peterburkimsher

69 ms·

1. 691.▲
   by peterburkimsher 6y ago

   Yes, it has got harder since then. I graduated in 2011, and came to NZ on a Working Holiday visa. People told me I should try to get PR, but I didn't have the years of continuous relevant work experience. I went to a few other places,
2. 692.▲
   by peterburkimsher 6y ago

   I was in Kaohsiung from 2014-2018. There's a good community of hospex (was CouchSurfing, now hopefully BeWelcome), including weekly meetups in Taipei, Hsinchu, Chiayi, Tainan, and Kaohsiung. Just don't dare to speak up about the a
3. 693.▲
   by peterburkimsher 6y ago

   It's great, but the immigration process is very difficult and slow. I applied for the Skilled Migrant Category in February 2019 and haven't even got a case officer handling the application yet.
4. 694.▲
   by peterburkimsher 6y ago

   I'm in North Shore, which has fibre (100 mbps down, 20 mbps up). 5G is also good. There are cultural activities, but those are mostly in the city. As a young, unmarried guy, there's no need for me to get a mansion. The homestay fa
5. 695.▲
   by peterburkimsher 6y ago

   I was in Kaohsiung from 2014-2018, which city are you in? I worked for OSE in the Nanzi Export Processing Zone, making USB, SD card, DRAM - so many good memories. There's a good community of hospex (was CouchSurfing, now hopefully BeWe
6. 696.▲
   by peterburkimsher 6y ago

   Free also give Pages Perso: a subdomain for a personal website where you can FTP files e.g. http://peterburk.free.fr .
7. 697.▲
   by peterburkimsher 6y ago

   12-14 days sounds like just enough time to finish taking exams, and my study/sleep schedule was rather like his during some periods in university. Sleep deprivation can lead to me being more creative, particularly with abstract concept
8. 698.▲
   by peterburkimsher 6y ago

   I still have an active CS account (Taiwan-registered) and can cross-check the references for any imported profiles. If there's a huge rush then no doubt my account could get blocked for bot-like activity, but I'm willing to do the
9. 699.▲
   by peterburkimsher 6y ago

   It's possible to export my data from CS. Would the Trustroots community be willing to have a CS data import option, for bringing in old CS references and friends?
10. 700.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    Trustroots has a nice map-based interface, but lacks references and meetups. BeWelcome is my preferred option, and is open-source and has excellent financial transparency.
11. 701.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    I agree that losing references is a big problem. Thanks to GDPR you can request an export. https://www.couchsurfing.com/preferences/privacy If that fails, you can also contact me - my account is Taiwan-registered and s
12. 702.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    The community is already coming together to rebuild. The CS meetup in Auckland is rebranding as BeWelcome. Kaohsiung is discussing it. I'm sad that all those good memories will be tinged with pain by this betrayal, but it's given
13. 703.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    Trustroots is being discussed as an alternative, but it doesn't have a reference system. I trust the reference system to keep the platform clear from the safety issues you describe. That's why I think BeWelcome is the best alterna
14. 704.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    I joined CS when I was broke, and such a site must stay free for newcomers. Music can be obtained for free (whether recorded onto a cassette tape off MTV or downloaded). Despite that, I go out of my way to support my favourite bands. Someti
15. 705.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    There is a data export tool, as a result of GDPR. https://www.couchsurfing.com/preferences/privacy However, there's no data import tool yet, and that's what I'd like to build.
16. 706.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    CS started because someone messaged a load of university students so he could stay on their dorm room floor. I discovered it with a dumpster-diving friend in UCSB in 2009. It stays legal by involving no money. (Airbnb's subletting issu
17. 707.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    I don't know how Hacker News manages to stay so pure, given that it's run by venture capitalists, yet still remains free of ads and open to newcomers. Monetising CS is like demanding a signup fee to join HN: it will drastically ch
18. 708.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    BeWelcome is open-source, has been around for a decade already, and has excellent financial transparency. Their fundraising target for this year is 1300€. I've already contacted their developer to ask if I can help create a data import
19. 709.▲
    The Death of Couchsurfing?(medium.com)

    353 points by peterburkimsher 6y ago|304 comments
20. 710.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    I saw that at the time! I also tried subtitles, for a famous movie (You Are The Apple Of My Eye) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhIooD7mFhphhT5nDdhK0...
21. 711.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    I wrote another web app, https://pingtype.github.io which is free. However, I have no idea how to do "onboarding". You just copy-paste some text into the Chinese box at the top, and/or type characters into the dec
22. 712.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    Yes, learn words not characters! The hardest barrier to that is the lack of spaces. I wrote https://pingtype.github.io to add spaces, pinyin, literal and parallel translation so I can read interesting text (song lyrics, Bible) i
23. 713.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    That's great! I'll be sharing that site with my homestay family, who have kids aged 6 and 9. On Monday this week I asked the older one to read a Wikipedia list of Disney films and Dreamworks Animation movies and here's the li
24. 714.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    I've been babysitting the homestay family kids, building Lego models, playing games (Worms Armageddon, Age of Empires II, Bejeweled, Mahjong, Solitaire, Rummikub, Asteroid, Alien Force, eSheep, stressreducers), and helping set up Zoom
25. 715.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    Anti-aliasing isn't enough, because of hinting. So they had to use FontForge to recreate old-looking fonts! I really like the retro scrollbar as well.
26. 716.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    Yes, I wrote https://pingtype.github.io for Chinese word segmentation to help me learn.
27. 717.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    Thanks for sharing! I also wrote a Chinese segmentation and parallel translation program, with colours for the tones. Mine only takes one definition for the literal translation though, unlike yours which only handles a single line but with
28. 718.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    What did you use for your Chinese word segmentation? I wrote Pingtype myself to help me learn by splitting words and translating them in parallel. https://pingtype.github.io
29. 719.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    The problem is a complex client-provider relationship. The end user (children) don't make the purchasing decision. The ones choosing the software (teachers) have no control over the hardware. The ones choosing the hardware (school tech
30. 720.▲
    by peterburkimsher 6y ago

    "WHO's paying the cost" - it's not even always the end user. On Wednesday night, Anna (9 years old) said that Epic Books wasn't displaying properly (Chrome v49, WinXP). She wouldn't even have a computer if it w