October 1, 2018

Oct 2018: A little update

So it’s been exactly 5 months since I last quit my old job, and I’ve yet to find a new one. Definitely did not think it’d be this tough to find a new job, I was over confident in my skills.
I’ve burned through the last of my unemployment check
My and my wife had burned through half of our savings trying to conceive a child (and bad coin investments).
So far all had been for naught, and we might need another 100 mil for IVF.
My dad still has kidney stones, might need surgery.
My mom’s leg is going bad, might need surgery. (Update: the diagnosis results came back, it is very possible my mom has lung cancer, just like my grandma. I wasn’t ready for this, but I have to)
If I don’t get a job some time this month, I’ll definitely be cutting into the rest of my saving.
I guess this is what you’d call rock bottom.
Is it time to abandon my passion as a graphic artist, and look for something else? Never thought this profession would be so treacherous, you get over 30 and suddenly you’re unwanted trash.
Is it time to abandon Hanoi? This backwater place has such an under developed industry that it appears to be content with operating without any decent graphic artist.
August 15, 2018

Working on Linux: Restore Firefox’s normal behavior

Configure Firefox without About Config with an Add on 01

One of my main gripe when switching from Windows to Linux is that my favorite web browser Firefox doesn’t behave exactly the same way it does on Windows. Specifically, 2 things that bother me the most are:

  • The Backspace button doesn’t go back to the previous page
  • Clicking on the url address bar doesn’t automatically highlight the entire line.

Fortunately, it’s possible to change those behaviors simply by fiddling around with the settings a little bit. You’d want to go to your about:config page and change the following values:

  • Find browser.backspace_action and set the value to 0 (default is 2 or something). This will make the backspace button behave as it does in Windows.
  • Find browser.urlbar.clickSelectAll and set the value to True

And that’s about it. Personally I can’t understand why the developer would choose to keep these little annoyances. If it was just for a versions or two then we could accept it as bug but it’s been many years since these behaviors were implemented. The fact they’re still there mean that they are intended. Maybe they were made by Mozilla devs who are actually Microsoft moles who want to low-key diminish the user experience in Linux, I guess we’ll probably never know.

May 3, 2017

On Turning Thirty

thirty

To be honest, I thought turning 30 would be a bigger milestone, for me personally at least.

I mean, I don’t have anything to complain about my current situation per se, I have a job that I enjoy, a wife that I love, a house. Honestly this is as good as any 30er would get. But is that all there is? I mean is this going to be like this for the rest of my life. Like that old saying, you know? “Some people are dead by 30, but never buried until they’re 75″.

(to be continued)

January 21, 2016

The Nostalgic Generation

That’s what we are sometimes called, the generation of late 80s, early 90s kids (or adults, as we all should be by now). Indeed it wouldn’t be uncommon to find someone from this generation reminiscing about ‘the past’, a mere decade or two ago, as if they were centuries. But there’s a reason for that.

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April 15, 2015

Untitled Rant #1

Lately I feel like we’ve reached a point in our life where everything just come to a stand still, as if we’ve literally become just another cog in the machine. I recall the early days when pretty much anything and everything was new and exciting to us. Nowadays they merely seem like annoyances that you’d do your best to avoid and carry on with your ordinary, uninteresting life.

We need a change

But what? I do not know, like the rest of this generation, we have more questions than answer. We got exceptionally good at finding out what is wrong, but excruciatingly poor at solving it.

This is a generation that is doomed to fail, and like it or not, I’m a part of it.

April 21, 2013

Skinning the GIMP

O2eyG6L

So we all know the GNU Image Manipulation, aka the GIMP, aka the graphic tool with the worst designed UI/UX in existence? Well here’s my attempt to improve it by just a wee bit.

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