With the year coming to a close, it’s fun to view what progress we’ve made this year.

But, instead of a statistical approach, let’s go by feature!

The Good

Linux

On January 19, I finally migrated my main computer to Linux.

There were a few things that I wasn’t so sure that would work on Linux: VR, Discord sound sharing, and… I forgot the rest. Surprise! Everything I wanted to do is now compatible.

I still treat Windows as a primary target when working on projects out of experience, but, who knows how much it’ll take until I stop supporting it. There is no point begging to Microsoft for improvement, knowing by experience.

And, hey, 2025 was my year of the Linux Desktop.

Social Media Break

At the start of the year, my mind was in a very rough shape.

Social media can take a great deal on your cognitive functionality, regardless of neurodiversity. I got myself exhausted of X/Twitter, Bluesky, and the Fediverse to the point where I no longer wanted to participate in them. To help myself, after losing all interest in these platforms, I started avoiding checking them at all cost.

While I do not have exact dates, I was mostly absent from February to August, being “gone” for an about impressive 7 months. Impressive, because, I know I have an issue. This is why I do not have none of these platforms on my phone, and have been mobile-free for a clean 5 years a now.

Breaks are required in anything we do, and social media platforms are no exception. In that break, I was at peace with the world. The quietness was a nice addition to my life, calmly letting me do some more self-reflection, and be able to heal myself better.

More breaks for me, waiter. I’d like more of those in 2026.

ddhx

Eight years after its introduction to the world, ddhx was finally turned into a hex editor, and a pretty good one I believe.

After being tired of attempting to get the perfect rewrite with previous code, the last rewrite effort was restarted in mid-July from a new blank state. With a fresh start and a set goal, I was able to settle on a more traditional architecture, and finish a minimum prototype in August. By the end of September, version 0.5 was released, featuring overwrite and append operations.

Two months after 0.5, on December 14, version 0.8 was released that should make this little editor usable with most features I would ever want. Its development has slowed down, but its plans stand strong for its future.

Pattern layouts next, perhaps?

lateterm

This blog’s theme (if it continues to be for the following years) has gotten support for customizations. This allows the theme to be adjusted to one’s liking without having to touch the source files.

It also saw a new license from LGPL to CC0-1.0.

Utilities

I believe you have noticed, by now, that I have a knack for making small utility programs for myself.

Examples this year include:

• An inline binary diff utility: ddiff
• A VRChat photo utility: vrcdd
• A system information utility for WlxOverlay-S: infonow
• A power utility listener: powerwatch
• A GOG client (unfinished, because minigalaxy mostly works now) with my own GTK4 bindings

I have also updated my Emoji picker to copy the Unicode codepoint and text, and updated its list to Emoji 17.0.

I only make this kind of thing when the need arises, but the more you make, the more you might have to maintain yourself!

VRChat

Did you know in gaming? VRChat is my second-most played game this year.

Early this year, I started playing VR via ALVR, and I was impressed that it would even work at all through my network’s Wi-Fi. Some time later, I switched to WiVRn, featuring performance and usability improvements. Throughout the year, with each update, I noticed my performance improving, going from around 30 fps to 90+ fps in VRChat, to state an example.

When you have a solid group of friends to hang out with, VRChat is one of those platforms that can absorb so much of your time (along with some other great titles, such as Hot Dog, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades).

I’ve done quite some mileage with my Oculus Meta Quest 2 since I bought the headset used in January 2023. So much that, after so much world-hopping, I had to replace the joysticks on both of my controllers (shoutout to iFixIt guides!).

Even better, I started dipping my toes into Avatar and World building.

At first, it was an avatar for myself to use, which lead me to slowly getting to learn Unity. My friends were kind to provide me with a base (mesh and armature included with base VRC character setup). It is fun to add gimmicks!

My first world was an attempt to learn UdonSharp and build an interactive object. A microwave with items that be placed inside, creating a different effect when the button is pushed, after the timer runs out.

Then, a mini museum world that features a portion of the city of Montréal with informational pop-ups for some buildings. This is when I started to understand synched objects.

These allowed me to explore my abilities, bit by bit.

I’d like making something more elaborate in 2026! (Oh, and, Steam Frame in “Early 2026″…)

Embedded Development

In November, after a friend’s recommendation, I picked up an esp32-s3 board (DevKitC-1/WROOM-1 1.0) and started poking my nose in embedded development.

It has been fun. So far, I only made a “hello world” example and make use of the on-board WS2812 RGB LED using RMT. I am currently toying with a 8×8 dot-matrix display driven through a MAX7219 chipset using SPI.

No real plans with the esp32 just yet, but ideas are brewing. The neat thing with this is, if I want to realize more projects with this board, I simply buy another one.

Hosting

I’ve moved my two VPSes to a local server, and was able to switch to a cheaper VPS that performs routing more effectively. Finally figured out how to reroute packets using iptables for IPv4 and IPv6.

Gaming

Like last year, I wanted to finish more (single-player) games.

Here is a list of games I remember finishing this year:

• Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (January)
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (May)
• System Shock 2: 25th Anniversary Remaster (August. Completed twice!)
• Arizona Sunshine® Remake (October)
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (November)
• Torchlight (December)

Obviously, this sort of thing is not an obligation, but, hm, maybe Creeper World 4 next year? Haha.

Albums

Just as I have started to take more photos in VRChat, I started taking more photos of my visits (IRL) since August. Photo albums make for nice memories to revisit.

So far, I have 4 albums. Including a recent visit to the Biodôme de Montréal.

The Bad

Job

I have not found a job this year.

This year, I have sent 151 job applications for a technical position (software developer or system administrator). Across 365 days, that’s about one every 2–3 days (0.41/day). It would be fair criticism to state that’s quite a low number, knowing the current “market”. Am I trying hard enough? It’s hard to tell.

Only in June, a tech support position was given to me, and it was extremely stressful. Fired a month later. I don’t think I want to retry for a support position role.

I’m unsure this will improve in 2026. It is bleak.

Social

While I am happy of my current social groups, there were some that outright kicked me out of theirs, or out of their life.

There are times you will keep thinking “Why?“, “Am I that uninteresting?“, “Do I really talk too much about myself?“, “Do I really fit in here?“, in hopes these questions stop. Sometimes, these are the only things in your mind, as an ever-consuming fog.

In these critical moments, it’s best to keep yourself grounded to reality as much as possible. Or at least try some entertainment or distraction in your leisure time. Forget them, you did not burn those bridges.

But relating back to social media, again, more breaks would help. You win some, you lose some… You are imperfect. There will be people you like & dislike, and the same applies to you back. Naturally, every single being out there has others they would like to either talk more to, or less to. Things come and go.

Regardless, keep seeking self-improvement, at your own comfortable pace. Because, I believe in you as well.

Physical Health

Being constantly at the computer, I’m positive my physical health is deteriorating.

Avoiding details, where I could even joke that this server is neither HIPAA nor PIPEDA compliant, there are two aspects that I am worried about within the following years.

Trying to take a walk “when I feel like”, or when the opportunity arises, doesn’t help. Outside that, it is rather too little activity. This month, I am attempting to pick up the lift bar again (keep whatever muscles remain). Attempting being the key word here.

Without much result, I’ll need new strategies (and/or brain hacks) for my physical wellbeing. How does one even look for events and have the fortitude or interest to follow suit? Will it click with me soon?

At the very least, diet is OK.

2026

While I do believe 2025 was a better year than 2024, there are still rooms for me to explore and improve.

Hoping to keep doing what I’m best at: Personal projects. You know, since working on stuff is fun!

What to expect? Hopefully more progress on Alicedbg (I have started efforts on a new Easy API), Aliceserver (after Alicedbg’s debug loop is stable), ddhx (couple more features I’d like), and VRChat content.

In general, there are some interesting things. Anything you’d like to show off, too? Talking about our projects sure can be fun.

And finally, thank you for reading. Wishing you happy holidays. Take it easy.