Thursday was the first day of Icelandic summer and after my oral exam in Internet Governance that morning I attended The Green Walk, a march across Reykjavík promoting nature conservation. Iceland is a country of such natural beauty that it’s easy to assume its citizens are inherently aligned with protecting nature. While I think that’s largely true, it has, for example, struggled to outlaw whaling. Also, the majority of the countryside is privately owned and not part of a protected national park. That regularly leads to controversies about private parties making profit-driven decisions regarding hydropower dams, aluminum smelting, power transmission lines, or land alterations to build tourist infrastructure. I wish I could share more specifics about what the rally was promoting, but all the speeches were in Icelandic.
This is my last week of grad school. I have an exam on Monday, and then two papers due later in the week and I’m done. I have lots to reflect on my overall experience, which I will share later, but today I just wanted to recommend the best exam study tool I’ve ever used: NotebookLM.
There are lots of things that make NotebookLM different from a typical AI chatbot. The most important thing is that it only uses source documents you upload—no “hallucinations,” no making things up or straying into other topics. The second is that it has pre-built templates to generate particular kinds of study artifacts from those sources, such as mind maps, quizzes, and flashcards. I used some of those during the exam period last semester, but only in the last week have I played with the Audio Overview feature and it’s honestly incredible.
I can get to the point where my mind is saturated and I can’t take in more information through reading. Last semester my workaround was to go on a walk and listen to the audiobook version of the textbook. But NotebookLM can generate a custom podcast where two “people” have a casual conversation that hits on all the topics in your sources. So I can upload slides from each week and have it generate a 45-minute podcast that gives a very solid overview of everything in the class. I know you’re thinking that it must be very annoying, but honestly it’s not bad. The voices and conversation are extremely realistic, and the podcast weaves together the topics in a way that feels natural. It’s not like I’d prefer this over an actual human conversation, but it’s unlike anything otherwise available because it’s so hyper-targeted to just the content in my slides.
Noted & Done
- A new subsea fiber-optic cable named AUÐUR has been announced, which will connect Iceland to Scotland. This would replace the aging FARICE-1 cable, which also connects to the Faroe Islands, although it’s unclear if AUÐUR will include a Faroese spur.
- I have learned a new Latin phrase that embodies what we need to do to Trump’s legacy when he is finally ousted or dies: damnatio memoriae.
- Saw lúpína perform at Kaffibarinn.
- Attended a screening of The Veto at Bíó Paradís, a film about the UN Security Council. There was an interesting discussion afterwards with the director and other experts, including one of my professors.