/ Recent content in Home on xie Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0800 /now/ Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0800 /now/ Heyy! This is the first now page in 2026. I’ve missed an update in January but who reads these anyways? :-) Chinese New Year is coming and this means I and Tzeyu are going to Penang. Actually she’s already there and I’m going tomorrow but I’m already excited to visit my favourite restaurants and hikes. This week I’m spending alone. I was very excited with one project and put much effort into it at the beginning of the week. /post/china-for-nomads/ Mon, 19 Jan 2026 00:15:00 +0800 /post/china-for-nomads/ I was exploring China with Tzeyu during winter holidays, visited Sichuan. And you know, I think if not firewall China could be easily competing with other Asian hubs of digital nomads! I’ll write from a perspective of living in Chengdu but some details will be the same for other New Tier 1 cities. Big problems Internet: it’s very bad and VPN doesn’t help much. Language barrier: not worse than Vietnamese one if you consider non-touristic cities, online translator helps to talk in-person, in restaurants you order with an app which has a built-in translator. /post/pdf/ Mon, 31 Jul 2023 21:54:52 +0700 /post/pdf/ I needed to do batch operations with images and get a merged PDF output. Desiring to minimize a number of tools, at the end I’ve done all processing with ImageMagick and Ghostscript. Zsh and GNU parallel were also my friends. Convert and Chop 4 sides convert input.png -crop +300+300 -crop -300-300 output.pdf Convert and Rotate convert input.png -rotate -90 -page A4 output.pdf Convert many files in parallel find . -name '*. /post/dosm/ Sat, 29 Jul 2023 00:19:39 +0700 /post/dosm/ I wanted to write a blog post about Malaysian fuel prices. RON95 petrol and diesel are subsidised by the government. Compare these graphs. Diesel price per litre, in ringgits RON95 petrol price per litre, in ringgits RON97 petrol price per litre, in ringgits These subsidies are also a reason why it’s illegal to fuel a car with RON95 if you’re a foreigner. Did you like the graphs above? This data and these graphs are provided by the OpenDOSM project. /post/git-symbolic-links-in-windows/ Fri, 30 Jun 2023 02:34:18 +0800 /post/git-symbolic-links-in-windows/ Today I learned: git clone breaks symlinks on Windows system. Thankfully, I used symlinks in my project by mistake and I could delete them. On internet there’re people who rely on a bunch of symlinks and search for hacks to workaround msysgit issue. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5917249/git-symbolic-links-in-windows/59761201 /post/how-to-start-doing/ Tue, 16 May 2023 15:27:01 +0700 /post/how-to-start-doing/ It’s believed, that if we have a problem, we search for a solution to it. Unfortunately, sometimes Homo sapiens do that in reverse order: they have an idea, want to release it but search for a problem to have an excuse. I see it among amateur programmers. New coders learned to use a hammer (any technology) and they invent nails That’s a great way to learn: if you need to handle a technology, you need to practice with that. /post/airbnb-drama/ Sun, 14 May 2023 19:35:59 +0700 /post/airbnb-drama/ I came into 7-Eleven store in Thailand and purchased a SIM card five months ago. Some time later, I received an SMS from Airbnb. Your Airbnb reservation request for May 13-14 in Yerevan was accepted Initially, I was momentarily afraid of being hacked, but I soon discovered that SMS was sent to Thai phone number, even though I hadn’t registered Airbnb account to it. Probably, that was because of number recycling. /post/wide-range/ Sat, 13 May 2023 12:48:50 +0700 /post/wide-range/ Can you remember yourself at 10 years old when a parent said, “That’s money for an ice-cream, choose one”? And you should have been happy, but the problem was the phrase"CHOOSE ONE". There were plenty of different flavors available—berries, chocolate chips, nuts, and so much on. And you yet, you had to choose just one. It felt unfair. Nah, mum, take the money back. I’m going to grow up and buy every ice cream. /post/without-mobile-data/ Fri, 12 May 2023 17:57:28 +0700 /post/without-mobile-data/ I arrived in Thailand 3 weeks ago. In 2 days, I’ll be in Laos. And I haven’t had mobile data all these days! Well, to be more precise, I’ve purchased a monthly pack of mobile data just this afternoon. (I’ll need a connection on the road, and a weekly pack costs the same as a monthly pack.) Let me skip the reasons and get straight to the point. That was an enjoyable challenge! /post/travel-notes/ Thu, 11 May 2023 00:15:09 +0700 /post/travel-notes/ Last days I’m helping in searching of a missing Russian girl. I don’t want to describe that story a lot as it’s midnight already, I wrote more messages and letters than I wrote in a month. and I’m very tired. So TS;RTI (too short; read that instead) is here: reddit, notion with well-structured but Russian info. The main reason I’m writing that post is that the girl didn’t share with her plans. /post/huyachit/ Tue, 09 May 2023 00:58:15 +0700 /post/huyachit/ There’s a Russian word “huyachit”. It’s a curse word that you can’t use it near Russian serious people. Part of it refers to male genitals, as is often the case. The word means “to work hard”. Very hard. You would say the student huyachil (a past tense of huyatchit), if he/she got all A’s or 100% marks. In China, they huyachit with a 9-9-6 schedule. Silicon Valley founders huyachit before their brains and bodies burn out. /post/hamilton/ Fri, 05 May 2023 19:03:35 +0700 /post/hamilton/ That’s a musical about revolution and American founding father Alexander Hamilton. Don’t close this blog post if you haven’t attended a musical before! This one is special. It tells the story with hip-hop and rap, and mixes R&B with classic Broadway tunes. The story narrates about Hamilton’s journey from his humble beginnings as an orphan in the Caribbean, to his arrival in New York City as a young immigrant, to his rise as one of the most influential figures in American history. /post/ant/ Wed, 26 Apr 2023 13:14:11 +0700 /post/ant/ I smashed an ant. And nothing happened. I was a child when I saw the ruined life of an ant. Probably that was the ant. Probably that ant was an with a well-organized colony. Perhaps the ant had a family and a past, but now its future was cut short. You saw the body; soon it’d decompose leaving memories and a bridge built from twigs. The brain was crushed, the heart no longer beats. /where/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 /where/ I constantly move from one spot to another. These are my last locations and sometimes upcoming plans. If you want to know what I’m doing currently, have a look at my now page. 2026 February 22 – March 31: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia February 13 – February 22: Penang, Malaysia January 10 – February 13: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia January 6 – January 10: Chengdu, China January 4 – January 6: Mount Siguniang, China January 3 – January 4: Chengdu, China December 31 – January 3: Chongqing, China 2025 December 31 – January 3: Chongqing, China October 18 – December 31: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia October 16 – October 18: Bangkok, Thailand October 6 – October 16: Ko Chang, Thailand October 5 – October 6: Bangkok, Thailand September 14 – October 5: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia September 13 – September 14: Penang, Malaysia September 7 – September 13: Hat Yai, Thailand September 6 – September 7: Bangkok, Thailand August 2 – September 6: Hanoi, Vietnam July 5 – August 2: Phuket, Thailand June 21 – July 5: Songkhla, Thailand June 20 – June 21: Hat Yai, Thailand June 9 – June 20: Bangkok, Thailand June 8 – June 9: Hong Kong June 1 – June 8: Beijing, China May 31 – June 1: Guangzhou, China April 2 – May 31: Hanoi, Vietnam March 2 – April 2: Bali, Indonesia February 2 – March 2: Jakarta, Indonesia January 19 – February 2: Penang, Malaysia January 18 – January 19: Cameron Highlands, Malaysia January 6 – January 18: Penang, Malaysia January 4: Ayuthaya, Thailand November 22 – January 6: Bangkok, Thailand 2024 November 22 – January 6: Bangkok, Thailand November 20 – November 22: Hua Hin, Thailand November 16 – November 20: Bangkok, Thailand October 29 – November 16: Da Nang, Vietnam October 28 – October 29: Bangkok, Thailand October 19 – October 28: Da Nang, Vietnam October 18 – October 19: Hanoi, Vietnam October 17 – October 18: Cat Ba, Vietnam I visited the island to do an outdoor climbing!