Tech & Life Notes

What Brought My Hair Back? Exercise Good Food Rogaine Of course, this is my personal experience, and what worked for me may not work the same way for everyone. About five years ago, I started noticing something I really didn't want to see: I was losing hair. I tried not to think about it at first. I told myself it was just part of getting older. But eventually, I had to admit that my hair was definitely getting thinner.  Then I decided to do something about it. My approach was pretty simple: Rogaine, exercise, and good food. I didn't expect a miracle overnight, and I certainly didn't think my hair would suddenly look like it did when I was 20. But over time, I started noticing a difference. And today, I can honestly say: I got a lot of my hair back. More importantly, I got something else back— my confidence. I've learned that confidence isn't necessarily about having a perfect head of hair, a perfect body, or looking younger than you are. It's about taking care...

  Why I Am Switching From Apple in 2026. The Long Loyalty The Year the Story Changed The Culture of Repair Changed No Longer an Apple Loyalist I Once Was My first job, back in the early 1990s, was as an Apple technician. On day one, someone handed me a Macintosh—I believe it was a IIci, running a Motorola 68030 processor—and let me alone with it. No manual, no training, no instructions. I simply played with the machine for three days and mastered it on my own. That was the whole point of the Macintosh when it launched: a computer so intuitive that anyone could pick it up without a manual. And it worked. I was proof of it. *Apple IIci from Wikipedia* The Long Loyalty That experience shaped my entire relationship with technology. I briefly used a Palm Pilot in the early 90s, later switched to a BlackBerry, and then, when the first iPhone arrived in 2007, I never looked back. I've been an iPhone user ever since. I wasn't alone—my whole family became devoted to Apple. iPhones, iPad...

In South Korea, virtually all healthy men are required by law to complete mandatory military service, typically between the ages of 18 and 28. Today the term is around 18-21 months, but in the 1990s it was considerably longer—roughly 27 to 30 months, before being gradually shortened in later years. This series is based on my own experience serving during that era. When Team Spirit wrapped up, I reported back to the reconnaissance unit and packed my gear for reassignment. A deuce-and-a-half truck picked me up off at the 18th Division Ranger training ground. After reporting for duty to the senior NCO, I was led to the barracks, where I met my mentor—a sergeant nearing discharge who worked as a liaison instructor for the U.S. military's Ranger training program. Being paired with him came with a strange kind of privilege: I was exempted from lots of the usual duties because he was required to pass on everything he knew to me before his leave—his discharge depended on it. But that privi...

Eulogy "Our Ginger. Lovely Ginger. You always brought laughter to our whole family, and now that we are sending Ginger off, my heart aches so much. If Ginger is reborn, he will surely be born as a cool person. A cool and handsome young man, getting married and living a fun life. And live happily while raising a dog just like you. I love you, our Ginger. Thank you so much. Goodbye, our Ginger!" — And I wanted to write Ginger's story by myself. But I believe my wife's story about Ginger, which she published in Brunch Korea (https://brunch.co.kr/@mamakim/36) in 2018, is a masterpiece, and I don't want to ruin it. So, I just translated it into English here. Fifteen Years with Ginger, and After I knew this would happen. It was a hardship I brought on myself for the sake of my children, even though I knew how it would end. Even though I could see clearly into a future where I'd be hurting deeply from grief, I fearlessly brought home a small ball of fur. And I gave i...

  How to Calculate Loan Payments in Excel without AI In the late 1980s, I worked as a general manager in the supply chain management department at a peripheral device distributor in Korea. Back then, no one in our department had any idea about the PMT formula, which calculates a fixed monthly loan payment. That formula was first introduced in 1985 in Excel 1.0 for Macintosh computers, so it already existed—we simply didn't know about it. Our company often had to borrow large sums of money from local banks to pay for big shipments. Looking back, knowing the PMT formula would have saved us a lot of guesswork and helped us plan our finances far more accurately. Now I teach this formula to my college students, and often they tell me how useful it is. It's not just students, either—according to Statistics Canada, *about 35.5% of Canadian homeowners currently carry a mortgage*. If more of them understood how to calculate their own monthly payments and grasped the logic behind the num...

A Soldier's Lesson in Discipline and Punctuality. In South Korea, virtually all healthy men are required by law to complete mandatory military service, typically between the ages of 18 and 28. Today the term is around 18-21 months, but in the 1990s it was considerably longer—roughly 27 to 30 months, before being gradually shortened in later years. This series is based on my own experience serving during that era. People from home were also allowed to come and visit me. Whenever my wife visited, I was granted permission to leave the base overnight. It was the very first overnight leave I had received since joining the military, and it felt almost like a dream. After spending every day confined to military life like a prisoner, the thought of stepping outside the gates, even for a short time, filled me with excitement. The next day, I was issued an overnight pass, instructing me to return by five o'clock in the afternoon. Holding that pass in my hand, I walked out of the base wit...

HTML and CSS Basic Structure Mnemonic About 26 years ago, I studied Web Development at BCIT for two full years. Believe it or not, it took me two whole years to properly understand the structure of front-end development. During that time, I found it especially difficult to remember the structure of HTML and CSS—the tags, the nesting, and how everything fit together. To help myself remember, I came up with a little phrase: "Hold Tight, My Love". It was my personal mnemonic for HTML, and it worked for me. To this day, I still use the phrase when I teach students at college.  Here is the interesting part: the course I now teach runs only seven weeks, meeting once a week. That means my students have to master an entire HTML and CSS course in just seven classes. Take a moment to think—I spent two years learning what they now have seven sessions to absorb. Naturally, my first reaction was: it's impossible. There's no way anyone can truly understand HTML and CSS, the way I o...