Preface
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This year is the first year of AI-assisted programming, and also the beginning of AI leading the tide of the times.
I’ll try to write about 2025 in a continuous narrative from the perspective of a “social scrap” like myself, starting from a few themes that had a big impact this year, in order to prove whether my superficial understanding is indeed superficial.
2025 in Review
- DeepSeek in the AI Era
- Social Scrap
- Continuous Learning
- The Art of Movement
- Billiards
- Good Finds
Finally, what I want to say is: this year, 92-octane gasoline dropped to 6.8 yuan. It means there are signs our lives are returning to the good.
DeepSeek in the AI Era
During this year’s Spring Festival, DeepSeek really took off like sparks and lightning, kicking off the battle of domestic AI competing with the world. From being monopolized externally to self-developed design, it ultimately broke through ChatGPT’s model costs, rivaled them, and served as a domestic LLM alternative — the first vendor to open-source a large language model… Every moment is a source of pride for the Chinese people.
From what DeepSeek’s CEO posted, I got two things
- Being followed is very fulfilling
- What the garage spirit is
The last person I thought had both of the above was Jobs, right? Even Musk, as wealthy as he is, doesn’t have both.
Being Followed Is Very Fulfilling
Liang Wenfeng: In the face of disruptive technology, the moat formed by closed source is short-lived. Even if OpenAI is closed source, it can’t stop being surpassed by others. So we sink our value into the team. Our colleagues grow and accumulate through this process, and forming an organization and culture that can innovate is our moat. Open source and publishing papers actually lose nothing. For technical people, being followed is a very fulfilling thing. In fact, open source is more of a cultural act than a commercial one. Giving is an extra honor, and a company doing this will also have cultural appeal.
To this I say: A-Feng, in the race of AI where a hundred boats compete, earning influence is more cost-effective than earning money. I also agree that being followed is very fulfilling. If an engineer has never been followed, his value of existence is constantly equal to 0.1, because we rely on industry recognition to find jobs — we’re not discussing these things when we’re financially free. The lever for us to do something influential is open source, letting the outside world know we have valuable existence.
But honestly, amid the current AI wave, open-sourcing some library doesn’t seem to mean much; open-sourcing an LLM is simply incredible. After all, training a model starts at a million dollars.
China necessarily needs someone to stand at the forefront of technology. I hope every reader is one of those folks at the forefront of technology, leading the younger generation to break through foreign blockades.
The Garage Spirit
When Jobs started his business, he also spent time in a garage with Wozniak. The garage spirit emphasizes “the fusion of low-cost entrepreneurship, innovative experimentation, and DIY spirit”.
It’s rare in China. After all, a garage is a standard feature of a private villa, and the building space in a city can at best count as a parking space, right? It seems a parking space costs at least 100k+ to start, right? If I want to make a parking space into a garage for DIY, the property management probably won’t agree!
In short, what he said is right, but doing it is full of difficulties. But that’s not an excuse I’m making. If possible, the bungalows awaiting demolition in urban villages are also worth studying. The main thing is “no innovation”.
Social Scrap
No matter when, we should have a clear understanding of our role in the social division of labor. This year, AI thoroughly shaped most people into social scraps. It’s not about worrying whether jobs will be replaced — it’s that most jobs are directly gone. And this is still a trend. Most of us are gradually becoming the assistants to AI, right? Whether you believe it or not, the facts are indisputable.
We are gradually being replaced from carbon-based creatures by silicon-based hardware. This is very real. My current thought and confusion is: when the kids at home grow up and graduate from college, where will their future be?
Now, tiger-parenting extracurricular classes have spent a lot of real money — will there still be a chance to find a job when they graduate from college? There are several very real problems in front of us
- Can the current job market even be described as “bad”? The small XXX company I’m at hasn’t recruited for 3 consecutive years
- Hope for the future has been shattered; there’s no longing for a beautiful future in people’s eyes; there’s no light in their eyes
- A former colleague graduated from Tsinghua and was laid off. Tell me, what’s the point of studying?
I sigh that in ten-plus years, maybe even learning an ordinary skill like operating an excavator will require a master’s degree, because the height of the rat race has been raised
I’m gradually getting used to life as a social scrap in the AI era, and I’ve also come to terms with the very bleak reality of children’s future development when they grow up. I’ll do what’s in front of me pragmatically. For things that haven’t happened yet in the future, there’s currently no optimal solution; I can only observe through future developments. In any case, being alive means there’s opportunity. Just don’t expect too much.
Continuous Learning
This year I achieved some learning results. Using AI-assisted methods, I completed a full read of an English technical book. I translated it once, then asked AI to translate it again. Also, 80% of my time on the subway was spent learning. This habit has become part of my life, and my English ability has improved by a qualitative level. After finishing that English book, I also studied two technical papers.
- 《设计模式之美》(The Beauty of Design Patterns)
- 《快手 · 移动端音视频开发实战》(Kuaishou · Hands-On Mobile Audio & Video Development)
- 《线性代数》(Linear Algebra) 9% learned in 2025
- 《Metal.by.Tutorials.4th.2023.12》
- Two papers
The Beauty of Design Patterns
This book taught me two very important patterns
- The mediator pattern
- The chain of responsibility pattern
I implemented these two patterns in my actual work and they had a huge effect, especially in the playback page I’m currently responsible for and the componentization when I was doing live streaming at Kuaishou — both are these two patterns. This book was 299¥ on Geek Time at the time.
Kuaishou · Hands-On Mobile Audio & Video Development
I studied this a few years ago, and this year I reviewed it again. Mainly because my work doesn’t often touch on the business, it’s easy to forget. Even the tech design of the final demo in it is excellent.
Linear Algebra
A course I found on Bilibili, because I need to learn to write shaders. To control skeletal animation, I need to understand operations on determinants, vectors, matrices, etc. I had no choice but to review it. Teacher Kong explains it very well — at least it’s very down to earth.
Metal by Tutorials (4th Edition, Dec 2023)
This book (digital edition) has been through a second pass. After the first read, I felt my grasp of the knowledge points wasn’t detailed or thorough enough. The second read was very smooth. Maybe this is the charm of computer graphics! After finishing each chapter on the subway, I’d complete the homework at the weekend when I had time. Every time I see Xcode compile and run and control the GPU, it also feels simple. This book gave me many aha moments (the Eureka effect), refreshing my mental awakening every time. Many blind spots and doubts in computer graphics were resolved with it (mainly the coveting of an outsider).
During this process, I also read the paper on progressive MipMap rendering, studied deferred rendering techniques, learned ray tracing, and went deep into subdivision surfaces and tessellation. I must especially thank DeepSeek and Kimi AI for helping me translate English in professional graphics. Some technologies I’d never encountered make me feel like I’m making progress.
Metal Tutorial
Section I: Beginning Metal (Basics)
- Chapter 1: Hello, Metal! (Introduction to Metal)
- Chapter 2: 3D Models (3D models)
- Chapter 3: The Rendering Pipeline (The rendering pipeline)
- Chapter 4: The Vertex Function (The vertex shader function)
- Chapter 5: 3D Transformations (3D transformations)
- Chapter 6: Coordinate Spaces (Coordinate spaces)
- Chapter 7: The Fragment Function (The fragment shader function)
- Chapter 8: Textures (Textures)
- Chapter 9: Navigating a 3D Scene (Navigating a 3D scene)
Section II: Intermediate Metal (Intermediate)
- Chapter 10: Lighting Fundamentals (Lighting fundamentals)
- Chapter 11: Maps & Material (Maps & materials)
- Chapter 12: Render Passes (Render passes)
- Chapter 13: Shadows (Shadows)
- Chapter 14: Deferred Rendering (Deferred rendering)
- Chapter 15: Tile-Based Deferred Rendering (Tile-based deferred rendering)
Section III: Advanced Metal (Advanced)
- Chapter 16: GPU Compute Programming (GPU compute programming)
- Chapter 17: Particle System (Particle system)
- Chapter 18: Particle Behavior (Particle behavior)
- Chapter 19: Tessellation & Terrains (Tessellation & terrains)
- Chapter 20: Fragment Post-Processing (Fragment post-processing)
- Chapter 21: Image-Based Lighting (Image-based lighting)
- Chapter 22: Reflection & Refraction (Reflection & refraction)
- Chapter 23: Animation (Animation)
- Chapter 24: Character Animation (Character animation)
- Chapter 25: Managing Resources (Managing resources)
- Chapter 26: GPU-Driven Rendering (GPU-driven rendering)
Section IV: Ray Tracing (Ray Tracing)
- Chapter 27: Rendering With Rays (Rendering with rays)
- Chapter 28: Advanced Shadows (Advanced shadows)
- Chapter 29: Advanced Lighting (Advanced lighting)
- Chapter 30: Metal Performance Shaders (Metal performance shaders)
- Chapter 31: Performance Optimization (Performance optimization)
- Chapter 32: Best Practices (Best practices)
The link below shows how subdivision surface technology renders mountain terrain.
If you’re currently agonizing over how to write a book to improve yourself, why not refer to the 4 sections above to get started Write it in the 4 parts: basics -> intermediate -> advanced -> breakthrough.
This book not only made me understand its graphics technology; at the same time, it also taught me how to write a good book of my own. I also understood one principle: if you want to get the latest frontier technical materials in real time, remember read more papers! read more papers! read more papers! While inputting, you also have to learn to output. Learn to write papers!
The Art of Movement
The economic situation has been bad these past few years, and the social toxicity is really too big and too much. Anyone living at the bottom is part of the laboring masses who are constantly squeezed. Without a strong enough inner world and without doing psychological construction, people gradually lose the longing for a beautiful life in the future, because job instability leads to all kinds of uncertain events, and even the smallest friction can become a trigger. Because in 2025, most of my commuting time was by subway, sometimes so absorbed that I’d miss my stop. I also often encountered two people on the subway getting into a verbal conflict because A bumped B, eventually both A and B being fined 500 yuan and the matter ending with nothing — tragedies like this happen from time to time.
Everyone has a pent-up anger with nowhere to release. The main reason is still the poor economic situation, the pain of the economic transformation cycle, and the state’s indifference to it — continuously adding layers of exploitation on the laboring masses without raising residents’ income. This causes society’s longing for civil servant jobs to grow day by day. The current economic situation of this country is clearly not fully understood by those above. The negative social impact of rising unemployment far exceeds expectations. Anyway, right now it’s what you call the “darkest hour”, with no dawn.
Residents buying houses at the high are left holding the bag — it harvests leeks. The housing price drop ate into their down payment, and the state provides no protection for residents’ lives, let alone a safety net for these bottom-level people. Sell your house and it’s considered speculation. In short, whenever the laboring masses happen to catch a trend to earn a bit, it looks unhappy… To this I say, the standard for whether a country is strong is whether it acts as a solid backing promptly when people’s lives are in difficulty — don’t laugh at the people’s misfortunes. This joke isn’t funny.
If the team you join at work has a relatively low quality bar, basically they can’t stand seeing you do well. At this point, choosing to lie low is the wise choice. Because if the overall quality can’t rise, you’ll only be dragged down to their level. “Your life can’t be better than theirs” is the result they want to see. If you have the strength, break out of this circle; if you don’t, stay low and wait for opportunities without getting taken down. That’s the “art of movement” I’ve come to understand.
While cultivating yourself, you need to do two things
- Correcting cognitive behavior
- Reconstructing your own personality
I hope you can grasp the meaning of “the art of movement” in this 2025 year-end summary.
Billiards
This year, the industry’s development remained as steady as always. In 2024, China’s billiards market reached 87.2 billion yuan, growing 20.5% compared to 2024 (note: original text), and it’s expected to exceed 192 billion yuan by 2030. If I’m wrong, you can look it up yourself.
The most memorable thing in 2025 for me was Zhao Xintong winning the World Championship. This is something even Ding Junhui couldn’t achieve over all these years, and Zhao Xintong did it, becoming the first Chinese to win the World Championship. This also marks that from 2025, China’s billiards industry is gradually becoming a world-trending sport led by Chinese people. I sincerely hope Chinese billiards can become a pride of the Chinese people just like table tennis.
In the last few days of the year, Joy (Qiao’s) released the Joy Violet Table — Joy Q5, priced at 18,800¥. It brings me one step closer to my dream of opening a billiard hall.
Previously, Joy’s silver-leg tables started at 28,800. Now if you buy this table, the cost instantly drops 35%. I watched a lot of billiards matches this year, but there’s a lack of partners to play with around me. I still hold on to my hobby — hobbies naturally have to turn into consumption too.
In 2025, I bought an Osbournez-Zhengtu 3 
This cue is definitely the hit product of 2025. As for why, my understanding is that its grip looks more like Sun Wukong’s golden staff, after all, this year the domestic 3A masterpiece “Black Myth: Wukong” broke out, causing most people’s wallets to break too.
For a hobby, this investment is worth it. After all, I don’t have any bad habits; besides ordering takeout, this is perhaps the only spending for a homebody.
Billiards Exam
In 2025, the Chinese Billiards Association released the Chinese billiards exam questions. Yes, this thing can get you a certificate by grinding questions. I can’t find it on the official website now, so I did a cloud drive share:
This includes Chinese billiards and snooker.
Files shared via cloud drive: China Billiards Association Skill Level Exam Chinese Billiards Exam Questions.pdf, 2 files in total Link: https://pan.baidu.com/s/10ZyHw38-c91MyN571mj67Q?pwd=1990 Extraction code: 1990
You can take the exam, get a certificate, and become an athlete or referee. There are corresponding exam questions to practice the patterns.
Good Finds
Now it’s time for the hard goods
- Peugeot Django 4-gen scooter with dashboard navigation, 150cc
The essential motorcycle for commuting. The 4th-gen Django 150 features keyless entry, an LCD dashboard, and motorcycle screen casting is also nice. Its looks and practicality are my strong recommendation.
- Mac mini M4
A productivity tool — a small, practical home Apple computer, priced at 3000¥ with national subsidy discount.
- DGX Spark
This is an AI supercomputer. AI was the hottest thing in 2025, and in the future AI computers will definitely go into thousands of households and ordinary homes. It’s just that its price is around 30k now. One of these can run full-powered DeepSeek directly.
- Jetson AGX Thor
This is basically the heart of a robot, similar to the device above. Both are AI supercomputers from NVIDIA. If you want to develop embodied intelligence, this is a must-have.
- Huawei Lingxiao Parent-Child Router
The new house’s network is wired throughout. Using this router, WiFi covers almost the whole house, and it must be maxed out to support the latest WiFi 7 protocol.
Summary
The shared-ownership apartment I bought at the end of this year was delivered. I didn’t have too many expectations for it, and overall I’m satisfied. The remaining time is spent researching all kinds of trivial and energy-consuming things.
In 2025, I was very tired and had limited energy. The number of articles I published didn’t even reach double digits — shameful! I have to support my family. I hope everyone lives a happy life in 2026!