Recently, Old T saw a doctor in his social circle recommending the Johns Hopkins University “History of Medicine” syllabus. From a global comparative perspective, it provides a detailed introduction, starting with comparisons of medical texts from the Near East, Mediterranean, and China 3,000 years ago, as well as comparisons of medical and bodily concepts between ancient Greece and China. It then covers how Persian and other Western medical knowledge spread eastward and how Chinese medicine spread westward. What surprised me most was that this syllabus from a top American medical school openly discusses the influence of religion on modern Western medicine, particularly how modern Western medicine, in its formation, institutionalization, and value orientation, largely inherits the religious culture of the Western Middle Ages.

Recently, Old T came across an academic paper shared by netizens in several WeChat groups titled “The Possibility of a Large-Scale Return Migration Wave of Elderly Migrant Workers and the Challenges of Rural Reemployment.” The paper points out that as the cohort born during the second baby boom (1962–1970) after the founding of the People’s Republic of China gradually reaches retirement age, a significant proportion of them, especially those who worked away from their hometowns, are not covered by urban employee pension insurance. Upon reaching retirement age, they often receive only the basic urban-rural resident pension insurance, which amounts to just over 200 yuan per month. These individuals, who have already returned, are currently returning, or are about to return “permanently,” find themselves in a dilemma due to the transformation of rural livelihoods and the reduction of non-agricultural employment opportunities. This situation also poses an unprecedented challenge for rural society.

It has been 15 years since my father passed away, and once again, his birthday has arrived.

I still remember his last birthday while he was alive, which fell during the New Year holiday. At that time, I was in college and not particularly mindful of the lunar calendar. It wasn’t until my mother called me in the evening that I realized with shock that I had forgotten my father’s birthday.

Recently, I saw a post on the NS forum asking how to optimize WordPress rendering speed from 2 seconds to under 1 second. My immediate thought was the OpenLiteSpeed + SQLite solution. Firstly, because OpenLiteSpeed is built for extreme WordPress acceleration, and secondly, using OLS + SQLite on a low-performance VPS can maximize server resource savings and deliver a noticeable speed boost.

2025 has quietly slipped away. Seizing the tail end of the final day, let’s draw a perfect conclusion for this year.

Blog Topics Retrospective

A brief look back: this year, I published a total of 100 blog posts (including this one), covering a wide and eclectic range of topics.

1. Deep Dives into Technical Exploration. From “Using Goaccess in 1panel to Replace Website Monitoring” to “Migrating Soomal.cc to Hugo” and “Adding Article Search Functionality to HUGO”, nearly one-fifth of the year’s articles focused on blog operations, tool optimization, and open-source practices. Technology is the skeleton, supporting the continuous growth of content.

Recently, Lao T suddenly discovered that some AIs already have shopping capabilities. For example, when wanting to buy a cabinet for a specific gap in the bathroom, the conventional method is to search on shopping apps using keywords like “side cabinet,” “gap cabinet,” or “narrow cabinet,” then browse product detail pages one by one. If dimensions are unclear, you might need to contact customer service; for material or installation concerns, or worries about quality, you’d have to sift through reviews. But now, AI shopping models are likely changing this approach.

Recently, a relative of Old T was injured and hospitalized after accidentally falling on their way home from work. According to the injury assessment, it would take at least six months after surgery to regain the ability to work. Their biggest concerns were: 1. Will they be able to keep their job? 2. How can they secure their basic livelihood during this period when they are unable to work?

This year’s Christmas in the United States feels a bit quieter than before.

It’s not because the weather is colder, but because people’s hearts have grown colder.

Under the sudden tariff hikes imposed by Trump, prices for Christmas gifts and toys imported from China have risen to some extent. For ordinary consumers, this may just mean a few extra dollars in their shopping carts, but for importers already operating on thin profit margins, it represents a critical line between survival and failure.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve read numerous analysis articles about AI, and I’ve written a few myself. But the more I write, the more I feel the focus of the discussion might be a bit off. Whether it’s computing power, model parameters, or comparisons of AI investment scales between China and the US, these essentially remain comparisons at the “outcome level”: who computes faster, who applies it more, who raises more capital. This way of discussing things isn’t meaningless, but it implies a hidden assumption: as long as you master enough knowledge, data, and methods, wisdom will naturally emerge.

Recently, around the Winter Solstice, the sun rises at its latest time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Almost every morning, I have to “battle” with my two children, trying to get them out of bed while it’s still dark outside to make it to school for breakfast at 7:20. The process is exhausting, and I can’t help but think how difficult it is to raise two kids, let alone three or four. Little did I expect that while driving to school and listening to the radio, I would hear a news report about a “Chinese billionaire going to the US to have 100 children.” My blood pressure instantly spiked. Good grief, ordinary people struggle to raise two or three children, yet these individuals are having 100 at once.