Creative quarantine performance. One day we would explain why they are playing in isolation.
I’ve recently read about the death of Vicha Ratanapakdee, the surge of anti-Asian racism, and “Model Minority Myth”.
Identifying myself as an Asian and being a minority is something I’m “getting” recently. I’ve been in Japan for almost 30 years. Asians in Asian countries wouldn’t recognize themselves as “Asian”. At least I didn’t. And Japanese men are definitely a majority in Computer Science departments and software industry in Japan.
Some Japanese woman engineers recently blogged her stories;
I didn’t have that kind of struggle myself. In hindsight, I was an ignorant about the difficulty of being a minority.
Do I really experience the difficulty day-to-day now? Not really. Asian men are not a minority in software industry in Seattle.
But the recent events reminded me that I’m a minority in the States. This is the first time in my life…
I’ve added Minimalism tag on this blog, since I’ve written a lot about. So far, the effort is focusing on “digital” minimalism. From the very beginning, we all knew that we could spend a tons of time on the internet, aimlessly. Paul Graham has written about in 2008.
After years of carefully avoiding classic time sinks like TV, games, and Usenet, I still managed to fall prey to distraction, because I didn’t realize that it evolves. Something that used to be safe, using the Internet, gradually became more and more dangerous. Some days I’d wake up, get a cup of tea and check the news, then check email, then check the news again, then answer a few emails, then suddenly notice it was almost lunchtime and I hadn’t gotten any real work done. And this started to happen more and more often.
To deal with that, I have experimented various strategies, including cancelling an internet contract to make my home entirely offline except for mobile phones. Nowadays I use more moderate strategies, such as blocking a few apps and websites on my phone and laptops.
So the digital part is being okay.
Meanwhile, I’m nowhere close to a physical minimalist. I have too many stuff and they aren’t organized well. The room I use for work-from-home is a mess. I don’t want to be “living in a van” minimalist, but I could reduce clutters around me.
In August, I have written about ActionDash;
I was using ActionDash to limit my time on Chrome and Gmail, but I tended to change the setting to allow a bit of time after hitting the limit, especially regarding Chrome. I have terrible self-control.
So, I’ve just uninstalled Chrome once again.
Since then,
- ActionDash has been acquired by Sensor Tower
- OnePlus 5T got Google’s Digital Wellbeing app
- I have uninstalled and installed Chrome and ActionDash a few times
So, here is where I’m at, in terms of reducing my phone usage.
I have both Digital Wellbeing and ActionDash on my OnePlus 5T. I use ActionDash’s Focus mode enabled all the time to block Chrome and Gmail. I use Digital Wellbeing’s Bedtime mode to gray out my phone from 6pm to 8am.
I have used Digital Wellbeing’s Focus mode for a moment, but it was too easy to circumvent and/or disable.
Open Anne Pro is an alternative firmware for Anne Pro 2 keyboard.
From my short and limited experience with the original firmware provided by ObinsLab, I find it to be extremely buggy. One of the most significant problem being compatibility in BIOS. Aside from buggy, I would also like to switch the “Magic FN” from caps lock to other keys.
I personally haven’t been experienced any issues and don’t think Anne Pro 2’s official firmware is “buggy”. That being said, seeing an alternative firmware is pretty cool.
Technically Open Anne Pro has two firmware. The keyboard firmware is QMK port and fully functional. The LED firmware is based on ChibiOS and having basic functionalities so far.