I was struggling at school, so my parents signed me up for a tuition center. There, the teacher stood behind us and told us the answers whenever we worked on our homework. One month later, did I: ...| zhenyi.gibber.blog
Business update: I hired an intern. His name is Alfred, but he prefers to be called Al. After working with Al for a while, I realized that having an intern on your team tends to reduce overall productivity, because you need a senior member to guide them, which is time better spent on your own tasks. So if having an intern is a net negative, why would anyone still want to hire one? Because they learn, they grow, and eventually their output becomes a net positive. Now back to Al. Unlike other i...| Gibberish and Stuff
Ah Chai sells chicken rice at a busy hawker centre. For some reason, his stall is very popular. Every day, his stall is surrounded by a long queue of hungry customers. One morning, Ah Chai had an idea. “For one extra dollar,” he called out, “you may join the Fast Queue and be served first!” A few office workers took the offer, happy to save a minute or two. Before long, so many people paid the extra dollar that the Fast Queue became as long as the regular one had been. No one wants to...| Gibberish and Stuff
A while back, my friend who runs a wedding website came to me with an idea. He wanted to create a virtual try-on app so people could try wedding gowns, something not unlike Google's Doppl. I had no...| zhenyi.gibber.blog
"Advertising… Advertising… Fix Vista." We laughed at this ad in 2007 because (obviously) the best way to solve Vista's problems was to spend your budget fixing it instead of advertising. But...| zhenyi.gibber.blog
A few months ago, I posted this image on Mastodon, because the Apple documentation website sometimes feel… err, underwhelming. Many people have already pointed this out, so I won't repeat their...| zhenyi.gibber.blog
(This is part 2 of a two-part series. Read part 1 here.) After the cook left the village, some villagers decided to open their own restaurants. Every morning, they all ran to the Large Lunch...| zhenyi.gibber.blog
In 1894, the Qing dynasty lost the First Sino-Japanese War. After this loss, China signed a treaty agreeing to pay a lot of money to Japan. The treaty also gave Japan access to Chinese markets for their ships and goods. This opened the door for other foreign countries to bring in their industrial products and missionaries. The sudden flood of foreign goods hurt China’s traditional industries. In response to the growing foreign influence, secret societies and local militias fought back in wh...| Gibberish and Stuff
Yes, you can vibe code a ChatGPT wrapper that turns users' photos into Studio Ghibli style. Yes, you can do this without learning how to code. Yes, you can do a lot of marketing to get people to...| zhenyi.gibber.blog
In June 1938[^1], Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released in China and quickly became very popular. But due to certain circumstances[^2], the release was limited. If you were not one of the...| zhenyi.gibber.blog
Have you heard of Potion Store? No? It was made by Potion Factory. Still no? How about The Hit List? That's also by them. Still no? Oh gosh, now I feel old. Potion Store was a web app that let...| zhenyi.gibber.blog
I think I might have a case of app review phobia. So a while back, I launched an app called Teleplayer. It lets you AirPlay a list of videos to your TV. It also has a feature where you can rewind twice with the Apple TV remote at the start of a video to go back to the previous one. But I’m not sure if App Reviewers will approve this feature. What if they reject the app for not using the remote as intended? I still remember the Camera+ app got rejected for using the volume button as a shutte...| Gibberish and Stuff
There's a video from Technology Connections that's been making the rounds on the internet. If you haven't seen it yet, go watch it, it's worth your time: The video talks about "algorithmic...| zhenyi.gibber.blog
Politics Since the new US administration took office, I've noticed a significant drop in activity on Mastodon. A few people switched to activist mode and mostly post political content. Others try...| zhenyi.gibber.blog
I haven’t looked for a job or hired anyone in a long time, which means I’m pretty out of touch. But from what I can see, the job search process is broken on so many levels. I’m not sure why it’s so broken, but I have some guesses.1 Let’s start with the vague and unrealistic job requirements. Like most things that suck in tech, the requirements are vague because the people writing those job postings usually aren’t the ones who need the help. Developers tell their managers they need...| Gibberish and Stuff
Host: Welcome to the first episode of our fictional show! Today, we have a special guest, Indy. Indy, could you introduce yourself and share what problems you're currently facing? Indy: Hi, I'm...| zhenyi.gibber.blog
Recently, I stumbled upon some discussions where people talked about their favorite artists. I was surprised to see that fans are willing to pay $10 to $20 a month to support these artists. I dug a bit more and realized that many regular people are actually quite willing to pay for subscriptions. They will subscribe to creators they admire, like artists, writers, YouTubers, or Twitch streamers. And they even pay quite a bit, with $5 a month being on the lower end. But if the creation is an ap...| Gibberish and Stuff
John Gruber (Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads): I agree wholeheartedly with the headline, but if you own your website, why would you code it to cover the bottom third of the page, including all article...| zhenyi.gibber.blog
There’s a Chinese idiom called 畫蛇添足, which means “draw a snake and add feet.” The story goes like this:1 Once upon a time, a rich man held a snake drawing contest for his servants. The winner would get a bottle of wine. One servant quickly finished his drawing, but he felt it was too simple and decided to add feet to the snake. Another servant just drew a simple snake. In the end, the rich man awarded the wine to the servant who drew the simple snake, as snakes don’t have feet...| Gibberish and Stuff
In the year 1954, our dearest leader Kim Il-Sung locked himself in a hut atop the sacred Paektu Mountain. For 7 days and 7 nights, he meditated on the future of our nation. When he emerged from his solitude, he proclaimed that every nation should be self-reliant, thus creating the Juche ideology. 70 years later, I am very happy to see our great nation doing better than ever, thanks to the Juche idea. What’s even more astonishing is that the big tech companies of the western capitalist regim...| Gibberish and Stuff
Most people don't care about the colors of your websites. Most people don't care about "quality". Most people don't care about the open web. Most people don't care about their privacy. Most people...| zhenyi.gibber.blog