Back in the Europe (Issue #199)
Politics, detention centers, deportations, AI, tariffs, crypto, dev environments on Android, peace, love, and back in wonderful Europe :)
Hello and welcome to my newsletter!
Finally it’s the start of season 3!
So many things have happened since issue #198.
That was way back in early January. I was in a police station in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It was really kind of narly. A whole bunch of stuff happened to me after that. Some good, some bad, and a lot very very strange. I’m not sure how much I can write about it yet, but to cut a long story short, 3 months later, I am back in Europe. I got back 7 days ago, and very happy to be back. Spring time is wonderful in Europe, even if it’s quite chilly sometimes.
During those 3 months, I got to spend time with people from all over the world. British, american, russian, swedish, australian, nigerian, cameroonian, chinese, bangladeshi, pakistani, sri lankan, indonesian, south korean, cambodian, and lithuanian. And of course vietnamese. It was the strangest of times, often very difficult, but we helped each other as best we could, and kept each other sane.
My take aways from the experience: Never take your freedom for granted. Do more stuff, every single day. Live life more, every single day. There are so many things that you can do. True boredom really really sucks. It’s corny, but every day really is precious. And stay healthy. Do a small amount of exercise every single morning before you start the day.
I’m safe and healthy, and looking to start a new chapter. I just wanted to get back on the newsletter publishing horse as soon as possible.
I wrote 3 blog posts the past few days:
Back in Europe https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2025/04/01/back-in-europe
Setup on Android https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2025/04/03/setup-on-android
Android annoyances https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2025/04/03/android-annoyances
Android setup useful links https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2025/04/04/android-setup-useful-links
Moving from iOS to Android is quite a change, lots of annoyances, but also lots of stuff I quite like.
Here are the last few podcasts I’ve listenned to:
Francis Foster and Konstantine Kisin Ep#2297 (Joe Rogan Experience Podcast) https://l1nk.dev/o6aSI
ICE Detention (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver) https://acesse.one/sAuXA
The AI Cold War, Signalgate, Coreweave IPO, Tariff End Games, El Salvador Deportations (All-In Podcast) https://podcastindex.org/podcast/1015378?episode=35422858235
Trump Tariffs the World (Rabbit Hole Recap Podcast) https://podcastindex.org/podcast/5436375?episode=35658392291
Rollup: Trump Tariff Crash, Circle IPO, Coreweave IPO, FDIC Crypto Green Light (Bankless Podcast) https://www.bankless.com/podcast/trumps-tariff-announcement-sends-markets-tumbling
Much love and peace to all :)
That’s all from me…
Best regards,
Mark
Consider buying me a coffee or becoming a patreon, any support would be very much appreciated. Check out the donation page for all the donation options:
https://markjgsmith.com/donate
Thanks for reading!
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Have a great weekend and a fantastic next week!