The second Chinese New Year since the pandemic, my girlfriend and I had originally planned to go back to our respective homes (omitting the various arguments about whose home to visit), each to our own mothers. I had already booked my ticket, even opting for a first-class seat for the sake of my aging back. My girlfriend had also arranged a carpool for the day, and we were just waiting for January 27th to depart. However, the day before our departure, new cases suddenly appeared in Hangzhou, and this unexpected development disrupted our plans. The journey home became fraught with uncertainty; after all, being turned back en route or upon arrival, or worse, being subjected to mandatory quarantine, would be unbearable.

So I asked my dad about the policy at home, and it sounded like there wouldn’t be a major issue; I should be able to go back. However, my girlfriend was very worried. The news she heard wasn’t definitive, and she feared being quarantined upon returning home. She wanted to wait until the situation became clearer and policies were explicit before deciding whether to go home. I thought, “Then I’ll wait a day or two and stay with you in Hangzhou; if it doesn’t work out, I can still go home on New Year’s Eve.” I also considered that if she couldn’t go home, she could come with me. For this, I paid a hefty price to book a special class seat (there were no tickets left, I only managed to get this one on standby).

The next morning, my girlfriend woke up to find her health code had turned yellow. She couldn’t go anywhere, so I had no choice but to stay in Hangzhou with her. And so, somewhat haphazardly, we were going to spend our first Chinese New Year in Hangzhou. Well, it’s good; not traveling means less risk.

This timing was perfect to summarize the past year.

Work#

At the beginning of the year, due to organizational restructuring, the large front-end team was disbanded and distributed among various business units. This was a significant change, and coupled with other reasons, more than half of the senior staff in the entire large group left. Although I hadn’t been with the company for long, I hadn’t seen such major upheaval in three years. My boss was also quite interested in my thoughts. I was direct, telling him I’d always kept an eye on opportunities. Of course, this wasn’t specific to recent events, but rather a professional approach for any career person – one should always be aware of market trends.

Ultimately, I chose to stay, for many reasons. Simply put, it was partly laziness, coupled with the lack of truly suitable opportunities elsewhere. Staying wasn’t a bad decision at all. Firstly, the organizational restructuring didn’t significantly impact our team. Secondly, fewer excellent people isn’t entirely a bad thing; after all, as one of the excellent people who remained, my development opportunities increased slightly. However, I’m quite laid-back, so I wasn’t overly concerned about this, and my overall responsibilities and positioning within the team didn’t change much. In fact, due to the merger of the front-end and back-end teams, collaboration became even more convenient for our “shop” team. The “smart shop” initiative, which had been discussed for three years, finally reached a consensus on its direction, with plans for implementation this year.

The project progressed smoothly, and by mid-year, everything was on schedule. During my mid-year review, my boss told me that at my level, just working on “smart shops” wasn’t enough. I needed to tackle something more challenging and forward-looking, and he pointed me in the direction of edge AI.

My immediate thought was, I’m neither a client-side developer nor an algorithm engineer; I have no expertise in edge AI. I told him, “I’m not being modest, boss, but you should really find someone more qualified.” Although my boss agreed at the time, he remained persistent later on. So, as a front-end developer (though it’s not good to limit myself this way), I took on an exploratory task in edge AI. Since it was exploratory, I thought it meant it didn’t necessarily have to be implemented. Later, I researched many articles related to edge AI on both internal and external networks. I realized that if my understanding of edge AI was limited to algorithm prediction based on user data within the client-side, then I truly wouldn’t be able to do anything. Then I broadened my perspective, and things seemed to take a turn for the better. Well, if it’s an exploration of edge AI, “edge” could mean either client-side or external, and “intelligence” could be dynamic decision-making based on algorithms or decision selection based on fixed decision trees.

So I narrowed down the topic of edge AI to fixed strategy selection in front-end browser scenarios, which could still be considered edge AI. Moreover, its feasibility was high: first, standardize the recording and reporting of user behavior data, or simply store and compute it locally. Then, define a set of specifications for orchestrating and distributing strategies from the backend. For example, a product manager could define a rule: if a user clicks a certain button twice and scrolls through several screens, it triggers an Action, such as changing recommended products or any other operation. N strategies could be distributed simultaneously, and whichever one is hit would be triggered, with the effect data flowing back to the server. In this way, all decision logic would be executed on the browser side. Even if it’s not edge AI, it’s at least edge computing. Furthermore, with standardized user behavior and more feedback on product strategy effectiveness in the future, the next step could involve distributing strategies based on algorithmic predictions, or even running algorithm models directly on the browser, which would then be true edge AI.

Just as I was happily communicating with my boss about the real-time strategy I’d devised, I realized he wasn’t looking for exploration at all. He had already envisioned practical implementation scenarios based on a conventional understanding of edge AI. In that case, my year-end performance review for this item was going to be a disaster.

Just as I was worried and unsure how to resolve the situation, things took a turn. A bigger change occurred: we were undergoing another organizational restructuring. It was adjusted many times in between; at one point, I had even finished talking with the new team’s senior director, only for it to be adjusted again later. Ultimately, I would no longer be working on the “shop” business I had been involved with for three years, but instead would switch to a traffic-related business I had never touched before. The good news was that I could say goodbye to edge AI, haha.

Subsequently, I would be responsible for the entire traffic domain’s business, working with one full-time employee and two external contractors. This meant my responsibilities had increased slightly compared to before.

Life#

Recap#

This year, I certainly splurged quite a bit. The apartment I rented was a bit larger than before, around 65㎡. Finally, there was space for a large desk, which made me very happy. So I ordered an 1800*60 standing desk, and with my two new monitors on it, I was thrilled. Now I could study even more happily (which, of course, meant playing games).

I also replaced the landlord’s old TV in the living room with a large 4K 120Hz OLED TV, supposedly for my girlfriend to watch shows. However, my girlfriend bought an Xbox Series X, which I often ended up using for gaming. To be honest, gaming on a big TV is truly awesome.

New Hardware Additions:

• LG 32UN880
• LG GN950
• LG OLED 65C1PCB
• Xbox Series X
• Xbox Wireless Headset
• Xbox Elite Wireless Controller 2 – Halo Infinite Limited Edition
• Haworth HAT Electric Standing Desk

Perhaps for this reason, I really completed many games this year, and also spent a lot of time playing the multiplayer mode of Halo 5 and Rainbow Six Extraction. What fun! Looking at it this way, my daily complaints about having less time don’t seem very convincing, haha.

Games Completed:

• Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
• Hades
• Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector
• Nioh 2
• Gears 5
• Metro Exodus
• Halo 5
• Cyberpunk 2077
• Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus
• Halo Infinite
• Resident Evil Village
• Age of Empires IV (all faction campaigns completed except Moscow)

This year, I also uncharacteristically watched two TV series: The Bond and Dream of the Red Chamber. I hadn’t really watched domestic TV series since I started working, and it felt quite good.

Shows Watched:

• The Bond
• Dream of the Red Chamber
• Dark
• All of Us Are Dead
• Castlevania
• The Witcher

As for books, I read far fewer compared to the games mentioned earlier.

Books Read:

• 1984
• Rashomon
• The Three-Body Problem
• Foundation (1-2)

Investments#

My investment performance this year was a complete mess. I basically lost all the money I made last year, haha. All I can say is, I’ll try harder next year.

2021 Review#

Last year’s goals:

• Archery, investing at least 3000 yuan.
• Take my girlfriend out at least once, investing no less than 5000 yuan.
• Continue last year’s goal: organize a personal financial planning scheme.

I’d say I only achieved about 20%. The second goal was put on hold due to the pandemic, and for the third goal, I was simply too lazy. I even stopped doing my monthly financial reviews, which I had consistently done for six years.

Given that my goal completion rate has been below 30% for the past few years, which is frankly embarrassing, I won’t be setting annual goals this year. This way, when I review next year, my goal completion rate will be 100%, haha. I’m already feeling happy about it in advance.

Conclusion#

I feel like I haven’t quite finished writing, but a quick review makes me realize I was quite happy last year. Although various pressures have been steadily increasing, I’ve been relatively good to myself. I never deprive myself materially, and my work has