This article has been machine-translated from Chinese. The translation may contain inaccuracies or awkward phrasing. If in doubt, please refer to the original Chinese version.
Tons and tons of photos ahead~ Take it easy~ Sit back and enjoy~ ❤️
Preface
For me, 2024 was a year of work-life balance, leaning even more toward life. In other words, it was an extremely "fulfilling IRL" year. I only kept one daily channel and one gallery channel running consistently -- let's just call it a year of soaking up knowledge~
The blunt way to put it: I slacked off all year, procrastinated on projects whenever I could, and was too lazy to write blog posts. The diplomatic way to put it: I lived life earnestly for a whole year. For projects, I was thinking deeply about proper architecture instead of building pure toys. For blog posts, I didn't feel like writing low-quality technical content, and the high-quality stuff has been perpetually in draft mode.
The overall feeling I got from the internet this year was restlessness and anxiety. With the tough social and economic climate, more and more people started feeling emo, including people around me. I myself rarely felt emo this year though -- I credit that to my habit of going out for good food whenever I'm unhappy, which instantly lifts my mood (conversely, when I'm really hungry, I get emo 😈). Plus, having a good cry when I'm upset really helps -- I think that's super important!
In my view, the biggest takeaway from 2024 was learning how to love myself, how to love others, and how to love this world.
I hope this blog post brings you a little bit of joy ❤️
Gear
I bought quite a few new devices this year. I feel like I won't need to buy anything for the next few years -- my wallet has been thoroughly drained.
- DJI Pocket 3 Creator Combo (-4499¥) Honestly the best purchase of the year
- Built another desktop PC (-6000¥) Worth it
- Sihoo ergonomic chair (-1648¥) Worth it
- ThinkBook 16+ R7-7840 RTX 4050 32GB 1TB (-6593¥) Worth it. I use it for remote work when traveling far, and my Mac for short trips (because some work requires Windows)
- Xiaomi TV S 75-inch, missed the government subsidy and overpaid by 1k+ (-4324¥) Painful
- Pico 4 Ultra (-4299¥) Painful. Yes, I'm the sucker who bought it at full price, but early bird gets the early experience. VR was super fun as a first-timer, though it does tend to collect dust afterward,
but in certain aspects it remains irreplaceable. - Government-subsidized M4 iPad Pro 13-inch WLAN 512G (-10993¥) Worth it. The emotional value it gives me is off the charts
- 2 tier-1 energy-efficient AC units and 1 3P TCL tier-1 energy-efficient floor-standing AC. Worth it
- Various small figures here and there
Food
Warning: tons of food photos ahead! May trigger intense cravings! Here are my favorite foods from this year~
Tonghai Russian BBQ in Beijing
Had Tonghai Russian BBQ when dining with classmates in Beijing. Super nice, genuinely Russian-style -- the meat skewers were THIS big. Photos were taken on my classmate's phone.
Jiejie Takumi Yakiniku in Beijing
The grilled eel from my favorite yakiniku place in Beijing (婕婕匠烧肉)! It looked, smelled, and tasted amazing -- absolutely delicious! Their meat was incredible too.
Yushen Crispy Grilled Fish in Shenzhen
I absolutely love this one -- the fish skin is grilled to perfection, super crispy, and the potatoes taste best when they're cooked until completely soft and melty!
Xianji Roast Goose King in Shenzhen
If you're in Shenzhen, you have to try this. Paired with plum sauce, it's absolutely divine!
An You Pang BBQ in Zhengzhou
Went here on Christmas. I was drawn in by their BBQ tree, and the meat turned out to be fantastic too!
Other Tasty Finds
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KFC Christmas special fried chicken -- Golden Roasted Coconut Crispy Fried Chicken. So good, so so good, incredibly good!
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The buttered meat at Nikumatsu Yakiniku Ichiban in Shenzhen -- my absolute favorite yakiniku place!
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Delivery - Typhoon shelter chicken wings from 鸡翼山. Delicious!
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100% Fried Beef Steak outside Happy Valley. Delicious!
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Squirrel fish from some Northeastern Chinese restaurant
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Stumbled upon Ajisen Ramen at the airport. The tomato beef soup noodles were great.
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Forgot where I had these grilled lamb chops. Delicious though.
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Homemade stone pot egg -- someone figured out how to recreate the school cafeteria's stone pot egg at home. Super tasty.
Home
In mid-June I moved back home and started working remotely. I went all out decorating -- bought pegboards for my study, and then started... well, for now let me just show off some small figures!
- My beloved Shanshan~
- Little Bocchi
- 恋爱的西装外套~初音未来泡面压手办展示
Other figure videos:
【游戏人生 / 白泳装 / TAITO 景品】鉴赏 纯享版 你做的好啊
Oh right, Laba is now a cat who's been on a plane! She was shipped as cargo back to Shenzhen with me. She was so timid right after landing.
Travel
This year I unlocked quite a few new places. Partly because after buying the Pocket 3, I became way more eager to go out and film everything. It felt like I made up for all the outings I missed in previous years hahaha. On the other hand, I was in Beijing for the first half of the year and at my own home in Shenzhen for the second half, so I had way more opportunities to go out.
Drum Tower in Beijing
On January 19th, my grandma and cousin came to Beijing and wanted to explore, so I went along with them~
Tianjin Trip
On March 30th, I went to Tianjin with my bestie. My dad was working there, so it was a good chance to visit him too.
The Tianjin zoo was pretty interesting -- it's one of those zoos inside a shopping mall, but they actually had quite a lot of animals~
My bestie and I stayed at two different hotels in Tianjin Binhai New Area over two nights. This hotel had my favorite vibe! It was the Motai Holiday Hotel in Tianjin Binhai New Area, where we finished watching the movie "Johnny Keep Walking!".
Shenzhen - Zhuhai - Macau Ferry Trip
Took a ferry to Zhuhai, then headed to Macau. Macau had free casino shuttle buses everywhere which was nice, but I wore uncomfortable shoes that day so I couldn't walk for too long. At the casino, they checked my Hong Kong-Macau Travel Permit at every single checkpoint 👿 -- apparently I look too young. Unfortunately, no photos allowed inside the casino.
Halloween at Happy Valley Shenzhen
To be honest, the Halloween atmosphere at Happy Valley Shenzhen's Amazing Trendy Play Festival was really strong. Lots of NPCs around that I didn't even photograph, and the haunted houses were super fun~ It wasn't too crowded when I went, which was nice.
万圣氛围挺浓的，记深圳欢乐谷惊奇潮玩节游玩（大概算 VLOG？）_哔哩哔哩_bilibili
Hong Kong Disneyland
是和妹妹一起的港迪 vlog 呀~ 迷离大宅、魔雪奇缘、烟花秀视觉盛宴一口气看个遍~_哔哩哔哩_bilibili
Went to Hong Kong Disneyland with my sister and had an absolute blast! It was also a childhood dream come true.
The food was just okay though.
The fireworks show was absolutely stunning: 【4K60 帧慢镜头】香港迪士尼烟花秀集锦 - 打上花火版_哔哩哔哩_bilibili
Victoria Harbour & Strolling in Hong Kong
Went with friends to apply for Hong Kong bank cards, then explored around Hong Kong~ I absolutely loved the water here -- the sparkling reflections combined with the refreshing sea breeze. Spending some time here really washes away the work exhaustion. The night view felt unbeatable.
Hong Kong's architecture just feels so distinctly Hong Kong. I even spotted a few places that gave off post-apocalyptic vibes.
Other
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In-person meetup dinner with some awesome folks from the community!
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Photos I took on one of my flights. So beautiful.
Games
About games -- I posted a long write-up about this before, so let me paste it here again to pad the content:
So, let me briefly share my views on gaming. I'm an incredibly omnivorous, three-minute-enthusiasm type who plays everything. (The ultimate omnivore!)
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Premium Steam single-player / AAA games: If I can afford it, I buy it. After finishing (or maybe not finishing due to lack of time/interest), it happily sits in my family library. Even better if it's already in the family library so I don't have to buy it (thanks to a certain generous friend for sharing a bunch of visual novels). For me, Steam games are spiritual nourishment, but I'm not the type to chase 100% achievements/completionism (that's too time-consuming -- I already paid money for the game, why should I also spend time playing it lol). I played Black Myth: Wukong to the second playthrough, got stuck, and set it aside. I'll pick it up again whenever I think of it.
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Casual / "office break" gacha games: These are pure snacks & fast food for me -- fleeting bursts of joy. Honkai, Genshin, Wuthering Waves, Naraka, whatever -- I've played all the major mobile games. The hype usually doesn't last long. When one manages to hold my attention longer, there's usually some special factor at play. I stuck with Genshin for two years before quitting, I still log into Honkai: Star Rail daily for dailies, Zenless Zone Zero didn't click with me when it launched, Wuthering Waves lasted a few months before hitting the same fatigue as Genshin (though if there's a standout character design, I might come back briefly before dropping it again). While playing, even though I know these games will eventually become outdated, I still check character guides and recommended gear. I mostly F2P these games, and when browsing community guides, my brain automatically filters out drama/flamewars/discourse (my usual thought is "this is just fast food for me, no need to worry about the game's future direction"). And I genuinely enjoy trying out new mobile games on the market, even though many of them aren't fun. The main joy in these games comes from multiple dimensions: the thrill of free gacha pulls, story, character design, combat design, visuals -- though some dimensions are bound to be lacking.
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Otome / female-oriented games: I've tried Miracle Nikki, Shining Nikki, Love and Deepspace, Love and Producer, Tears of Themis, and more. Played Miracle Nikki for two years in high school, quit. Played Shining Nikki for two years in college, quit. These are also fast food games. Love and Producer / Love and Deepspace / Tears of Themis -- I dabbled in them early on, but now as a working adult, I feel nothing. I still prefer Papergames -- they're quite versatile in the gaming space. These games don't require community engagement at all; following official media is enough. Events are cyclical -- log in for 5 minutes, clear daily tasks, and log off. The main joy is in raising your "daughter" and dress-up play.
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MMOs / PC online games: Not counting what I played as a kid (things like Crisis Action, Mole Manor, Seer, Xiao Huaxian, 3D Dance, Pikatown -- true dark history if I say them out loud, and oops I just did). Played JX3 (Jian Wang 3) for a while in high school, but it suddenly lost its appeal. Now I just occasionally play Naraka: Bladepoint. For me, playing PC multiplayer games is about recharging social energy. Sometimes after a good day at work, I call up the squad for a few rounds, three people on voice chat having a great time. Same goes for multiplayer games on Steam -- the community is like a big dinner table, great for casual hangouts.
That's enough rambling for now. I'll add more when I think of it.
Black Myth: Wukong
Without a doubt, my Game of the Year. I cleared the first playthrough, but lost motivation halfway through the second (that's on me). I still have a procrastinated blog post about it -- sorry, Black Myth. I even made four videos for it:
【黑神话 BOSS 战】第一章黑熊精&第二章虎先锋-朴实无华的挨打记录_黑神话悟空_游戏集锦
【黑神话悟空】第三章亢金龙&亢金星君-这龙真好看啊呜呜呜_单机游戏热门视频
【剧透预警】无敌水墨风！黑神话里最喜欢的火焰山土地 boss 战！_哔哩哔哩 bilibili_黑神话悟空
【黑神话悟空】禁字诀苦手硬刚大圣残躯死亡集锦【结尾二结局剧透预警】_黑神话悟空_游戏集锦 Here are just a few screenshots -- I'll share more once I finally finish that procrastinated blog post.
Astro Bot
Met the GOTY winner -- tried my best but couldn't beat it (yes, I'm the sucker who bought Astro Bot at full launch price of 400+ yuan and even got the special edition). Honestly, the game itself is perfectly fine and pretty fun, but its scope doesn't really warrant a GOTY award in my opinion.
MiSide
The anime-style psychological horror dating game (for lack of a better description) that burst onto the scene in the second half of the year -- it was genuinely so much fun! I was initially drawn to its art style, and I'd already seen the demo playthrough back in July the previous year. I never expected it to be this entertaining. I played through it on stream.
When I learned the dev team was just two people, I was deeply impressed. The game also has a powerful lingering effect -- it pops into your mind even when you're stumbling around in the dark at night.
Infinity Nikki
Not much needs to be said about this one -- the photography mode is godly. I have this urge to build a little website for my "daughter," but I'll save that for later~
You know, I used to be a Nikki mom. I even sang "Infinite Girl." I love Nikki.
【纯手弹】为什么要演奏春日影！！！疑似爱音本人上号_哔哩哔哩 bilibili
Anime
My favorite new anime this year:
- Gushing over Magical Girls (January) A totally fresh take on the magical girl genre. After a few episodes, I immediately binged the manga at light speed. I love it so so so much!
- Too Many Losing Heroines! (July) I absolutely adored the youthful energy of this show. Consistently solid across the board.
- Oshi no Ko Season 2 (July) Doga Kobo delivers as always. Please bow down to the original creator for Doga Kobo.
- Natsume's Book of Friends Season 7 My eternal beloved is back! Kamiya is still the Kamiya we know and love.
Anime I watched this year (in no particular order):
- Mashle: Magic and Muscles Season 2 (sequel, quite fun)
- 'Tis Time for "Torture," Princess (a fun food? slice-of-life? comedy show!)
- Gushing over Magical Girls (January's true gem)
- Delicious in Dungeon (another January gem)
- Solo Leveling (good for background watching)
- Classroom of the Elite Season 3 (sequel)
- Villainess Level 99 & 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life (two villainess anime, quite the unique flavor)
- Demon Slayer Season 4: Hashira Training Arc (April's champion)
- The Duke of Death and His Maid Season 3 (April's pure love champion)
- The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Prince & The Aristocrat's Otherworldly Adventure (passable toilet reads)
- Grimm Variations (hey, this one was actually pretty interesting)
- A Magical Girl and Her Evil Used to Be Enemies (July's pure love ceiling -- the art style somehow reminded me of As Miss Beelzebub Likes)
- Oshi no Ko Season 2 (July's true gem)
- Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian (the ending fell a bit short, overall just passable)
- Senpai Is an Otokonoko (July's champion in a different sense)
- 2.5 Dimensional Seduction (fan service show, but it covered a lot of interesting cosplay topics)
- Too Many Losing Heroines! (July's true gem)
- Tower of God Season 2 (how should I put it... emmmmm, I still haven't finished it.)
- Natsume's Book of Friends Season 7 (October's true gem)
- I'll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History (yet another villainess show)
Since new anime isn't available on Bilibili anymore, I can only watch Chinese animation and random other stuff there now...
Chinese Animation:
- JX3: Xia Gan Yi Dan Shen Jianxin Season 3
- Feng Ling Yu Xiu Special (the yuri is SO SO SO GOOD!!)
- A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality (the pillar of Chinese web animation -- now that it's finished, I have no more background watching anime left)
- My Three-Body Season 4 (phenomenal)
- Scissor Seven: Memory Fragments
- Pause! Reorder (sequel to "Pause," great production)
Catching up on older shows:
- Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun Finally watched it -- so good, so sweet, so hilarious!
Crafts
I didn't make many resin shaker charms (流麻) this year because of moving, the printer being broken, and the crafting balcony needing to be cleared out -- kept getting postponed endlessly. Here are the ones I did manage to make:
A friend said they really wanted this resin shaker: 【自制流麻】安克雷奇流麻 —— 海豚、海洋、游泳课
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Another friend said she really wanted this resin shaker~ 宋金，是公主，也是骑士。【"南海一号"宋金项饰 流麻展示】 Yep, this was my favorite one I made all year.
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Near the end of the year, I finally cleared out the balcony and made a Furina resin shaker at home as a warm-up: 【芙宁娜流麻】我太爱 Log 模式拍流麻了，好美。
Cat
The luckiest thing this year was adopting Laba on February 22nd -- Cat Day (猫の日)! You can follow her growth and daily life at 余弦の養喵日常 🐱~ I adopted her from a girl who found her around the Laba Festival (腊八节), so this little cutie was named Laba~ The girl saved her from feline panleukopenia by personally buying medicine and nursing her back to health -- truly not easy. When I adopted her, she was about 5 months old and 3.55kg, a chubby little kitty. Now she's about 1 year and 3 months old, a calm 4.5kg senior cat.
You can tell from the frequency of my Bilibili video uploads during that period just how much I adored her~
我要让全世界看到咱领养的超可爱的腊八！_哔哩哔哩_bilibili 【腊八日记】小橘白玩逗猫棒纯享版_哔哩哔哩_bilibili 宝宝你是一只肥肥橘猫，要多运动！_哔哩哔哩_bilibili 魅魔猫猫，好娇噢~~躺平任撸_哔哩哔哩_bilibili 小猫咪情绪可比我稳定多了，望周知_哔哩哔哩_bilibili 不要笑挑战｜小橘猫被打印机吓到珍贵瞬间_哔哩哔哩_bilibili 小腊八的亲亲先到先得_哔哩哔哩_bilibili 当你试图用鸡肉冻干勾引小猫咪_哔哩哔哩_bilibili 小猫咪大屁股，点击就送~~_哔哩哔哩_bilibili
- When she got spayed, the anesthesia made her look extra derpy
In November, Laba went missing once. I was worried sick. After finding her, I wrote this blog post: 寻猫记：记一次难忘的找猫经历. After that, I got her a collar with a tracker to prevent it from happening again.
Then in late November, a colorpoint Ragdoll male kitten joined the family. He looked so much like cola that we named him Cola -- only 3 months old!
Tech & Tinkering
There were too many things I wanted to tinker with. The consequence of starting everything and finishing nothing is that everything gets delayed~ and delayed some more~
Work-wise, this year was pretty smooth sailing -- every challenge I encountered, I managed to solve.
Tech Stack
Here's a summary of my 2024 tech stack, still primarily consisting of the following:
Core Frameworks & Tools
- React + TypeScript + Next.js as the main frontend development framework
- ESLint + Prettier for code standards and formatting
- Backend: Nest.js + Prisma + PostgreSQL
- DevOps: PM2 / Docker
- Caddy replacing nginx as the reverse proxy
- Main IDE switched from VSCode to Cursor -- the transition felt seamless, and now I absolutely can't live without it
- Image hosting migrated from B2 (Backblaze) to Cloudflare R2 -- not because of any issues, just felt like switching
- For blog building: tried Hexo + Next.js, recently had the sudden idea to try migrating to Astro because I was unhappy with the previous data structure
Styling Solutions
- Tailwind CSS
- tailwind-merge: merging Tailwind class names
- tailwind-variants: managing style variants
- clsx: conditional class name management
State Management & Data Fetching
- axios + react-query for network requests
- jotai for state management (migrated from recoil)
UI & Animations
- gsap for complex animations (leveled up gsap significantly this year)
- three.js for 3D WebGL rendering (also leveled up significantly)
- p5.js for 2D effects (e.g., particle animations)
- framer-motion for animation effects (now it's motion)
- Floating UI for floating elements
- react-hook-form for building forms
- shadcn and similar component libraries as needed
- Highly customizable NPM components for specific scenarios (e.g., Swiper, rc-slider, react-toastify)
- React GA4 for analytics tracking
- Web3 related: wagmi, viem, decimal.js / big.js
Utility Libraries & Storage
- Common utility libraries: react-use, ahooks, lodash-es, dayjs/date-fns...
- Local storage: localforage / react-use's useLocalStorage
- Charting: recharts
Side Projects
I procrastinated on quite a few blog posts this year, and everything I worked on was personal/private projects, so there's not much to talk about. No time, no motivation -- ideas came but life filled up all the space before I could act on them~ But I don't regret it. This year was genuinely happy (living life to the fullest), no depression. In the first year after graduation where I had the ability to be happy, I was happy for an entire year, and it ended on a perfect note. I hope next year I can focus a bit more, work on more tech stuff, and have some awesome projects to show for this section~
Year-End Reports
Bilibili Annual Report
New anime on Bilibili has been unwatchable these past two years, so I can only watch other content there now. Sigh. But it's still irreplaceable.
NetEase Cloud Music
I mainly use NetEase Cloud Music for listening to music. I only download songs I particularly love and put them on my NAS, because NetEase's daily recommendations keep getting better at understanding my taste.
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I really like these annual listening keywords: Embrace & Anticipation
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My taste is obvious at a glance hahaha
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People who like Shanshan can't be bad people!! Welcome to listen to 山山的小甜歌
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Duo listening report -- it's not 99% this year! Not good!
Channel Summary
🥰 Thank you thank you, thanks for following Cosine! 🥰 Seeing so many followers makes me so happy! Let's keep it up in the new year!
Favorites of the Year
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Favorite Games of the Year: Black Myth: Wukong, Infinity Nikki
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Favorite Anime of the Year: Gushing over Magical Girls, Oshi no Ko Season 2, Too Many Losing Heroines!
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Favorite Song of the Year: 参考答案：略
Once again talking about my age Is the prefix "I'm only" or "I'm already" I just want to gaze at the scenery outside the car window But I'm told the next stop is coming up After "red light stop" comes "green light go" After the downpour, the sky will clear up too
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Favorite Book of the Year: "HTML Is Not That Simple"
- I even bought a signed physical copy from the author Zhang Xinxu. After finishing the CSS World trilogy, you can check this out -- overall pretty good~
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Favorite Software of the Year: Follow
- 15 个邀请码后，聊聊我对 Follow 的深度体验感受
- I liked it so much that even in this extremely procrastination-filled year, I wrote a blog post about it hahaha
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Favorite Tech Blog Post of the Year (the one I'm most satisfied with writing): 优化 JavaScript 的乐趣和好处【译文】
- I keep going back to re-read this one myself hahaha
- In theory, there should be a favorite tech post written by someone else, but there are too many -- I love them all.
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Favorite Long-form Article of the Year: 当患有 ADHD 的工程师坐上了名为人工智能的四驱赛博轮椅
- I really love the writing style -- it has a romantic feel to it (?)
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Biggest Disappointment in Manga of the Year: Oshi no Ko (gritting my teeth -- I absolutely cannot accept that ending)
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Biggest Disappointment in Games of the Year: 归龙潮 (so many questionable decisions that I'm thoroughly disappointed)
Blog & Goals
I barely updated the blog this year, mainly because of laziness + having too many things I wanted to do, which led to everything being dragged out with no beginning or end.
This video randomly came to mind:
Humans used to devoutly follow the management bible born from the Industrial Revolution, gradually destroying daily life with excessive time management. Now they devoutly believe that tools and algorithms will reshape the order of life, but everything only gets worse. To make this video, we found a strange example in the book "Algorithms to Live By" -- return the car first or repair it first? The book's author considers it a paradigm; we consider it an irreparable bug, constantly reminding us that humans are not machines.
So let me set some goals here, hoping to accomplish them next year~
- Practice proper time management
- Exercise more, lose weight (goal: return to a normal BMI)
- Open-source some interesting projects
- Write a blog post about browsers from A to Z
- Write a 2024 VSCode plugin recommendation blog post (it's Cursor now, but they're compatible)
- Write a blog post about Three.js (in progress)
- Smoothly migrate the blog to Astro and start a new chapter
- Improve the SomeACG gallery website
- Build a game screenshot showcase website (fork, build from scratch, or integrate into the blog)
Conclusion
Even though I sometimes feel held back by having too many things I want to do, I must always maintain my passion for life and anticipation for the future.
Passion in heart, steps never stop -- this is not only a summary of the past year, but also a wish for the future.
Happy New Year to everyone!
喜欢的话，留下你的评论吧～