(2024-12-30) The end of the year is finally nearing
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Not gonna lie, this year has been the worst in the decade so far and one of
the most difficult years of my entire life. Many factors "contributed" to
this and the future never has been more uncertain for me, but I still have
got some strength to keep going. I have created several new tools, got an
entirely new hobby and some fresh plans for the next year. The main mission
though is staying alive.
Some of my collections have been significantly changed. For instance, I've
made no less than 8 watch reviews on this phlog in 2024, while keeping the
collection under 20 items. As of this moment though, at the end of this
year, I'm wearing one of the simplest and cheapest digital Casios currently
available: the W-218H. You could say it's technically identical to F-91W or
A700 but it has larger digits and much better display viewing angles (on par
with the GMW-B5000D, no kidding!), better backlight (well, on par with the
A700) and, most importantly, a more ergonomic 3-button layout, with the
Light/Advance button being in the bottom right and the Start/Stop/12/24h
button being in the top left. My main complaint about the 593-module watches
and the A700/A1000 was that sometimes I accidentally pressed the bottom
right button and switched the time to the 12-hour format in the timekeeping
mode without noticing it. Well, it's just not possible anymore with this new
button layout: the worst that can happen is backlight activation. And it
doesn't have afterglow, so accidental presses won't consume much energy. By
the way, the buttons here are very easy to press, even easier than on some
other Illuminators, so e.g. turning hourly chime on and off is a breeze on
this one. On top of that, W-218H is extremely lightweight for its size and
look (remotely resembling the vintage DW-5300) and I really stop noticing it
on my wrist from time to time. This is what I call "zero-distraction
timekeeping". So, in a month, I'll tell you how accurate this watch turns
out to be. And yes, it also has the LCD test screen when you press all three
buttons together and the 593-like "CASIo" screen when you press and hold the
Start/Stop button. Neat.
As for my other hobbies (MCUs, poetry, music making)... Not that I'm out of
ideas but definitely out of inspiration. For instance, I do have enough
parts to start building something based onWemos D1 Mini, but I still haven't
shaped the vision of what exactly I want it to do. Same for the ATMegas and
for the RP2040. I'm sure I'll figure this out but it needs time. What I
recently have achieved significant progress in though, is my Pixel research.
I don't want to talk about this progress just yet but you'll definitely see
the first practical results of this research within several months. To make
those results more tangible, I'm going to dive into some Android development
too, namely using the Go language and the Fyne GUI framework I already told
you about some time ago, just because I can't stand Java but still want my
future app to be able to work without any kind of middleware like AndroWish.
There's a lot of effort ahead but the end goal surely is worth it. It has
the potential to have as big of an impact as the first KaiOS jailbreak in
2018, if not even bigger. And I'm slowly approaching this moment, step by
step.
Overall, I surely hope the next year will allow me to escape the
circumstances and bring back some light and inspiration into my life.
Staying strong as always.
