glucn.com

Personal website and blog of Gary Lu, a passionate full-stack developer building innovative solutions with code. This site features technical blog posts, developer tools, interactive visualizations, and professional information.

This website serves as both a personal portfolio and a technical resource hub. The content spans software engineering topics, development tools, and interactive applications. The site is built with Next.js, and Tailwind CSS, featuring modern web development practices and responsive design.

Blog Posts

All Posts: Complete collection of technical blog posts and articles
Layoffs Are Real Data. Viral Macro Essays Are Stress Tests.: Tech layoffs and viral macro essays aren't the same thing. Here's how to tell real data from stress tests — and why that matters for your portfolio decisions.
Add Weather Info to Obsidian Daily Notes: Use Obsidian Templater and wttr.in to inject weather into your daily note with one small user function.
Running Claude and OpenCode Locally with One Command: How Ollama's new ollama launch removes proxy/config headaches and makes local-model coding tools trivial to start.
I Tried to Account for Housing Risk — and Learned Why Most People Don’t: A reflection on why trying to model housing as part of an investment portfolio often creates more anxiety than clarity, and why many people choose to keep it separate.
When Is Diversification “Enough”?: A beginner investor explores how much diversification is enough, balancing US dominance, global exposure, behavior, and long-term portfolio risk.
Building My First MCP Server: A DNS Query Tool: A quick guide to building your first MCP server in Typescript - create a DNS query tool and connect it to Claude Desktop app for real-time AI interaction.
AWS Amplify Announced IAM Role Support For SSR Applications, Finally: Discover how AWS Amplify's new IAM Compute Role enhances security for server-side rendered (SSR) applications. This guide walks you through the setup process, ensuring your SSR applications are both secure and efficient.
How to use local DeepSeek in Cursor: Integrate Cursor with a local DeepSeek model to boost productivity and reduce costs. This guide covers installing Ollama, setting up a Cloudflare tunnel, and configuring Cursor for optimal AI performance. Perfect for developers seeking AI capabilities with low cost and without external dependencies.
How to fix delv on MacOS: Encountering issues with delv on MacOS? Here is how to resolve the 'no crypto support' error by updating to the latest version.
How to install CocoaPods on Mac with Homebrew or RubyGems: The simplest way to install CocoaPods on macOS. Start with Homebrew if you just want it working, or use RubyGems with rbenv if you want CocoaPods tied to your Ruby setup.
Choosing The Right Cloud: A Deep Dive Into China's Cloud Providers: Navigating the cloud landscape in China's vast market, this post compares major providers like Alibaba Cloud and AWS, focusing on market share, compliance, and developer experience. This post offers insights to make an informed choice for anyone considering cloud services in China.
How To Embed YouTube Video In Next.js Website: This post explores embedding YouTube videos in Next.js websites, comparing the basic iframe method and the approach of using @next/third-parties, highlighting benefits and performance optimization considerations.
Mastering Key Management in DNSSEC: Unlock DNSSEC security: Best practices for key management, secure storage, and automated DNS operations to safeguard against cyber threats and enhance internet safety.
How To Integrate ChatGPT With Apple HomeKit: Integrating ChatGPT with Apple HomeKit using iOS Shortcuts for smart home device control with natural language commands, step-by-step guide provided.
How To Add Google AdSense To Hugo + PaperMod Website: Guide to integrating Google AdSense in a Hugo + PaperMod theme website.
DNSSEC Explained: DNSSEC enhances DNS security by ensuring responses are from authenticated origins, though it doesn't encrypt traffic or solve "last-mile" security issues.
How To Tune Hyperparameters with Optuna: Using Optuna for faster, more efficient hyperparameter tuning in machine learning projects, achieving top 9% in a Kaggle House Price Competition.
How To Create AWS RDS MySQL Instance Master Password With CloudFormation: Securely creating an AWS RDS MySQL instance master password using CloudFormation and Secrets Manager for enhanced security.
How To Implement “finally” block in AWS Step Functions: Implementing a "finally" block in AWS Step Functions using Catch with States.ALL for cleanup tasks, despite no explicit feature.
How To Mock DNS Server in Java: Exploring dnsjava's retry logic by creating a mock DNS server in Java, highlighting the importance of testing third-party libraries to fully understand its behaviour.
Golang: The time complexity of append(): The amortized cost of Go's append() function is O(1), but the worst-case scenario is O(N), with efficiency depending on slice size and memory allocation.
Golang: An interface holding a nil value is not nil: An interface in Go with a nil value isn't nil unless both its type and value are nil.
Lessons Learned From Refactoring Legacy Code: Refactoring legacy code involves understanding and testing beforehand, separate refactoring from other changes, considering fallbacks, and ensuring good test coverage.
How To Race Functions In Golang: This post discusses racing two functions querying data from Google Cloud Spanner and Elastic, using Golang's concurrency features, in order to enhance performance and reliability.
How To Query Data In Array Of Nested Structures: This post explains querying data within nested structures in databases like Elasticsearch, Google BigQuery, and Google Cloud SQL.
How To Mock An Interface In Golang: The post discusses solutions for mocking an interface in unit tests in Golang (Go programming language).
How To Use Javascript Library In Typescript Angular Project: The post describes how to integrate a JavaScript library into a TypeScript Angular project.
How To Decode HTTP Response In Golang: By walking through an example of changing JSON field type, this post discusses how to make such breaking change safely, and how to decode HTTP response in Golang (Go Programming Language).
Eventual Consistency In Google Cloud Datastore: Addressed Google Cloud Datastore's eventual consistency challenge by creating a mapping table, ensuring data integrity.

Tools and Applications

Developer Toolbox: Collection of useful developer tools including DNS query, epoch converter, JSON formatter, password generator, and more
Big Tech Office Locations: Interactive map visualization showing global office locations of major technology companies

About

About Me: Personal information, contact details, and professional background
Privacy Policy: Website privacy and data handling policies

Optional

GitHub Profile: Open source projects and contributions
X/Twitter: Social media presence and updates
Bluesky: Alternative social platform
Pacebits: Personal projects and portfolio work