This year, I made some reductions and took a year to rest, and I’ve recovered quite well, although my health has worsened...
Currently, my state is that I’m particularly healthy on weekdays, but a bit wild on weekends, which isn’t good and feels abnormal. Time is a bit tight, so I’ll just write whatever comes to mind; let’s aim to write a month in advance next year.
Reading#
I didn’t read much this year, but I did go through quite a few papers related to LLMs (large language models). I really want to read books, but unfortunately, my main reading platform—WeChat Reading—doesn’t have many non-fiction books that pique my interest. Maybe next year I’ll switch to foreign language books, and with the translation capabilities of the Gemini model, I shouldn’t have too many issues with reading.
Recently, my commuting time has increased, and I have to gather what books on WeChat Reading are worth reading to pass the time.
When I read, my thoughts tend to wander a lot, which allows me to write a bit. After all, looking at my carefully selected note-taking software and not writing a single word... it’s too painful! I’m over twenty this year, and I’ve got a few subscriptions; I need to gain from their vast knowledge.
Building a Second Brain#
This is a book that teaches you how to organize information, helping individuals systematically build their own knowledge base. While reading this book, I realized that I’ve already been using some of the methodologies mentioned in it, just not in a systematic way.
This book helped me organize my formless note-taking system into a complete systematic methodology, and I gained a lot from it. Unfortunately, I’ve been lazy recently and have nothing to write about; I’ll see if I can organize this system next year.
I recommend reading it alongside "The Card Note Writing Method."
Café for Non-Workers#
Users of WeChat Reading seem to enjoy books with quirky names like: "Mr. Toad Goes to See a Psychologist," "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone"...
Compared to these self-help psychology books, I prefer more straightforward books that focus solely on scientific theories, which are much clearer, rather than books that weave several small stories around a principle, which I recommend skipping through.
After complaining a lot, I actually finished this book, which is entirely made up of stories. It mentions the dilemmas faced by housewives, which is quite interesting; this situation is fairly common: husbands feel their work is tough, while wives feel that raising children is exhausting, and both sides feel misunderstood by the other.
Gaming#
This summer, I returned to Valorant, but sadly, it made me realize the decline in energy that comes with age. For such a high-intensity FPS game, I can only maintain my best state for three matches a day; after that, my gaming experience drops sharply, and I feel like I’m playing under the influence of bad alcohol, with my operations going awry. I can no longer play FPS games for an entire day like I used to...
Fortunately, in Q4, a substitute game called Delta Force was released, a battlefield-style combat game that somewhat cured my electronic impotence. Unfortunately, this game is a half-finished product, with the UI/UX showing signs of being rushed. My old and weak 6600XT always drops frames in the large battle mode, so I eventually gave up on it.
If we talk about the major events in the single-player gaming scene this year, the release of "Black Myth: Wukong" is undoubtedly the highlight. The excitement surrounding its related fan creations even surpassed that of 2022's "Elden Ring." I played the game for over 40 hours on a 3080Ti + 5800X setup at 4K; I didn’t pay attention to the frame rate, but it did drop in certain scenes. I’m currently stuck at the scorpion boss in chapter four (the tail needle!), using a pure melee strategy, and I’ve probably died dozens of times, stuck for two days.
The most criticized aspect of the entire game is the invisible walls. The first chapter is about familiarizing oneself with the map, which is acceptable; the second chapter has perfect map design, and the invisible walls aren’t a big deal. However, the third chapter, Little Western Heaven, is truly a nightmare; in the heavy snow, it’s hard to recognize the path, wasting a lot of time running back and forth to find my way.
Personal rating: 85 points; it deserves the title of Game of the Year.
2025#
After the annual Game of the Year is released, I always rewatch "The Best of the Year" video. Watching the comments in the video always makes me feel happy; the pure joy of gaming. This year, when I came across GTA5, I felt like it hadn’t been that long since its release in 2013, but when I think about it, it’s been over 10 years—10 years! I seem to have lost my sense of time.
As for the upcoming year 2025, I’d like to borrow a year-end theme from a blogger as my expectation for next year—establishing order in chaos.