COVID, BTC, M1
These are the 3 things in 2020 that tremendously changed the way I think about my life, the world I see and the tools I touch everyday.
COVID-19 changed everyone's life. I was in Wuhan, the center of the pandemic, back in January. And suddenly I got lost in the flood of information.
I don't want to talk about the virus in this blog post. After many sleepless nights I made it clear to myself, about what I should spend more time with in my life. Things I enjoy, people I love, and most importantly: myself.
The obsession with information and connection just doesn't make me happier. I was overwhelmed with pressure coming from the outside and I didn't understand why. I started to delete unnecessary apps as much as I can (remember that nothing was necessary before you started to use it). Last year I started to take notes of my dreams. I started to make creative artworks with code. I started to read poems.
BTC doubled its highest historical price very quickly. I knew BTC in 2013 and did my first crypto investment in 2016. But I never took it seriously like many other people, until 2020. Of course, I have to admit that the price was the reason which got my attention again. But this time I had a conclusion on what it actually is. (In a society) what is value and what is price? What is trust and what is common sense?
Apple M1 is a new laptop chip shipped by Apple in 2020. It achieved significant improvements on performance-per-watt.
As a web developer we talk about performance everyday but sadly it just feels not good enough, not even near.
But our machines are not slow. When I was doing algorithm competitions ~10 years ago, an important metric I still remember was ~109 “calculations” per second in C++, with that old CPU. If your program takes longer than 1 second, you will get a 0 point.
That’s a lot comparing to what we are doing in web today. I can create a complex shader that renders real-world 3D objects and rays at 120 fps, but it's so difficult to create a 30 fps web experience.
Although web development is so different and there're various reasons. However we still can do better and we should do better. All I want to say is this.