My mother’s illness was discovered around the beginning of spring.
Thanks to several fortunate coincidences, we were able to detect the illness early and have her treated at a good hospital.
Because of this, it didn’t become a serious matter.

However, surgery alone wasn’t enough for a complete cure, and she received medication while attending the hospital for about six months.

The Advancing of Artificial Intelligence

This year saw remarkable developments in artificial intelligence.
Around the end of 2022, it was newsworthy just that a method for creating natural Japanese text had emerged.
By March 2023, it became easily accessible to everyone, and now programmers use it as a matter of course.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet, which can program with realistic accuracy, appeared in the latter half of this year, and we’re finally approaching an era where we may not need to write code by hand.

Personally, I welcome this since I don’t enjoy programming, but it also means the gap with beginners is becoming smaller, so I may not survive unless I keep thinking about countermeasures.

The End of App Research

CatchApp, the only site in Japan where you could view App Store apps in order of newest releases, was essential for the annual app research I conducted, but the service ended around July this year. https://catchapp.net

I couldn’t have done my research without this site. Thank you very much.

In 2023, I installed 10,921 apps, and from 2020 to 2023, I installed a total of 51,350 iOS apps.
By the way, the 3,000+ apps I installed in 2019 are excluded because I unfortunately lost the backup.

Next year, I’ll be working on reinstalling apps from 2020 onwards and categorizing useful apps.
My ultimate goal is to create an iPhone with only reference apps and favorite apps installed.

Bonsai

I only attended classes about twice this year, as I took time off due to my mother’s medical treatment.
The severe heat was harsh again this year, and many bonsai suffered damage, but I think they’ll be fine from next year.

Ring Fit Adventure: A Five-Month Battle

Last year, I stopped during my third playthrough (effectively my sixth) because the no-item stages were too difficult, but when I resumed at the beginning of this year, I cleared it easily on the first day.

After that, things progressed smoothly, and around May I thought I might clear it easily, but
my partner character Ring said something ominous.

Another no-item stage.

Smoothies are items you can drink while fighting enemies that increase attack power, heal you, or let you revive after being defeated - they’re essential for gameplay.

At this point, the level difference from the appropriate level was 80. It was impossible to clear without smoothies.

This from just one attack.
I need three attacks to defeat them, and I have to keep healing until the enemy takes a rest turn.
So the time to win varies greatly from 5 to 30 minutes.

And after defeating them, the real challenge awaits.

If I take attacks from two of these, I lose.
To win, I need to be lucky enough to act twice in a row on the first turn, then survive the next turn without taking damage.

The probability is extremely low, and since it takes time to defeat the first enemy, it requires patience.

I was also leveling up in other stages, but no matter how much I leveled up, it never got easier, so I gave up and decided to just keep fighting.

A few months later, my level had increased by 36, and while I still needed three attacks to defeat the first enemy, I could now defeat 3 out of 4 of the next enemies in 2 turns.

Finally cleared. It took 46 minutes, but this is the time for a single attempt.

And so, the battle that began on April 7th and ended on September 11th - a five-month struggle in total - came to a conclusion.

And with that, my sixth playthrough is complete.
In 2025, I plan to finish the stages I haven’t cleared yet.
I wonder if a new game will come out.