Time moves faster than I expect. In the blink of an eye, 2024 has already arrived. Looking back at the goals I set in my January notes, I did more or less finish what I wanted to do this year. Keeping records is a long road. A few days ago I saw that one blogger had already kept a blog going for fifteen years, and there are also long-running travel journals that have been updated for years. Those are the kinds of examples worth learning from.

After thinking about it for a while, I feel that the way to keep a site alive and write each post properly is probably to approach it with an ordinary, steady mindset. Every blog has its own position: life, photography, personal records, technology. Most sites mix several of these together. As long as you find your own characteristics, there is a good chance that visitors who stumble in will be pleasantly surprised. Of course, there is no need to force it too much. The original intention is still to record things.

The Site

This year the site published 71 posts, with roughly more than 50,000 page views. The three most visited posts were:

1. Dahua SmartPSS Client, a collection note for low-voltage surveillance systems — 38,000 views
2. An Unstable Docker App: xiaoya alist — 32,000 views
3. Building a Website Server with a Raspberry Pi, by reader Xiao Song — 18,000 views

So the traffic statistics from 51.la cannot be taken as completely accurate. The total visitor count shown by the theme itself has already reached 660,000.

Over the past year, I also discovered many excellent blogs and platforms. Each of them has its own style. In fact, bloggers who have been writing for a long time usually write quite well. In today’s fast-paced world, fewer and fewer people still read carefully or write regularly. These are some blog-related platforms I came across in the last two years. Anyone interested can take a look:

博客志 - 十年之约 订阅 - 川流 - 博友圈 - 博客录 - BlogFinder - 个站商店 - 中文博客列表 - 积薪 - 开往

When I first built the site, I spent a lot of time tinkering with themes and exchanging blogroll links. Gradually, I cared less about blogrolls. If we often visit each other, I might add the link when I have time. In the beginning I basically accepted everyone, but later I found that some sites almost never interacted, so I simply closed the message area under the blogroll for a while.

For sites I am interested in, I now subscribe directly through FreshRSS. Over the year I subscribed to hundreds of bloggers, covering life, technology, photography and all sorts of other topics. RSS is actually a very effective way to stay connected. If you do not have your own RSS setup, you can consider building a FreshRSS subscription service yourself.

Since last year, apart from posts about my personal life and work, this little site has mainly revolved around Raspberry Pi, Docker and NAS. I already have the hardware on hand, so naturally I keep experimenting on that basis.

A few thoughts after all this tinkering: Raspberry Pi is not really worth buying now, unless you already own one. If your data matters, I would still recommend buying a finished NAS product. The device plus hard drives may cost a little more, but at least there is some assurance. As for Raspberry Pi, domestic ARM boards often offer richer interfaces. After spending enough money on a full development board setup, you could almost build a mini x86 machine instead.

So this is a bit contradictory, but if I had to recommend a platform, I would still choose x86. The performance is definitely enough for tinkering, and expansion is easier. As for power consumption, just selectively ignore it.

Of course, if you simply want to try an ARM board, I personally think a Phicomm N1 plus a hard drive enclosure is still a decent option. The N1 has a 2+8 configuration, many flashable firmware packages, and Armbian support. Add a hard drive enclosure or disk array box, and you can put together a personal light NAS. The N1 is probably around 60 to 70 yuan on second-hand platforms, while modified versions with onboard 128 GB storage will cost a bit more.

Work

As the first year after reopening, this year did not bring the economic takeoff many people had hoped for. Instead, things felt even more sluggish. The word I heard most often last year was probably “layoffs.” Big companies were laying people off, small companies were doing the same, and another wave came again near the end of the year. So for now, the current job is not something to move away from casually. In a small place, unlike a big city, there are not many job opportunities to begin with.

Last year I also considered going back to my hometown to start a business. But after asking family members and visiting in person, the reality of small-shop business was really hard to describe. Some friends also wanted to try a side business together. We tossed around ideas for a while, but small projects did not work out, the risks were too high, and many of them felt like traps waiting to harvest people.

After thinking it over, it still seems necessary to learn a practical skill. If I leave my job one day, at least it will be easier to find another one, and the pay should also be better.

This year our department once again went through its annual management transfer. Since the department was integrated, several headquarters departments have taken turns managing us, changing once a year. This year we returned to local management. The only downside of local management is that wages may be slightly lower. But given the current situation, a pay cut is not exactly abnormal anymore.

There was also a reduction in headcount, which is basically a kind of layoff. The number was cut by about half: one half kept the original arrangement, while the other half was transferred to production, although the actual work content remained unchanged.

If nothing unexpected happens this year, we will also need to build a new site. The responsibility agreement for the new project has already been signed. Just thinking about it makes my scalp go numb: enduring the hottest days, working the longest overtime, breathing dust on site, and turning an empty piece of land into a factory building that can actually produce. Procurement, receiving goods, installation, and then commissioning all the equipment on site — I have already done three sites like this before. The good thing is that after a few months of hardship, things can be comfortable for several years.

Life

Still speaking of the first year after reopening: our little princess basically had a fever or cold once every two months. After that it would be the little nurse, then my parents, and also the colleagues around us. Second infections, mycoplasma, flu, influenza A, influenza B — some were severe, some were mild. Looking back on this year, compared with last year, it feels as if things have passed, and also as if they have not. But fortunately, life became free again.

Around the middle of the year, the little nurse was almost transferred to a newly established department. She did not want to go, so we spent some money, bought a few things, made use of some connections, and she stayed where she was. I am not especially opposed to this. After all, once someone has stayed in one place for a long time, it is normal not to want to move. The transfer itself was not necessarily a bad thing; in reality, it was meant to call up some capable backbone staff. But everyone has their own wishes, and that should be respected.

Working in a hospital, this year was probably the hardest one. The illnesses mentioned above — the little nurse basically caught them all once, and it was almost impossible to avoid. At the end of the year there was an unexpected surprise. It was unexpected mainly because of everything that happened this year. We had thought that a second child could come at any time, but the body should be taken care of first. In the end, when fate arrives, it arrives. Little one, in the new year, we are looking forward to your arrival.

Our little princess is already four years old now. She was born just two days before the pandemic began, and in what feels like a flash she is already in the middle class of kindergarten. Since she started school, every time I go home I can feel how much she has changed. Especially in the second half of the year, she became more and more adorable, and smarter too. Of course, the sound of her calling “Dad” has also become clearer and louder. Haha.

This year the family added a small new energy car, a QQ Ice Cream. In name, it was bought as a commuter car for the little nurse after she got her driver’s license. In reality, I have been the one driving it most of the time, mainly for going to work. Thinking back, it was probably not necessary to buy it. I do not know what got into both of us at the time: we had the idea on the first day, and picked up the car the next day.

The little nurse does not really need to drive to work. The community is less than ten minutes on foot from the hospital. After buying it, we drove about 1,500 kilometers in two months. Electric cars are genuinely economical. My fuel cost used to be around 500 yuan a month; now around 60 yuan is probably enough. Of course, electric cars also have shortcomings. In winter, the battery does not last as well, and a small car is slightly less stable than a larger one. So if buying a new energy vehicle, it may be better to consider something around 80,000 yuan, generally with a range of more than 300 kilometers. Fast-charging stations are also quite common now. If you go out to play, after a few hours the car can be fully charged again.

My mother stays at home and helps take care of the child. The little princess is especially close to her grandmother now, since she has been held and raised by her grandmother since she was small. Having elders at home to help with children is truly a blessing. But after all, the elderly are getting older, and it is hard to avoid small health problems.

Some time ago, my mother had leg pain that came in waves. I took her to the hospital for an examination, and the doctor prescribed some medicine. I used my medical insurance to get her a week’s worth of medicine from outside. Unexpectedly, on the third day, blisters appeared on her leg. They did not itch at the time, so she did not say anything. She kept taking the medicine for another two days and only told me when I came home.

That day was probably the first time I got angry with her. I spoke sharply for a few minutes. Her thinking was that the medicine had already been prescribed. My concern was whether the medicine was unsuitable, whether it might cause an allergy, and whether taking more would do greater harm to the body. She did not even tell the little nurse. Fortunately, after the doctor saw it, he said the leg pain was caused by herpes, so at least the root cause was found.

Thinking back now, I may have spoken too urgently. The little princess stood nearby and asked, “Dad, are you scolding Grandma?” I said yes, Grandma was not being obedient. At my parents’ age, when something feels wrong, they often do not want to say it. They think they can solve it themselves, or they drag it out so they do not trouble their children. The intention is good, but the result is not always good.

The New Year

This year, I should work hard to earn money, and when there is time, go home more often to spend time with family.

I also need to seriously study automation. Looking at the employment prospects, it seems fairly good. In places with many factories, equipment maintenance — especially technical roles — can come with decent pay.

Still, working for others is not a long-term plan. If there is a chance, I should also learn more about other industries. I do not know why, but in the past two years I have especially wanted to open a shop, to try tossing myself into something new. It has been eight years since graduation, and I have worked steadily for eight years. Everything is actually fine, but now that I am thirty, I am still not completely satisfied with my current life.

The reason for that dissatisfaction is probably that friends around me seem to be doing better and better, while I seem to have received the most ordinary script. Maybe if I make a serious attempt at something, the direction of that script can change a little.

Happy New Year, and may the Spring Festival arrive with good things.