Welcome to my virtual space

where I share my journey with you

Old blog

 

Most of the posts here were written originally many years ago but they were transferred to this new home in 2024. The dates are transfer dates.

Hong

First they came…

Rereading Niemöller’s famous saying “First they came…” makes me reflect on the current mindset of my fellow Chinese citizens. First they executed millions of landlords, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a landlord. Then they purged 550,000 rightists, and I didn’t speak out…

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Hong

MultiselectList of Windows Phone

MultiselectList is handy if all you need is a simple list allowing multiple selections. What if you also want each item is clickable, or each item is a custom control. This may be able to be implemented by customizing MultiselectLit and MultiselectItem. However, the easiest…

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Hong

The Cost of Stability Maintenance in China

Unlike democratic societies that are inherently stable, China under the CCP's totalitarian regime is inherently unstable. To maintain its power, the CCP has to spend a tremendous amount of resource on stability maintenance. It is impossible to calculate the total cost of the stability accurately…

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Hong

Escape virtual prisons 

Totalitarian regimes censor websites out of fear of the truth. They effectively imprison the people under their rules in the online world. The most notorious virtual prison is the Great Firewall (GP) in China. This website has finally accumulated enough truth to get on the "honor roll" of the…

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Hong

US EV rebates

Qualified new EV Federal: Tax credit: up to $7,500. Modified adjusted gross income (AGI) limits: Massachusetts: Rebate: $3,500 Federal: Tax credit: 30% percent of the sale price up to a maximum credit of $4,000 Tax credit: up to $4,000. Modified adjusted gross income (AGI) limits:…

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Hong

EV trip from North Shore to Finger Lakes

Plan A 0:00 120 km 1:15 Bertera Nissan 2:00 90 km 3:00 Dunkin 3:30 110 km 4:30 Stewart's Shops 5:15 90 km 6:15 Mohawk Valley Welcome Center - Westbound 7:00 155 km 8:30 Holiday Inns and Suites Syracuse Airport 9:30 90 km 10:30 Romulus ​…

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Hong

Reinventing the wheel is not always bad

Reinventing the wheel is usually undesirable. However, when it comes to creating application icons, it may be an option better than reusing what is out there. Application icons that are as tiny as 32x32 pixels are usually, and should be simple. Some platforms have special…

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Hong

Nothing is better than raw sockets 

A while ago, I had a post titled "Webclient and HttpWebRequest - two "time-saving" classes can kill more time than they save". That is about Microsoft's platform (.Net). Apparently Android is no exception. Classes such as AndroidHttpClient, URLConnection together with HttpGet and HttpPost look so…

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Hong

The rationale of not apologizing

I have lived in the US for 20 years, I still keep learning various cultural aspects of this country. Since the country is so diverse, I have never been able to construct the image of "the typical American". It seems there are always two opposite…

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Hong

Design resource with a good design

Google's Android Design is a very good resource intended to target Android apps. The site is designed with the principles preached by itself. Its application can be expanded far beyond Android apps. Any software application design can draw useful tips from this resouce.

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