2026-05-01 08:09:00
I wish more blogs were like the old school online journals. People just talking about their day. Not too much detail, not too confident in their opinions, not trying to prove any points, etc.
This certainly is not an attack on anybody. My blog isn’t like that either. For some reason it just feels more natural to write the way you typically see others write on their blogs in the modern era(at least what I normally see on the discovery/trending pages on bear).
That old LiveJournal/Xanga/MySpace blog style of post just felt more personal, though. Less like an op-ed.
Maybe I’m just stuck in a nostalgia trap right now. But I want to start posting more like that.
Tomorrow is Friday. This week has been excruciatingly long. Let’s finish strong and cruise into the weekend!
2026-04-30 05:55:00
I care a lot about privacy. I always advocate for services that don't collect or sell data. I use VPNs, ad blockers, and am usually careful about sharing too much stuff about me online. This blog goes against that third point, and most of what I write is directly related to myself.
Unfortunately, I love talking about things (and myself). The stuff that I post on this blog could dox me or allow people who were interested to build a profile of me. I think about it often when I see the sorts of stuff that other people post on Bear, and in my head I know that 95% of the time it's probably not a big deal to be a little more specific about your personal life.
This results in a dilemma where I have some super cool and interesting (I think) topics but don't want to share them because it's personally identifiable information. I have my age in my Discord about me, I have my timezone and I have a link to this blog too. Those are things that would make it very easy for people to find out more about me—without me even knowing who they are.
I don't want to be saying that you should never speak about yourself online ever, use a fake name, email, birthday, address, job, etc. However, I'm also saying I think it's probably a bad idea to go around posting pictures of your house, or sharing your daily commute, or videos of your car with the license plate unblurred.
Since the rise of Facebook and its push for using real names and identities online, some people see it as weird to use a pseudonym in place of their legal name. In the past year or so, governments around the world have been increasingly pushing for the removal of digital privacy, and the linking of personal profiles and internet accounts. I don't like this at all, and I feel that people have the right to be anonymous online, no matter who they may be. Any information about themselves that someone chooses to reveal should be the only things you can learn about a person.
Privacy is a human right, and companies shouldn't have the ability to strip you of that right for their own monetary gain. The things I post about on my blog are the things I choose to share, and not things that I have to share. Sure, they may give information about myself away, but I have the ability to remove posts, and more simply, to not write about things that could lead to that.
2026-04-30 05:11:24
as i grew through my adult years, one thought has been running through my head over and over again:
"how much have humans been sacrificing in the name of 'convenience'?"
that word... the word "convenience" has become my least favorite word in the english language. i can't stand it. so many things that are bad for humans' social lives, health, and well-being, are consistently used because they're "convenient". why bother going to the brick-and-mortar store? amazon is more "convenient". why bother cooking a nice meal for yourself? doordash and uber eats are more "convenient". why go out and socialize with people? facebook is more "convenient". why use a digital camera, camcorder, or polaroid? your smartphone is more "convenient". why bother going to the theater or concerts? netflix and spotify are more "convenient". why bother making art? asking an AI to generate it for you is more "convenient".
well, i say nuts to that. from now on, i'm going to make my life as inconvenient as possible. i'm going to go to the store and buy stuff in person. i'm going to make my own food with my own hands. i'm going to socialize with people face-to-face. i'm going to use a true camera instead of my phone's camera. i'm going to buy blu-rays, DVDs, and CDs instead of streaming. i'm going to take my time when creating, watching, playing, and reading a work of art.
i don't want to sound high-and-mighty with this. you're not a bad person for using streaming services. but not only are these "convenient" systems costing more money, they're costing humans' social lives and life skills, the most important things that make us human. so, in the interest of keeping my humanity, i'm going to live my life the inconvenient way.
and if you can, i invite you to join me in rejecting convenience.
2026-04-30 04:57:00
Yesterday, I deleted one of my Instagram accounts. I had two, actually. The first one was used when I was in high school and college, and that was where I followed classmates and friends. The only photos I uploaded there were more personal - a graduation photo, some more artsy pictures that were taken when I traveled, that kind of thing. I hadn’t checked that account in months, so I decided to just pull the plug on it. The second account was mostly used for things involving my hobbies or for following local businesses, and that was the one that was harder to let go of.
I tried to think about why that was, and I listed out some reasons.
I follow along with what local businesses are doing. For example, what special events is the yarn store or bookstore putting on for the community this month? Has a coffee shop or food truck changed its seasonal menu?
I follow a lot of crafters, and seeing other peoples’ projects can inspire me and introduce me to new patterns, designers, and crafting techniques. I occasionally like and comment on these things and sometimes I’ll post pictures to show off my work, too.
Every Tuesday, the local bookstore’s account will post new releases to their story. I get introduced to interesting books that I can add to my TBR (to be read) list.
I watch reels (funny things and recipes, mostly) and share them with friends or save the recipes to try later. I’ve found some great recipes this way!
I didn’t really… interact with other people on Instagram in a meaningful way, though. To ease my reluctance to deactivate my account, I revisited each point and thought about what I could do to still achieve these things outside of an Instagram account.
I can go onto individual businesses’ websites and sign up for email newsletters to stay updated on their events. Most local businesses I have in mind already have websites set up.
I’m already subscribed to a few crafting subreddits. I can browse through those or share my projects there, and I can still get inspiration from those pages.
New books are released every Tuesday. I checked my local bookstore’s website and they have a page for new releases. I can just bookmark that page and check it manually rather than viewing the bookstore’s Instagram story every Tuesday.
I don’t need to view short-form video content, especially as I know how bad it is for our brains and our attention spans. I don’t need funny reels to laugh and I don’t need recipe reels to cook. I own several cookbooks and (of course) I follow some cooking and baking subreddits if I really want to go looking for inspiration.
Making this list and writing it out really helped me to realize that there is nothing unique or exclusive that I can only get from Instagram. Afterwards, I went ahead to the settings page of my second account and “scheduled my account’s deletion” — because Meta doesn’t allow you to delete your account immediately. It schedules it out by one month, probably in the hopes that you’ll change your mind before that month is up.
I feel good, though! This means that since the start of 2026, I’ve deleted my Facebook and Instagram accounts. I’m not totally trying to step away from all websites, but I do want to leave most social medias that aren’t benefitting me in any way. I think Reddit will be harder to stay away from, and I am working to minimize the time spent on that site, at least. I think I’m off to a good start!
2026-04-30 02:54:00
E-readers are something of a niche technology. Hardly anybody has an e-reader in public, especially compared to the number of people with a smartphone in hand. Despite that, I took the plunge last year and got an Android e-reader — the Meebook M6.
It’s been nothing short of awesome. I wanted to yap about my reading setup, because cool tech is cool, plus a bit about how I approach reading as a hobby.
I read primarily for fun and enjoyment. If I bought a physical copy of every book I wanted to read, my apartment would overflow with books. Libraries perform an absolutely vital service, but not every library book is in as good a condition as I’d like. Some books are way too bulky to carry on the go. Others are printed in teeny tiny font sizes (what is this, a book for ants?).
For several years, I read e-books on my phone, alongside the occasional library book. To this day, I only purchase physical copies for books with sentimental value (or, rarely, can’t find online). Reading on my phone was… alright. Good enough for me to assume that e-readers were largely redundant. After all, many of us read (or skim?) colossal volumes of text on screens every day. Hell, you’re most likely doing it right now.
That changed when I was walking around a bougie bookstore that happened to have an e-reader section. I wasn’t (and still am not) convinced that the displays looked anything like real paper, but I was blown away by how comfortable they were to read on. I hadn’t even known I'd been settling for less. That same day, I was back home looking for reviews on budget options to try out myself.
I eventually settled on the Meebook M6 for a few reasons. I wanted something that would fit in my pocket, so a screen larger than 7 inches wouldn’t do. At the same time, I wasn’t a fan of the phone-shaped form factor, like that of the Hisense Hi Reader and Boox Palma. I knew from experience that I disliked reading with a bigger font on a narrow screen.
So that left the 6 inch, regular Kindle-shaped options, though I didn’t exactly want a Kindle because of the bullshit Amazon had been pulling. Luckily for me, the Meebook M6 just so happened to be on sale on Taobao for under 100 USD — it had decent reviews, so I gave it a shot.
It is a lovely little Android device. Its royal blue bottom bezel and flush screen are immediately pleasing to the eye. It is basic hardware-wise, but there are a couple of neat features.
It has warm and cool front lights that can be adjusted independently with sliders. The warm light is particularly nice for reading in bed. There are three presets: “Day”, “Night”, and “Bed”. I use “Day” most often, which is most suited to reading in weird indoor lighting (rather than daylight).
The refresh rate is also adjustable with four presets: from the regular “regal mode” with a slow refresh rate and no ghosting, to the “A2 topspeed mode” with the fastest refresh rate but heavy ghosting. The former is most suited for reading, and is what I use 95% of the time. The latter option is much appreciated when I’m using apps not optimized for the display, especially when scrolling.
I was not as enthused with the default software experience. I disliked the default launcher and the default reader app was off when rendering English text. The great thing about Android is that it took me about five seconds to ditch them for a new launcher and a new reader.
I’m a bit anal about customizing my reading experience; KOReader has every feature I could ever wish for. It was a match made in heaven. The vast style tweaks options really satisfy that urge to have everything look exactly as I want it. I keep a handful of these enabled all the time — shoutout to spacing between paragraphs.
I was also impressed at how great KOReader is for reading PDFs. The reflow feature works amazingly for many, but not all, PDFs. If it doesn’t, KOReader can automatically scroll to different parts of the screen depending on the reading direction. For example, for a two-column PDF, it can automatically start at the top left, go down until you hit the bottom left, then go up to the top right. Much, much easier than manually zooming in and scrolling.
All the features can be overwhelming, to be fair. Fortunately, the documentation is pretty robust. And things look good out of the box, even if you don’t mess with anything!
The English fonts that I rotate between are mostly from this GitHub repo containing fonts tweaked for e-reading. Here’s a live showcase for how each font would look in action. Pretty cool!
My current default is their version of Charter. For informational non-fiction, I sometimes switch to a sans-serif font like Atkinson Hyperlegible Next or Jost. For (Traditional) Chinese, I use Chiron Sung HK, an aesthetically pleasing serif font.
This is how I've gotten things to look:
I sideload most of my books as EPUBs, and occasionally PDFs. This means I need my books DRM-free — which most e-books being sold are not. Apart from the obvious solution1, here are a few (100% legit!) suggestions for where to get e-books you actually own:
Sometimes, I get comments when I’m reading in public. People have told me, with a touch of regret, that they could never get through a whole book, or that the last time they picked up a book was in sixth grade. It might surprise them that I have struggled with keeping up a reading habit, too.
I don’t know how common this is, but I will confess that I got this device with the expectation that I would annihilate my entire backlog. A misguided approach, of course. The more pressure I put on myself to read, the less appealing and more overwhelming it felt. This was despite the fact that picking up a book was more easy and effort-free than ever. The sole barrier was my mind.
If you’re anything like me, it’s easy to hype something up in your head — even highly enjoyable and rewarding things — and end up demotivating yourself. I still find myself having to adjust my mindset to get over these hurdles. Some of this includes:
Much of the above applies to other hobbies as well. While it’s easier said than done, maintaining intrinsic motivation is essential for hobbies, which are so vital to a meaningful life. Most importantly, have fun!
It surprised me that depending on the jurisdiction, removing DRM from e-books you have purchased for personal use might be in a legal gray area. Personally, I find it difficult to argue against on moral grounds (compared to piracy).↩
2026-04-29 21:42:00
When I'm working on a passion project (or anything, really), I tend to be obsessively serious in ways that stress me out. Something I initially wanted to do becomes a thing I have to do. I've subconsciously cultivated this behavior, as I only ever notice it late: tired, tense, wondering why something I chose to do feels like something I owe, in a sense.
I'm not always caught up on social media jargon, but I'm interested in the —maxxing suffix I've seen circulating online. I liked the shamelessness of it, the idea you can just decide to maximize something (good), as aggressively and deliberately as you want. Joymaxxing, specifically: making happiness non-negotiable, not a reward for finishing a task but a condition maintained throughout the process. It's why my current goal, when working on something, is prioritizing fun.
The older I get, the more I feel permission to play. In practice, this looks different for everyone: working from a cafe instead of my desk, reading something adjacent to the project just for the pleasure of it, and following interesting tangents. All of these things alters the texture of the work in unexpectedly nice ways, because it reminds me that I'm a human being doing the thing, not a machine producing it.
The shift isn't from serious to unserious. I still passionately care about my projects as I always do. However, I stopped treating "enjoyment" as a threat to "quality," like if I was having too much fun, I'll generate something mediocre or straight up horrendous. Looking back at it, perhaps the work I'm most proud of, is the work I've enjoyed doing the most.