Notes

Remove Windows’s Invisible US-International Keyboard Layout

• Notes

On Windows 10 and Windows 11, sometimes “United States-International” keyboard layout will appear in Window’s keyboard layout options. This keyboard layout is not what you normally want since most keyboard uses the normal US keyboard layout and not the US-International layout.

Keyboard layout list from taskbar showing English (United States) languagewith United States-International keyboard layout

There’s something strange going on. I do not have any memory of adding it. When you check the keyboard settings in Time & Language > Language & Region > English (United States) > Language options, you won’t see it listed in the keyboard list. This seems like a Windows bug that happened to some users since Windows 10 era.

Windows 11’s Language & Region settings

In English (United States) settings, only US QWERTY keyboard layout is enabled

Apparently, the workaround for this is to add the keyboard layout “United States-International” from “Add a keyboard”.

Find “United States-International” in “Add a keyboard”
After “United States-International” is added, you can remove it.

After this, “United States-International” will show up in the keyboard list. Then, you can find the option to remove it. After you removed it, it will disappear from the Keyboard layout list.

Keyboard layout list from taskbar no longer showing United States-International keyboard layout

However, this is not permanent. Seems like after some time, perhaps after some Windows Update, it will appear again in the list. However, when it happen again, one can re-apply the same trick again. Let’s hope that it will be fixed in future Windows versions.

Reference:

Stolen Focus on Phone Apps

• Books

Recently I finished a book called Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention – and How to Think Deeply Again. With it, I realized that a lof of our time spent on screen are designed to be distracted away by something else and it’s really hard to focus on 1 stuff at a time. At any moment, if you don’t take effort, you will be swarmed by notifications, badges, cravings for rewards, fear of missing out, and many more tricks. The author postulates that this is what makes us, collectively, have lower focus than what we used to have in the past, i.e. focus being stolen away from us.

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Setting Up Git SSH Key on Windows

• Notes

I recently bought a new laptop and went through the hassle of setting up Git SSH key again. There are many guides somewhere on the Internet but it’s all over different places and they tell you to do different things with different outcomes. Also, the guide from GitHub is less than ideal as it requires using “Git Bash” which I do not like. So I’m writing things down for my future reference.

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Been Rusting in a Ruble

• Notes

In the past 3 years, I’ve been learning Rust in Decembers for Advent of Code, and each time, I learned something new.

In the most recent Advent of Code (2019), I did not finish all the challenges, but I enjoyed it a lot! My early decision to modularize some repetitive function really paid off in the later puzzles.

The most important concept of Rust language is borrowing. After things have been borrowed, it must be returned. As simple as this concept is, there may be lots of times one get frustrated by the compile errors of the Rust compiler. Oh, Rust compiler is so strict that Rust beginners will be very relieved if their codes compiles!

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On Randomness

• Notes

I believe that randomness is the core of the universe.

Disclaimer: I’m not an expert on the topic. This is personal thought after watching some YouTube videos and reading some books about the origin of universe.

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