It is a painful process to book an France visa appointment. A tool was implemented to notify you when a new slot is released. As a 9 years of expereinced software engineer, I finally beat the scalpers and got my France visa appointment by the script. A software engineer never bows to scalpers.
Currently, only Dublin Ireland appointments are supported. Please read the instructions docs to learn how to use it: Google Docs
Douban link: Sword Stained with Royal Blood
The novel itself is a 6/10, but the appended “A Critical Biography of Yuan Chonghuan” is extremely good. It has history, as well as Jin Yong’s own commentary. Most importantly, many of its views on the fall of the Ming align with mine. It is worth 10/10. I had so many thoughts that a short review could not hold them, so I wrote a very long book review.
Yuan Chonghuan was truly a peerless statesman. The Ming-Qing transition was China’s last dynastic change under the feudal monarchy system. Because it happened relatively recently, records and historical memory are quite clear. And because multiple forces were competing, the drama was intense. The ending was that the Manchus entered the Central Plains and established 268 years of rule over China proper. It ended as an even greater tragedy, making it all the more regrettable and infuriating. The year 1644 was the first year of Shunzhi, the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, and the first year of Yongchang. I am grateful to Jin Yong for using this background to write this wuxia novel. This novel also connects several of Jin Yong’s other works, such as The Deer and the Cauldron; characters including Jiu Nan, Gui Xinshu, and Feng Nandi all appear.
My earliest exposure to this period of history was through various Qing palace dramas I watched as a child, such as The Secret History of Xiaozhuang. Later, in college, I read Dangnian Mingyue’s Those Things in the Ming Dynasty, which gave me a relatively detailed understanding of this period. Regarding the tragic history of the late Ming, Dangnian Mingyue can be said to have been reluctant to write too much. In particular, as a civil servant, whether intentionally or not, he was good at using the “Spring and Autumn brushwork”: glorifying Ming emperors and covering up their faults, especially Emperor Yingzong and Emperor Chongzhen. After finishing it, I somehow felt that “my ministers have misled me” made sense, and that the reason the Ming fell was simply that “the Great Ming’s fate” had run out. Many changes were left unexplained. For example, from Tianqi to Chongzhen, it suddenly went from upright officials filling the court to eunuch-party domination; even after the eunuch party was destroyed, the entire bureaucracy still became deeply corrupt.
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I solved the first two problems and got stuck on the third.
Rating change: 1407 -> 1378
It has been two years since the previous post, My Investment Story (I). During these two years, both my investment philosophy and my investment results have improved greatly. Here I summarize and share my investment story from 2022 to 2023. Original blog post.
The most important change is that after five years of investing, I finally turned losses into profits.
A practical account of Ireland’s driving licence process, documents, tests, and common pitfalls.
R.I.P.
I was fortunate to be in the same problem-solving group as 左耳朵耗子. When everyone heard the news, we thought it was a rumor and even mentioned him in the group. But with multiple sources confirming it, it should be true now.
In the blink of an eye, 2022 is about to pass. I do not know whether it is because of pandemic restrictions or because I myself am getting older, but now time feels like it flies, truly like a white horse passing a crack. The ancients did not deceive me.
Previous year-end reviews:
Practical improvements for a smoother Windows development environment, terminal, toolchain, and workflow.