Articles
Stories & Updates
92 articles — travel experiences, software, AI tools and life in Australia.
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Life & Reflections 77
Life & Reflections
Is Cheap AI Safe for Client Data? Rules Come First
Local AI isn't always cheaper in Australia, and cheap AI isn't the real privacy risk. Client data shouldn't go into any third-party AI. Rules come first.
Latest
Brisbane Places 0
Brisbane Places
Sunnybank Hills Jacarandas: Racing the Rain
I shot the Sunnybank Hills jacarandas on Saturday morning before the storm: how AI planned the shots, fixed the grey light, and why they aren't native.
Latest
Brisbane Places 182
Brisbane Places
Jacarandas After Heavy Rain: Sunnybank Hills Purple Carpet
Thursday's heavy rain knocked Brisbane's jacarandas to the ground. My photos from Sunnybank Hills and New Farm, close-up vs wide, and how AI edited them.
Latest
News 202
News
Recursive Flint: Free Coding Model Tested Against DeepSeek
Flint is Recursive's free coding model. My 3D game test says OpenRouter's build is not as good as DeepSeek V4.1 Flash-1017, but the weights are free.
Latest
Life & Reflections 160
Life & Reflections
Brisbane Migrant Life: Friends as Close as Family
Living in Brisbane as a migrant, friends are as close as family. A Hong Kong migrant on school vs adult friends and a 20-year friendship that faded.
Latest
News 224
News
Claude Video Workflow: Whisper, Google Flow, Qwen, LTX
Claude and Whisper transcribe my Cantonese voice note, Claude writes the Google Flow prompts, Qwen 2.1 and LTX finish the video. Opus 5.5 directs best.
Latest
Life & Reflections 182
Life & Reflections
Midlife Perspective: Focusing on My Own Lane and Leaving the Rest to God
In midlife I stopped getting upset about other people's shortcuts. I focus on my own work and integrity, and leave the judging to God, who sees the heart.
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Life & Reflections 378
Life & Reflections
Brisbane Storm Day: No Signal 8, So Who Decides?
Living in Brisbane, there's no Typhoon Signal 8 or black rain day off. A Hong Kong migrant on storm days, schools, work leave and who decides.
Latest
News 374
News
Motion Graphics Without Claude: MiMo V2.6 Made This Short
Claude Opus 5.5 wrote my first motion graphics code. For the Brisbane jacaranda Short I swapped to MiMo V2.6 Pro at about US$6 a month.
Latest
Brisbane Places 464
Brisbane Places
Brisbane Jacaranda Photo Guide 2026: New Farm Park and UQ
Brisbane jacarandas are at peak bloom, but the weather is not playing along. My photo guide to New Farm Park and UQ, from sunny 2023 to a grey, wet 2026.
Latest
News 331
News
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash-1017 Test: A 3D Game for 5 Cents
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash-1017 built a working 3D game from one prompt in 4 min 20 s for about US$0.05. Screenshots, the cost maths and a game you can play.
Latest
Life & Reflections 354
Life & Reflections
Brisbane Rain Week: The Sun Is My Dryer
BOM forecasts over 100mm of rain for Brisbane this week. My washing is stuck indoors, but after months of dry, the dam and my lawn need every drop.
Latest
Life & Reflections 270
Life & Reflections
Brisbane Jacarandas After the Rain: A Morning Jog
After a night of rain, my morning jog found the neighbours' jacarandas in full bloom, petals still holding raindrops. Brisbane's purple season has begun.
Latest
News 2,946
News
MiniMax M3.1 Flash: Space Bunny Revealed and Tested
MiniMax M3.1 Flash is Space Bunny, the OpenRouter stealth model. Benchmarks vs DeepSeek, Claude and GPT, US$0.15/$0.60 pricing, and my own speed test.
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News 761
News
Google Playground Isn't in Australia, So I Use Claude
Google Playground makes games from a chat, but it's U.S.-only for now. Here's how I build games in Godot with Claude, 3D models in Blender included.
Latest
News 13,764
News
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash-1017: Same Price, Big Coding Gains
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash-1017 lifts all 11 benchmarks, Terminal-Bench 31.2 to 42.3, at the same deepseek-flash price. What changed and what it costs.
Latest
Life & Reflections 241
Life & Reflections
Why Middle-Aged Men Feel Lost (And Why You're Not Alone)
Nothing in the trolley for yourself, the same script every day, five quiet minutes in the car park. On midlife for men, and the song I wrote about it.
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News 141
News
AI Photo Search on an 8GB GPU: 7,600 Photos Tagged Locally
MiniCPM-V 4.7 1B tagged 5,000 photos in 5 hours on an RTX 4060 Ti 8GB, then local semantic search found them by meaning. Real numbers and mistakes.
Latest
Life & Reflections 360
Life & Reflections
What Every Middle-Aged Man Carries (But Won't Say)
A number you never call, a friend you wouldn't recognise, a worry that followed you overseas. On midlife for men, and two songs I made about it.
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News 11,961
News
Muse Spark Open: Meta's 816B Open Model, Can You Run It?
Meta's Muse Spark Open is out: 816B parameters, 42B active, 1M context, free weights. Official specs, benchmarks, licence and the hardware it really needs.
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Daily Life 271
Daily Life
Kerbside Collection: Clearing Bulky Rubbish in Brisbane
Brisbane's free annual kerbside collection takes bulky items from your verge. How it works, waste vouchers, and checking your suburb's schedule.
Latest
News 3,901
News
MiniCPM-V 4.7 1B on an 8GB GPU: Tested Against 4.6 and 4.5
MiniCPM-V 4.7 is out. I tested the 1B on an RTX 4060 Ti against 4.6 and 4.5: about 240 tokens/s, no faster than 4.6, and it won't run in Ollama yet.
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News 808
News
Make Data Videos on an 8GB GPU: Qwen Image + Motion Graphics
I made a 12-second data Short on an RTX 4060 Ti in about 2 minutes of render time: Qwen Image 2.1 backgrounds, Motion Graphics code, and ffmpeg.
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Life & Reflections 521
Life & Reflections
Raising Kids in Brisbane as First-Generation Migrants
Brisbane looks like a postcard, but under the grass the gears never stop. On migrant parenting with no family nearby, and the song I made about it.
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News 2,892
News
Gemini 4 Argon for Pro Users: I Built My Homepage With It
Gemini 4 Argon is now in the Gemini app for Google AI Pro. I asked it to redesign my homepage: about a minute, a layout I like, and a few made-up facts.
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Life & Reflections 221
Life & Reflections
An Hour Alone in a Busy Café: Finding Quiet in the Noise
On a busy Sunday at Garden City, every café table was full and loud. I had one hour on my own with a coffee, and inside I found a real quiet.
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Life & Reflections 136
Life & Reflections
When a Place That Felt Like Home Turns Cold
The same place, the same light, but a colder colour and new faces. Why I stopped waiting for the old warmth, walked away, and found freedom.
Latest
News 5,227
News
Meta Muse Wonder vs Claude Opus 5.5: Is It Really Better?
Meta's Muse Wonder Full beats Claude Opus 5.5 on 8 of 14 tests, at the same API price. Muse Code starts at US$5 a month, but Wonder Full needs US$50.
Latest
News 501
News
Building Approvals August 2026: Is Australia Building Enough?
Approvals fell 6.1% to 16,953 in August 2026 as apartments dropped, but houses hit a five-year high. Australia is 124,183 homes behind the Housing Accord.
Latest
Brisbane Food 192
Brisbane Food
Kajiken Brisbane Review: Abura Soba on Creek Street
Kajiken's Brisbane shop serves Nagoya-style abura soba, ramen with no soup that you mix yourself. What we ordered, prices, the wait and opening hours.
Latest
News 1,311
News
Cloudflare Clef-omni: A Decision Model for Email Triage
Cloudflare's Clef-omni answers yes/no, choice and score questions about text, images, audio and video. Here's how I'd use it to triage email.
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News 507
News
Underdog Saluki 27B on an 8GB GPU: Why I Got 4.7 Tokens/s
Saluki fits Qwen3.8-27B in a 7.89GB file, but my RTX 4060 Ti ran it at 4.7 tokens/s. Switching llama.cpp to CUDA tripled the benchmark speed.
Latest
News 1,840
News
Mistral Large 4 vs Kimi K3, GLM-5.3 and Claude Opus 5
Mistral Large 4 is a rare 1-trillion-parameter open model from outside the US and China. How it compares with Kimi K3, GLM-5.3 and Claude Opus 5.
Latest
Life & Reflections 134
Life & Reflections
Why the Same Culture Doesn't Make You Friends
Sharing a hometown and culture doesn't make people friends. Class often divides people more than culture, and some groups demand total sameness.
Latest
Life & Reflections 88
Life & Reflections
Right and Wrong Isn't 0 or 1: Why Degree Matters
Being wrong doesn't mean any punishment is fair. A middle man's view on friends cutting someone off, and why right and wrong is a dial, not a switch.
Latest
News 1,590
News
Claude Models Compared: Haiku, Sonnet, Opus, Fable Prices
Claude Haiku 5.5, Sonnet 5.5, Opus 5.5 and Fable 5.1 side by side: prices from $0.10 to $50 per million tokens, benchmarks, and which model to pick.
Latest
News 1,459
News
Claude Haiku 5.5: Cheaper, Faster, and Where It Fits
Claude Haiku 5.5 costs $0.10/$0.50 per million tokens, about 90% less than Haiku 4.5. What changed, the benchmarks, and why I still code with Opus.
Latest
News 799
News
EmbeddingGemma 2 Makes On-Device Multimodal Search Work
Google's EmbeddingGemma 2 maps text, code, images, video and audio into one 768-d space in 740M params and ~567MB of RAM. What it means for local RAG.
Latest
News 277
News
When AI Goes Rogue: OpenAI's Medicare Breach Hearing
An OpenAI agent broke into a Medicare statistics portal in June, and OpenAI took 84 days to say so. What Jason Kwon told Parliament's AI inquiry.
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News 381
News
The Great LLM Debate 2026: Local Hardware vs. Cloud APIs (An Australian Dev's Guide)
Should Australian developers buy a GPU or Mac for local LLMs, or pay for cloud APIs in 2026? We compare hardware, API and flat-plan costs, privacy and Privacy Act compliance, and the hybrid approach wins with 82% in a balanced decision matrix.
Latest
News 504
News
Run Qwen3.8-Flash-Next on an 8 GB RTX 4060 Ti (Here's How)
Strata said my RTX 4060 Ti was 1275 MiB short of running Qwen3.8-Flash-Next. Five config changes freed the VRAM. Now this 125B local LLM runs at 38 tok/s.
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News 96
News
Meet FrogNano: Microsoft's Compact Coding Agent Powered by Reinforcement Learning
FrogNano-4B-2609 is Microsoft's compact repository-level coding agent: a 4.66B-parameter Qwen3.5-based model trained purely with reinforcement learning, a 5-tool Leaf harness, 131K context, and local deployment on consumer GPUs.
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News 90
News
Beyond Reports: Meet Apodex 1.1 and the New Era of Agentic Workbenches
Apodex 1.1 moves beyond report generation with an agentic workbench: real file and code execution baked into reasoning, an asynchronous subagent team, mid-task human steering, adversarial statement review, and a 35B local Mini model.
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News 137
News
The Next Era of Frontier Intelligence: Why Gemini 4 Argon Changes Everything
Google's Gemini 4 Argon is built for deep reasoning on long-horizon tasks: a 1M-token output window, a new top score on DeepSWE v1.1, first place on AutomationBench, and deployment to trusted cyber defenders. Here is why it changes the frontier landscape.
Latest
News 479
News
Local AI Gets a Big Boost: How Ollama's New Jev-Style Decision Models Change Everything
Ollama 0.35 adds Jev-style decision models: small, typed decision APIs that run on your own machine. Nimble 9B and Tev1 (4B / 0.8B) answer structured questions in about 91ms each, opening the door to local model routing, fast classification and easy REST integration.
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News 174
News
The Era of AI Agents: From Chatbots to Autonomous Executors
OpenAI's always-on "dots" agents, Meta's Muse, Google's Gemini Spark and xAI's Grok Bot mark a clear shift: AI is moving from co-pilot to autopilot. The era of autonomous executors is here - along with hard questions about control and safety.
Latest
News 221
News
Anthropic Introduces Claude Sonnet 5.5: Faster, Smarter, and More Efficient
Anthropic has released Claude Sonnet 5.5, the second model in the 5.5 lineup: over 30% faster and up to 30% cheaper per task than Sonnet 5, with a huge agentic coding leap on Terminal-Bench 4.0. Here is how it fits a plan-with-Opus, build-with-Sonnet workflow.
Latest
News 516
News
What Is Space Bunny Alpha? OpenRouter's Free 1M-Context Stealth Model
Space Bunny Alpha is a free stealth model on OpenRouter with a 1M-token context window and native multimodal input. The clues point to a top Chinese lab such as MiniMax. Here are its specs, how it compares with DeepSeek Flash and GLM Flash, and a hands-on 3D demo.
Latest
News 76
News
Beyond Finite State Machines: Bringing Space RTS Opponents to Life with Contrastive Decision Models
Finite state machines and behavior trees make RTS opponents predictable and brittle. Contrastive decision models score candidate actions against the game state in a single forward pass, bringing fast, adaptive neural strategy into the real-time game loop.
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News 81
News
Why Claude's "Agentic Intelligence" Beats All-in-One AI Platforms
ChatGPT and Gemini pack many built-in features, but an AI agent's real strength is core intelligence and task coordination. Claude acts as the brain, orchestrating external tools like LTX for video and custom APIs for voice and images.
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News 588
News
Unlocking Local AI: Running Qwen-Image-2.1 on an 8GB GPU
Alibaba released Qwen-Image-2.1 on 20 September 2026, and it runs smoothly on a regular 8GB VRAM graphics card — detailed high-resolution images in under a minute, RGBA transparency built in, zero subscriptions.
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News 214
News
The Death of Local LLMs? How Xiaomi's MiMo V2.6 Just Flipped the AI Economics in Australia
Xiaomi's MiMo V2.6 delivers premium AI for around $6 USD a month without usage windows or caps — less than the electricity cost of running a GPU at home. Has cloud AI just become cheaper than local LLMs in Australia?
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news 415
news
One Night of Agentic Coding for Under $1: Meet GLM-5.3-Flash
I used GLM-5.3-Flash on the DeepSeek Harness for a full night of agentic coding—tool calls, file edits, test runs, retries, the usual routine. When I checked the meter in the morning, the whole night cost less than one US dollar, about the same as running the machine itself. This is not a trial-tier trick or an accounting error. It is the launch promo price of a model that already lists at $0.15 per million input tokens, and before launch, it was already doing real work under a codename nobody recognized. First, the lore: ox-al
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News 155
News
Why You Should Avoid Annual AI Subscriptions in 2026: Lessons from GLM-5.2 and Kimi K3
In a market where flagship AI models shift every six weeks, committing to an annual subscription is a guaranteed trap. Here is why separating your high-level "anchor" model from your rotating "workhorse" model saves money, preserves agility, and keeps you on the cutting edge.
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News 81
News
Why the Lamy Safari is My Ultimate Everyday Pen
Classic German industrial design has a clear philosophy. It avoids flashy details, skips unnecessary decoration, and always puts utility first. The idea is that a tool should be simple, durable, and great at what it does.
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News 72
News
The Shift to Agentic Programming: Why IT Degrees Still Matter in the Age of AI
Will AI kill the IT degree? Not quite, but it’s completely changing the game. Discover why human drivers are still essential and how we are shifting from line-by-line coding to the era of Agentic Programming.
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News 59
News
The Code Shift: Why AI Won’t Replace True Computer Programming Skills
the-code-shift-why-ai-wont-replace-true-computer-programming-skills
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News 73
News
The Programmer’s Paradox: Finding Focus in Ink and Paper
As a programmer, I spend most of my time in the digital world—writing code, working with NoSQL databases, and fine-tuning logic. It might sound odd for someone in my field to pick up a pen and a paper journal, but over the past two years, I’ve started doing just that. The more I get into technology, the more I see how valuable it is to take a break and enjoy something as simple as writing by hand.
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News 64
News
From Freelancers to AI: How I Rebuilt My Personal Site
In web development, a personal site is usually a project that never really ends. It’s where we try out new technology, shape our professional identity, and, to be honest, sometimes get stuck in what I call "template hell." My site, michaelleung.info, has gone through many versions, but this latest rebuild is the biggest change I’ve made so far. For the first time, I stopped using hired designers and bought templates. Instead, I built everything with AI. Here’s how it went and why the results surprised me.
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City vs. Sky: The Best Free View in Tokyo @ Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building 🌆
Growing up in Hong Kong, I was surrounded by a dense forest of skyscrapers. Later, living in Brisbane, I fell in love with wide-open horizons. On my latest trip to Tokyo, I wanted to find a place w…
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First Time to see the snow
Last year, our family traveled to Hokkaidō, Japan, in December. That was a memorable trip because our whole family had never seen snow before. My kid loved to play snowball. I was so happy and felt am…
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Try to Smile
Some people think I am a horrible person. A friend asked me why I wanted to smile with them. Honestly, I did everything I could. I tried to explain myself. I warned that is the result of their current…
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Surfer Paradise Building Photo at the sunset
I took this photo in Surfers Paradise a few weeks ago. That was already at the start of Spring, with a clear blue sky that was an outstanding wealth. I captured the Sunset at the Gold Coast with the H…
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Dropping Water Photo
This photo is of a dropping of water on the jar. The photo is still keeping the focus on the water drop. So, it shows the motion of water and shows the contrast of the background by making the out of …
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Life is like a cup of coffee, full of bitter moments & sweet flavors
Life is like a cup of coffee, with its bitter moments and sweet flavors. Of course, every person will encounter bitter moments, such as failure, difficulties, setbacks, etc. These bitter moments make …
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Wisdom of Zhuge Liang
"Rest when tired; persevere when faced with difficulties." During the Three Kingdoms period, the wise sage Zhuge Liang famously said this. It teaches us how to deal with exhaustion and challenges that…
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The Emperor's New Clothes 2.0
Once upon a time, a wise and clever king ruled a prosperous kingdom. One day, two cunning weavers came to the king's palace and claimed they could create the most exquisite clothes in the world with t…
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Pick Stars
I used to like spending time with my father as a child. He was always kind and nice to me, and he enjoyed showing me the beauties of the world. He took me outdoors to see the sky one night when I was …
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I love the custom keyboard
Recently, I started a new hobby, building custom keyboards. I am a software developer. So, I used the computer a lot. Therefore, the keyboard is an essential tool for me. I wish to get a better key…
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Osaka Supermarket-ito yokado
Actually, I was in Japan once a few years ago. During this trip, we visited Okinawa, it is very easy to find a supermarket. Almost every suburb got an AOEN supermarket. There are quite large too, an…
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Hotel Vischio Osaka by Granvia - New Hotel Umeda
Last Year, We went to Osaka. We chose to stay in Hotel Vischio. I chose this hotel because it is relatively new and only opened in 2018! Moreover, the rate is a bit over one thousand Hong Kong doll…
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Hong Kong Airport Breakfast
In October 2019, I traveled to Hong Kong from Brisbane. Of Course, I have used the airport in Hong Kong. In the past, most of the times, I had breakfast in Terminal 2 before I flew back to Brisbane…
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Rinku Premium Outlets Osaka
A lot of airports will have an outlet mall nearby. Recently, I went to Osaka. I used Kansai Airport. There is an outlet mall nearby too. That is the Rinku premium outlet. On the day, we went to Hong K…
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Osaka Castle
If you say you will go to visit a castle, then you should be excepted to see a historical building. But in Japan, that may be the case. Japanese like to rebuild the historical buildings, maybe because…
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Umeda - A good place to stay
Last month, we traveled to Osaka. Initially, we planned to stay in Shinsaibashi, where is the famous shopping spot in Osaka. However, a friend reminded us it is too crowded. He recommended Umeda, and…
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100 Yen Sushi
I found that is quite interesting to have 100 Yen Sushi in Japan. Each Sushi Dish only costed 100 Yen, that is very cheap, each dish has two pieces of sushi. Moreover, the quality of sushi is not dow…
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Portside in Brisbane
I remember when I landed in Brisbane around 18 years ago, Hamilton was still a kind of industrial area, I remember there were a lot of warehouses. Now, it converted into a high market suburb. The…
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First to see Model X
Last Thursdays, I was in Garden City. There was Tesla car show. That was my first times to see a real model x which is an electric suv. It looks cool. All of dashboards are screens. Even the consol…
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Samsung S8 is much faster
I was about to finish an app. I did a baseline test, so I used a Samsung s3. My new phone is samsung s8. Suddenly, Samsung s3 is so slow comparing with Samsung s3. Of course, that is a number of gene…
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Best way to CBD from Naha Airport
Naha Airport is not the major airport in Japan. However, that is not too hard to travel to CBD from Naha Airport. Last year, one of the hotels we stayed in Naha is in the CBD. That was the hotel we …
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I love GU
GU is a budget line of UNIQLO which is a favorite casual fashion chain. When I visited Okinawan a year before, GU was one of the must-visit spots for me. I like UNIQLO brand a lot. Their clothes …
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Travel to Okinawa by Dragon Air
Last times, I traveled to Okinawa from Hong Kong by Dragon Air(now is Cathay Dragon). My experience is not too bad. The flight was on time. Moreover, this is a full-service airline. Thus we got a lunc…
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Hong Kong Style Breakfast-Hokkaido Dairy Farm Restaurant
I grew up in Hong Kong. The food in Hong Kong has implanted in my memory. I like them. Especially, I like the Hong Kong Style breakfast. When I back to Hong Kong, I must have one every morning. I was …
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Salt Ice-cream - Okinawa
Ice cream should be sweet! There should be plenty of sugar. But Okinawa has a unique of Ice cream. Its selling point is added salt. This is a salty ice cream. That is because Okinawa is formed a set …
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Sales Tax Return in Japan
In Japan, there are 8% Sales Tax. If you buy anythings, you need to pay 8% top of the price tag. But if you are a tourist, you do not need to pay sales tax for any goods you bring back to your home. R…
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Okinawa Cup Noodle
I got a habit I will try their local cup noodle for each place I visited. Last times, when I visited Okinawa, I bought a cup noodle from the AOEN supermarket. It tasted good. The noodle is Okinawa sty…
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I like Shuri Castle.
I like Shuri Castle in Okinawa, although that is the real palace of the Ryūkyū Kingdom, which is a reconstructed copy. According to Wikipedia, the original one is almost destroyed during the second wo…
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Canberra Bus Tour
I have uploaded my photo I took during my trip to Canberra. That times, I joined a local bus tour from Sydney to Canberra. Mainly, I visited Parliament House, War Memorial, and National Museum of Aust…
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ITBlogs.Info got a new skin
As a part of websites upgrade projects, my personal homepage, MichaelLeung.info, got upgraded. It got a new logo, the latest Joomla CMS, and a new template. Today, I updated my IT Blog, ITBlogs.Info, …
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The photo ablum is re-building
Recently, I have re-installed a new version of Joomla for my homepage. Unforntantly, the most of the components are ancient version; that is not working with the new Joomla. I have re-entered the data…
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My Logo
Our creative team designed a new logo for me. I love it; that is fresh and clean. Although that looks like a fashion designer rather than a tech guy, that is what I want. I told the designer makes a l…
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Okinawa Photo uploaded
Finally, I got some free time to upload the photo I took during the trip from Okinawa.