I have noticed that recently I have been doing subtraction - I have deleted websites that are not frequently used from my Chrome bookmarks, abandoned many internet products I used before, removed the backend of my blog, and even switched from using the full spelling input method I have used for more than ten years to the less popular double spelling input method. I realized that I may have some strange "obsession", but there is nothing to complain about because everything is moving in a direction that makes me feel comfortable.
Breaking Free from Complexity#
First, Dust the House#
At the end of last year, I wrote an article called "Best Practices for Building an Indie Blog in the New Era", which documented how I rewrote my blog code again and picked up the habit of writing blog posts. I have a basic self-awareness, and the reason why the article has such a title is because I really think that this roundabout method is not very clever. I just chose the solution that made me most comfortable at the time.
During the past month of use, I have encountered many problems. Due to the caching mechanism of Next.js, the frontend does not update immediately after I publish a new article on the backend, and there have been some puzzling issues due to problems with Vercel's build and my weak coding skills. As a result, every time a new article is published, I have to fix it in various places. On New Year's Eve, I scheduled the release of my annual summary, and I even set up a Cron Job to automatically clear the cache after the article was published, but the frontend still reported an error. So I fixed the first bug of 2024 in the first half hour of the new year, which is quite funny to think about.
I finally decided to store the article data in the form of Markdown files in the project directory, because I had been using Typora to write blog posts before. After a simple evaluation of several related JavaScript libraries, I started working on it. It took me two or three days and a crash caused by fixing a bug to finish it.
Now the blog builds half a minute faster than before, and all I have to do is put the written Markdown files into the Git repository, commit and push, and also make some contributions on GitHub. From this perspective, my previous idea of separating project maintenance and article publishing is unnecessary for a personal blog, and it actually increases costs. Things are better when they are simpler.
Afterwards, I also thought about switching to MDX, so that I could use React components in blog posts and achieve many fancy effects. However, after further consideration, I gave up this idea because it would make the portability of article data worse, and most importantly, when I write blog posts, I should focus on the articles themselves and don't need additional components.
After reflecting on myself, I realized that I have spent too much time on this personal blog project, and it would be better to save this time and do other meaningful things. After all, in the end, a blog only needs to ensure the basic writing and reading experience.
Autumn Exam Soft Moon Cloud Combing Wings#
Double spelling has been around for a long time as a Chinese input method, but there are not many users, and I only recently learned about it. On the one hand, I find it novel, and on the other hand, I do think that double spelling is very clever and convenient - no matter how long or short the full spelling method of a word is, it only takes two keystrokes to type it.
Double spelling is actually a mapping of the full spelling input method, and users can customize the mapping scheme. I use "Xiaohe Double Pinyin", in which the initial "sh" is mapped to "u", and the finals "uang" and "iang" are mapped to "l", so the user only needs to input "ul" to type the word "双" (double).
In the double spelling typing scheme, every two letters entered by the user are considered as one Chinese character, with the first letter being the initial and the second letter being the final. There are several options for handling syllables with zero initials, and in the scheme I chose, a single-letter syllable with zero initials needs to input the same letter twice (such as "啊 (aa)"); if it is already two letters, then input it as it is; if it is three letters, there is only the case of "ang", and input "ah" is enough.
Although double spelling is not as good as full spelling in some details and when typing some commonly used phrases quickly, such as "xx" cannot type "谢谢 (thank you)", it can only type "下 (down)", its overall typing speed improvement is undeniable. Another reason why I like double spelling is that it has a strong sense of rhythm when typing because each character requires two keystrokes. If you also use a mechanical keyboard for typing, you will probably like this feeling.
Compared with the Wubi input method, the learning cost of double spelling is much lower. The "Xiaohe Double Pinyin" I use also has a very interesting mnemonic:
Autumn exam soft moon cloud combing wings, pine embraces indigo powder and sails safely.
Swift warblers look back and play summer frogs, withdraw grass and chase fish, birds sleep on the shore.
In the first sentence "秋闱软月云梳翅" (Autumn Exam Soft Moon Cloud Combing Wings), "秋" (autumn) can be entered by pressing the first key "Q" on the first row of the QWERTY keyboard twice, because "Q" is both the initial "q" and the final "iu". Similarly, "W" corresponds to "w" and "ei", "R" corresponds to "r" and "uan", and "T" corresponds to "(y) ue". By following this pattern, you can remember all the key positions, and with more practice, you can remember all the keystrokes in one day and type normally within a week. As for how much typing speed will improve later, I dare not say, because this is only the first article I wrote using the double spelling input method.
Trust Comes from All Directions#
Not long ago, I discovered a product called Shortwave, which is probably a third-party email client for Gmail. At first, I was a bit puzzled and didn't understand why a simple email client for sending and receiving emails needed a brand new client for the sake of user experience, and it was limited to Gmail, and there were actually people buying the paid version.
Perhaps the demand for email is different in China and abroad. However, after I started using Shortwave, I was indeed attracted by its convenient email management methods. Although it is not amazing, the experience is comfortable. Especially when all unread emails are marked as read, the feeling of an empty inbox is very satisfying.
It is a pity that I don't use Gmail often, but I do have many services tied to a Gmail account, so I can't completely abandon it. That's when I realized that my email addresses on various platforms were a bit messy, and it would be great if there was a way to receive all my emails in one mailbox. After all, I don't use email often, and I don't want to run back and forth when I don't want to receive emails, but I also can't do without it when using some services, and it is more comfortable to communicate with strangers on the internet using email.
My initial idea was to bind my most frequently used domain email [email protected] to Gmail, but then I found out that Google's domain email service is paid, so I gave up. Then I chose a more reasonable method, which is to automatically forward the emails from another email account to Gmail, so that I can manage all my emails on Shortwave.
Following the principle of "less is more" and "reduce whenever possible", I completely abandoned another service that I rarely use and has been lacking maintenance - Feedly, an RSS reader. Because Feedly's update reminder feature and RSS-to-email service are paid, I rarely have the intention to open Feedly every day to check if the blogs I follow have been updated.
I switched to Blogtrottr to subscribe to RSS. This service can send the updated content of the links I subscribe to my email for free. Although it looks a bit outdated, it works fine. I think RSS is not for reading, it is just for updating notifications, and Blogtrottr can do it perfectly. And it doesn't need to occupy an extra space in my browser bookmarks. I only need to log in to Blogtrottr when adding a new subscription, and I don't need to know about its existence at other times. I just like this kind of quiet and capable.
Clearing the Burnt-out Passion#
Some time ago, I suddenly became interested in internet information security, so like many geeks, I created my own PGP key pair. Then I registered for Keybase, an instant messaging software that focuses on communication privacy and can use PGP to encrypt communication content. However, the biggest problem with such communication software is the lack of users. After registering, my contact list has always been empty. After careful consideration, I realized that I don't have a daily need for encrypted information, at least not among my friends; if strangers have a need to contact me with encryption, they can simply send encrypted emails using my PGP public key. The reason why I registered for Keybase was also just a momentary impulse.
Every day, my computer automatically opens Keybase, appearing in my taskbar, but I have never used it. It just occupies a useless space, so I uninstalled it in the end.
Before that, because I had the need to look up words while browsing English web pages, I installed the DeepL client, so that I can automatically translate selected text by pressing Ctrl+C+C. This is indeed very convenient, especially when I was translating a long article before. However, after I finished my translation work, I rarely used DeepL anymore. Moreover, when encountering new words, I have long been accustomed to using other dictionaries.
Instead of occasional convenience, I prefer my taskbar not to be filled with application icons, many of which I don't even use. When I carefully browsed my list of applications, I found many such software, such as scrcpy for connecting to the phone screen and a program that can detect how many Chromium-based software is installed on the computer, most of which were installed on a whim and played with for a while but never touched again.
Epiphany in Simplicity#
A Breeze Between Words#
Since I started writing code to create Typecho themes in 2019, I often came across the word "simplicity", and I often labeled my themes with this word because it seemed that everyone liked "simplicity".
But at that time, I didn't understand the meaning of "simplicity", and I believe that many amateur designers in the community didn't understand it either. At that time, it seemed that everyone thought that a white background with black text, plus decorations like shadows and borders, as long as there were no fancy patterns, could be considered simple. The most memorable one for me was a Typecho theme called Minimalism, which had a design that did not live up to its name, with a top navigation bar and a two-column layout, and the sidebar contained additional information such as the latest comments and latest articles. Such a mediocre design actually claimed to be "minimalism", which shows that the author did not think about it seriously.
I didn't understand the idea of "less is more" for a long time. A Bilibili Uploader said something that left a deep impression on me - when a slogan appears, thinking stops. Although in a sense, this sentence can also be considered a slogan, but leaving aside the potential Russell's paradox, this sentence has some truth. When everyone is praising a certain concept, the true meaning of this concept will be weakened, because repeating words without thinking will strip away their meaning. Catchphrases like minimalism and less is more have long become slogans, and people are eager to put them into practice, but they ignore the original meaning and purpose.
If it weren't for experiencing the refreshing feeling of "simplicity" in contrast to the anxiety before breaking free from "complexity", shouting the slogan of simplicity would still be hollow to me.
My C language teacher often emphasized "modularity" and "gradual refinement" to us, which is essentially breaking down complex things into small, simple parts, so that there is a simple and clear comfort when dealing with the problems of each part.
This kind of "comfort" reminds me of a lyric from Taylor Swift's song Karma:
Karma is the breeze in my hair on the weekend.
It is a feeling of having few things to worry about, feeling relaxed, being able to focus on one thing, and spending a quiet afternoon drinking coffee or tea.
Words Don't Need Decoration#
Recently, I have been reading Liu Tianzhao's book "Unnecessary Passion", and what attracts me most about her writing is that every description is very simple. If you read it carelessly, it feels bland like plain boiled water; but if you read it with some imagination, simple words can leave impressive images in your mind.
Perhaps it does not apply to other types of writing, but at least when I write blog posts, I try to practice the principle of "less is more". When I reread the first half of this article, I found that I had written many unnecessary "了" characters, and after deleting them, the meaning did not change, and it became simpler and clearer.
Sometimes I feel that the words of some people (including the words I wrote before) read very verbose, even if they don't feel verbose, they feel mediocre, and you can't see the personality and cultivation of the person between the lines. I think one reason is that I and many people have taken a detour in learning the Chinese language, and we learned the verbose way of forming words and sentences early on, without deliberately polishing what we wrote.
Minimalism in writing not only optimizes expressive ability, but also reveals a person's cultivation. In popular terms, it can make readers exclaim "this person's writing has a different taste".
Don't Take on Other People's Work#
Speaking of this, I can't help but think that many software and services in China always add functions to their products that do not belong to their positioning for various reasons. Taobao, Pinduoduo, and even Netease Cloud Music all have in-app short video functions, which means that users can watch short videos in shopping apps and music apps, and even watch live streams on question-and-answer platforms like Zhihu.
This is also why I have a better impression of open-source software. They don't need to make the program bloated for commercial purposes, and they can gather the power of the community to do one thing well, which can be described as simple and efficient.
Using a somewhat cliché and even funny analogy, if my electronic devices are a kingdom, and I am the king here, I would prefer my subordinates to each do their own job instead of competing for work. It's not that being versatile is bad, but clear division of labor ensures efficiency, and as long as everyone does their own job well, everyone feels comfortable.
I originally wanted to record some of the "subtractions" I have done recently, but as I wrote, I had many thoughts and followed my train of thought, hoping to give you some ideas.