http://ranhya.github.io/category/offtopic/Recent content in Offtopic on Ran's BlogHugoenTue, 19 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000http://ranhya.github.io/guide-to-using-vpngate.net/Tue, 19 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000http://ranhya.github.io/guide-to-using-vpngate.net/<h2 id="table-of-contents">Table of Contents</h2> <nav id="TableOfContents"> <ul> <li><a href="#table-of-contents">Table of Contents</a></li> <li><a href="#what-is-vpn-gate">What is VPN Gate?</a></li> <li><a href="#how-to-use-vpn-gate">How to use VPN Gate</a> <ul> <li><a href="#windows">Windows</a></li> <li><a href="#ios-android-macos-and-linux">iOS, Android, macOS and Linux</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> </nav> <hr> <p>VPN Gate is a great resource that not enough people make use of. It’s one of the few free and actually good ways of getting a VPN connection.</p> <h2 id="what-is-vpn-gate">What is VPN Gate?</h2> <blockquote> <p>VPN Gate Academic Experiment Project is an online service as an academic research at Graduate School of University of Tsukuba, Japan. The purpose of this research is to expand the knowledge of “Global Distributed Public VPN Relay Servers” <br> — <a href="https://www.vpngate.net/en/about_overview.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">vpngate.net overview</a></p>http://ranhya.github.io/the-youtube-graveyard/Fri, 08 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000http://ranhya.github.io/the-youtube-graveyard/<p>So I came across this YouTube video today: <a href="https://youtu.be/zYmkOInF6Us?si=A6NLh1WETPq-cwiG" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Exploring “0-view YouTube” Until I Get a Bingo</a></p> <p>It reminded me of the fact that I’ve always enjoyed getting glimpses or exploring these corners of the internet—by that I mean, randomly coming across some of these random videos with no views whatsoever. Or scrolling through random people’s Reddit profiles, especially those with a long post history.</p> <p>I just think it’s super interesting to get a small glimpse into someone else’s life, it’s nice to think about how others might live sometimes. There’s like this feeling of mystique, you get to wonder what their struggles might be. If it’s in an old video or post, you might wonder what they’re up to now, or even if they’re still here with us…</p>http://ranhya.github.io/ai-writing-and-emdashes/Thu, 31 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000http://ranhya.github.io/ai-writing-and-emdashes/<p>As GenAI and LLMs get better and better I grow more weary of my passion for writing as now it feels like by the time I’m able to really do anything AI will have already taken over and my work remain forever drowning in an ocean of AI slop articles and novels. For the longest time now ever since I’ve found myself indulging in escapism I’ve wanted to write fiction but haven’t even gotten around to it yet, wanting to be a published author one day I’ve been <em>meaning</em> to actually read more books and try to get myself in a position where I can write something I’m proud of. I know the first thing I write probably won’t be a masterpiece but I really wish to write it the best I can.</p>