Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾

I thought Dolly Parton was a good example of what to do with your riches in a humanity-positive way. RIP

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/queering/202608/dolly-parton-lived-life-with-generosity

#DollyParton

South Korea is one of the safest countries in the world which is why what's happening on Jeju island is really...shocking.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyz9gjw9n9o

They say don't judge a #cdrama based on the poster but a boss-subordinate romance drama with this poster deserves some research time, right?

PS: I find Claude an immensely awful writer who is in love with the amount of verbiage it produces. The more words it produces the more smug it will sound 🫠

And no I don't use it to write. The amount of editing and revising I would do would kill me. But lordie the answer it gives me! Anyway I'd probably update my claude.md to tell it speak to me like a super busy CEO with only five min for it 🤣

#Claude #AI

Love that we are taking parks more seriously in Malaysia. Took a walk around the lake before starting work today.

#Parks #KualaLumpur #Malaysia

I love that Game Science is bringing Chinese myths and legends to life and introducing it to gamers around the world. Zhong Kui is the Underworld's bounty hunter who "quells demons and spirits". (He has this girnonmous sword that helps him do just that).

Oh yea the Chinese version of hell is more like the underworld. All deceased people go there and pay their karmic debts.

https://youtu.be/sqe3j4Qch1Y?si=3CgXhozAP7xvq2Fu

#Chinese #culture #gaming

I feel an immense amount of satisfaction as I end the working week because I solved a problem that had been plaguing me for three quarters. I had planned my company's content pipeline with a spreadsheet. Yes, it is as awful as it sounds. It was a nightmare to update and maintain, and I was over it. This week I worked with Claude Code and I came up with an app that would help me plan my editorial calendar and produce reports at the end of the quarter. I created the app in … 3 days.

This app made my brain sigh in relief. No more fussy spreadsheets to maintain! And if a stakeholder wants it, I can still generate it with a click of my app’s button.

AI has come far; its use cases are now complex and very useful.

You can now create hyper personalized apps for yourself. (Tho, I still maintain that you need coding basics to understand what you created to ensure its not malicious).

The cool side effect of this project was that I learned what PMs and engineering teams go through when coming up with an app.

Which is why the no.1 lesson I learned from building this app was that I should've worked on the design spec and PRD first before asking Claude to write a single code. But that's a story for another day 😉

#claudecode #AI

One confusion I have about folks from the US (and other countries) is why they keep saying "I didn't realise [name of country] was so modern!"

I see that in videos about Malaysia and China a lot, and now Iran lol.

I use to joke: I thought you guys don't have a Great Firewall??

I try to understand more these days. Where I live, it's just taken for granted that you can are able to access media in different languages. In Malaysia, we have news playing on the main TV channels in three major languages: Chinese, Malay and English.

Most Malaysians are multilingual. With the population conversant/fluent in the languages of the dominant business language of the world (English) and the largest developing economies in the world - China, India and Indonesia, we are able to tap into their media in their language effortlessly. (Eg, I read and talk to natives in their languages without a problem, so I can get their perspectives.) The Internet has made things even faster and easier.

Not to mention we can fly to these countries in a matter of hours.

Pair that with our natural suspicion of mainstream media (ahem), we've always had the habit of checking sources outside official ones.

Meanwhile, in the West, they have to wade through screeds of propaganda, disinformation and algorithms to get the perspective of natives. In the US, I notice, they also “screen” newspapers for ideology first (is it right- or left- leaning), which means they are exposed to limited perspectives. Language is a massive barrier, especially since Chinese and Indian languages aren't exactly easy to read!

On top of our basic fluency some of us have direct interactions with the Middle East through religion; it's also unsurprising that some of us read Arabic.

So, South East Asians are truly special ... and I think Malaysia may be a head above in terms of cultural and langauge connectivity with various cultures around the world.

Although it is still difficult for authors to make big bucks in China，what I envy about their publishing ecosystem is that there's a robust digital webnovel scene where anyone can publish serialized stories on platforms accessed by millions. There's also a system where readers can unlock new chapters with credits, film studios can buy rights to novels.

Infographic from Xinhua

#amreading #ebooks #digitalpublishing #reading #WritingCommunity

Malaysians receive fuel subsidies. Without it, our petrol would be 2x more due to the #iranwar #oilcrisis .
I paid RM35 for 17.5l of oil which is roughly about US$9.
Because I designed life in such a way that most of my needs are a walk away, which includes clinics, supermarkets and the light rail, I use the car to drive short distances (around 6km or less) a few times a week. I also drive a fuel efficient car.
The last time I pumped petrol was on March 25 and I still had a 1/4 tank left on May 3. So, basically I can make RM50 of fuel last me nearly two months.

#oilprices #Malaysia #Southeastasia

Funnily enough I got into a screaming match (he was doing much of the screaming) on Mastodon with someone who insisted that China's public transportation is a scam because it doesn't earn a profit. When I told him that in China, transportation is a public good and profit isn't a "driving" factor he insisted I was a) dumb b) lying.

China isn't utopia by any means, but it just has a different way of doing things. It never fails to astound me that people have a hard time accepting that other countries can run societies differently than theirs and it *can* work, or even be better.

Also, not sure why he was so worked up. I was just stating facts. If China bankrupts itself thanks to it's unprofitable transportation it's their problem, right?

#China #Transportation

Another way China is doing AI differently.

I am not surprised this happened, by the way. In China, the people's voice is actually heard and acted on. If you understand the way their politics work and the way their government is structured, it will not surprise you at all.

Unfortunately, most Westerners do not understand or think that there are other ways to govern society beyond democracy. They think that non-democratic countries are basically autocratic, but they do not understand that societies have been governed in many different ways for ages. I feel that although democracies can bring some good, they often delay progress and only the loudest gets heard. The loudest do not always have the best interest of society at heart, only their own. In the United States, I do not think it is a democracy anymore, but a plutocracy. In that society, only corporations and billionaires are heard.

https://www.caixinglobal.com/2026-04-30/chinese-courts-rule-companies-cannot-fire-workers-simply-to-replace-them-with-ai-102439602.html

#Ai #China

The Chinese have this in common with Aussies.

They call their hotels a "pub" or 酒店 (jiǔdiàn).

Meanwhile Aussies call their pubs a "hotel".

It's a confusing world.

#Language #Chinese #Aussies #Australia #China

"Since masters of the genre like Jin Yong penned their epics, there has been a growing female wuxia authorship that speaks to increased cultural confidence, a diversity of voices, and all-new takes on classic settings."
https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1018447

#wuxia #cdrama #china #literature #bookstodon

How a working day could look like for the AI-assisted content strategist, technical content writer or whatever fancy title enterprise content professionals wear these days.

#techwriter #work #writing

http://elizabethtai.com/2026/08/26/a-day-in-a-life-of-the-ai-assisted-technical-content-writer/