Essays and short pieces by Nick Lian.https://nickkk.com/enhttps://nickkk.com/writing/the-invisible-wall-that-cuts-off-the-bigger-cake/https://nickkk.com/writing/the-invisible-wall-that-cuts-off-the-bigger-cake/History always moves upward in a spiral. There's a wall between businesses and their customers. The deeper you go inside one circle, the easier it is to get caught up in its insiders' self-congratulatory bubble. A business that only hears its insiders ends up building only foSun, 04 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://nickkk.com/writing/inside-the-black-box/https://nickkk.com/writing/inside-the-black-box/The world has started to feel like the black box inside the models. Two days ago I was in the middle of an infographic comparing two AI models when two more came out. Anthropic had just released Claude Opus 5.5, which it says performs at the level of its three-week-old flagship,Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://nickkk.com/writing/slate-grey/https://nickkk.com/writing/slate-grey/3:24 in the afternoon I hadn't expected the story of the car window's edge to have a sequel. The rainy season seems almost over, and moss has sprouted in the crack of the car window—look closely and it's a little troop of furry clusters. Last year's glittering ice crystals haveSun, 28 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://nickkk.com/writing/the-gown-we-cant-take-off/https://nickkk.com/writing/the-gown-we-cant-take-off/More 'Choices', Less Freedom. I clicked into a random gaming video. The YouTuber had hundreds of thousands of followers. I watched him play for a while, and his gameplay was painfully bad. I had an annoying feeling that came out of nowhere suddenly: He didn't even seem to reaThu, 27 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://nickkk.com/writing/shimmer/https://nickkk.com/writing/shimmer/3:27 a.m. The snow still hasn't come this year. When I opened the car door there was a distinct resistance, and when I pulled harder it creaked, and a thin crust of ice chips came leaping down in a little procession. Glittering. I let out a long breath, and a streak of white dTue, 10 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://nickkk.com/writing/the-lie-of-endless-summer/https://nickkk.com/writing/the-lie-of-endless-summer/The endless summer of the millennium came to an end. The autumn wind blew across the gradually withering sea of flowers, carrying away the lie of endless summer, scattering longing and memory. …… The youths of days long past, unseen for so long, gathered once more in that old cTue, 20 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://nickkk.com/writing/mr-deer/https://nickkk.com/writing/mr-deer/"One thousand and seven, one thousand and eight." Mr. Deer atop the mountain gave a yawn and went on counting the two-legged beasts he'd seen that day. Though he wasn't counting heads, but legs—lifting his head was such a bother. The newly arrived two-legged beast before him shoFri, 28 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://nickkk.com/writing/autumn-when-the-bellflowers-fade/https://nickkk.com/writing/autumn-when-the-bellflowers-fade/This is the final roar of a detective from a bygone era. Surveillance cameras now blanket every street and alley; DNA technology grows more mature by the day. People no longer have need of this once far-famed, gold-medal detective. Perhaps he still wished to shine, but all thaThu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://nickkk.com/writing/a-young-ship-on-a-long-voyage/https://nickkk.com/writing/a-young-ship-on-a-long-voyage/The FBOA 2.0 era has passed. "It feels like we met only yesterday" may be a worn-out line, but that National Day holiday in 2020 is still vivid to me. Even now it leaves me feeling that life is a dream and the past drifts off like smoke, the feeling of "Master Zhuang, dreaming atMon, 23 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMT