Literally dripping from any cold surface like the sunroof.

Also - why a sunroof and not a regular camper window? This car already had an aftermarket sunroof installed into it and so I didn't bother trying to install some of those cool and proper camper roof windows and so I just bear the weather as it comes.

Did some work, had some talks with my Belgian friend and went off goodbye until there was still sun. The worst thing you can do is you can travel across these lands during the night. Did it once and it felt like I was missing out on so much - and I probably was.

I still was wondering whether it would be now Italy or France and it landed on France, and it was a good choice. The decision was made a bit easier for me since there were really no feasible non-toll roads to Italy as there were to France.

Road to France

The camping spot was right next to the ride on top of the Glacier 3000.
Such a creative name, they must have learned from the best
(looking at you, Energy 2000).

It was packed full of people, both the roadside parkings and the big parking lot in the back was more than half full.

That was two hours or so of driving and there was so much variety in all of it. There's so many different elements of different nature, architecture, and just the general mixup of all these things.

And then

But didn't we forget something? That's right!

Cranes!
Actually there already was one crane in this section, have you noticed it?

... actually taking a look at it again there are three cranes in pictures above. And there's probably even more but that's fighting over pixels. Swiss like their cranes a'ight.

I specifically coded a way to be able to display these images a bit smaller so they fit in proper. That's how much I want you to see ALL the cranes

So we're here

I got the same night to Chamonix. I came there specifically to take a gondola up the peak, but to my demise (and to gasp of relief of my wallet), there's some service work going on, and it opens up in a month or so.

As of right now, I'm already way down south close to the sea. The cold weather and upcoming cold front there higher up certainly helped with the decisions to speed up. Also the time is slowly unraveling thin and there's still quite a way home.

Still, the blogpost took some effort. Going through the pictures, filtering it out. Having some form that is at least remotely nice looking and showing a bit of the picture of what it was for me to be there. Hopefully given you a bit of what it was like. If not, at least you know Swiss like their cranes.

Switzerland is a beautiful place

This site supports rss.

Get your rss reader pointed to koniec.co/rss.xml and you will be up to date with new articles.

What is RSS?

RSS allows you to link up to many different sources of content, be that blog sites, online newspapers and even podcasts or youtube channels you might be watching. It takes all these different sources and puts it into a single feed, without any ads and unnecessary clutter.

It is your universal, customised way of reading content you consciously decided to want to be up to date with.

Why even use it?

I personally view it as a way of having a personally curated algorithm. You are very well aware of what you add to your RSS feed and it's not up to some big brother corpo to tell you what you are going to watch or read next.

I feel like we're lost in the sauce of auto-suggested content, there's not much "organic" traction going on. What in the modern world we call organic is pretty much up to a for profit company trying to find the perfect mixture of content that will keep you engaged, whether you like it or not.

How to use RSS?

In order to be able to read RSS feeds, you need an RSS reader. The usual flow of working with such reader is simple.

1. Get to a news site you'd like to "subscribe" to.
2. Find link to "RSS". It might be a yellow icon of a dot with two "waves", similar to a Wi-Fi logo.
   • alternatively some RSS readers give you an option to "find" available RSS feeds on the site. It often finds more than you can find by hand "manually"
3. Add the RSS link to your reader app. In case of this blog, the link is going to be https://koniec.co/rss.xml

Some readers provide you a searchable database of RSS feeds you can subscribe to with a single click.

Which RSS readers should I use?

The world is full of different RSS clients, you're really a single search away from tens of options tied directly for your preferences. Needless to say all you need to do now is to go down one of the links below and get your rss game going.

My current choices are Capy Reader and Feedbro, but it will probably change soon.

I recommend going for FOSS (free and open source) alternatives that are run by the community and the software is completely free to use and modify.

It is surprisingly hard to find a good non-hosted browser extension for RSS. Top extensions that are recommended are services you need to register to. Other being a potential privacy issue, it just also hides features behind a paywall which doesn't need to be the case.

If you're on Android and you don't bother with debloating, you probably already have Google News installed on your phone. You can use it, with a little extra work. Still, that keeps you in the Google ecosystem and your activity is being tracked and used for their own gain.

I still don't understand

Well, don't worry. Search for "how to use RSS" and you will find extensive text or video tutorials on the topics.

I'm just here to tell you there's a thing called RSS and it is pretty cool.

It lets you control what you consume on the internet and what you might want to avoid. It's a technology of the early internet that might be a little bit of help in the current times, where every single service screams at you just to get your attention.

Not much content yet

Come back in a while.

Have a fren while we're at it

May they serve you well