Welcome

First of all, thank you for visiting my personal blog.

This page was last updated on July 26, 2026. Version 6.0.0 English Version.

This article is translated from Simplified Chinese. If there is any inaccuracy in meaning, please refer to the Simplified Chinese version.

日本語に切り替え

About Me

Hi, I’m kot4ri—you can also call me by my online handle, Saba. I am 28 years old.

I was born and raised in a coastal city in northern China and currently reside in Beijing.

While I’m grinding out a living in Beijing, back at my parents' place, there’s still a female American Shorthair cat named Tiantian.

Enlightenment via Static Assets

On an afternoon in June 2016, I spent 69 RMB on my phone to buy this domain name. It has now been ten years.

Reasonably speaking, as a medical student back then, I probably shouldn't have touched Linux or servers in my entire life. But reality works in funny ways—today, I commute daily between Changping and Xierqi in northern Beijing, grinding away like a corporate slave.

Shortcuts

When I was in the second grade of primary school, my parents bought a Lenovo desktop PC to trade stocks—a Pentium Dual-Core with a discrete graphics card, pre-installed with the latest Windows Vista at the time. Like most kids, I learned to play games on 4399 and decorate my QQ Zone. I thought dragging game icons from someone else's computer into a USB flash drive would let me play them at home. Of course, all I brought back was a bunch of shortcut files (.lnk).

Later, I discovered that behind these shortcuts laid paths deep within the hard drive, filled with .exe files, .dll files, and numerous folders. I opened these folders and found the game textures and BGM files. I crudely drew a few lines over those texture files using MS Paint and reopened the game—to my amazement, those messy scribbles immediately appeared inside the game interface.

That was the very first time I caught a glimpse of how computer software actually works.

Under the Great Firewall

By the time I was in middle school, smartphones were becoming ubiquitous. My first Android phone was a Samsung GT-S5660. Having tried games like Fruit Ninja and Cut the Rope on iPads in shopping malls, I could finally play them on my own device.That was until Temple Run came along.  Because it didn't support ARMv6 processors, I started scouring online forums for usable installation packages. It ran, but was extremely laggy. So, I tried rooting the phone and deleting useless pre-installed software to optimize performance.

After flashing my phone repeatedly, I realized that stock AOSP offered the smoothest experience. I fell in love with Android in its purest form and bought a Google Nexus 4. Then one day, I noticed my phone overheating, draining its battery rapidly, and stuttering badly—Google had been blocked. In the background, the OS was frantically and uselessly trying to reconnect. That was my first encounter with the Great Firewall. To solve the overheating issue, I started using proxy tools, which unexpectedly awakened a new mindset in me.

Birth of the Blog

Free proxy tools kept shutting down one after another. Eventually, I brought myself to buy a 100 RMB/year paid service. In the ninth month, it suddenly stopped working well. Searching the website for announcements or guides, I stumbled upon a site called GitHub, which hosted the website's source code. Encouraged by a friend, we co-rented a VPS. Neither of us knew what we were doing, but with the help of another friend, we set up a blog using WordPress and deployed our own proxy tools using that open-source code.

I became the administrator of an independent personal blog, meticulously curating it just like I used to decorate my QQ Zone. From here, I began to see a much larger world. I also experienced the desperation of frantically rescuing data after being terminated due to DDoS attacks, which inadvertently forced me to master Linux system administration. I became an "MJJ" (VPS enthusiast), discussing with community peers which host had faster speeds and lower latency.

Even Anime Fans Become Veterans

Getting into the Anime Subculture

Around the start of my first year in high school, I saw people constantly posting strange terms on Tencent Weibo: "black-faced" (unlucky), "African chieftain" (gacha bad luck), "European aura" (gacha good luck), and so on. Driven by curiosity, I downloaded a rhythm game called Love Live!. The gears of fate often turn silently—those terms and names, which seem like relics of the past today, became the pebble that shattered my doorway into the ACG world.

In December of that year, I binged both seasons of the Love Live! anime series in one go, becoming a full-fledged moe anime fan. Although the term was originally derogatory, today it feels like a badge of being an "old-timer." For the next few years, I knew exactly which day of the week each anime episode aired. I watched countless romance, Yuri, harem, and slice-of-life series. Compared to Shonen Jump's hype action series, I preferred the delicate nuances of daily life or classic tear-jerkers. To this day, I must admit that those years of light and shadow subtly shaped many of my values and worldview.

Corporate Slave and Veteran

Now, as I grow older and work grows heavier, I haven't felt like watching those anime series for a long time. I've become a semi-retired casual observer on the margins of the ACG community.

This year, using the anime tracking template built into my blog theme, I re-organized and recorded all the anime I watched back in the day. Maybe... I'll update it again. Maybe I'll watch even more shows.

看过的番剧

Tears of an Era

Having lived through that flourishing era, I developed my own taste—rather than soft, cute, slice-of-life series, I now lean toward works with grand worldviews and profound meanings (e.g., To Your Eternity, Violet Evergarden). The anime industry in recent years feels increasingly like an assembly line, flooded with bizarre isekai tropes and absurdly long light-novel titles that cause aesthetic fatigue. Hardcore masterpieces that truly shake your heart are few and far between. I find myself increasingly trapped in the shadows of the past, chewing over old memories again and again.

Occasionally, when reminiscing about those passionate years, I can still talk about them for three days straight. Today, my headphones are still filled with ACG pop, electronic, and orchestral music on loop. Sometimes, re-listening to a song I haven't heard in a long time brings back vivid images of where I was, what I saw, and how I felt when I first heard it. I sincerely envy—and even feel jealous of—those composers who can convey emotions through notes. What they construct with sound is precisely that grand world I look up to from the cracks between memory and reality.

From GPU Maillard Reactions to Heavy Gacha Mobile Games

Testing Liver Function

The first online mobile game I played in middle school was Clash of Clans. That was my first experience collaborating with others, fighting side by side, and conquering territory in a virtual world. However, after falling down the ACG rabbit hole, I gradually abandoned it for Love Live!.

My first extreme grinding experience happened after graduating from university—to test whether my "liver function" was still intact, I grinded hard while sacrificing my sleep. My final ranking was 211th globally. Having that level of passion and energy is probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

Delicious Baked Graphics Cards

My true intersection with esports started where it does for many broke students: assembling a PC in a shoebox based on forum advice to battle through 3A titles.

During the summer between high school graduation and my freshman year of college, I experienced a breakup. I was young back then, and my mind wasn't as thick-skinned as it is today. To escape the wave of melancholy, I started playing FPS games. Back then, I only had a weak GT 630, which could barely run CS:GO smoothly on the lowest settings. As for PUBG, I could only go to an Internet café near the university, paying 4 RMB an hour to scratch the itch.

Before long, that GT 630 started showing artifacts on the screen due to prolonged high temperatures and VRAM overruns. Later, a friend gave me an old GTX 560 Ti. Logically, I should have finally hit the entry level for some 3A titles, but my 300W power supply became the new bottleneck—whenever power consumption spiked, the PC would instantly go black and reboot. Perhaps because PUBG was so wildly popular that year that even my dad heard about it, he bought me a GTX 1050 Ti. Only then could I barely play PUBG with friends on medium settings. It wasn't until I graduated from college and started working that I finally bought a gaming laptop with my own money.

After "baking" graphics cards for so many years, I looked back and realized I already have over 300 games on Steam. Many were free pickups, and plenty were 3A titles that remained unplayed in my library. My favorite series remains Yakuza (Ryū ga Gotoku)—I admire the neon lights of Kamurocho and the honor of the yakuza code. Although I've only played Yakuza 0, 1, and 2, and have found resources for the games after 3, I lack the time and feel a bit reluctant to keep playing. I hope the Dragon of Dojima ultimately finds a good peaceful ending.

Later, I bought Cyberpunk 2077, witnessing the joys and sorrows of edgerunners in the neon glow of Night City. Two years ago, when Black Myth: Wukong launched as the first domestic 3A title, I supported it out of my own pocket immediately. Unfortunately, my gaming skills were too lacking—the path of the Destined One was too difficult for me, and I couldn't even reach an ending even with cheats enabled. Ironically, that monkey ended up serving as my GPU stress-testing tool at a company expo, letting attendees test-play it at the booth—at least it fulfilled its final purpose for me.

During the pandemic year, I bought a Nintendo Switch on impulse to play Animal Crossing. I also played The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, though after all these years, I've only found Princess Mipha. I also screamed my head off while burning food in Overcooked, and bought Ring Fit Adventure to force myself to exercise. Of course, like most people, my Switch has long been gathering dust.

After playing CS:GO for so many years, my skills haven't improved either, to the point where I no longer even know what rank I am.

Sunk Cost After Heavy Gacha Spending

After the peak of Love Live!, toward the end of 2022, I encountered Eggy Party.

Initially, I just played with friends, but later I got into a dispute with other players. To flex on them, I emptied out the in-game shop, falling into a morbid cycle of heavy spending. As the game environment deteriorated and the developers became increasingly greedy, I grew disillusioned with the community. After much thought, I decided to cut off this bottomless pit completely. An account I had spent 34,000 RMB on was ultimately liquidated for a mere 5,000 RMB—a brutal settlement of sunk costs. It made me reflect: Is spending money on games actually worth it?

A year ago, I stumbled upon Sky: Children of the Light. Although it requires an absurd amount of grinding, the complete absence of PVP mechanics and the slow-paced main story allowed me to make several friends. After learning about its worldview, I felt many deep and gentle design choices, experiencing warmth and help from strangers all over the world.

Back then, I tweaked power supplies and GPUs for a few extra frames per second. Today, facing work and life, I seek brief moments of solace in virtual worlds, finally freeing myself from the obsessions of my younger years.

A Geek’s Curiosity and Pursuits

I love various digital gadgets and trendy hardware. I rely heavily on the vast Internet to learn and explore all kinds of knowledge, sometimes researching intricate details from top to bottom—I suppose that's what people call the "geek spirit."

Here are the main devices I am currently using:

Primary Phone：iPhone 17 Pro Max (Hong Kong version)

Secondary Phone：Nothing Phone (3a) (Japanese version)

Tablet：iPad Air 7 (M3) 11-inch

Earphones：AirPods Pro 2

Wearable：Apple Watch SE2

Primary PC：HP OMEN 015 Gen6（Intel Core i7 10750H×RTX 2070 Max Q）

Mobile Productivity：Macbook Air M4 13-inch

Out of consideration for hardware and feature completeness, I chose the Hong Kong version for this phone generation. My plan for this year is to go to Hong Kong in person to buy the iPhone 18 Pro Max, AirPods Pro 3, and Apple Watch S12.

I currently maintain two foreign eSIMs (CMLink UK and CMHK). Although it's a significant ongoing expense, it solves many problems and serves as a necessary backup measure during extraordinary times.

Of course, the "Apple Tax" is a reality. To balance in-game purchases with secondary needs, I need to keep an Android device—making me a "dual-phone user." The Nothing Phone was purchased last year in Akihabara, Japan; stock Android is an absolute requirement for me.

I also dual-wield computers. The HP OMEN I bought upon graduating from college serves as my main rig and has been in service for 6 years now; this year I replaced its battery and upgraded it to 32GB RAM. For light travel and work, I use the MacBook to experience the macOS ecosystem.

Laptops admittedly lack expandability. Although I no longer have the energy to play games much, if given the opportunity in the future, I’d still like to build a fully decked-out, top-tier workstation loaded with RGB lighting.

My interest in digital products stems from my own hobbies and needs. I started touching Linux/servers and running my personal blog in late 2015. Currently, I’ve mastered skills including Linux SysAdmin, Java, Python, PHP, HTML5, and CSS3. My current primary research focus is NPU compute stress-testing, LLM training, and fine-tuning.

I consider myself a pragmatic, lazy person who doesn't blindly grind tech stacks—all my learning and research are strictly driven by immediate practical needs.

To me, digital products and technology are not just toys; they are weapons to prove and achieve myself, and to fight against the world.

Things I Like

Other traits: Pepsi / McDonald's

Bad habits: Smoking ✓ Drinking ✓

My favorite foods are braised pork belly and home-cooked curry rice. I dislike overly fishy seafood.

That’s about it for now! I’ll add more whenever something else comes to mind. Thank you for reading this far—I hope we can become good friends.

Twitter：@kot4ri

Telegram：@kot4ri

Weibo：@人机青花鱼

Steam：@kot4ri

GitHub：@kot4ri

Nintendo Switch：SW-3773-5148-6018

Blog History

2026-05-29: Domain transferred from Alibaba Cloud to Namecheap.

2026-05-08: Enabled HTTP/3 support.

2025-08-30: Server OS upgraded to AlmaLinux 10.

2022-04-18: Server OS upgraded to AlmaLinux 8.

2020-11-03: Migrated to Sakura Internet (Tokyo Data Center).

2019-06-05: Migrated to IDCF (Shirakawa Data Center).

2019-04-25: Migrated to Sakura Internet (Tokyo Data Center).

2019-02-12: Migrated to Sakura Internet (Osaka Data Center); enabled IPv6 and TLSv1.3 support.

2019-01-28: Migrated to ConoHa (Tokyo Data Center).

2018-08-01: Migrated to IDCF (Shirakawa Data Center).

2017-02-19: Migrated to Sakura Internet (Tokyo Data Center).

2016-06-21: Activated zankyo.cc domain name.

2016-05-22: Enabled site-wide SSL.

2015-12-14: Founded on ConoHa with help from Touko.