An Idiot's Yearly Review

light‑hearted banter
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I previously had a pretty long post that I deleted, because for a while I was really broken, and after a long time I didn’t come back, but when I finally did it turned into a tomb :laughing:
I want to look back at the ridiculously stupid year 2025

Finance

Speaking of finance, it’s actually stock trading. I’m not great at placing limit orders. I previously bought some innovative‑drug ETFs, but after a few days with no progress I cut my losses and cleared the position, then started dollar‑cost averaging into gold, the Nasdaq, and the S&P. Because I didn’t have enough capital, I just bought funds directly through Alipay. After a flurry of trades, the three‑month return was around 10%, which made me very satisfied. Moreover, most of the time I don’t try to time the market; if I have money I keep DCA‑ing, if not, I skip it. Recently gold has been rising nicely.

Knowledge

In the past month I had an opportunity to interact frequently over two days with various so‑called industry bigwigs, and the more I talked to them, the more I realized that most of them are specialists—very knowledgeable in their own field, but if you ask them to speak about another domain they often produce absurd or awkward jokes.

This year I have an elective called Mathematical Modeling; the major project is to try to use a model to predict the number of taxis, and a key step is recognizing taxi license plates.

Students can be roughly divided into three types: the obedient ones who actually take their phones and photograph license plates one by one; the clever ones who try to mock plates or just scrape random data from the internet to start modeling; and the ones who know YOLO can be used, but didn’t think about using video streams, and get stuck on the instructor’s requirement to “take 2000 photos.”

I think my completion level is the highest; I used the YOLOv11 + ByteTrack approach. The code isn’t hard; I got the whole pipeline running in an afternoon. I know that if they knew this method they could also produce results at least as good as mine, so why didn’t they think of it?

The root cause, I believe, is the information gap and time investment. Some skills have nothing to do with IQ; they’re like sowing seeds and reaping what you sow. As in the earlier example, the gap between industries and between specialties is huge.

Thus, what I find most impressive are things and ideas that I could never comprehend or achieve even if I spent my whole life on them. Some people are just geniuses, giving me a sense of awe, and I fully understand and accept that.

When I talk with many people, I just feel that they’re better than me simply because they entered the field earlier and have a few more years of experience. Conversely, some work I do might look like “very good work” to classmates who haven’t seen it, but to those who understand the underlying principles it may just be toy code.

Research

Although it’s called research, I feel more like it’s a large cosplay. Overall things have been both smooth and not so smooth, perhaps due to my relatively relaxed personality. I don’t think you have to publish a paper to have truly done something.

In mid‑December I had a meal with a senior sister who was going to do a graduate program at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. She suddenly told me she didn’t want to pursue a PhD, planning to go home and take the civil service exam. She felt biology was too abstract. When she applied to the Academy she wanted to produce some work, continue to a PhD, and study abroad.

I know quite a few biology PhDs, and they give me the impression that they’re not really in that field at all :laughing: One delayed‑graduation PhD was especially abstract; he told me how to trade stocks, start a quant firm, make money, then do whole‑genome sequencing of earthworms, and use the earnings to continue research.

I think research is actually mental training: learning how to interact with people, how to search literature, how to engage with public platforms, and how to manage one’s emotions. These aspects are rarely covered in class. At least for now, I find doing research very interesting and exhilarating. It’s similar to coding: you build a rough framework, feel something is off, tweak it, adjust another part, and eventually create a decent logical loop while trying to solve a problem that perhaps no one has ever

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:laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

PixPin_2025-12-26_14-44-08

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Impressive, this example of a taxi license plate is very inspiring :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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It’s time to write the year-end report.

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Pretty good.
Regarding the case of mathematical modeling, I have a somewhat similar idea. This vague research idea is to let AI know that I don’t know when I don’t know that I don’t know, and then it captures the real requirements that my prompt didn’t describe, fundamentally correcting my perspective on observing the problem, and providing a SOTA solution.

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A person who wants to be a polymath (just need 60 points)

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Damn, it seems I started a lengthy discussion but didn’t reply in time, I’m very sorry :innocent:
I’ve been a bit dead lately

What actually counts as liking?

I thought what I loved, after deconstructing it, I realized it’s often just a façade I desperately create so as not to be disliked/abandoned; the truly pure love has probably been lost in the past.

If the so‑called liking has such a despicable underlying meaning, can it still be self‑accepted?

Or is it that liking doesn’t need to be tangled with its meaning; as long as there’s a result, is it legitimate? :smiling_face_with_tear:

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I saw stateless teacher’s reply while I was taking a microbiology class, and the teacher happened to be lecturing on virology.

According to stateless teacher’s standards, I probably don’t count as a truly “pure” enthusiast. For a long time in the past, I really liked virology and even made it my life goal. Then I met a senior who did his master’s in virology, and he told me a lot. We talked for a long time, but eventually I gradually gave it up, thinking I should pursue something that might have more “prospects”.

I’ve actually been frustrated many times; I feel that the research I’m doing now is not at all the kind of biological research training I imagined. After studying for so long, I’ve never even entered a lab of a research group, nor have I ever attended a group meeting!

But if you asked me the other way—whether I like what I’m doing now, whether I like my current life—I would definitely give a thumbs up and happily answer that I like it.

People changing is actually quite normal; experiences and thoughts at different stages. My view on studying now is completely different from what it was in 2023; a few days ago I was still sharing feelings with a senior.

For me, it means not disliking it, even thinking about the next step while walking down the street. When I first started writing a blog and building a site, I really wanted others to see it because it gave me great satisfaction. But as the blog grew, I began to feel that if no one was reading it, it was just okay. Now I’ve even split it into two sub‑sites for domestic and international audiences :laughing:

I think liking is something you enjoy doing alone, even if no one watches, even if there’s little output over a long period, even if it’s not recognized.

[quote=“无状态垃圾桶，post:7, topic:15299, username:stateless_trash_can”]
If what we call “liking” has such a vile underlying meaning, can it

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Recently, I experienced something truly moving.

While having a meal in the cafeteria, I ran into a professor from the Department of Biological Sciences. When I was in the physics department, I had taken his elective course.

He had a very good impression of me, and I felt the same about him. I thought he had the demeanor of a true scholar and was very considerate toward his students.

So I seized the opportunity and told the professor, “Professor, I want to change my major.”

I decided to approach him for two reasons: first, I thought he might be able to help me when I switched majors; second, I wanted to leave a good impression on him. Scoring high in the elective could boost my GPA, which was crucial in my freshman year because I needed a high GPA to transfer.

To my surprise, the professor advised me to be cautious. He said that studying biology is tough and urged me to think it over carefully, not to act impulsively. At the time I didn’t think that deeply and left feeling a bit disappointed.

When I started my freshman year in biology, I was eager to do research with that professor. He works on plant molecular biology and has achieved remarkable results. However, for various reasons I later realized I didn’t enjoy wet‑lab work, so I didn’t approach him.

The next time we met in the cafeteria, I half‑jokingly asked, “Professor, do you still remember me?” He was thrilled, said he remembered me as the student who wanted to change majors, happily introduced my situation to a colleague, and we chatted for a while. He kept encouraging me, telling me I could achieve great things, that he believed in me, and invited me to visit his lab.

Yesterday the department held an award ceremony. After it ended, I ran into him again, greeted him, and he suddenly extended his hand for a handshake. He encouraged me again, told me to keep it up, and said their lab is on the sixth floor, inviting me to come by anytime, regardless of the reason.

I’m indeed planning to visit the professor’s lab on the sixth floor. I put together a photo album and had it printed as a gift, since his research focuses on flower cycles and I have taken many pictures of flowers. It will serve as a meeting present. :saluting_face:

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Great teacher
A very loving welcome gift

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The experience of studying at Jiaotong University feels like the opposite of both

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Thanks for the answer, very helpful; I think I really don’t need to doubt the existence of what I love :hugs:

I guess my life is too monotonous, and the things I like have become almost the only spiritual support. If I don’t do them or do them poorly, it’s hard to keep going.

Maybe it’s because of this unhealthy state that I start doubting the things I like themselves.

Perhaps I need to enrich the things I hope to do (?

When talking about the spiritual connotation of liking, Teacher Soyo is probably fascinated by exploration?

Reflecting on myself, what I truly value most is creation/building, the design and construction of complex systems.

Even if the essence of creation is merely fabricating false fantasies to escape reality, I think I should accept it calmly :innocent:

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Probably not many people would think they like studying at Jiao Da :rofl:

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I definitely need to count how many times I said “Jiao Da should be killed” this year :rofl:

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I probably enjoy planting a tree and watching it grow slowly :laughing:
But I’m actually the type who works three days and fishes two days; if something doesn’t give positive feedback for a long time, I’ll probably give up.
After going to university, I actually feel my moral standards are getting lower :laughing:

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My feeling is that life before the college entrance exam is very detached from social reality, fantasizing about many pure and lofty pursuits in the ivory tower (not really), while also having an excuse not to practice them for the time being, so they won’t be shattered for a long time.

But when you finally have the chance to face the real

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If we discard the restriction of studying at Jiaotong University and temporarily assume that it doesn’t matter where one studies, I think I still quite enjoy reading.

Maybe I’ve already become a minority?

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About the minority. I have encountered several teachers and teaching assistants in upper-level undergraduate courses who all complain that undergraduates’ learning is poor. Perhaps it is evidence.

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At Jiaotong University, constantly competing for the limited guaranteed graduate admission slots and the painful life at Jiaotong University have made me lose interest in studying :pleading_face:

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This assertion is rather casual, probably not true (

Personally, I don’t actually dislike studying; I just like to blame the problems on Jiaotong University.

Someone like me who only knows how to study :mouse:, outwardly expresses disgust, but what could I do if I didn’t study at Jiaotong University? :distorted_face:

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