niracler

Finally, I understand a little bit. To solve problems, you need momentum, courage, a do-or-die battle, drastic measures, getting to the root of the problem, and being determined to throw away 80% of the remaining work for the day. Otherwise, you'll always be thinking about "getting more work done" instead of "completing a task thoroughly"~~

About the Past Few Weeks#

It has been mid-October since the last time I wrote a weekly journal. In the past 3 weeks, I have gone through three stages: "confrontation" -> "rest at home" -> "restart work". Don't get me wrong, I just had a heart-to-heart talk with my leader about my mental state and made some adjustments to my workload and tasks, but with higher completeness.

Change in Mindset#

I have always had issues with my lifestyle. It's like having ten homework assignments in front of me. And my approach is to work on all ten assignments simultaneously. Whenever I encounter a difficult problem or one that I can't solve immediately, I move on to the next assignment. The end result is that all ten assignments end up being "terrible". Yes, the problem lies in wanting to do everything but not doing anything well, lacking moderation in things I want to do, and having a short attention span. This may be acceptable in daily life or hobbies, but it can be fatal in work or career.

Meaningful things are usually difficult. It is meaningless to complete all the easy questions in ten assignments within a limited time. The key is to do well in the task at hand. Some things cannot be rushed, but if you decide to do them, do them well. Don't take pride in reading many comics or books, sometimes understanding and fully grasping the meaning of one book is much more valuable than skimming through a hundred books. And don't always think, "What should I do with all the tasks I haven't completed? Maybe I should do more easy questions to boost my score". This may work for exams, but in real life and work, solving a difficult problem in one assignment may earn you more points than all the easy questions in ten assignments combined.

You may think that you are doing easy questions, but in the eyes of others, you are only writing the word "solution". It's just self-deception, don't even believe in yourself. Just like the description of the "mediocre circle" in "Sleeping Fool":

People who claim to be artists usually do some easy and enjoyable exercises, but they don't engage in serious practice because it's too tiring. They organize their own exhibitions, but because they are afraid of knowing their own abilities, they don't participate in formal competitions or selections. They create an illusion of being a talented artist in their familiar circle.

(I am currently in this mediocre circle)

Going Home - Reuniting with Long-lost Friends#

The place where I work is only a little over an hour's drive from home, and I usually go home once a month. However, every time I go home, I just stay at home and don't go out.

In recent years, I have had very few friends. Due to a lack of maintenance of past relationships, I am almost the only one left. The main reason I haven't met up with my former classmates and friends is because of my current state and the inferiority I feel about my work. I feel that my performance in the past few years of work has been poor, to put it simply, I have been "dragged along" by work.

Since I found out during the National Day holiday that a high school classmate works near my workplace, we have met up a few times. I realized that I couldn't speak fluently anymore. Also, this week, I had an online technical discussion with a few university classmates, which made me realize how much I miss them.

(Just an ordinary outing, going to the park that I have visited countless times, but when I went with them after four years of not seeing each other, it became a memory)

Experience with Steam Deck for Development#

These days, I tried setting up a secondary development environment on the Steam Deck. I found that when I develop using different devices simultaneously, I can better understand the differences in desktop environment design.

I now understand why I liked using Manjaro during my university days. It was because I found the way of installing software to be particularly novel at that time. Almost all the required software could be found on the AUR repository, which is not the case for Android or Windows. I later discovered that even macOS doesn't have this kind of environment where you can download any software from a powerful package manager, which is very convenient.

(A simple keyboard and a messy desk)

"Land of the Lustrous" - A Farewell After Ten Thousand Years#

Some things are initially beautiful, but as you gradually lose them, you become more nostalgic for their original appearance. This work constantly showcases this "gradual loss".

This volume is from chapter 89 to 98 of the manga. There has been almost a two-year gap between chapter 95 "Ceasefire" and chapter 96 "Ten Thousand Years", from December 25, 2020, to June 24, 2022. It feels like I have been waiting for this book for ten thousand years, with the plot from 20 years ago -> the volume released in 23 years -> reaching me after half a year. Following the inertia of reading it before, I almost forgot why I liked it so much back then.

Works & Overall Rating?#

"Lee Kuan Yew's Worldview" - Singapore's Development is Definitely Not by Chance#

Recently, Lee Hsien Loong announced his retirement, so I picked up this book to read. It's the first time I have such deep insights and understanding about various countries in the world. It has truly been enlightening.

Reading this book was not tiring at all, I could just keep reading. I realized that I should start with books that are easy to read to have a good start in reading. Later on, I can gradually increase the depth and breadth of my reading. Otherwise, if I find it difficult to swallow anything I read, it will be hard for me to have a good start. This is also mentioned in the "Fogg Behavior Model".

Do what you can and leave the rest to fate. Many things that seem accidental to us have inevitability in the grand scheme of things. Singapore's development is definitely not by chance, it is the result of countless efforts by the generation of politicians led by Lee Kuan Yew. Or maybe some things are difficult to guess whether they are accidental or not, but there are things you can do "what you can and leave the rest to fate". Some things are inevitable, and you can see it. Or it may be a high probability event, you can't say it is accidental, and then give up on doing it. The "gambler spirit" in "No Game No Life" was an inspiration to me at that time.

Elitism and reducing welfare in society are actually very valid points. State-owned enterprises in China are really terrible. If Alibaba's software is considered difficult to use, then anything related to telecommunications is even worse, like IPTV, it makes me want to vomit. Software related to state-owned enterprises is exceptionally difficult to use, I really don't know if it's my bias.

Some people are mediocre, and I am one of those mediocre people. However, I believe that even mediocre people can achieve things that ordinary people cannot.

Welfare states can also have many nuances, such as the difference between the Nordic countries and other European countries. Unrestrained mediocrity is really uncomfortable. But I have a general understanding that companies can force people to leave, while countries cannot force people to die, they can only say they won't accept people. But once you become a citizen, there's no way back. So it's impossible and should not have a system of job security in companies. You have to work, but there should also be a certain guarantee system, at least to prevent chaos. I realized that there are some commonalities between national issues and company issues.

PS. The above are some random thoughts, not well organized. If possible, I will write a separate book review or use another format.

Miscellaneous Readings#

'-' represents my thoughts, and the text within <blockquote> is a quote. This time, it was generated using the Pinboard API and then fine-tuned.

• simonw/til: Today I Learned - Consider using this format to write TIL, just pure markdown, with large blocks of code and images linked externally. The key is to write each thought completely, without just filling in the gaps. Then, once you reach a certain score, you can share it.
• Typing Practice - A typing service, I am now the slowest typist among all the developers in my company, often looking at the keyboard while typing, especially when I change my sitting position or keyboard.
• Downloading videos should be like recording songs from the radio "fair use" | HN - I'm still not sure if this kind of downloading is illegal or something.
• A university professor decides to deliver food - Delivery drivers, they belong to the downward spiral of life, right? They can't think about anything and spend the whole day doing low-efficiency tasks.
• How China's Great Firewall Detects and Blocks Fully Encrypted Traffic - The recent incident where Clash was completely blocked made me more interested in the mechanism of the Great Firewall.
• You May Be Using the Wrong Dictionary - A good dictionary can have such a significant impact. When writing, if you come across a word that you often use but want to find a better and more elegant alternative, you can search for it in a dictionary. It can provide better replacement words~.
• Automating Information Intake and Output with Workflows | Reorx’s Forge - I optimized the synchronization strategy for Douban's Telegram using this.
• ✅ The Node.js best practices list (July 2023) - A series of best practices for Node.js. I have been doing Node.js development for so long, but I still haven't mastered it. Exploding 💥.
• 37% Rule - MBA Wiki - So you can't wait for love at first sight, confess when you like someone, and break up when you no longer like them. It's the same when looking for a job.

  The 37% rule, from the book "The Algorithm of Beauty". It means that after experiments conducted by mathematician Euler, 37% is used as the dividing point. Before that point, you observe, and after that point, you make decisions. For example, if you want to buy a house and there are 30 houses in the area, you should look at 37% of the houses, which is 11 houses. Before 37%, you only observe without buying, but you should remember what you think is the best. After 37%, you should only buy if you find a house that is better than the previous best.

• （译）2023 年每个软件开发者都必须知道的关于 Unicode 的基本知识 | 新世界的大门 - Our team's Awker has been struggling with UTF-8 issues, and it's surprising that it took me so long to consciously search for this kind of tutorial. I've been doing related development for two years already. Now it seems more like filling in the gaps.
• Security of Encrypt or Hash Password in Client-side - I have always been curious why Alibaba Cloud's AWS API request header signing is so complicated, while GitHub's is simply a token in the header. It turns out there are design considerations behind it.
• Command Line Interface Guidelines - A very good CLI design guide. I'm surprised that it's only now that I consciously searched for this kind of tutorial. I've been doing related development for two years. It seems more like filling in the gaps now.

Afterword - Emotions that are Hard to Convey#

I'm really not good at writing this kind of weekly journal because I always have a feeling of "no matter how I say it, I can't express it clearly". But I think this is also a stage. If expressing our emotions in our hearts can be done simply by saying "happy" or "sad", then there would be no need for various forms of works in the world. Originally, I thought there was nothing worth writing about this time, but when I looked back at my notes and photo album from this period, I realized that there were actually many things that happened in the past few weeks.

During this time, let's start by taking care of ourselves. Despair can be counteracted by sleep + nutrition + exercise. And I have already figured out what I want to do at "that time" in the future.

(I also changed my avatar as a basis for mood switching. I really like characters with deep red hair and dead fish eyes, definitely not Makise Kurisu + Maho Hiyajo)