Weekly Report #40 - Open Source Summer, Beyond Code, and the Passing of Sleep

Preface#

This article is a record and reflection of my life from 2023-05-21 to 2023-05-29.

I realized over the weekend that I haven't left the house at all this week, which seems to have become the norm for my life. However, I've been quite productive. I've done some research and learned about new things at work, and I've continued to read documentation on blockchain and smart contracts. Out of interest, I also took a look at Swift and SwiftUI tutorials. As an avid user of Apple's ecosystem, I've always been interested in the technology behind it, even though I rarely use it in my work. I decided to participate in the "Summer of Open Source" offline event that I signed up for, which was a lot of fun. There were many interesting things happening.

Beyond Code#

Summer of Open Source#

open_source_activities

I'm not usually enthusiastic about attending offline events. I often stay in my own world. After returning to Hangzhou in March and April, I wanted to take a step forward, so I frequently attended the Web3 Festival in Hong Kong and various related offline events. However, I realized that I wasn't really enthusiastic about meeting new people or sustaining interest in energy-consuming activities. So after coming back, I didn't pay much attention to or participate in such events.

This time, I saw STRRL's tweet and learned that Zhi Zi and Mian Bao would be giving speeches, which I found quite interesting. Since it wasn't far away, I decided to go. I arrived early and got a lot of interesting souvenirs. I won't have to worry about stickers when I change my computer next time.

I listened to many talks by open source experts and had some small exchanges with some of them. I found that curiosity and the desire to tinker are common traits. When encountering something of interest or facing real-world problems, they always dig deep and continue to explore, whether it's through issues or pull requests.

I was actually caught up in a kind of internal anxiety recently. My work has become much more interesting, and I have some time to learn things that interest me. However, because I want to do so many things, my self-discipline and execution are not always as stable as expected. But after participating in this event, I have improved a lot. I feel that there are many interesting things in the field of open source and beyond, and no matter what stage I'm at, I can always do something interesting. This is probably the original intention of my pursuit of technology.

My mindset is actually quite strange. My anxiety doesn't seem to come from so-called peer pressure. In this field, I'm not even considered a peer anymore. There are many experts who are much younger than me. It's when I participate in events like this and see more possibilities and the people I want to become that my negative emotions are relieved.

This week, I listened to the Geekplux and Randy's podcast channel, "Beyond Code". Both of them are seniors that I really like and have had some contact with. It's enjoyable to listen to them chat. They don't talk about specific technical details or teaching, but you can feel that even though the program is called "Beyond Code," their lives are inseparable from the technology and code they love.

One thing that Randy mentioned about the desire to share left a deep impression on me. He said that when he first started using Twitter, he always wanted to share his thoughts and feelings, but now he worries about being "too much." Although the situation is different, I also share less than before and have some concerns about my input, output, or thoughts being messy. I seem to hesitate to share because they haven't been organized and refined.

tg_channel_survey

Reorx previously conducted a survey in the channel. Since my channel was originally a fork version of his channel, I had the same confusion at the time. But after thinking about it, I didn't burden myself too much. I just added an extra layer of self-questioning before sharing. I need to have read and gained something from the content, rather than just aggregating resources that are recommended or "seemingly" useful. I need to improve the value and purity of my input and output.

I also listened to them talk about many topics, such as work, personal growth, different living environments, post-resignation plans, AI, and more. I heard that Randy may create tutorials and courses. I benefited a lot from his book, "Next.js Application Development in Practice." Some of my projects were developed based on this practice. The way it is presented is suitable for people who want to independently work on small projects. I'm looking forward to it.

Elusive Sleep#

I don't know if it's because of working remotely from home, but my schedule has become increasingly erratic. Sometimes, even after finishing work, I still stay up until three or four in the morning. I wake up around 9 a.m., but occasionally I turn off the alarm and sleep until 11 a.m. Then I start working and dealing with various things until midnight, and the cycle repeats.

I feel that my body can handle this irregular schedule, but I've realized that sleep can greatly affect my mental state. If I sleep too late, I feel a lack of reality the next day because I haven't started my morning run in the fresh air. However, I bought a yoga mat and plan to do some basic indoor exercises. I also picked up the fitness ring adventure, which I haven't completed yet.

Now, because I'm already tired when I go to sleep, I rarely dream. But on the few days when I do dream, I seem to recall some past events. I used to say that May always seems to be a bad month. Now, there's only one day left, and I hope June, which I really like, will bring some improvements.

Nie Nie#

Nie Nie has finally regained her energy and is running around. She lies on my legs or on the floor next to me while I work or work overtime. She's such a well-behaved cat.

nie_nie_in_hangzhou_1

nie_nie_in_hangzhou_3

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Interesting Things#

Mastodon#

This week, due to some work-related matters, I started looking into Mastodon in more detail. Compared to my previous understanding, I came across two articles and several projects:

Since public servers usually have some rate limiting, I thought about setting up my own server. However, I only need to use the Mastodon API, and I don't need a lot of connections or complex interaction interfaces. I found the following projects, which I might try setting up for fun:

go-mastodon is an SDK for calling Mastodon using Go. wildebeest is mostly based on Cloudflare's free service, so once it's set up, it requires less additional operational management. pub is a lightweight bridge application that supports minimal API access without implementing complex functionality. gotosocial is a more feature-rich application that consumes moderate resources.

I feel that the Fediverse has its ups and downs, and there are still relatively few people who actively participate. I'll treat it as my own little paradise.

Input#

Although most interesting inputs are automatically synchronized in the "Yu's Life" Telegram channel, I'll list some of them here. It feels more like a newsletter.

Articles#

Videos#

Here are some interesting videos I've watched:

PrivacyIN ZK Camp Week2: Basic Principles of the Classic ZK Protocols

Podcasts#

Here are some interesting podcasts I've listened to:

Anime#

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Entertainment District Arc: It's so exciting!
The Case Study of Vanitas: I watched it on Netflix, so I might be a few episodes behind, but the part where they imitated love was quite touching.
The Long Season: It's been a while since I watched a domestic drama series. It was quite popular recently, so I caught up on it this weekend. The quality of the plot is really good.