coriander in pho

Earlier today, I saw this news on my Threads timeline: Guy finds Google Chrome is quietly installing a 4GB AI model on our devices. I must confess, I am still using Google (Chrome and the likes; especially Chrome) on my laptop and my phone, mostly due to the convenience. That said, I’m already sick of Google shoving its AI to my face every single time I open my phone to check my email and do some web search. Again, I’m all about AI assisting humans in doing their work, especially the dangerous or tedious ones. Stealing, creating stupid deepfakes, cybercrimes, and robbing humans’ creativity? No thanks. In terms of usage, I would use AI only in my own terms, not being shoved and choked every second.

I then decided to look for alternatives. Some folks on the discussion part of the Threads mentioned the Vivaldi browser, so here we are. I installed Vivaldi, put it on my laptop’s dock, and removed Chrome. I am yet to uninstall Chrome, in case there are some things I need (although I kinda doubt it…) but I have imported most of my stuffs from Chrome to Vivaldi. So far, I’m enjoying this browser, mostly because no AI is in sight whenever I’m using their search engine (https://www.startpage.com). Things feel more peaceful and quieter. I’m also thinking of switching my phone’s browser to Vivaldi.

I also did a round of check-ins with some of my posts, and I found that some videos went “missing” on some of my Peachtober posts. It was weird; for some reasons, the Video Block switched to VideoPress Block, and even after the usual deleted-then-added-it-back, it is still using the VideoPress Block. I ended up copy-pasted the correct code and used the Gutenberg’s Code Editor to re-added the video. This one:

<!-- wp:video -->
<figure class="wp-block-video"><video controls src="VIDEO_LINK_FROM_MEDIA_PLAYER"></video></figure>
<!-- /wp:video -->

I’m not sure how the video got automatically set as VideoPress’ though. The video link is on my site (the /wp-content area) and I don’t have any active subscriptions with VideoPress.

Editing and updating the Peachtober posts made me feel nostalgic. I haven’t drawn anything for the past 2-3 years. My son, Wira, even asked me, “Why aren’t you drawing anymore?” I told him that drawing has been quite a traumatic experience for me. While the activity and the process itself are fun, I can’t stand having people looking over my shoulder whenever I’m drawing, “which, unfortunately, is what you, your sister, and your dad have always been doing whenever you all see me drawing or doing things,” I told him. I have been loving drawing since I was a little kid, and when I drew things, adults around me always had something to say, and mostly the words were… far from encouraging. Even if they did say something remotely neutral, it was always laced with critiques, be it of anatomy, color combinations, or fantastical creatures. I was 6 years old, for fucks sake.

I know that Ari and the kids never commented on anything — they have been really, really supportive, even! — but it is still quite hard to shake the habit of drawing things quietly and secretly. Perhaps I can restart it now.

Another update: I have been musing on the idea of having some kind of “updates section” on this blog, so I can keep track of things that I have done on this blog; you know, like a documentation section. However, it would mean another weird type of short posts on this blog after “Aside” and “Bookmarks” categories. I wanted to use status.cafe, but it seems like they are having an issue with their email deliverability. Unfortunately, a similar bug report is yet to be replied/attended to, which means that I’m still looking for a microblogging/status update service out there. The last resort would be using one of my WordPress.com sites and displaying the feed on this site, hahah.

I also added custom fields on posts. I’m using the plugin “Advanced Custom Fields” to add custom fields and “Blocks for ACF Fields” to display them in block format so I can add them to the blog templates. I really want to make this blog as personal and customized as possible, hence the custom fields.

Anyway! I am now on episode 8-9 of “Pursuit of Jade”, and finally, we have a micro-expression on Zhang Linghe! 🎉

At least we have Tian Xiwei (I love her so much!) to balance things up. I love this shot of them.

And this ambush scene? The way the scene incorporated Chinese’s shadow puppet shows? YES.