Category: English Content

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Bypass UBC's Block of DeepSeek

As of 4:40PM on March 20, 2025, DeepSeek's domain (chat.deepseek.com) is no longer accessible on UBC network. The bypass is very simple, but let's begin with 2 statements.

  1. I'm not convinced how DeepSeek is exceptionally dangerous compared to other online services such as Meta, Google, TikTok, WeChat, or ChatGPT.
  2. Countries like China and Iran have taught us that any firewalls, even government-level ones, can be bypassed, with the only exception being if a whitelisting system is used (North Korea).

Anyway, UBC only did one thing to block DeepSeek: DNS pollution.

Whenever you visit a website like google.com, your computer looks up the IP address associated with that website, like looking up your doctor's phone number on a phonebook. What UBC did is removing the entry for deepseek.com on its "phonebook" (DNS server), so that the lookup fails.

Therefore, the solution is simple: do not use the DNS Server provided by UBC! Instead, Cloudflare Public DNS can be used, which is free, does not keep logs, and potentially faster than UBC's DNS.

This page is a pretty good guide: https://support.cci.drexel.edu/other-it-resources/generic-web-tips/changing-dns/

For Android, keep in mind that it applies to all networks, and some networks (such as free WiFi at Loblaws stores) block Private DNS. In those cases, you might have to temporarily turn off the Private DNS.

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While I'm sure that switching away from the use of words like "blacklist" will not do anything regarding racial equality, but since we're at it, can't we choose a less ambiguous alternative?

The current alternatives like "allowlist", "trusted list", "blocklist", "denylist" all have alternative connotations and can not be replaced one-to-one.

Therefore, I propose the terms "greenlist" and "redlist".

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How to buy a (physical) PASMO and Suica

Update 2024/09/01: Sales of personalized Suica and PASMO has resumed, but this means you are not supposed to share your card, and refunding the card requires the person with the registered name to be present. For travelers, this can be inconvenient and therefore not recommended.

Even though the official sites and notices in stations are all trying to convince you that there is no way you can buy a PASMO and Suica right now, scaring all visitors away, there are still many ways you can buy one now.

Suica for Tourists: Welcome Suica

This is the officially recommended way, even though they are sold in just a few locations. Also, they expire after 28 days and you cannot refund the unused charged money inside, so I personally do not recommend this. For those working and studying, this is basically useless. You can check out their official sites for where you can buy them: Welcome Suica

Regular Suica: buy a 1-day pass

Even though the official website mentioned that only children and monthly pass Suica are still sold, 1-day passes can also be issued on a new Suica. So if your trip has a day that justifies using a one-day pass (e.g. if you live in the west side like Nakano, a round-trip to Kasai Rinkai Park is already worth the cost of the Tokunai Pass!), go to a black ticket machine (that sells monthly pass), and choose the option that issues a new Suica. Check the following video but choose the new Suica option instead!

After the one-day pass expires, you can load stored value into the card and use it like a normal Suica. You can go to a station staff and request that the writing on the card be erased too.

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Probably the only way to buy a regular PASMO: One-day pass

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Random #5: Make YouTube great again!

My YouTube Home feed has more than 50% of the videos from channels I'm not even subscribed to, while many subscribed channels simply do not appear on my feed.

The shift in recent years in social media from "telling the system what you like" to "system telling you what you like" is troublesome. The fact is we know what we want, and not watching a certain channel for a few weeks doesn't mean we will never want to watch it (that's what the Unlike or Unsubscribe button is for!).

I argue that there are two types of content that one watches: funny, quick, one-off content, and actually interesting, lengthy, in-depth content. Examples of the former includes (and these are directly from my YouTube feed right now) Microsoft Sam Beatbox Duet, 1996 Pontiac Grand Pix Recall: interesting for when you are relaxing, but I basically don't want to see anything like it anymore after watching it. Examples of the latter would be: The Impact of 6GHz on Network Design, PS5 Slim First Look and TEARDOWN!!, or I Visited the Most Depressing Town in Singapore.

Suggesting new content is great to help discover new channels and give visibility to new creators, but there is a limit to it: there is a reason a user decide to subscribe to a channel instead of just watching it and leave, and since the algorithm does not know how the user liked it or not (who cares about the like button anymore??), it is idiotic to suggest this much new content to a user just because the user fell for two clickbaity videos two times in a row.

Going back to the two types of content. Please, only ever suggest a few of the first type, and never the same topic over and over. For the second type, please, prioritize what we literally said we liked, instead of filling my entire feed with train videos (yes I like trains, but I also like many other things that I literally told the algorithm by subscribing).

Thanks for listening. After seeing the 20th Burger King Pokeball recall advertisement parody being suggested just because a few weeks ago I felt bored and watched a few in a row, I decided that I have to write something about this.

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Transferring file over high-bandwidth, high-latency link - bbcp

As you might know, I live in Canada while my home server is located in Macau. Both sides have decent internet connection: 150Mbps symmetrical in Macau, 350/100Mbps in Canada. While not crazy fast, this is fast enough for most cases, even for transferring large files. But there is a problem: I can never get this speed...

Speed test from my computer in Canada to my server in Macau via LibreSpeed. Look at that juicy ping and revolutionary upload speed...

The problem

The problem is simple: I can download from my home server somehow close to the limit (150Mbps) but I can only upload at less than 10% of theoretical upload speed, seemingly for no reason.

The investigation

I tried running speedtest from Canada to different hosts in Macau: different ISPs, my server with LibreSpeed, my server with iperf. I found that I only get good speeds when I use multiple connections: multi connection feature on Speedtest.net, iperf with LOTS of parallel streams.

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Random #3

We used to think that with the internet, we can simply do everything at home: work at home, study at home, socialize at home, etc.

But with covid we learned that this often does not work as well as meeting in person because the location you're in and having people around you matters.

But I am not convinced. Save for doing sports, bars, restaurants, and dates where physical contact matters, most of the time you do not have physical contact with others. Then we can just use virtual reality (VR) to simulate the location you are in, with people around you.

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This is why I prefer Linux

If you do not know yet, the Japanese standard computer keyboard has quite a few more keys than US/other European keyboards that we are used to. Whether there is a point doing so or not is a topic for another time (assuming I am knowledgeable enough to have a proper discussion), but one thing I know for sure[1] is that on Linux you can remap any keys on your keyboard to any other key supported by the system, meaning you could change those keys on the right side of the spacebar that you never use to something you might use! So I did what every reasonable person would do and spent 5 hours last night, from midnight to 5am figuring it out.

And then I can't use the Enter key anymore.

I mistyped 66 (Caps Lock) as 36 (Enter),,,
Continue reading "This is why I prefer Linux"
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Random #1

When you're feeling down, make a post (not story) on Instagram. People usually like your post when they see it, and you get a notification every time a person does it, kind of like telling you "you're doing great"!

On the other hand, when you post a story, people usually don't reply to people's story unless it's really good. So posting stories usually makes you feel sad because you think your content is not that great.

Or maybe just call someone, idk.