Monthly Log: 2025-03

Parrot-blown snow: “ying” as in “parrot”

Post Structure

Input
Learning: books/novels/good articles, videos/podcasts, any format, anything that feels rewarding after finishing
Anime: new shows / old shows, TV season / movies, notes on what I watched
Others: movies, TV series, etc., put here
Random Thoughts
Maybe I will write down whatever I’m thinking
Output
Maybe a blog, but I’m not good enough, so maybe I have no output for a whole month (lol)
Travel
If I went somewhere, I’ll jot it down. If not, then whatever
Misc
Small things that don’t fit in the categories above

This book is strongly recommended by Teach Yourself Computer Science. Since it’s categorized under Distributed Systems, it sounded intimidating, so I kept putting it off.
After actually reading a bit, it’s not as deep as I expected, and it’s exactly the knowledge I need right now.

I always had a question: there are so many database products on the market, what’s the difference, and how do you choose? It can’t be just “MySQL is free”, right?
This book finally gave me some basic sense of how to think about these tradeoffs.

Quick notes:

Database types: Relational Database, Document Database, Graph Database
Workloads: OLTP (On-line Transcation Processing), OLAP (On-line Analytics Processing)
Storage: LSM (Log Struct Merge Tree), b-Tree, Column-oriented Storage
Distributed: Single Leader, Multi Leader, Leaderless

The Architecture of a Database System paper I put down after only ~20 pages last month actually helped a bit.
At least now when the author says things like “SQL is a very successful abstraction”, or talks about interpreters, executors, and parallelism, I don’t feel completely lost.

The most memorable part in the first few chapters was when the author said, “Let’s design a database.” I thought, “Welp, it’s getting hardcore now.”
I expected a flood of terms and code, but instead the author showed two bash commands: “Okay, our database is done.”
Wait, what? That’s it? This works?
Absolutely mind-blowing.

I’m currently at the distributed storage chapter, and I’ll pause here for now. The knowledge after this seems less immediately useful to me.

By chance I saw someone on Twitter call this book Black Rhino, and also The Backend Bible. So it’s that famous.
You can tell the author has that effortless master vibe: he explains technologies smoothly, and even draws fun tech maps at the start of each chapter.

SICP

I started SICP at the end of March. It’s pretty interesting.

One takeaway from the preface: at this entry-level stage, what we most need to focus on is not specific syntax details, not elegant or efficient algorithms, but how to control the complexity of large software systems.

Our design of this introductory computer-science subject reflects two major concerns.
First, we want to establish the idea that a computer language is not just a way of getting a computer to perform operations but rather that it is a novel formal medium for expressing ideas about methodology. Thus, programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.
Second, we believe that the essential material to be addressed by a subject at this level is not the syntax of particular programming-language constructs, nor clever algorithms for computing particular functions efficiently, nor even the mathematical analysis of algorithms and the foundations of computing, but rather the techniques used to control the intellectual complexity of large software systems.

Anime

Finished
- 悪役令嬢転生おじさん
  ~~Maybe because I’ve become a middle-aged guy myself~~, my current favorite is this show about an uncle reincarnated as a villainess.
  Plenty of production resources, and the warm + comedic story works really well. Great for casual relaxing.
  The ending felt good too. It set up more mysteries. I guess there will be a season 2?
- 日本へようこそ、エルフさん
  Cozy slice-of-life. Average production.
  The dragon girl feels more appealing than the heroine.
Catch up later (
- 薬屋のひとりごと
- アオのハコ
- 花は咲く、修羅の如く
These are all great works, but I haven’t had time lately. (I’m not so busy that I don’t even have time to watch anime, but I keep feeling that good shows deserve quiet, focused attention… and somehow I never find that “quiet time”.)
- 想星のアクエリオン
- 灰色：幻影扳机
These two are also kind of interesting. I’ve watched one or two episodes. Maybe I’ll continue later.
Dropped
- Magic Maker
  The production keeps getting poorer, and the plot after the “sloth sickness” arc is boring.
- Ubel Blatt
  The novelty wore off. A bit of aesthetic fatigue.
  Too much talking, too saintly. Meh.

Others

Recent TV/movies. I try not to spoil.

バンパイアハンターD

A frequent guest in animation MADs. I expected to watch it mainly for the visuals, with low expectations for the story.
The animation really is gorgeous. But what surprised me more was that the story also exceeded expectations and wasn’t formulaic (unlike many new shows where you can see the whole plot at a glance).
The ending where the protagonist keeps his promise and sees someone off from afar is great: restrained and understated. No romance line, plus points.

GHOST IN THE SHELL

I don’t think I fully understood the story. Did the ending mean the consciousnesses fused? After fusion, is the Major still the Major?

イノセンス

The opening uses 3D to imitate the body-manufacturing sequence from the previous film, but it looks kind of ugly (
The whole film has a stream-of-consciousness vibe, like a dream. I couldn’t understand it at all.

Random Thoughts

Job hunting is hard

I applied to two Elixir job postings. Both sank without a trace. Didn’t even get an interview.
Not strong technically, and my Japanese isn’t really something I can sell either. It’s hard.

Maybe it would be better to build more personal projects, accumulate experience, and then job hunt?
Otherwise I’m always treated as a newbie (though I am a newbie, to be fair).

Output

Nothing at all~

Travel

鹦吹雪，鹦鹉的鹦

I ran into a parrot-blown snow (a pun on 桜吹雪): a flock of parrots vandalizing cherry blossoms.

First time seeing parrots on the street. Does Japan really have wild parrots? Are these not escaped from a zoo or someone’s home?

Normally, 桜吹雪 is petals falling naturally. But these parrots bite off entire flowers. Too evil.
And they aren’t even eating because they’re hungry, just doing it for fun.
The destructive power is insane. Several nearby cherry trees all got ruined, and they had no intention of stopping.

Cherry blossoms fell into the grass, and I thought it was some kind of little plant blooming.

Misc

Hay fever

Nasal spray saved my life

My nose wouldn’t stop running, ~~waterfalling straight down for three thousand feet~~.
I really couldn’t take it anymore, so the doctor prescribed a nasal spray. It worked amazingly. After two days I barely had a runny nose.
If I’d known, why did I stubbornly endure it for so long?

An explainer article

Found a pretty comprehensive explainer: 20 年老过敏性鼻炎患者的最全备忘录

Thinking back to my symptoms, it seems like what the article says: if you ignore it, it keeps getting worse.
So don’t just tough it out. Get diagnosed and take meds.

Good news: current prescription meds basically don’t have tolerance issues, so they won’t “stop working” after you’ve taken them for a while.
Bad news: you have to take them for life…

~~大郎，该吃药了~~

Finally got my driver’s license

The long driver's license exchange journey is finally over. From booking the first appointment to actually getting the license took 9 months. What amazing efficiency (derogatory).

Why did it take so long?

In those 9 months, the actual time spent “exchanging the license” was only a few days. The rest was waiting.

Waiting for the written test
In Kanagawa Prefecture, to book the written test you have to go to the Driver's License Center (免許センター) in person to make an appointment. License exchange is insanely popular, so the written test queue alone is 3 months.
Waiting for the road test
After passing the extremely easy written test, you do a road test (inside the test grounds). This one can be booked online, and the queue is about 1.5 months.
The written test result is valid for 6 months. If you fail the road test within that window, you can book again; if you exceed 6 months, you have to redo the written test.
Whether you pass the road test is up to the examiner’s veto, which is extremely opaque. Rumor (on Xiaohongshu) says the pass rate in Kanagawa is miserable.
It took me 3 tries to pass.

Any shortcuts?

If you’re a very experienced driver
If you pass the written test (3 months) and road test (1.5 months) on the first try, you should be able to get the license within half a year.
But you also can’t be too old-school. Many drivers in China have lots of driving experience but bad habits. I met someone who said he drove trucks back home, and he still hadn’t passed after five tries.
Move to Tokyo
Tokyo has 3 locations for license exchange, so it might be faster than Kanagawa, which only has one test site.
Get a Japanese license from scratch
Give up on exchanging. Pay 300,000+ yen for a training camp program, and get the license in two weeks (money power~

Getting the license

They issue the license on the same day you pass. I thought it would be a little booklet (like a Chinese license), but it’s actually a small card, similar to a residence card.

The staff told me not to drive immediately, and to first have an experienced driver accompany me.
They also emphasized that no matter how small the accident is, you must report it to the police, even if you just hit your own wall.

So are the Japanese police really that idle?

Closing

Dragged it all the way to the last day again.
Next time I’ll definitely start earlier (copium

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