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Raye's Journey

且趁闲身未老，尽放我、些子疏狂。
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Weekly Report #26 Innocent Heart, Reading Page, and Pursuit of Technology

#周报#生活#思考751
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This post is translated from Chinese into English through AI.View Original
AI-generated summary
The writer reflects on their experiences waiting for the bus and the impact of their upbringing on their sensitivity to judgment. They criticize self-help books and discuss a new project to create a reading page on Notion. The importance of maintaining curiosity and passion in work is emphasized. Additionally, methods to improve reading speed and recommendations for books are discussed. The writer also reflects on mentoring younger professionals and the importance of staying enthusiastic about technology. The discussion also touches on the rise and fall of America, storytelling methods, and the comparison between Chinese and Western cultures. All records will automatically sync to a personal channel and be excerpted on the blog.

zhoubao26

Waiting for the bus is one of the most wonderful things.

You look at the map and clearly see it's close, but you don't see it for a long time.

Just when you give up looking, it comes slowly, as if deliberately trying to annoy you.

I used to be afraid to take the bus, even a bit scared.

Because back home, buses only stop if you wave them down, and when a bus comes is completely random, relying entirely on luck.

Getting off is even worse; you have to learn to mimic the adults' tone and shout "Get off!" Not to mention the elderly turning around to stare at you with a dark gaze, which is the most uncomfortable for a child, as it is devoid of emotion and warmth.

Children's hearts are very sensitive; even the smallest things can leave an indelible impression, which is the influence of one's original family and environment.

It seems that in any book that mentions "breakthrough," "awakening," or "manual," it always states that when you are no longer influenced by others' gazes, you have truly matured and grown up.

I am a pragmatist; I have always believed that those who write books should be executed along with their entire families.

How could one not care about others' gazes? When a hundred pairs of eyes are looking at you.

Human eyes are the most expressive; otherwise, why do so many people study the smile of the Mona Lisa? The gaze directed at you can be filled with resentment, admiration, tears, and complaints.

Especially in the countryside, back home, in a low-dimensional city, every move you make is scrutinized by neighbors and relatives; their gazes can be deadly! (Refer to "The True Story of Ah Q")

History is created by the simplest people, but I cannot bear such deadly gazes, even if I close my eyes, it still feels like a thorn in my heart.

Some thoughts unrelated to the weekly report serve as the preface for this report.

A Child's Heart#

After starting work, the boss, as usual, sent us a message: "Do not lose your childlike heart."

(Last year it was "Respect creativity, and also respect doubt," the year before it was "Maintain independent thinking in 2022.")

Then, as usual, there will be a book summarizing the business of 2023, from which I have extracted some points.

When I saw the "Donation" product design, I almost cried; this should be the warmest product of last year.

image image image image

Building a Reading Page with Notion#

The inspiration came from seeing a reading paradise built by Randy:

Preface | Randy's Reading Paradise (lutaonan.com)

Actually, I was doing something similar during the Spring Festival, but unfortunately, I was mostly immersed in playing p3r, which slowed down my progress.

Building a reading page with Notion is quite simple, except that customizing the domain name is a bit troublesome (it seems there are solutions being researched).

https://rayepeng.notion.site/da0fea51586945c6bd7b84c5587041b0?v=7aa15763e05b493195750e2368af0bce

I recorded some excerpts and reviews of the books I have read on Notion, and suddenly felt motivated to read (not really).

Yesterday, I saw someone in the internal forum raise a question:

I have seen many methods to improve reading speed, but they don't seem to work, maybe because the methods are wrong. Is there a way to improve reading speed? Or are there any books or articles you can recommend?

I didn't expect to have quite a few thoughts on this question, so I wrote an answer in one go.

Actually, if you only read the text without understanding, your reading speed can be quite fast.

But when paired with understanding the text, the overall speed will naturally slow down, but this is not your problem; you might as well think about it first.

  1. Why do you want to improve your reading speed? Are you influenced by those so-called "disciplined" bloggers, like those who read hundreds of books a year or dozens a week... just thinking about it makes me nauseous.
  2. The choice of books will also affect your reading speed. From my personal experience, even articles written by famous authors can sometimes take a long time to understand a paragraph, not to mention many authors have unclear pronouns and poor translation quality... Some texts need to be read slowly, while some casual writing can be read quickly, and enjoyable writing can even be read at lightning speed.
  3. Returning to the question, when we watch domestic dramas, skipping certain segments does not affect our understanding of the plot (even in "Blossoms," I skipped some parts). Can't reading be like this? Skipping irrelevant paragraphs and chapters is fine; the book is still there, and if you don't understand, you can always go back to reread (this is where physical books have an advantage; I used to like skipping to the end when reading physical books).
  4. Furthermore, AI has greatly helped with reading; the AI outline in WeChat Reading is quite useful, aiding in rapid reading.
  5. Finally, works by famous authors still need to be read slowly; after all, the charm of language lies in careful reading. They spend a long time polishing an article; what's wrong with you spending half that time reading it?
  6. Lastly, it might be worth spending more time reading; diligence can make up for shortcomings. Reading slowly has its benefits; if you want to absorb knowledge quickly, I would choose to watch three-minute short videos and then show off.

After working for a while, my way of thinking about problems has changed; I often habitually ask why. At this point, my thinking opens up a lot.

Pursuit of Technology#

Here’s an excerpt from a p-master's words:

Original link: Three Years | Farewell Song (leavesongs.com)

People often ask me how I grew up. Today, I share the simplest answer: I have goals for technology. My goal is simple: to keep my blog updated. If there is a month without new articles, I get particularly anxious and think about what I can research to write a diary.

Of course, I gradually found that I often have time to research various things (no worries about not having anything to write), and I also fail, but failure is not scary; what’s scary is giving up halfway without trying my best. I have also abandoned many things halfway and made many irresponsible statements, but these bits and pieces will always remain on my blog; I will never delete them.

There is a well-known theory in the security field: "Do not trust all user inputs," but I firmly oppose this statement being applied to real life; I choose to believe rather than doubt. A life of doubt becomes very tiring if you always consider how to guard against others.

Last Tuesday, my mentor also shared an article link in our daily chat group titled "The Ten Best Features of C++17 in Business Code," and tagged us young folks:

When you get older, you can't learn anymore... @everyone, is it like this for you young folks? Do you still have an interest in learning this?

My mentor's viewpoint is that he has lost interest in these things and just scrolls past them automatically, as they are not needed in work. Then he asked another question:

But to be fair, we are all backend developers; why do we avoid seeing how many features C++ has? Is it a fear of the underlying difficulties?

I replied: Daily development indeed rarely requires these C++ features, but if it were ten features of JS, I would definitely be excited.

My mentor is quite fun; he maintains a passion for new technologies. He recalls the time just after graduation when he was still very interested in these foundational knowledge, having read the core programming of Windows several times, as well as advanced programming in Unix, etc.

Once upon a time (I insist on using this idiom incorrectly), we in college aspired to finish those dragon books and tiger books.

Now, we write C code every day, and by the end of the year, we can't even handwrite a few classes.

Overloading? No.
Inheritance? No.
Polymorphism? No.
SQL performance tuning? No.
Compilation principles? No.
System programming? No.
...

In recent days, I have also been responsible for interviewing interns. When I interview them, I occasionally think about the mindset of these younger folks; they are probably just like I was back then, filled with a fiery passion for technology, which quickly gets extinguished in the years after starting work.

But I still want to believe that when faced with these novel technical terms, I will still burst forth with some enthusiasm; after all, those who do technology share a similar ambition to climb mountains: because it is there.

Reading Club - The Rise and Fall of American Growth#

Untitled 1

The speaker is from Hong Kong (his Mandarin is indeed not very standard) and the content he presented is basically excerpts from the book, extremely scattered. Especially, he did not provide any groundwork, just pure delivery.

I still admire this kind of courage (if it were me, I couldn't continue speaking purely). Whether writing or speaking, starting with excitement is a common and practical technique, especially common in classical poetry. When sharing my views, for example, when talking about the Dutch "sea coachmen," I would first mention how I play a civilization in the game Civilization VI that embarks on a path to a commercial empire. When discussing the cultural comparison between China and the U.S., I would start by comparing the notation methods of Chinese chess and international chess.

A common sentence structure I often see is: if you want to write XX, you can't just write XX; you also need to write YYY, ZZZ, etc. This is a common way of storytelling, always starting with a broad stroke and then narrowing it down, which is the Scandinavian pendulum! (Quoted from "Riding the Wind and Breaking the Waves")

This time, after the speaker dryly finished sharing about America's rise, everyone discussed among themselves. Naturally, some slightly pro-Western viewpoints emerged. I initially didn't want to say anything, but as I listened, I suddenly had some thoughts and casually spoke them out, which I will record here.

  1. The comparison between China and the West can be seen from the notation methods of chess. For example, in Chinese chess, moving the cannon to the fifth file is very practical and easy to memorize, all in four-character phrases. In contrast, international chess requires a rigorous recording of each point's coordinates, moving from point A to point B. If you think carefully, you will be amazed by the wisdom of our ancestors; we don't need vertical coordinates; just relying on horizontal coordinates, combined with moving forward, retreating, and advancing is enough to describe the movement of points on a two-dimensional plane. I have always thought that if our culture had continued to evolve independently in modern times, it could have formed a mathematical system similar to the West, but our descriptive methods would definitely differ from the West, leaning more towards pragmatism.
  2. Regarding America's rise, I always feel that there are some inevitabilities within the coincidences. Those who have read "Guns, Germs, and Steel" should remember that civilizations spread conveniently along the same latitude because the geography and climate are quite similar. We see that around the 40th parallel north, it just happens to pass through northern China, Europe, and near the Great Lakes in the U.S., which are several civilizations that have risen in human history (Egypt and ancient Babylon, forgive me for overlooking you, as your duration was too short). But why did it spread from China to the West? This also has some inevitability because of productivity; places suitable for agricultural production develop first. The Yangtze and Yellow River basins in China happen to have monsoons that are suitable for agricultural crop growth (in contrast, Europe’s temperate maritime climate is relatively uniform throughout the year with little change, and North America is even less suitable for developing irrigation agriculture, with winter and summer winds blowing through). Therefore, the agricultural era began in China and then spread westward along the longitude to Europe. When European agricultural civilization struggled, it developed maritime civilization, continuing westward to the Americas, which coincidentally encountered the Industrial Revolution. Originally unsuitable for agricultural production, the climate, with the support of technology, could also produce a large amount of food. In "The Three-Body Problem," it was mentioned that if simulating an Earth environment with completely identical parameters, could the current civilization evolve? I think it is unlikely to be exactly the same, but the main thread is probably still the same.

Records#

In the future, all records will automatically sync to my personal channel, https://t.me/RayeJourney.

However, I will also extract some to put on my blog (as not everything will sync over):

Articles

Videos

Documentaries

  • A Bird's Eye View of Europe Season 1 (Douban) (douban.com) Last Sunday, the reading club shared the theme of the rise of the Netherlands, and I suddenly became interested in Europe, so I found this documentary (someone online actually said that the area of the Netherlands is similar to that of Sichuan Province... feels like a complete lack of geographical knowledge).

Games

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