Categories
car DIY

More DIY car repair videos

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I took my 2020 Camry to dealership for oil change yesterday. The advisor gave me a heads-up: there will be a few (or couple) filters and rear brake replacement at the next oil change. I recall I watched a YT video from budget mechanic re: changing own brake pad and rotor. This is the video – How To quickly Check Your Brake Pads and Rotors – Don’t Waste $$ Changing them Too Soon!!

While I was watching that video, I came across another insane level of DIY car repair videos, e.g., this one – I changed my Subaru headgasksets in AutoZones parking lot. The total is about 14 hours. In addition to removing, organizing all the things, putting them back in the right places, I was also impressed by the genius of SteinFab Garage at Home Depot (surfacing the head gaskets).

While I am at YT, I watched Waldo’s Why you Shouldn’t Buy a Range Rover Unless You’re One of Two Types of People too.

Btw, I found both videos have a good “story telling” components to it – somewhat like a Netflix series – and that is an important part of getting the users’ interest to continue to watch – to see the end results to say the least. But at the same time, I believe most viewers won’t be able to perform the work both pros performed – it’s just way above average Joe or Jane’s head. I think I would probably try the brake pad replacement, if the opportunity comes. I am also interested in getting a diagnostic tool for car (code scanning tool).

TBD

How to Change Yours Brakes for Under $150 (Budget Mechanic)

Categories
Software development

Two colleagues passed away recently

Reading Time: 2 minutes

One was actually last year, as I recall. But I still remember: it was about a year ago. Today I received another news that one of the colleagues passed away. Note I have worked remotely since pandemic in 2020, and I only saw the second colleague in person a few times. I may have seen the 1st colleague once in office, during one of the few times I visited office – it was probably the Indian holiday of Diwali. I went to the memorial (or visitation, it was a traditional Indian ceremony at a funeral home).

As I wrote this, now I recall another colleague passed away and I went to the memorial (or visitation) too: it was almost 2 years ago – I tried to pinpoint the exact time, but I do recall at that time I was driving for Uber, and I thought about driving for Uber after the memorial service. That was a hard one because I believe that young colleague likely has depression and although they didn’t explicitly say the cause of death, I can sense it was likely suicide.

PS: I just googled “remote work toll on mental health“.

AI Overview

Remote work can take a significant toll on mental health by substantially increasing isolation, loneliness, and psychological distress, especially for employees who live alone. [1, 2]

Key Mental Health Impacts

  • Isolation and Loneliness: Remote workers spend about 1.1 additional waking hours alone per day compared to on-site workers. Those living alone face an 83% higher chance of experiencing zero human contact during the workday. [1, 2]
  • Rise in Mental Distress: A major study published in Science links remote work to an increase in symptoms of anxiety and depression. It accounts for roughly one-third of the overall rise in national mental distress seen over recent years. [1, 2, 3]
  • Increased Medical Care: Remote employees show higher rates of consulting mental health professionals and using prescription psychiatric medications like antidepressants. [1, 2]
  • Blurred Boundaries and Burnout: Working from home makes it harder to “clock out” mentally. This leads to longer hours, chronic stress, and emotional exhaustion. [1, 2]
Categories
Fun Life

Apple Music

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Playlist on iCloud – shared across devices

Lyrics

Sing-along feature (Karaok)

Also being able to import mp3 files and shared across devices – related to the first point.

Auto play feature – from the Apple Music library – trying to guess the listener’s taste from the 1st song being played, and so on.

It seems to me worth th $11.99 a month.

Categories
DIY

Fixing violin case handle

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In progress. I am on round 2, using a round head screw instead of the flat head screw – my first impression is the round head screw has a bit more friction. Let’s see if this stays.

Also, Google and Reddit. More google “does old violin case use screw in the handle“; and “Screwed-on handles for violin case“

Case looks like this – but the handle is a bit old (likely old design) too.

Categories
Edu-and-Ladue-School kids

Did we get too much tech for the school kids?

Reading Time: < 1 minute

(08-29-2026 Still working in progress, published it for sharing)

There is quite a bit of debate re: this topic nowadays. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness book is probably one reason this debate started.

But in terms of learning, personally I think strike a balance between technology (use of devices, and internet, such as Google, YouTube and even some AI tools) and hands on/good old fashioned hand drawing, writing, scribbling, white-boarding, etc. will be good.

Btw, the most recent settlement between Meta Platform and many states in the US says something about the addictive nature of social media (Facebook, and Instagram are a large part of the social media here).

Drafting paper 草稿纸

Scribbling paper may be more appropriate?

Did you get a desktop or laptop for HS students?

I think I may have given my older daughter too much tech, or devices, to be precise. I gave her an iPhone when she was in grade 6 or 7 (I need to look it up to be precise), also, I gave her a MacBook Air a few years ago. Her iPad Pro is a bit old, bought in 2018 at Sam’s Club as a new device.

Desktop is a life saver

At the same time, I bought a Mac Mini in December 2021 or something like that. I used it for work initially. After I received a company Laptop, I used it for leisure, and also my girls (both my daughters) used it for online shopping, and my younger daughter used it to look up recipes, crochet tips, and on. It’s her main computer (she doesn’t have a MacBook Air), but she has both an iPhone and an iPad too.

Categories
Investing

War and its aftermath

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Came across something on FB, and decided to read more about the story (Nov 2025, NPR) National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom has died from injuries after D.C. shooting

Then I decided to read more: How an Afghan Commando Brought America’s Shadow War to Washington

The latter story reminds me of the US/Afghanistan war stories I read back in fall 2021 (the war stories themsevlves happened between 2002 and 2021).

Categories
advice and tips gadgets Life Tips

Couple tricks to cut down doom scrolling

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This Brick Helped Break My Scrolling Habit #tech #smartphone I agree with the design philosophy behind this thing. I haven’t tried it yet, but if I feel it’s necessary down the road, I would try it. Here is the device at Amazon, and there is an app in the iOS app store.

I tried other things in the past, especially when I came back from China trip, and I really need to stay away from the phone during the night – otherwise I will get zero sleep. I put the phone downstairs – which would make me harder to pick up the phone. Because I need to get up, walk down the hall, walk down the stairs, and so on.

For now, I have used this Offscreen app on and off for a while, and I plan to use it more as recently I decided to cut down my screen time, especially re: my iPhone.

In the past, I have used this lock box – it was bought on Dec 23, 2020 in the height of pandemic. But kids used this pretty much as a toy, and that defeated our original purpose. Now I think for myself I have simply put my phone downstairs or put it in a drawer – to achieve something similar.

PS: I wrote quite a bit on stocks here, and recently I realized that if I can cut down looking at the stock tradings app in general, on the phone, and that will potentially have 2 benefits: 1) Reducing doom scrolling on the phone; 2) Improving performance on the stocks, by doing less trading, and make more informed trading. I have transferred 2 apps from iPhone to iPad in that spirit.

Categories
Life Life Tips

如何减少“登味”？

Reading Time: < 1 minute

My thoughts and observations so far.

The other day, when I was driving with my 16 year old, and she commented “dad, you smells”. 她的意思是我的身上有汗味。后来我的 better half 解释/猜测说也可能是我的衣服上有汗味。我想起来了，我小时候闻到我爸的衣服好像也有味道。还好我不抽烟。Anyway I don’t want to bore you with my 汗味。

Today I am really going to talk about something more serious, that is as we get older, how to avoid this 登味 (浙江宣传 – “登味”是什么味)。

登味是2025年中文互联网高频出现的负面标签，特指脱离现实、居高临下的决策思维或言行风格，尤其体现中老年群体的傲慢与代际冲突。该词与网络流行语“老登”相关，“老登”原为山东方言“老登徒子”的简写，后演变为嘲讽具有权势却顽固傲慢群体的代称。其内涵包含训话式沟通、油腻言行等特征，并衍生出“登味营销”、“小登”、“中登”等相关表达 [2] [4]。导演冯小刚曾在公开场合提及“要去登味儿”以回应这一现象…… (来源：baike）

如何减少”登味”；或者”爹味”；两者有类似之处，登味的含义可能更广一些。

Avoid
”我吃过的盐比你吃过的饭还多”

Avoid
”我年轻的时候，什么都没有。。。blah blah blah”. Sometimes I felt “life before iPhone” is much better and I think some of the Gen X* may agree with me, maybe some Gen Y* people too 🙂

Avoid

Alcohol, cigaret, vaping, cannabis, marijuanas, any other substances.

Do the below instead

Healthy hobbies, examples: sports, music (instruments), reading, creation and arts (all kinds, from writing, to drawing, to stitching, knitting, to crochet), and volunteering… You get my points, something productive, helping people when you can, and so on. I recall there is a saying in Chinese 度人也是度己 (helping others also helps oneself).

Cooking is good too, but don’t eat too much.

不建议对号入座：有则改之，无则加勉。我个人的建议是三连：点赞，收藏，favorite 或订阅 LOL

*Gen X (as used in the USA, wikipedia): Generation X (Gen X) is the demographic cohort following the Baby Boomers and preceding Millennials, generally defined as people born between 1965 and 1980.

Gen Y (also called millennials): are the demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years, with the generation typically being defined as people born from 1981 to 1996.

Categories
Investing

Weekend thoughts on stocks 2026-08-02

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The biggest news for this week must be the blow up of “Situational Awareness” hedge fund blow up. I had a thread on X.com, and also I watched quite a few YT videos on the evening of 2026-07-30, as I was vacationing.

Martin Shkreli Breaks Down the Collapse of Situational Awareness 

Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness Hit by AI Selloff

How Leopold Aschenbrenner Lost $45 Billion in 3 Days

AI investor Leopold Aschenbrenner forced to unwind all public stock positions: Sources

And I think the below articles are good too – How the ‘Nostradamus of AI’ failed to spot a market crash

Star AI investor Leopold Aschenbrenner is unwinding trades after steep losses  

Leopold Aschenbrenner just learned Wall Street’s oldest lesson: Chart of the Day  

My biggest takeaway here again is twofold: 1) Don’t use leverage or excessive leverage. On a related matter, don’t short stocks. It appears one of the reasons Leopold lost is that his SaaS stock shorts backfired when they had a run in July. Full disclosure: I am long some SaaS stocks such as $BSY at this time.

2) Don’t believe other people, no matter how intelligent they are, re: my own investments.

On other news front, my $MSFT did very well post earning report in the after-hours of Wednesday 2026-07-29, and I was able to unload about 80% of it.

PS: more on leveraged ETF, which burned both the Korean retail investors and Leopold recently, in my opinion it’s basically “buy high, sell low”. Refer to this YT shorts video by Warren Buffett.

Reference:

How Rebalancing Works When Prices Rise (google AI overview – when I searched “does leveraged etf need to put up additional collateral when the portfolio go up“)

Mechanics of Rebalancing After a Drop (from google AI overview too)

Related question “has leveraged etf elevated the stock market volatility”

Just want to share one YT video from Warren Buffett

Categories
Investing

Weekend thoughts on stock investing 2026-7-11

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I did some adjustments on my stocks, both in my regular brokerage accounts and IRA (including both regular and Roth IRA accounts) since my China trip. And I wrote a bit here on Twitter/X. Please note I sold $AAP as I believe they are not the best quality stock in the Auto Parts space and in the US stock market.

For Costco, the stock dropped quite a bit this past week after the June same store sales data (Barron‘s, and Costco IR website).

(quote from Barron’s…June sales were a mixed bag. While it reported its highest monthly sales of the year so far in June, same-store sales grew at their lowest rate since February on a year-over-year basis...

My takeaway is we don’t always shop everything at Costco: but buy the quality stock when it dips.

I think this is applicable to $HONA (Honeywell Aerospace) and SK Hynix too. I have a few shares of each. I plan to hold them for long term too. My quick thoughts on them is $HONA is comparable to $GE, while SK Hynix can be compared to Micron $MU. The latter 2 are doing well recently too.