(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.

--- Luxferre ---