2023 is ending, 2024 is about to start

70% of the content is too private, personal. If you know me, those content possibly can make you (or me) uncomfortable so I removed them. This is not really a place to get to know me as a person, as it is originally solely a tech blog. So I delete them and move them to my personal doc.

In 2023, what have I done?

• Joined a research group (Platform X, led by Prof. Jian Huang), participated in some real projects in academia.
• Joined Microsoft, China (led by Dr. Kang), participated in some real projects in industry.
• Met some friends, in the lab and in Microsoft. Some of them are great people. I felt extremely comfortable talking to many of them (which is really rare for me because I held a very high bar on friends, people I felt comfortable to be with).
• Renewed my journey as MATH 241 -> MATH 285 TA with many wonderful people supporting me despite my poor performance.
• Finished important applications for grad school (UIUC, frankly).
• Killed some badass courses like ECE 391, ECE 411, building some basic systems from scrath (OS, processors, full-stack applications, etc.)

In 2023, what changed me significantly?

These are extremely short-term conclusions (apparently;) Others are transferred to personal doc.

• LLM becomes a game changer
  • I don’t like the researchers who only do AIs, at least the majority of them.
  • Now, there is a paradigm that transforms human resources to GPU resources. In the old time, engineers are responsible for offload the human work to machines.
  • This is a game-changer. I need to keep up with the trend. And become flexible in my choice of career.
• Studying aboard becomes a very stupid option : No significant gain.
  • With such changes, Chinese grad students are not that needed.
  • These changes will propagate much much slower in China.
  • I want to do some useful work. Unfortunately, those kinds of work in U.S. are hard to access as an international student in a limited time.

In 2023, what did I screw up?

Completely transferred to personal doc.

In 2024, what should I do?

50% are transferred to personal doc.

• Sleep at 23:00 regardless of circumstances
  • No one can stop you from doing this.
• Be brave. Be strategically aggressive. Reject Shame.
  • The objective is to stay in the game and try to aim for some wins in my life.
  • Find a constructive strategy for almost all problems.
  • Then I will stop caring about what other people say and stop getting too emotional about people.
  • Get myself close to those who are willing to fight alongside with me, despite the hardship.
    • People might appear to stay loyal and share the same ambition in the beginning, but people change. (perseverance counts)
    • For those who are not fighters, meaning those don’t have soldier-on spirit, and those who can’t take risks WITH YOU, abandon them immediately.

Some Posts I Plan to Publish in 2024

I want to add something for this plan. It seems an intern (not me or my friends) at the company leaks some code & data and got super fired. And it seems that I signed an NDA when I took the job.(wat??? why didn’t I remember it?) Sooooooooooooo, the works that I spent most of my time doing seem not sharable. This means I have to adjust the posts I plan to write.

January & February

• Polish (actually write) the processor post
• A post about courage & vulnerability
• A stupid post about my schedule

March ~ May

• A post about my MATH TA experience
• A post about RAG
• A post about OS & file system
• A post about dopamine & neuro-science

[Fix] Jan. 6th

With the new year passed, for 5 days approximately, here are some additional thoughts.

In 2023, what changed me significantly? [Fix]

1. Connections

   • I found myself left with basically no human connection every day.
   • For countless times, I could just do my stuff without having any communication with anyone for a long period of time (2-3 days).
   • And the only communication I had was being aggressively challenged, sometimes attacked, professionally and personally for a long period of time (2-3 hours).

2. Depth vs Width

   • I’m all for depth, meaning I think if you can’t be great, excellent, passionate about one thing, and you claim you can do 10 things, then I’d define you as a superficial human being, with no interests in being associated with you.
   • I’m also for width. Knowing many aspects of life can be inspiring and lead to innovation and motivation. Neuro-science and Psychology really attracts me and I read many books. Meditation is also intriguing, and through some practice, it helps me with tons of things.
   • What’s hard is striking a balance between these 2 things. And this extent, to which I devote myself into getting deeper in one field versus knowing more by reading and reaching out, fluctuates heavily.

In 2024, what should I do? [Fix]

1. Connections

   • Don’t blame myself / others for not having enough interaction. In years before, I wanted to focus and fight for what I want and then I made my choices and it came out with many things, which is great. I can’t expect that I fight for these things at no cost. The world does not center around me and no one can have it all. Period.
   • But what I can do is to be grateful to what’s left and those who is supporting and caring about me at the moment. And there are many people who I definitely should be grateful to. I should care about their things and do my best for them.
   • Be constructive. Don’t think pessimistically, that this will keep going on. Maybe this will go on for a long time, but I MUST keep trying to reconnect to the rest of the world.

2. Depth vs Width

   • Don’t let people disrupt you. Depth matters! It defines my value. The world is full of superficial people who pretend to be good at something. Their insights and ideas are like 9-year-old. Don’t be one of them. Find my passion and drive deep.
   • Width must follow depth. After I made some progress in one field, I must also pay attention to what intrigues me in other places.
   • Stay passionate.
   • Stay constructive.
   • Don’t blame myself too hard.