Tech Friends, Let's Get Rid of Workplace Bullies

Work place

In the Same Room

As I sat there listening to the boss, a man in his 50s with a body-builder physique, berating and screaming at a female colleague—I froze. I didn’t know how to react. A room full of adults didn’t know how to react. My mind kept replaying the same question: “What’s happening? What’s happening?” It felt like we were all strapped to a runaway train with no hope of getting off.

This brought me back to a time long ago when I worked as line worker in a meat-packaging factory near South Boston. It was mostly immigrant kids and women working at the conveyor belt while a couple of older men were moving the pallets.

Scorpion Sting and the Chicken Story

This article is a part in the Cruel Kids, The Animals I Know and How to Neuter a Cow series.

Scorpion

I was going to write a paragraph about chickens, but to be honest, chickens have always been somewhat a boring topic to me. So let’s make it more interesting, let’s add a… scorpion!

As a child, I’ve often witnessed the applications of many folk medicines and natural remedies. Being one of the “Dennis the Menace” kids, I was frequently at the receiving ends of these treatments. Somehow, it always ended up with someone chewing a bunch of grass, peed in it and apply it over the wounds.

Personal and Business Cloud Security

Personal and Business Cloud Security

These days, it seems that businesses are finally starting to be more comfortable with the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy which allows employees to use their personal devices to access privileged corporate information.

Device manufacturers have also started to push their own flavor of cloud storage service such as Apple with iCloud, Google with Google Drive and Microsoft with SkyDrive.

Creating Mid-Autumn Festival Lantern for Mây Sơn

NOTE: Click on image above for gallery

Growing up in Việt Nam as a kid, when the lights of electricity had yet to pollute the world and the night sky was truly black, a lantern had mysterious power over my childhood.

How can it not be? Imagine sitting under a sky of a million stars listening to the songs of nature: leaves singing, cricket chirping, earth turning and even the sounds of silence in brief moments. And when that lantern shined as it swayed to the rhythm of the autumn winds, it was as if you had your own little star.

Eating Striped Bass Organs and Innards

Stripe Bass

Other than our short temper, my brother and I share little in common. Our hobbies and activities are also completely different. While I love arts and technology, he is an accountant, a true “foodie” and an avid fisherman.

Having said that, I love my brother dearly and would find any opportunity to spend time with him. Since the thought of him joining me in a brotherly hackathon is a little absurd, one of the most joyful activities we do together happens to be fishing.

Rice Paddy and Crabs in Viet Nam

I visited Viet Nam in the summer of 2008 and jotted down some memories. This was written on June 4th, 2008

Rice Paddies and Mountain

I felt the smooth and squishy earth between my toes. That was last week. Standing in a flooded rice paddy with water just above my ankles, it felt like my childhood has woken up after a long slumber. The air and cold breezes carrying the fragrance of live mud together with the biting sunrays on my face placed me in a rather poetic setting.

Perhaps rice was recently harvested here and the paddies are left nude for the dry season. Then again, I’m only guessing. But this much I know: surrounding me is a vast and seemingly infinite flat land of water-filled rice paddies shimmering with a million suns.

Hello (Learning) World

Starting a personal blog is something I have wanted to do for a very long time. However, my priority list tends to favor non-personal action items.

As a web developer, technology consultant and especially as a bootstrap startup enthusiast, it makes sense to produce work that has a fixed or potential monetary value.