Weekly Report #79 - Chiang Mai Stay, Bangkok Trip and Follow-up

Preface#

weekly_review_20241129

This article is a record and reflection on life from 2024-11-04 to 2024-11-28.

At the end of October, I returned to Chiang Mai alone to start a two-week living experience; then I went to Bangkok to attend Devcon and the Side Events/Party hosted by our company. It seemed like I was on the go for three weeks, but my mindset improved a lot; after returning to Hangzhou, I returned to my precious daily routine and began preparing for important and interesting matters, and life seemed to have a center; there were many interesting things.

Living in Chiang Mai#

I spent two weeks in Chiang Mai at the beginning of October, mainly with my senior, and it felt more like a travel mindset. I saw many sights and also taught a few classes as a mentor at Invisible Garden; I returned to Hangzhou for two weeks to focus on work and various matters (like having three wisdom teeth removed and undergoing periodontal scaling), and then returned to Chiang Mai to participate in Invisible Garden activities.

Precious Moments of Solitude#

Indeed, when I am alone, I hardly feel like going out. Most of the time, I write code, work, attend meetings, and write blogs at home, occasionally going out to eat or to 7-11 to buy some daily necessities. In the first week, I felt a bit down due to not going out for a while, but it got much better in the second week. I could focus more on my tasks and had more time and space to think.

It may not be very obvious, but my state actually relies heavily on the time spent quietly sitting down to write and work. However, as work and life become increasingly complex, such time is becoming rarer. Sometimes, when I reach a certain level of stress, I stay up late to write the weekly report, which feels more like a way to decompress and is my only flow state moment.

During this past week, I thought a lot about which country or city to go to in the future, about relationships, about the flaws in my personality, and about what kind of person I want to become. These seem to be big questions without clear answers, but after starting a detailed exploration, everything became clearer, and I made some decisions.

Meeting Vitalik Again#

meet_with_vitalik

At the beginning of the month, I had the opportunity to have dinner and chat closely with Vitalik during OpenBuild (how lucky to meet him twice in a month!). I heard many interesting stories about him founding Bitcoin Magazine, living with libertarians in Berlin's Bitcoin Kiez, and the idea of Ethereum, gaining a more authentic understanding of the person behind the "V God" symbol; we also discussed some thoughts on open source.

Interestingly, when I asked him what he would do after participating in various activities at Devcon in Bangkok, he said he wanted to find a place where no one could find him to stay for a while.

People still need solitude to recharge, and V "God" is no exception.

Trip to Bangkok#

devcon_lantern

After completing the Invisible Garden activities in Chiang Mai, I went to Bangkok to attend Devcon and some Side Events/Party hosted by my company. I met several colleagues, and since we all work remotely, I feel like I've met most of my colleagues over the past year, which creates a sense of familiarity.

I worked with my colleague Songkeys for two days in DevRel, which was much more tiring than being a developer, constantly pulling people to talk and communicate. But I also met many interesting people, like a firefighter from Australia introducing Follow and Open Information; discussing whether to learn Rust with a DJ/Radio Maker from Kenya; and many other interesting things.

After the event, Songkeys and I continued our conversation at the hotel, discussing everything from childhood, life, and relationships to front-end development, open source, and career development, chatting all night until after eight in the morning (as a well-known night owl in my company, my ability to stay up late is indeed on par).

About Follow#

follow_shanhaiwoo

This time, I had a small task to set up a booth for our Follow app at the Chiang Mai Mountain Sea Workshop. Since it was quite last minute, I didn't have time to prepare any materials, so I borrowed a portable monitor from a nearby colleague who was working, and displayed it directly. The effect was surprisingly good, with quite a few passersby coming to ask about it, and I also handed out some invitation codes. I even met many old users of Follow who came by to compliment our team on the great work.

innei_about_follow

Seeing Innei's tweet about Follow, I actually have a few words to say.

From the initial explosive popularity and rapid growth of Follow to the gradual emergence of some user feedback indicating areas for improvement, it has indeed gone through the necessary path of an internet product from 0 to 1.

I have been using Follow since the internal testing phase for about three to four months and have been involved in development for nearly two months (although I mainly work on the RSSHub side and related functional modules). Whether from the perspective of an RSS veteran user or a developer, I can truly feel that Follow has become quite excellent, especially as a product that has only been around for less than half a year since its inception.

As a small team, we cannot address all bugs and feature requests at once. To ensure user experience, we can only gradually expand the user base through invitation codes. There have been various issues along the way, but we have been working hard to iterate and improve. There are often late-night discussions in the development group, and we hope everyone can be more patient.

follow_sspai

Recently, I also published a systematic introduction to Follow in the App+1 section of the Minority Report homepage — "App+1 | Follow: Another Form of Information Acquisition", which is an interesting experience that spans various aspects of the Follow product, as I have participated in development, used it as a heavy user, and written review articles.

Additionally, the mobile adaptation and PWA version of Follow have recently been launched! You can open it in your mobile browser at https://app.follow.is and add it to your home screen. It may not be as smooth as a native app, but it works quite well! You can give it a try~

Personal Life Snapshots#

Oil Pastel Class#

oil_painting_live

In the first week back, I accompanied my senior to an oil pastel class at the China Academy of Art's night school. I felt a bit bored sitting in the parents' area, so I decided to join in; one tuition fee covered both of us.

oil_painting_work_02

oil_painting_work_01

I found two photos from Thailand to paint from, which was a novel experience. Below are two comparison pictures, and I even received praise from the teacher.

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Now, we also have a display wall at home filled with our paintings!

Others#

RSSHub Development Practice#

I wrote an article about integrating Telegram channel RSS subscriptions into RSSHub, and if you're interested, you can take a look:

RSSHub Development Practice #01: Implementation and Deployment Plan for Telegram Channel RSS Subscription

I also appeared on the Newlearner Channel!!! It feels like being on TV.

Lazy Cat Microservice#

lazy_cat_pic

I received a lazy cat microservice from the Lazy Cat team. The size, appearance, and texture are really good. I studied the developer documentation, packaged, and launched the RSSHub application. The overall experience is quite good, especially the built-in external network penetration feature, which saves a lot of hassle.

Since I already have a NAS at home exposing some services through Cloudflare Argo Tunnel, and most public services are deployed on a dedicated server at Zeabur, I haven't found a particularly good application scenario that can strongly integrate into my workflow. Instead, I often use the developer mode to connect to the lazy cat microservice and then SSH into the NAS to operate, saving me from using DDNS...

I am still exploring and will move a few more applications over. After a deeper experience, I might write a detailed review on my blog~

Recruitment#

My company (RSS3) is hiring an overseas (non-Asian timezone) DevOps Engineer. Friends who are interested or meet the requirements are welcome to apply~

https://rss3.notion.site/RSS3-is-looking-for-a-DevOps-Engineer-d35ef17da5b341a49bc4484b4533f29a

Interesting Things and Items#

Inputs#

Although most interesting inputs will be automatically synced in the "Yu's Life" Telegram channel, I still selected a portion to list here, making it feel more like a newsletter. I also built a microblog using Telegram Channel messages as content sources — "daily.pseudoyu.com", which makes browsing more convenient.

Books#

Memoirs of Shen Zui, my senior is very interested in various strange histories. Recently, I saw her reading the memoirs of the military intelligence officer Shen Zui, and I also read a few chapters, which were surprisingly interesting.
My Father Yuan Shu, it's hard not to think of the spies when recalling the characters in the game "Invisible Guardian" and the drama "Disguiser," whose prototypes are both Yuan Shu. So I wanted to find his biography to read. I found two books and chose the one written by his son published in Taiwan (which may not be completely neutral or objective but should at least be relatively bold), wanting to learn more about his life.
Energy Management, I read this to better manage my energy, but it was a bit of a self-help book. I spent half a day reading it and was too tired to do anything else afterward, but some perspectives on values and the starting points of my behavior were still enlightening.
Daily Life of Creators, so interesting!!! It lists the daily routines of various creators and artists. I want to write a separate piece to record some fun ones.

pseudoyu