Today was spent entirely at home. After a late brunch and a family movie, Hamer went to Pop Mart with Xiaoyan and Dada, while I dove into The Glory and couldn’t stop watching until late night. The intense revenge theme reminded me of My Mister, leaving me deeply engrossed. I’m still surprised it took me two years to discover such a gripping series!
Today, our family visited Universal Studios. While the park had a charming atmosphere and beautiful architecture, we didn’t experience many attractions, and the early 7:30 PM closure left the day feeling incomplete. Compared to Disneyland’s magical “wow” factor, Universal fell short.
On the way home, despite the exhaustion, Xiaoyan, Dada, and Jialing’s laughter, singing, and dancing turned the journey into a delightful memory—truly a performance of “three women on one stage”!
2024-12-27 TIL: Building Chrome Extensions & Toothpaste Foaming Explained
A Chrome extension is a program installed in the Chrome browser to enhance its functionality, built using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Toothpaste foam is caused by surfactants like sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), which create lather during brushing.
The morning started with Hamer waking up independently, washing up, and dressing herself while humming—a heartwarming sight that made me proud.
Noon brought a refreshing cold-water shower after a quiet gym session. In the evening, I joined the family at a popular Italian restaurant.
Work focused on creating a demo for app links via a Chrome Extension. Despite technical roadblocks, I found a workable solution using an existing extension.
2024-12-26 TIL: Cool Papers platform and Norman Rockwell Christmas
Cool Papers enhances academic paper browsing with an immersive and efficient experience.
Norman Rockwell was an iconic American painter and illustrator, celebrated for capturing the essence of American culture.
After a late-night return, Xiaoyan brought a familiar warmth back home. Because of the late night, I decided to rest well at noon instead of going to the gym.
The morning started slowly, with Hamer frustrated over missing socks, a moment I later reflected on.
At work, I focused on advancing the Earth 230 Tips project using automation APIs and app links, making significant progress throughout the day.
The evening brought a peaceful family moment—tidying up the house together while chatting and watching TV. Hamer also decided to step down from her leader role of distributing oral drops.
2024-12-25 TIL: GitHub Comment IDs and macOS Terminal Customization
To find a GitHub issue comment’s ID via the web interface:
https://github.com/owner/repository/issues/issue_number#issuecomment-123456789.Custom Headings in Issue Comments:
## My Heading, use: <h2 id="my-heading">My Heading</h2>.scheme/terminal/One Dark.terminal file into your Terminal Profiles list..bash_profile in the home directory via vim .bash_profile, then add source ~/.bash_prompt and source ~/.aliases..bash_prompt and .aliases.
zsh (check with echo $SHELL command), you could modify your terminal to open shell with a custom command with /bin/bash.This Christmas morning, Hamer joyfully discovered her gifts under the tree—a large red Santa bag filled with surprises, including her favorite mechanical pencil and an unexpected pile of cardboard houses.
I spent the morning touched by Billy’s perseverance in Where the Red Fern Grows, while the afternoon was dedicated to fix a workspace bug at work.
In the evening, Hamer built and colored her cardboard house while I wrapped up Love Actually, savoring its warmth and love.
2024-12-24 TIL: ACDC, Tailscale, GIS RSS Feeds, New Year’s Day, Bearer
ACDC is a fully automated pipeline designed to generate interactive simulated scenes, referred to as “digital cousins,” from a single RGB image.
AC/DC are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1973. Their music has been variously described as hard rock, blues rock and heavy metal, although the band calls it simply “rock and roll”.Tailscale is a mesh VPN (Virtual Private Network) service that streamlines connecting devices and services securely across different networks.
The best GIS rss feed list curated from thousands of rss feeds on the web and ranked by relevancy, authority, social media followers & freshness.
王安石（宋‧七言絕句）
爆竹聲中一歲除，春風送暖入屠蘇。 千門萬戶曈曈日，總把新桃換舊符。
The person who owns an official document or banknote.
No. E******** of the PRC was issued to the bearer of this passport.This morning, the sky looked uniquely painted as a large airplane passed overhead. I began reading Where the Red Fern Grows and felt deeply moved by Billy’s determination to save $50 over two years to buy two hunting dogs.
After a morning meeting, I searched for Map/GIS RSS feeds, took notes on Positive Discipline at noon, and discussed a program with colleagues in the afternoon before playing badminton.
In the evening, Hamer and I watched Love Actually while waiting for Dada. Xiaoyan traveled to Pattaya today.
2024-12-23 TIL: NORAD Santa Tracker, ReadTogether.ai, HappyKids, and Phonewords Explained
NORAD Tracks Santa is an annual Christmas-themed program in which North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) simulates the tracking of Santa Claus, who is said to leave the North Pole to travel around the world on his mission to deliver presents to children every year on Christmas Eve.
Read books together with your kids.
HappyKids is a FREE and SAFE video streaming app to educate and entertain kids. HappyKids provides kid-safe content in forms of Popular Shows, Movies, Rhymes, Stories, DIYs, Gaming videos, and more.
Phonewords are mnemonic phrases represented as alphanumeric equivalents of telephone numbers, using a standard phone keypad:
For example:
I felt much better this morning after some extra rest, and Hamer also woke up in a good mood. After dropping her off, I bought breakfast and caught up on my journal.
I planned out a busy week ahead, balancing personal tasks and company event preparations.
In the evening, Hamer and I enjoyed this year’s Christmas light show and a video of Billie Eilish teaching music at an elementary school during dinner. The neckband Bluetooth speaker I bought for my mother-in-law arrived, and she seemed to really like it.
🍿 Hamer and I watched The Muppet Christmas Carol and The Simpsons: O C’mon All Ye Faithful on December 22, 2024. Hamer enjoyed the cozy feeling of sitting on the couch while watching movies. She turned to me and said, “Watching TV with Dad is so much fun.”
I had a headache today, likely from waking up early and skipping a nap. I wanted to sleep early, but Hamer wasn’t ready for the weekend to end so soon. She struggled to fall asleep, feeling unsettled as the weekend drew to a close. Despite distractions like TV and toys, bedtime felt heavy with loneliness and reluctance as she deeply missed her mom.
Xiao Yan left for a business trip to Thailand after spending the morning at Pop Mart with Hamer.
During driving practice, I struggled with navigation, turning what should have been a 14-minute route into over 30 minutes.
In the afternoon, I watched the 2024 DiscX Elite Club Ultimate match. Later, Hamer and I had dinner at a mall food court, where she enjoyed watching the food preparation. Back home, we watched The Simpsons, and Hamer fondly said, “Watching TV with Dad is so much fun.”
This morning, I practiced driving with Xiao Yan, feeling less nervous, while Xiao Yan improved steadily.
Afterward, I took Hamer to dance class and then to her dental appointment for sealants, but three of her permanent teeth hadn’t grown in yet, so we scheduled another visit next month.
For Winter Solstice dinner, Hamer and I bought dumplings—she made hersef the dough while I cooked dumplings.
In the evening, Xiao Yan packed her luggage while Hamer and I cozied up to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol.
2024-12-20 TIL: Photos Privacy, Duffy the Disney Bear, Osborne Effect, and BMJ’s Christmas Issue
Your photos reveal a lot of private information.
Duffy Bear(达菲熊) is a popular Disney character introduced in 2002 at Walt Disney World, Orlando. Initially called “Disney Bear,” he was later renamed Duffy at Tokyo DisneySea in 2005. Duffy’s Friends:
The Osborne effect is a social phenomenon where customers cancel or defer orders for the current, soon-to-be-obsolete product due to a company announcing a future product prematurely. It is an example of cannibalization.
Each year, The BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal, publishes a special Christmas issue. The edition spans a wide array of topics and formats that are unlikely to be published any other time of year.
Today, I picked up my new passport and exchanged 10,000 baht at the bank after several unsuccessful attempts.
In the afternoon, I got a call from the restaurant where Hamer had left her black pouch, and it was found, which was a pleasant surprise. Hamer was initially too scared to go get it, but eventually, she asked her grandmother for help.
After dinner, I decorated a small Christmas tree with Hamer and watched an interview with Billie Eilish.
At work, I spent the day addressing compile warnings and exploring solutions for TreeView’s ItemDataTemplate, but ended up copying a new one.
Finished reading: The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame 📚 and now waiting for Hamer to finish it as her bedtime book, which we’ve been reading to her.
2024-12-19 TIL: Nullable Reference Types, ArcGIS Survey123, Bozo Flag, Parenting Advice, and Slang Insights
The ability to enable Nullable Reference Types was introduced in C# 8. There are two ways to enable it: via file-based declaration or a project-level flag.
#nullable enable<Nullable>enable</Nullable>Organizations may sometimes need to work in completely disconnected environments or be required to host the ArcGIS Survey123 website and/or Survey123 REST API on their own infrastructure. The Survey123 REST API is used to convert survey configurations into forms for use in the Survey123 apps. The website provides functionality to create and manage surveys and to view and analyze the collected data. Both components are separate but work together to offer the functionality seen in the ArcGIS Survey123 website.
In the context of feed parsing with Python’s “feedparser” library, “bozo” refers to a flag that indicates whether an RSS or Atom feed is not well-formed XML. Feedparser automatically sets the “bozo” flag to “True” when it encounters a non-well-formed XML feed during parsing.
The advice given in the show was to first reflect on your own intentions, consider your child’s personality, ask how they feel, create a non-binary action plan together, and, finally, have a reflective conversation with your child.
To deal with a difficult period or situation without becoming less certain or determined in your plans or opinions.
Slang. Refers to how many people you’ve had sex with.
Hamer’s missing coupon pouch didn’t cause her much worry. After dinner, we arranged some flowers with fairy lights in a tote bag and reviewed her daily schedule together, referring to each other as “teacher.”
At work, I discussed session structures with colleagues, resulting in new ideas, including adding a fun game segment. In the afternoon, I clarified some portal item issues and organized my 230 Earth tips project, which aligned with a tip ChatGPT gave me.
I also spent time at the gym and listened to 3 hours of podcasts, including one on handling kids quitting activities, which gave me useful advice.
Today is a special day—seven years ago, Xiao Yan and I got our marriage certificate. To celebrate, our family went to Sultan for dinner. Hamer wanted finger-shaped ice cream, but there were no finger waffles. Noticing her disappointment, the waiter thoughtfully broke a large waffle into smaller pieces with ice cream. Hamer smiled brightly, holding four small ice creams.
Today, I spent time solving the S123 JS API offline installation issue and researching Arcade expressions for edit summary.
These past two days, Hamer has started using the big alarm clock to wake herself up.
I didn’t write in my journal yesterday because I was busy adjusting and improving the iOS writing app I’m developing.
2024-12-16 TIL: iOS Launch Screen
Info.plist should also work.This morning, Hamer, like usual, woke up early (although I don’t know exactly when). When I went to wake her up at 7:10, I saw her flipping through a book. I said, “It’s already 7:10, time to get up.” She replied, “Oh no, it’s not even daylight yet.” I guess she might have gotten a bit worried because the teacher told her on Friday not to come too early. To solve her habit of waiting for daylight before getting up, I went to IKEA after work to buy an alarm clock, hoping to give it a try.
Today, I spent almost the entire day using Cursor, trying to see if I could create a complete iOS app with it. So far, I haven’t had any success. The results always turn out much different than expected, and I’ve run into many problems I don’t really know how to fix, which has been making me increasingly frustrated. Now, I can use Cursor to build a simple framework and create beginner-level apps, but when it comes to implementing more advanced features, it’s still not quite right.
I feel like I still need to take a nap at noon; otherwise, it’s really hard for me to concentrate in the afternoon.
