Mar 18, 2023

Making internet a safer place by running Snowflake proxy

What is Snowflake?


Taiwanese F&B Brand - Snowflake (雪花栈)

Of course, this is not about the food!

The Snowflake plugin offered by TorProject is an excellent tool for making the internet a safer place. You can easily download this plugin for free from the Chrome Store.

How does it work?

Think of it as a USB stick storage device that we use in our everyday lives. 

The plugin can be plugged into any computer, much like the internet can be accessed from any place any time. If you close your browser, the plugin automatically stops and becomes "unplugged" from the internet.

On the other hand, when you open your browser, the plugin again connects your internet to the Snowflake network, making it more secure and private.

How does "plugging your internet" help others bypass censorship?

So after the Snowflake plugin connects to the Snowflake network, that means you are already participating in the Snowflake network, and you can start helping to support the fight for online freedom and accessibility around the world.

To put it simply, when you use a Snowflake proxy like many other volunteers, it enables internet users on Tor Browser to bypass censorship and conceal their identity by "randomly bouncing" through a vast network of proxies.


Have fun safeguarding the internet from censorship.

Jun 9, 2022

Step'N GameFi, earn by moving around

 Warning: There is absolutely no financial advice on this or on any other pages of this blog.

Good news!

Jogger, runner and walker, you can now earn by staying healthier!

If you have been around the GameFi space, then surely you already know this controversial project. This project offer utility token, the GST (green satoshi token) as rewards, and this is the token you need to spend in order level up/upgrade/buy equipment so your sneaker earn even more.

In the same time, GST value has been very volatile, its value has been dragged by the overall value clash around the crypto space. It went to 10USD and now drop to 0.53USD by the time of this writing. So for me, enjoying the game at lower cost/loss is better when the game item in the game is lower in price (compared to peak price on April 2022, which range around 12-18 sol).

Drop from USD5 to USD0.53



Before you start, please do your own research (DYOR), don't invest with your hard earn money which you can't risk losing. Again, the value of GST has been dropping from approx 10usd to 0.50usd, and this has pushed away many investor who joined at the peak floor price and hope for just profit instead of enjoying the game. Be informed!

How to get started?

  1. Download the app from Apple app store or google play (visit official website for download link: https://www.stepn.com/howToPlay)
  2. Get activation code from Stepn discord or get the code from your friend who has it
  3. Create a wallet and keep your private key (seed) in a safe place (if anything, you'll need this key to recover the access to your wallet)
  4. Deposit Solana into your wallet
  5. Transfer solana from wallet to your spending wallet
  6. For starter, look for a sneaker with good Efficiency and Resilience (you can ignore luck and comfort at the early stage of the game)
  7. Try start moving with the app without any owning sneaker (Test the speed you like, so you aware of which type of sneaker you should own, there are walker/jogger/runner/trainer)
  8. Buy a sneaker (If you don't exercise often, I recommend getting a "walker" to start with)
  9. Wait energy to be filled (2 max for first timer), your energy will get filled up 1/4 of your max energy every 6 hours.
  10. Once you have the energy filled, start walk/jog/run & earning!


Delving deeper in the "why"

Point 7 is important, to make a wise choice, you should consider which speed you can keep steadily for a period of your effective energy spending period. Given that you have 2 energy to spend, it gives you 10 minutes of moving time. If you have a runner type sneaker, this sneaker expect you keep maintaining the speed between 8km/h - 20km/h for 10 minute to maximise the earning.

Any speed outside of this 8-20km/h is not calculated into your earning, it means you are losing the earning as you can't maintain the speed.

Type of sneaker
  • Walker: 1 - 6 km/h
  • Jogger: 4 - 10 km/h
  • Runner: 8 - 20 km/h
  • Trainer: 1 - 20 km/h (this is best option, but it's also the most expensive type)
I'm not a runner, I seldom move at the constant speed of 8km/h, my stamina has room for improvement, I regret my purchase now. All in all, test your preferred speed first before you make your purchase decision.


For me, getting a walker in Point 8 is safest.
I walk my dog often, with that I don't move very fast and usually it falls between the 1-6km/h range. This speed is also reasonable speed for a daily random walk around the street, I won't get wrong moving within this speed range.


Apr 27, 2022

Earned 20 Myst running Mysterium node for 3.5 months

Warning: There is absolutely no financial advice on this or on any other pages of this blog.

Earned 20 Myst 

You do the math to evaluate if it is worth running the node at home. 20 Myst is approx USD6, you earned roughly 2 dollars a month. This calculation also discounted the electricity used to run the node.

It really depends on the userbase of the ecosystem, if not many users are looking to run their internet as your geolocation, you may earn really less.


Withdrawal transaction fee that's costly a little too much

The settlement fee is fixed at 20% + the blockchain fee.
So, with these fees, you are losing more than 20% of your earnings each time you withdraw.

The settlement with a 20% earnings deduction

If you earned 5 myst, your final income is roughly 4 myst. And this withdrawal is done automatically whenever the earnings reach 5 myst.

Next, you can also see the exact amount you are getting from their [Auto withdrawal: On ] button.




Honestly, I'm not a fan of the 20% settlement fees, I believe no one does like it. For node runners with low earnings already not getting much, the 20% further reduces the motivation causing us to lose interest fairly quickly. Hopefully it's something Mysterium Network would focus to improve in the near future to help and motivate the low earners.

Jan 3, 2022

Trying to earn MYST crypto with my unused bandwidth, but...

Warning: There is absolutely no financial advice on this or on any other pages of this blog.

New Updates: 

Monday, 17 January 2022


Dashboard Overview

The screen below will give you the insights about how your node is being used.
My 1.10MYST earning took me 10 days, at the time of this writing, it worth around 50cents USD.

Dashboard Overview

The earning is fairly slow, and don't forget there is a 20% fee before you can cash out (the settle button) your MYST.
20% blockchain fee

If 10MYST earned, we only get a clean 8MYST profit, but earning just 1 MYST is quite hard already, because you don't often get active session frequently.
The earning is slow, plus the 20% blockchain fee, I have the feeling not much node hoster has positive impression about this "profit".

But from a Mysterium Network dVPN consumer's point of view, this is a very cheap choice! 
Using its dVPN service for 24/7 without heavy traffic, and stay active for a non-stop year could possibly cost only 10MYST which is less than USD5

If the VPN security and stability result turns out great, we may no longer need to consider other high reputation and highly priced VPN service provider.


Sunday, 9 January 2022

After few days of waiting, my node is up and running now. I did file a report to Mysterium customer support, and this is what I received! Not instant, but at least I now acknowledged it's the surge of registration which need more time to process before my node is successfully accepted.

My suggestion: A better error message in the UI may help user to be more patient with this similar kind of issue.



Nov 18, 2021

Create a bootable USB stick with Mac to install Debian

UPDATE: Tuesday, 22 February 2022

I discovered an alternative open-source and safe tool we can use to do the same "burning" (flashing) action, no complex and scary commands code is needed to do this. Plus, this software is available on almost any platform.

It's always better and safer to download the tool directly from its official website: https://www.balena.io/etcher/