Welcome, 2026! My past, present and future

It’s only a week into the new year of 2026, and quite a lot has already happened.

Looking back, Christmas 2025 and the quiet days “between the years” felt like the perfect moment to start this blog. I had a simple plan in mind: to write about technology, my small side projects, and the experiments that keep me curious in my spare time. I never imagined that the first week of 2026 would hit with such dramatic events.

The year began with a bank robbery in Gelsenkirchen (which actually took place on December 29th). I won’t go into too many details about the robbery itself, but many customers’ safe deposit boxes at Sparkasse Gelsenkirchen were emptied, with large sums of cash stolen. The bank’s standard insurance policy covers only around 10.000€ per box, while the total damage from the robbery is now estimated at well over 100 million €. Some individual customers have reported that they stored far more than 10.000€ in their boxes—some even claim amounts of 300.000€. For many reasons, I generally don’t think it’s wise to keep large sums of money in cash.

Rumors have circulated that some of the stolen money may have been of questionable origin. So far, this remains purely speculative, as few have been able to provide clear evidence of where the cash actually came from. Some claim it was intended as potential wedding money for their children. Everyone can draw their own conclusions.

Meanwhile, Berlin was shaken by a deliberate attack on its electricity infrastructure on last week’s Saturday. Several districts experienced blackouts as a major substation was sabotaged, leaving almost 40.000 households, businesses, and public transport systems without power for several days now. A left-wing extremist group calling itself the “Vulkangruppe” has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The incident starkly exposes the vulnerabilities in urban infrastructure and shows how little has been done in Germany —Berlin in particular— to address the threat of left-wing terrorism. The consequences of this inaction have become all too clear.

Witnessing all of this leaves me utterly speechless. I cannot help but hope that these events are not a bad omen for the rest of 2026.

In light of everything that has happened, I’ve decided to give this blog a slight twist. While my focus will remain on technology and my personal projects, I will also share observations and thoughts on broader events, even when they have little to do with tech. It seems impossible to ignore what is happening around us — and sometimes, reflecting on it is just as important as fiddling with code or gadgets.