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

💻

They See Your Photos

Your photos reveal a lot of private information.

• “They See Your Photos” is a privacy research experiment that uses generative AI to describe uploaded images.

🏡

Duffy Bear and His Friends

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:

• ShellieMay (雪莉玫): A teddy bear made by Minnie for Duffy, adventurous and crafty.
• Gelatoni (傑拉多尼): An artistic cat from Italy who paints with his tail.
• StellaLou (星黛露): A lavender rabbit who dreams of being a Broadway dancer.
• CookieAnn (可琦安): A yellow dog who loves inventing new foods, optimistic and passionate.
• Olu Mel (奧樂米拉): A Hawaiian turtle skilled in music, playing the ukulele.
• LinaBell (玲娜貝兒): A curious fox who loves puzzles and nature.
• Tippy Blue: A clumsy seagull and Duffy’s mailman friend.

🌱

Osborne Effect

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.

BMJ’s Christmas Issue

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.

• What started in 1982 as an experimental roundup of fun research for the holidays has since grown into one of The BMJ’s most highly anticipated issues each 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.

2024-12-19 TIL: Nullable Reference Types, ArcGIS Survey123, Bozo Flag, Parenting Advice, and Slang Insights

💻

Enabling Nullable Reference Types

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.

• To use file declarations: #nullable enable
• To enable at the project level: <Nullable>enable</Nullable>

Installed ArcGIS Survey123 Website

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.

feed.bozo

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.

• Why the name “bozo”? Informally, “bozo” is a slang term for a silly or clumsy person, making it a fitting analogy for a poorly structured or non-standard feed.

🏡

Should You Let Your Kid Quit Something?

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.

🌱

Tough It Out

To deal with a difficult period or situation without becoming less certain or determined in your plans or opinions.

Body Count

Slang. Refers to how many people you’ve had sex with.

• A “high body count conversation” typically refers to a discussion where someone mentions or boasts about having many romantic or sexual partners.

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

💻

iOS Launch Screen

• All iOS apps must include a launch screen storyboard, even if the rest of the app is built without storyboards. Without it, the app defaults to supporting only older 3.5" (or possibly 4") iOS device sizes, resulting in black bars (letterboxing) on larger devices. Including a launch screen storyboard ensures the app can accommodate all screen sizes.
• For SwiftUI, simply adding an empty image name to 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.