Recently, the small partition I rented was demolished. With the National Day approaching, inspections are strict. It seems like nothing major; finding a house, signing a contract, moving in, going to work, and getting used to it. It all seems natural, nothing exciting, nothing to look forward to.
This time, I spent a brokerage fee, euphemistically called a “service fee.” At first, I asked if it was a brokerage and if there was a brokerage fee. The answer was no. But the guy was pretty nice, so I didn’t mind. As a service industry, I provide you with a service, and you pay a certain fee for it, which is reasonable.
The existence of agents is fundamentally due to information asymmetry. Agents in the same city have a platform where housing information is shared. That is, no matter which agent overcharges the tenant, they don’t mind. Has the internet equalized information? No. “The spirit of sharing on the internet is nonsense!” The premise of information sharing is that the provider is willing to share it. As a landlord, I don’t want to bother with anything. I hand over the house to you, and I receive a large sum of money every month. Why not?
Will agent-handled houses be inspected? No. These houses are specifically for renting out; the landlord, sub-landlord, agent, and property management form an industry chain. The sub-landlord has given gifts to the property management. Even if there’s an inspection, it won’t be on these houses. If they find out, they won’t report it. Maybe society is just like this, the same everywhere, whether in a small county or a first-tier metropolis.
I was very reluctant to leave my previous house. I remember how I found it, met good people, and had a good landlord. In terms of cost-effectiveness, it was very good. It’s been quite a while, several months, more than half a year. Actually, it hasn’t been that long.
Who knows if it’s a blessing in disguise; I just won’t hear the laughter of the girl next door anymore. The same routine for a long time inevitably creates inertia, making it hard to see the future. Sometimes, unexpected events are good. The current house is near a university with an open sports field. It used to be inconvenient to exercise because the nearby universities had restrictions and parks were too far. Now, it’s much easier. Now I bike to work every day, discovering new horizons. The living radius has expanded, doubling the range.
Who knows if it’s a blessing in disguise; when the house was reported, I left just like that. I joked with colleagues, saying maybe the boss will tell you not to come tomorrow. It’s normal, isn’t it? Even if that happens, who knows if it’s a blessing in disguise?
Recently, I voluntarily “gave up” a ‘friend.’ The reason is simple; I don’t want to be involved in his matters anymore. I don’t deny the possibility of mutual benefit in the future, but currently, I have no interest at all. He might become a successful businessman, capable of making a lot of money. But many people can make money. I know some ‘migrant workers’ who can buy a house outright after saving for twenty or thirty years.
But my ‘goal’ has never been to make money. This friend is in sales, constantly posting motivational quotes on social media, saying you need to work hard, find professionals to do professional things. We understand enterprise management and the perfect compensation system, teaching you how to succeed… It’s hard to imagine someone who couldn’t graduate on time talking about hard work and professionalism. Of course, he’s not selling me courses. Another trait of his is a mysterious worship of technology. Creating a WeChat public account gives him a sense of accomplishment, and developing a WeChat mini program makes him feel great… This feeling is like when I first encountered the internet, finding everything in the online world fascinating, like registering a domain name and having people worldwide visit my personal website, which was so cool!
A month ago, he approached me to develop an H5 website. I asked, what specific functions? How many main pages? He was unsure, just a vague idea. Because of our ‘friendship,’ I and two others reluctantly started. Honestly, I agreed to do this out of selfishness, as I was responsible for assigning tasks and controlling the project’s progress. Oh, I forgot to mention, this friend is a classmate and a small company boss, playing the ‘boss’ role in this project, and I’m the ‘technical director.’
This was supposed to be a great opportunity to learn team management. However, the other two people’s skills were disappointing. They couldn’t start a Vue project step by step, never used Git, and could only write a few backend interfaces as ‘backend programmers.’ Then, during the project, we reached the design and operation stage, but still had no concept of the application scenario, usage process, or profit model. “Can this make money?” “I’m not sure, we have to try.” I decided not to continue.
To understand the ‘value’ of money, you need to know the prices of various things and then get a sense of money from the side. Previously, one yuan was just one yuan. Anyway, tuition and living expenses were provided by parents, and they gave as much as needed. The recent rental didn’t include broadband, so I had to get it myself, which made me hesitate.
A 100M broadband from China Mobile costs 380 yuan a year, the cheapest package. Is 380 a lot? Not much, averaging 38 a month. But do I need it? Maybe not. My mobile plan is 48 yuan a month, more expensive than the broadband. One meal costs over 20 yuan, but biking to and from work costs about 20 a month. An internet cafe charges 8 yuan an hour; 38 yuan can only get you about 5 hours. I spend 160 a month on singing, averaging 1 yuan a minute.
A piece of clothing costs 50 yuan, lasts a month. A pair of ordinary shoes costs 70 yuan, lasts a month too. A pair of ASICS running shoes costs about 380 yuan, lasts several months. The Redmibook 14 I always wanted is 3999 yuan, usable for 3 years. A mouse costs about 20 yuan, a mechanical keyboard about 30 yuan, a real mechanical keyboard 100 yuan, with a big difference in feel. Two large bottles of mineral water can be drunk for a week, costing 10 yuan. A bag of spiced broad beans costs 5 yuan, eaten in a day. Monthly rent is thousands of yuan, plus deposit, utilities, heating, management fees, averaging quite a bit.
How much do I spend in a month? I can’t calculate, and I’m too lazy to.
The top-level programming languages are scripting languages, often without strict type systems, implemented by interpreters based on other languages. Also widely used are domain-specific languages with more specific functions. Then there are high-level languages with a long history and elegant design, often used to build large software systems. High-level languages are compiled into assembly language, which is loaded into the processor for execution. The computer’s processor changes pin levels based on instructions, interacting with memory to complete addressing and computation.
Programming is the application above programming languages. With programming languages as tools, you need to use them to complete some work. Procedural, object-oriented, and functional programming are mainstream design approaches. Frameworks are higher-level tools provided by developers to simplify software development.
Common web design approaches include frontend + backend. Frontend relies on MVVM frameworks, backend on MVC frameworks, and sometimes the frontend is embedded in the backend. To speed up task processing, multithreading is a widely advocated concept, challenging for beginners. When website traffic increases, ensuring stable service is crucial, with high concurrency being a challenge for experts, leading to caching, middleware, and other solutions. With large data volumes, speeding up processing becomes necessary, leading to big data concepts and frameworks provided by open-source foundations.
As technology evolves, programmers’ work shifts from ‘development’ to ‘assembly.’ Previously, we had to create things from scratch. Now, there are mature components available, and we just need to build services based on business scenarios to meet business needs. Open-source framework authors aim to simplify software development. If you feel discomfort during development, it might be that a good framework is missing, and you could complete it.
Cutting-edge technology usually has three directions: big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain. Big data handles massive data through clusters, using ten servers for what one can’t handle. Big data frameworks enable developers to build distributed data processing clusters. Artificial intelligence, a seemingly advanced field, is about mathematical theories performing calculations using computers. A classmate who struggled with C language in college is now working on deep learning after getting into a good school… The essence of AI is not computer technology but mathematics theory. Blockchain’s core isn’t computer technology either, but mechanisms. However, isn’t computer technology also a combination of various ‘mechanisms’?
Occasionally reading books, I realize there are many fields: research on crowd psychology, human language, social behavior, minimalist design, history, and the future…
A year ago, I saw a quote on Zhihu that I liked very much. I still like it a lot, so I want to share it:
Who made you read so many books and know that there’s a big world outside Shuangshui Village… If you had grown up working from sunrise to sunset, you would now share the same ideal as your fellow villagers: after a few years of hard