Post 21

blog/content-021

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+<header>
+		<h1>Reflecting on 2024</h1>
+</header>
+
+<p>Yes, I am fashionably late to the party. Everybody has already moved on to 2025 goals and have achieved 99% of them, or at least that is what my anxiety says.</p>
+
+<h2>AOC 2024</h2>
+
+<p>I gave Advent of Code (AOC) a try at a whim and unsurprisingly, I struggled with it. Turns out years of writing glue code for years does not make you a good programmer at all, who knew. I gave myself a restriction to write it only with Bash and Linux CLI tools only and it was hard. Performance was mostly terrible and I am not proud of the hacks that I had to do to make it work. I turned a blind eye to some terrible Day 2 solutions because it was 2am and I needed to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Here are some of my takeaways : 
+
+<p>It is time to read a book on computer science. Without a good understanding of software and hardware, it is nearly impossible to gauge how well my code is going to run. It is ridiculous to always hope that I have enough RAM to cache my results, or that Linux pipes will always solve my problems. Djikstra’s algorithm is a tough nut to crack and search algorithms still confound me.</p>
+
+<p>Bash associative arrays are no fun. It is very dangerous and frankly slow. If I ever have to deal with associative arrays in Bash, it is time to have some self-reflection and rewrite the script in a big boy language.</p>
+
+<h2>Trying Haskell, Again</h2>
+
+<p>I really did my best here, but 2024 was not the year for me. I got stuck trying to understand currying and monads but I could barely make it out alive. Perhaps one more time this year would do the charm.</p>
+
+<h2>Self-hosting With Tailscale</h2>
+
+<p>Tailscale deserves an honorary mention because it was a joy to work with it. Tailscale with Linuxserver Docker images, not so much. Please fix your broken Tailscale Docker mod image, Tailscale devs.</p>
+
+<p>The open source community continues to tear itself apart. The Gitea/Forgejo split was disheartening, but I am not sure where I stand on that for now. I have more to say about open source, but I am growing weary of writing for the audience of one.</p>
+
+<h2>Turning 30</h2>
+
+<p>That is it. No more 20s. The years of “having fun” are over before I even tried them. The burdens of adulthood weigh more oppressively on me year after year. Most days I just slog them out with a good dose of stoicism, but the rough days are getting rougher. You know what they say : when the going gets tough, the tough gets going, until you do not.</p>
+
+<p>I finally got a property. It is tiny but it is a property, a place to call my own. No more renting, no more dealing with housemates. Working with contractors and shelling out cold hard cash was painful, more painful than many decisions that I have had to make over the years. It is still not done, but I hope that when I am done, it is a space for me to clear my head and my mind.</p>
+
+<h2>Turning Inward</h2>
+
+<p>Many encounters in life have had me looking inwards to think about the ethics and philosophies of my being and my conduct. 2024 has all the signs of the world burning down : polarizing politics driven to the extreme by widespread misinformation; massive centralizations of wealth by the elite; healthcare and groceries becoming insanely unaffordable; the failure of technological innovations to benefit the public; the air, water, and earth literally poisoning us as we in turn continue to add poison to it. Fun stuff.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps as hopelessness and helplessness becomes a common value and perspective, what does it mean to be? Is it obsessive work? Is it virtuous and selfless sacrifice? Is it compassionate love? Is it mindless accumulation of wealth? It is easy to say that The Way of Life is one’s own, but where does one draw the strength to walk down that path, perhaps one day I hope to learn.</p>

blog/quote-021

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+<blockquote>
+"The true mind can weather all the lies and illusions without being lost. The true heart can tough the poison of hatred without being harmed. Since beginningless time, darkness thrives in the void but always yields to purifying light."
+<br>
+- Lion Turtle, Avatar: The Last Airbender
+</blockquote>