137. Kowloon Park
The cover photo shows the Kowloon Park Swimming Pool in Tsim Sha Tsui. I’ve loved the song “Kowloon Park Swimming Pool” by My Little Airport for years, and it was quite a moment to find this maze nearby and snap this photo.
Record the down-to-earth trending technologies seen every week, and publish them here after screening. If you find it good, you can follow this weekly to get update notifications.
Technical Related
What Happens When You Type google.com into Your Browser?
https://github.com/vasanthk/how-web-works
A classic interview question and a great way to explore the entire web stack—from URL parsing and HTTP protocols to server responses and browser rendering.
How to Ask Questions the Smart Way
https://github.com/ryanhanwu/How-To-Ask-Questions-The-Smart-Way/blob/main/README-zh_CN.md
I first read this as a freshman and still return to it every few years. It’s essential reading for anyone entrying the technical field—each reread brings new insights.
Trending Tools
My Input Method Choice Lately
A while ago I asked friends which input method to choose, and today I want to share where I ended up. I have finally stuck with it for more than a month without flip-flopping 😂.
On Mac I ended up with Apple’s built-in input method. With a dictionary built up over a long time of switching back and forth, many common words and names come out fast, and I have set up plenty of custom shortcut phrases. Together with Input Source Pro, which defaults ordinary apps to Chinese and switches code apps to English automatically, it barely affects my productivity at all, and since upgrading to macOS Sonoma there are lots of small refinements I really like.
On iPhone I used Sogou before, then switched to Hamster with Rime Ice, and on Mac I was also using Squirrel with Rime Ice at the time. That combination is probably the best practice among good open-source input methods right now, though you have to build up your own dictionary again. Hamster is very well done as an open-source project 👍, but I feel its correction of mistaps on the 26-key keyboard is not yet as polished as mature input methods, so typos come easily. In the end, I switched back to the iPhone’s native input method, forced myself to use it for a while, and I am slowly getting used to it.
There are three things about the iPhone’s native input that I, a product perfectionist, really like. First, it comes up much faster than third-party input methods and does not slow the system down. With third-party ones my 13 Pro often felt less smooth, and as soon as I deleted them and went back to native it was fine again, not sure if you have noticed the same. Second, it matches the system UI completely, the bottom color and the switch between day and night, nothing feels out of place. Third, of course, is privacy: the full keyboard access that third-party keyboards ask for does not make me feel at ease.
The Chinese Web Font Project
https://chinese-font.netlify.app/
A brilliant collection of beautiful Chinese fonts for web developers. It provides CDN links for fonts like LxgwWenKai, handling on-demand loading and fast rendering automatically.
Queryable: Offline Natural Language Photo Search
https://queryable.app/
Search your photos with natural language entirely offline. No data leaves your device, and the results are consistently better than the native iOS photo search.
Novu: Open-Source Notification Infrastructure
https://github.com/novuhq/novu
A unified API for sending notifications across all channels—in-app, push, email, SMS, and chat. You can create custom workflows and conditions to ensure your messages land effectively.
Just Looking Around
How to Escape Poverty (Li Yongle)
https://youtube.com/watch?v=aBTDvlteZcs
A classic lesson from Li Yongle on the difference between the poor and the rich, and how to break the cycle. Simple, grounded, and very easy to follow.
Deekay’s Character Animations
https://deekaykwon.com/
If you love motion design, follow Deekay. His work is full of playful, incredibly polished character animations—perfect inspiration for game or web design.
Apps I Regret Buying (V2EX)
https://v2ex.com/t/927250
A refreshing thread about the apps and services that didn’t work out. A great way to avoid common “productivity traps.”