Back in Shenzhen
Alright, this is an addendum. Actually I got back to Shenzhen on July 13th. After I returned I met up with some people, and then started work on the 18th. But as I suspected, I’m not cut out for a long-term office job — after one week I switched back to developing from home, going into the office only when necessary and dropping in on clients now and then.
Since coming back to Shenzhen my rhythm of life has become regular: three meals on time, in bed before 23:00 every night, up a little after 7 in the morning. These things matter. Yeah, not bad at all.
Website restored
A few days ago the site got hacked again here in China. This time it was a commercial attack. The funniest part: after this internet company in Guangzhou took down the server I was on, they sent me an email like a cat weeping over a mouse, telling me that under their recent “kind-hearted monitoring” they’d noticed my site had gone down — and they left their website and contact details in the email. Receiving that email out of the blue, I was so grateful I was speechless. All I can do is learn from certain masters and move out of China.
Yesterday afternoon I bought a shared hosting plan. I’ve been busy ever since, restoring the site and restructuring it. mousebomb.org still has some compatibility issues that aren’t fully sorted out, and I can’t be bothered to fix them.
This has moved up the timetable for my big overhaul of my personal site.
I don’t want my personal site to be centered on Flash anymore. I won’t host it myself either — instead I’m just offering the source code for download. I’m happy today: even though I’ve torn down the Flash site I ran for years, I’ve given away all the source code. This year’s job changes and life changes have made Flash and technology stop being the focus for me; I’m facing a broader horizon, oriented around product. Breaking out of my intoxication with technology is what I’ve really gained these past few years.
Three years in the workforce
People usually write a pile of retrospectives and resolutions when the year turns over, but at year’s end I never feel as sentimental as they do. It seems my node for change is summer. Every summer is when I change the most.
It started in the summer of ‘08, when I left school for a one-year internship.
In the second half of ‘08 I went to Shanghai and joined Qoolu, met that group of outstanding young people, and worked with them on Undersea World. I left in the first half of ‘09.
July ‘09: I joined a Flash animation company in Shenzhen and worked on Flash games for a long time.
End of July ‘10: I left Shenzhen and went to Shanghai again, to co-develop a real-time strategy browser game — Kingdom Wars.
July ‘11: back in Shenzhen again. Maybe I’ll take it easy for a while first. Then again, the world is full of sudden opportunities — what happens next, we’ll see.
Come to think of it, jumping around like this also means there was something unsatisfying each time, right? That’s true. The specifics are hard to sum up in a few words — some were forces beyond my control, some pressure from circumstance. I won’t get into it today. Anyway, people move upward. Gains and losses, success and failure, are all a precious and interesting process. No matter where I go, what project I work on, whether I succeed or fail, I’m gaining XP and leveling up.
I value every collaborator. Along the way I’ve treated everyone I’ve worked with as a close friend. Wherever people are, some form of collaboration can always continue.
This post is really rambling — no central theme from start to finish; the words just flow wherever my mind goes. Now let me ramble about something else.
My love affair with Flash
Years ago — it must have been 2002 — I fell in love with Flash at first sight. From ‘04, when I got to school, I kept thinking up ways to tinker with this hot-tempered thing, dreaming of mastering it and becoming a Flasher, a Flash master. Seven years have passed since then. Though I did successfully save the continent of Azeroth… I’ve now achieved the dream I had back then, and I’ve done Flash development for years, making a living from it. My devotion to Flash once made me take it far too seriously, believing nothing in the world could be better. Although I also worked with plenty of other technologies, everything revolved around Flash. Now Apple has gradually changed my attitude toward Flash, and with new opportunities appearing, I’ve jumped out of the Flash-centered world. Once out, my heart feels hollow — a spiritual pillar of many years is collapsing. But that’s not so bad: an attitude of treating all technologies equally, and a new internal mechanism, will be rebuilt.
At first I got into Flash just to make some flashy animations and websites for people to look at — you could say it was Flash for Flash’s sake. Once I’d achieved that, I became more and more calm about it. So, heh, I guess I’m past the stage of chasing visual effects. Now I look at the product. I focus on its completeness and usability, feature design, user experience and every other aspect. I admire Apple’s minimalist design: whatever the need, just the right amount is best — technology is secondary.
The old era has come to an end
Maybe you don’t get it, and that’s fine. Once a hobby rises to the level of belief, it stops making sense to anyone. After I stopped taking Flash so seriously, everything needed adjusting. And as the adjustment began, fragments of the old and new worlds overlapped and collided. In this recent collision and reflection, I’ve pinned down some goals that used to be vague, met new people and developed new desires, and most importantly, I’ve finally made up my mind about some big goals. Time to act — the real career begins. A new era is about to arrive.