US Financial Services: Canadian Number & VOIP Support
A summary of which US financial services accept Canadian phone numbers or US VOIP numbers for verification.
- Finance
Writing about design, code, and the messy space in between.
Case Study: AMEX Checking $300 Bonus Timeline
Opened online with ITIN. Used a Wise transfer with memo set to payroll as fake DD to meet the $7,500 deposit requirement. Bonus posted same day.
- Finance
COD4 in 2026: Fixing Localization, Multiplayer, and Single-Player
How to get Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare running on Windows 11 in 2026 — Chinese localization, multiplayer fixes, and single-player enhancements.
- Games
- Tools
Dotfiles, Part 2: Managing Cross-Machine Config and Secrets with Chezmoi
Moving from Dotbot to Chezmoi — layered management of shared config, machine-local overrides, and secrets.
- Tools
- Workflow
- CLI
A Lightweight, Elegant Backup: Dotfiles
After years of manually copying config files between machines, I finally built a setup where one command installs everything I need.
- Tools
- Workflow
- CLI
lyric-romanizer Pt. 1: Stop Reinventing the Wheel
OpenKara needed CJK lyric romanization. While researching, I found a ready-made engine inside the Spotify Karaoke Chrome extension. One GitHub Issue later, I extracted it into a standalone npm package — lyric-romanizer — supporting 12 native scripts and 4 API-based scripts.
- Tools
- Thoughts
- Workflow
lyric-romanizer Pt. 2: I Gave Up on Cantonese Auto-Detection
While adding Cantonese support to the lyric romanization tool, I went in circles with auto-detection and finally settled on explicit parameters.
- Tools
- Thoughts
- Workflow
How to get a no annual fee, no FTF, 3% custom category credit card
Bank of America product changes preserve the original card's no-FTF benefit. Apply for Travel Rewards first, then PC to Customized Cash Rewards after a year — and you get a no-AF, no-FTF, 3% custom category card.
- Finance
Churning Community Slang 101
A beginner's guide to common churning abbreviations and slang — from the basics to each bank's application rules.
- Finance
HSBC UK/AU Global Transfer to Maintain Premier Status
Without an Australian local bank account, use HSBC UK's AUD account and Global Transfer to complete the monthly A$9,000 deposit requirement and maintain HSBC AU Premier.
- Finance
How to Waive TD All-Inclusive Credit Card Fee Without Keeping $6,000 Long-Term
Use TD's online account type change feature to temporarily upgrade to an All-Inclusive account in the month your credit card annual fee is charged, then downgrade immediately after the rebate lands.
- Finance
Case Study: US Bank $450 SUB Timeline
How I completed the U.S. Bank $450 sign-up bonus requirement using an ITIN, fake DD, and a trip to Seattle.
- Finance
Case Study: Wells Fargo $400 Bonus Timeline
Opened alongside U.S. Bank during the same Seattle trip. Used SoFi and U.S. Bank ACH transfers as fake DD to meet the $3,000 direct deposit requirement.
- Finance
Getting Cursor 4.6-opus-high-thinking for Free (A $600 Bug)
Last month I found a bug that let you use Cursor's 4.6-opus-high-thinking model for free, indefinitely. It got patched within days.
- Tools
- Thoughts
Building a fast static blog with Astro
A minimal bilingual blog that keeps content in Git, ships static HTML, and generates Open Graph images at build time.
- Tools
- Writing
How I Replaced Document Creation with Three CLI Tools
One day in April, I realized I almost never need to create a PDF-bound document from scratch. Most of the time I'm just filling out something someone else sent me. The things I actually need to write and export from scratch boil down to three: resume, invoice, and cover letter.
- Tools
- Workflow
- CLI
Why You Should Use a Turkish Apple ID for iTunes Purchases
Turkish iTunes Store and iTunes Match prices are incredibly cheap after currency conversion. Here is how to take advantage of this overlooked benefit.
- Info
- Tools
Get Free SafePal X1 Hardware Wallet [Deadline: June 31, 24]
Process for getting a free cryptocurrency hardware wallet
- Experience
- LLM-free
- Translated
FedEx Stole My $1500 Package and Banned My Account
FedEx Stole My Package Worth $1500 and Closed My Account Without Notice.
- Experience
- LLM-free
- Translated
Canada International Student Banking Guide 2023
Personal experience summarized Canada international student basic bank account/card knowledge.
- Experience
- Finance
- LLM-free
- Translated
Punctuation Guide: Usage of Chinese-English Mix and Punctuation
People who don't like to add spaces between Chinese and English when typing will have a hard time in relationships. There is a 70% chance they will marry someone they don't love at the age of 34, while the remaining 30% of people can only leave their inheritance to their cats in the end. After all, both love and writing need proper spacing.
- Tools
- Writing
- Reprint
- LLM-free
- Translated
My Referral Codes [Continuously Updated]
I have organized all my referral codes here. I would be very happy if you can use them.
- Finance
- LLM-free
- Translated
Sharp Review of Spy x Family
One afternoon at mealtime, I clicked on Spy x Family and watched three episodes continuously, then decided to stop watching before the plot officially unfolded and write a sharp review.
- Animation
- Screen
- Writing
- LLM-free
- Translated
Simple and Fast Blog Article Cover Image Creation with CoverView
CoverView is a web project developed by React, less than 500kb in size, open-sourced on GitHub
- Tools
- LLM-free
- Translated
Clouds in Super Mario
Cory Arcangel's 2002 artwork Super Mario Clouds uses a real Nintendo NES cartridge, with hardware modifications made to the cartridge to remove all content except the clouds and blue sky.
- Thoughts
- Games
- LLM-free
- Translated
Toilet Dilemma
Independent game designer Steven Harmon created a website called Toilet Game Studies in 2017
- Thoughts
- Games
- Reprint
- LLM-free
- Translated
Come Drink with Me: The Foundation of Shaw Brothers Martial Arts Cinema
Come Drink with Me - Hu Jinquan's first martial arts film and the pioneering work of Shaw Brothers' new school of martial arts cinema. Its status and significance are naturally monumental. In 1966, such a color martial arts film was groundbreaking, but fifty-six years later, does it still hold viewing value?
- Screen
- Thoughts
- LLM-free
- Translated