guonlin

Monthly Notes:#

Fang Datong's passing feels like it was due to the exhaustion from last year's work, so this year, for some reason, I've gradually become lax about making extra money. Coupled with my increasingly severe nosebleeds recently, I've been thinking about taking a good rest. This issue has been recurring for several years; almost every morning during my wash-up, I would experience bleeding from the right nasal mucosa due to contact with my face. I never took it seriously before; it was just simple bleeding that would stop after about five minutes. However, in Beijing, the winter combined with indoor heating makes the air extremely dry, and it has started happening frequently, sometimes two to three times in one go. Sometimes it just won't stop, and I can't bear it anymore, so I made an appointment for a specialist check-up this Saturday morning. The doctor diagnosed it as nasal mucosal edema and erosion, along with exposed nasal blood vessels, and prescribed medication for sinusitis, as well as a Tuesday procedure for cauterizing the nosebleed. In simple terms, it's about sealing the blood vessels, and I hope it can solve the problem smoothly. This visit to the hospital reminded me once again how important physical health is.

However, after returning home at noon, I heard from Teacher K about Fang Datong's passing. Besides shock, I felt a sense of lament. The shock comes from the fact that I remember he just made a comeback last year with a new album, and it felt like he was just starting to be active again. I didn't expect such a talented person to leave us so suddenly... Fang Datong was a pop singer who existed during my youth, and his songs accompanied the growth of all my peers. His unique style made him impossible to ignore; what a talented person he was, pioneering a new style of Chinese R&B, but he left us just like that... In a sense, bodily injuries and illnesses are random events—no one wants to encounter them, but when they do, one realizes the truth of life: suffering, aging, illness, and death are also another half of completeness.

Death and Coincidence At the beginning of the month, I spoke with my parents on the phone and learned that my old aunt (91 years old) passed away. Yesterday, my cousins noticed something was wrong and called relatives on my side. After just visiting her yesterday, she was gone today. Coincidentally, there was another old aunt and uncle who had the same situation; after noticing something was off a day earlier, many relatives visited, and she passed away the next day, which made me reflect a bit. Although I only have memories of seeing my old aunt twice since childhood, she had a kind and gentle grandmotherly image. Once was during the New Year when visiting relatives; I remember spacious streets and new houses. Now my dad says that area has been included in the economic development zone and has developed better, with all buildings, while my home here, being in an old district, is gradually forgotten in development, with Qingdao expanding eastward. This is a side note, but as I grow up, I find that the occurrences of people around me passing away are increasing. I need to slowly find a suitable angle to reconcile with life.

About Zhubai Previously, I subscribed to some interesting newsletters through Zhubai, but this month I saw the shutdown notice about Zhubai and lamented that good products can't last long. However, this led me to pay attention to quaily, and since I started using Obsidian this month, the software can install quaily's third-party plugin to publish and push articles. I successfully registered and published the last issue of the monthly newsletter, planning to complete the Guanglin monthly project by collecting interesting information across platforms into Obsidian for editing and layout, then using quaily's plugin to publish, and in its backend editor, I can copy with one click (quaily has a feature to convert local images to webp format), and then sync publish on Xlog, so that the corresponding newsletter, blog website, and RSS are all set. However, for now, Xlog is still the main focus, while quaily serves as a more diverse sharing channel.

Monthly Record#

1. Efficiency Tools#

PhototnCam
I just discovered this iOS third-party camera app, mainly for filter photography and photo editing. What surprised me is that it allows real-time filter adjustments and importing third-party LUTs & borders, and many details of the software are very elegant. The price is also reasonable, and I have paid for it. The author is @JuniperPhoton, who has been updating the software development progress on Xiaohongshu.

HiPixel
An AI image super-resolution tool that uses AI models for high-quality image enlargement. The main highlight is its native interface, which is very beautiful. A similar tool is Upscayl, which I am also using.

Useful Wallpapers
A quick technique to help you remember some information you want to remember, based on using the iPhone's lock screen wallpaper that you see every day, automatically changing every hour to reinforce memory. In the author's words: "I hope Useful Wallpapers becomes a self-brainwashing tool that utilizes my addiction to my phone to challenge the brain's forgetting mechanism." Similar to the image below:

FocusFlight
An app that integrates the experience of not being able to use a phone while flying into a focus habit app. You can set a flight destination and time to simulate flying on a map, which is quite interesting. It also simulates the white noise during flights, making it easier to enter the flow state of studying during past flights.

TheBoringNotch
An open-source DIY tool for MacBook notch screens, with elegant animations that allow you to view music, file browsing, calendar, and other functions. I downloaded it to replace the previous Folder Hub (which only had quick folder viewing functionality) and will try it out for a while.

iPreview
Last month, I shared a software that can preview folder contents on Xiaohongshu. Someone commented asking if there is a tool to preview compressed packages with spaces, so I asked DeepSeek, and there is indeed one. Besides previewing common formats of compressed packages, it also supports various documents, 3D models, and various source codes, etc., but it requires payment. After installing and using it, it's quite good.

2. Gains from Writing#

What I learned from writing the weekly newsletter
The 54321 Weekly I follow has reached its 100th issue. The author's insights have encouraged me. Unlike the author who reads at a fixed time each week, I currently filter and record at any time during my daily reading.

Tech Enthusiasts Weekly (Issue 337): Internet Entrepreneurship is Almost Gone
After reading this, I still felt a bit disappointed. The trend of the times always moves forward, and some things that have happened will not always happen.

Self-consistent Programmer
Interpreting various phenomena in the workplace, with the ultimate goal of emotional self-consistency, is readable.

The Technium: 50 Years of Travel Tips

What Makes Most Ordinary People Lose Money is Precisely the Bull Market
Recently, I did make a little money from tech stocks, but I really need such words to remind me that once I earn enough to meet my expectations, I should run!

3. Design Related#

Visual Journal | Brand Case Studies is a very complete case-sharing website, with a relatively high-end tone.
How to Design a Personal Brand | EDUPUNK is a systematic article introducing personal branding.

4. Other Interesting Things#

• Detailed Explanation of the Key 9 Papers and Innovations of DeepSeek is worth a look, along with The Best Tribute is Learning: DeepSeek-R1 Appreciation, both are over 3 hours long.

• 🌅 Encountering the Fireworks of Taiwan! - Xiaohongshu uses a podcast format to record videos, which feels more intimate.

• Scientists Create the Lightest and Strongest Nanomaterial to Date Scientists have used artificial intelligence to calculate the lightest and strongest geometric structure of nanomaterials: “The final result is that the carbon nanocrystal lattice is light enough to sit on a soap bubble without breaking it, yet can support a weight a million times its own.”

• Struggling with Posing and Expression Management? Try This Photography Method! _Bilibili_bilibili

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