Sometimes I have a lot of thoughts that I’ve only talked through with myself internally, then forgotten. I know it helps to write them down or talk them out, but I usually never do this. The best ideas usually come when we’re walking, but then we forget them instantly. After talking to Mike about how much he likes taking voice notes and dropping them to ChatGPT, I had a realization: why not just drop raw thoughts into an LLM and let it connect things for you?| erickhun.com
Don’t you feel alone when working alone? This might be questions that come the most. I’ve been working remotely at Buffer for 5 years now. I think I’d qualify myself as an “introvert”. I like spending time by myself. I’m actually doing it every time I’m going back to my parent’s place where not much happen , and without stepping much outside or seeing anyone else except my parent. However, there is sometimes that feeling of loneliness strikes all of sudden and when you’ll ma...| Posts on Eric Khun
Fitness is the first step to greatness. It is my favorite quote that Justin Kan keep saying in Snapchat. It’s a quote I just start understand. I start working out 1 year ago. I can definitely relate this to work. and I find I can achieve more at work. Have clear goals to challenge yourself When I started, I tried to exercice every 2-3 days without any goals. Picking a workout machine randonly, and adding weight randomly. I also didn’t keep track of how heavy I could lift on each machine. ...| erickhun.com
It’s 2025, and /usr/local/bin still not a directory in MacOS (15.1) 🤦♂️ . Programs you download (via Homebrew or online) are usually set inside this folder. Here the correct way to create it: sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin Why 755?. It follows the principle of least privilege while still allowing the necessary functionality - anyone can use the programs, but only root can modify them: Owner as root with rwx permissions is standard because the system (ro...| Posts on Eric Khun
Unfortunately, there is no way to set up versions older than 5 previous versions with brew. Here’s a quick workaround: brew uninstall hugo Head to github.com/gohugoio/hugo/tags and navigate the version you need The Mac versions are the hugo_*_darwin-*.tar.gz ones darwin = macOS universal = works on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs extended version includes additional features like SASS/SCSS support Download and extract the tar file Move the binary to /usr/local/bin When starting the Hugo b...| erickhun.com
Increase Your Chances of Seating in “Non-Reserved Seats” Cars During peak season, it can be really hard to get a reserved seat for Taiwan High Speed Rail (HSR) tickets. Either you book months in advance, or you can get one of those “non-reserved seats” tickets. Each HSR train usually has 3 non-reserved seat cars (usually cars 10, 11, and 12). However, the issue with non-reserved seats is that they don’t guarantee you a seat, and you might have to stand for hours on the train 😿.| erickhun.com
From Android to iOS: What Android does better I started using Android Phones since 2011. I recently (2 months ago) made the leap from the Google Pixel 4a to the iPhone 15 Pro. My decision was influenced by certain changes in the Pixel series: the removal of the unlimited photo backup feature, the elimination of the physical fingerprint sensor, and the shift from selling “pro” services to unlocking “advanced” features, which left me feeling somewhat frustrated.| erickhun.com
Are you using any Google service (Gmail, Youtube, Google Maps, Google Cloud, Google Voice, etc…) daily? You might want to know that Google has the really bad habit to kill products and lock you out of your own google account for any kind of possible and random reasons If their AI robot determines that any of these services might lead to the closure of your entire Google account, you could lose all your photos and videos tomorrow.| erickhun.com
Google Maps is the application I use the most in my daily life. Whether I need a direction, looking for a place to eat, fix my phone…. The influence of Google Maps goes beyond mere navigation – it has also became a key platform for local businesses, where reviews can make or break their success. Whether it’s choosing a dining destination (sometimes right in front of the restaurant itself) or meticulously selecting a hotel, it’s evident that reviews on Google Maps play a pivotal role i...| erickhun.com
Here the github repo for who want to fork my template and use it directly. If you’re looking for a seamless and efficient way to handle user authentication and management in your web applications, Nuxt3 and Firebase make this process incredibly easy. They both have lot of advantages: Nuxt3 : Allow you to have a frontend (and backend), easily deployable with 2 command line to execute (no joke!) Has a huge choices of modules available Coming from a a backend world, Nuxt is easy to use and und...| erickhun.com
It is Thanksgiving / Christmas, and you are looking to cook a turkey in Taipei for your group of friends. You came at the right place! Note: In 2023 (and 2022), turkeys are in short supply. Your best chance is probably to contact one of the farm in Chiayi I’ve listed below. From a farm (online) Chiayi is home of the turkey rice (jirou fan). Many local farms can sell you from thei online shops or Line.| erickhun.com
Ship 1 side project that makes money Write 12 blog posts Gives at least 2 public talks Buffer’s product teams adopting SRE Figure out a system that helps to work a strict 4 days per week Clean High Pull Ups 5 Handstand Push Ups (I can’t handstand) Achieve the Full Planche (I can barely Tucked Planche now) 10 seconds Front Lever| erickhun.com
An ex-classmate shared with me today the Plum.io test. My results are available here. The 3 “talents” that stands out were: Conflict: Resolution: stay calm , empathie, being polite when you disagree Teamwork: be tactful, courteous of others, be sensitive to others needs, support others, encourage positive interactions Communication: “good long term relationships, even with difficult people”, “built on tactful and considerate interactions”, “Good at knowing the right thing to say...| erickhun.com
There is something special about Taiwan I couldn’t really explain the first time I arrived. On my first trip to Taiwan, I couldn’t put words to this positive feeling I had when roaming around the city. It was a mix of relaxation, freedom, safety, friendliness, and convenience, everything all at once. I didn’t do much; I walked randomly in the city, worked in coffee shops, ate in random restaurants. I only stayed a week, but I knew I’d come again for a longer stay.| erickhun.com
This is a step by step guide to setup your own Ethereum node on the Ropsten network. At the end of this guide you’ll be able to: Run your own ethereum node synced with the Ropsten testnet network Making sure to keep the node in sync with the blockchain on the network Be able to communicate via the JSON-RPC API of your own node Using the same method to run your node on the main network Why do you want run your own node?| erickhun.com
Hi there, thanks for cheking the blog! I’m Eric, engineer at Buffer. I’ve been working remotely since 2013, from different places in the world. I happen to be mostly in Asia, my favorite part of the world! I now live in Taiwan, and can stay here with the Employment Gold Card I’m travelling quite a bit, I’d like share a little bit of the places I visit, my experiences, or challenges about remote work.| erickhun.com
💡 I wrote 700+ restaurants reviews on Google Maps - Follow me if you live in Taiwan I post food restaurants I like on Instagram When visiting Taipei the sheer number of restaurants can leave you feeling overwhelmed when trying to choose one. We usually play safe, try the ones with the most Google reviews, or the ones in the various guides. If you like long lines, want to stay in the “safe” side of food, this is totally fine.| erickhun.com
When depositing money in a bank, we usually forget that money you deposit in the bank isn’t ours anymore. We are essentially giving the bank temporary custody of our money in exchange for a promise that they will give us back the same amount (and sometimes more). Over the past decade, I have encountered numerous challenges dealing with banks across various countries, which made me realize that the promise to return your money isn’t always as straightforward as it seems.| erickhun.com
Where to play Beach, Grass, Indoor and Outdoor volleyball in Taipei?| erickhun.com
DeFi, or Decentralized Finance, is probably one of today’s biggest opportunities to generate high yield interest. It also unlocked the possibility for anyone to become their own bank. DeFi allows its users to make all kinds of various transactions, like exchanging currencies (via your bank that uses the FOREX in the traditional financial system), lending or borrowing. And with this capabilities, comes the possibility to collect fees and interest from those financial actions.| erickhun.com
💡 I wrote (600+) restaurants reviews on Google Maps - Follow me if you live in Taiwan I post food restaurants I like on Instagram If you visit Taipei, here my restaurants recommendation list for travelers I’ve been reviewing hundreds of restaurants on Google Maps (and now on Insagram) I surprise myself with not knowing where to go to eat. Having too many choices isn’t always great isn’t it? I wanted to write down which restaurants that aren’t mainstream are worth going.| erickhun.com
Today’s biggest misconception about NFTs is that they’re “jpeg” images stored on the Ethereum blockchain, it’s not. Probably because that digital art can be easy to visualize, and famous artists attempt today to sell their digital art as an NFT on a platform such as Opensea, it has gained lot of attention these past months. Artists start creating them on a piece of paper, then their computer. But when they convert it to an NFT, what makes you the owner of it?| erickhun.com
How can you trust an individual, company, or government with the money you send to them? What tells you there are no hidden fees, or middleman in the contract you’re signing for? How do you make sure terms won’t be changed? Those are one of the exciting things I’m excited about smart contracts on public blockchains, the “Code is Law” feature (also called “immutability”). They are the promises of what a smart contract can fulfill.| erickhun.com
What is a blockchain? Why are some people using it? Even as a developer, it took me a few years to understand what a blockchain really is,how it is working from inside out. I’ll share here what I believe is a comprehensive explanation of what is a blockchain from a developer point of view. What is a blockchain? In simple words, it’s a slow database. For Bitcoin, this database contains a ledger only.| erickhun.com
I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time investigating on how to invest from Taiwan. Many expats asked me the questions, so I’ve decided to write down how I do it. I’ll also write different alternative options you could explore. This article will likely apply to Tax resident in Taiwan, non-US citizens and talk about long term investment (15+ years horizon). Remember: I’m not a financial advisor, and invite you to make more researches or seek professional advice.| erickhun.com
The world’s current and next innovations depend on a single country: Taiwan. It’s probably one country you might never hear about, or perhaps confuse with its neighbor, Thailand, or even think it’s a part of China. I’ve been living in Taiwan for 3+ years, and am baffled that I never pay attention to semiconductors. I’m a software engineer but didn’t think much more about the importance of them. As far as my laptop can change code to real things and doesn’t lag when I have consta...| erickhun.com
YouBike (or Ubike) is my first choice of transportation when it comes to moving around the city of Taipei. I largely prefer it over taking the subway, bus, or taxi. It is affordable, well maintained, comfortable, at waking distance reach from anywhere, and the cities have built great biking paths in the major cities. The number of YouBike rides keeps increasing steadily since it was launched in 2012. There were 170 million rides since it was introduced in 2012, and last month it reached ~3 mi...| erickhun.com
At Buffer, we’ve been using Kubernetes since 2016. We’ve been managing our k8s (kubernetes) cluster with kops, it has about 60 nodes (on AWS), and runs about 1500 containers. Our transition to a micro-service architecture has been full of trial and errors. Even after a few years running k8s, we are still learning its secrets. This post will talk about how something we thought was a good thing, but ended up to be not as great as we thought: CPU limits.| erickhun.com
“True innovation comes an intersection of a cross-pollination of roles and ideas” - Sunil, former-CTO@Buffer I’ve been working remotely at Buffer for 6 years now. As a software engineer, one of the critical skill I believe we should must have is being able to learn continuously. However, working in a fully distributed team, split accross 10+ timezones. I live in Asia (UTC +8) while most of my teammates live in the US or Europe.| erickhun.com
I often advocate people surrounding me to build their own side projects. I believe they can fulfill you in so many ways: for your career, your relationships, or your independence. Buffer, the company I currently work for, was itself a side project. I’ve built myself multiple side projects. The major ones being TaipeiDev, TaiwanGoldCard, Citymayor, Project Memento, PartyInBeijing (inactive), Nodablock (inactive). I like believe each of them contributed and lead me to my current situation: be...| erickhun.com
I’ve been flying between a lot between countries this past 4 years. Many people ask me how I keep exercising while moving between countries that often. I’ll try to explain here what I think helped me to keep that consistency. For a bit of background, I’ve always enjoyed playing volleyball since middle school, and try to go at least once a week, in any country I visited. It was already a habit I had since I was younger and I believe it helped me a lot.| erickhun.com