Elizabeth Tai

Essayist, sci-fi writer and digital gardener.

[elizabethtai]

More Malaysian Chinese are leaning towards their Chinese roots, and that includes having an education in Chinese. #Languages #blogging #essays #malaysia #southeastasia

The Last Generation of ‘Bananas’? How Malaysian Chinese Identity Is Transforming

[elizabethtai]

My weekly productivity routine is anchored by Google Tasks, Calendar, and Google Workspace tools. #Productivity #timeblocking #taskmanagement

The key to my successful weekly planning system: Time blocking with Google Calendar and Google Tasks

[elizabethtai]

Substack is convenient, but treat it as a distribution tool for your content. Your content should live on an independently owned website, which has a domain name you control and own. This way, you can secure long-term visibility and control over your digital presence on the Internet. #Blogging #Indieweb #SocialMedia #Writing #Substack

Substack writers, you need a website!

[elizabethtai]

My weekly (hopefully) compendium of links to stuff that I found interesting on the web. This week the focus is about "Being on the Internet". #blogging #Indieweb #Links #linkdump #reads #articles

Linkblog: Dwelling on the Internet

[elizabethtai]

Why the global south is grateful for Deepseek

Deepseek is pretty amazing. I made 22 API calls yesterday and I have spent….$0.005. Granted my use case is extremely simple, just some simple data work, extracting and shuffling data from a csv file to create a directory page on a website. But what would’ve taken me 2x longer copy and pasting, with lots of context switching that would’ve taxed my limited cognitive battery cells, took me only less…

Why the global south is grateful for Deepseek

[elizabethtai]

With their continued work with Activity Pub and efforts to integrate wordpress.com websites with the #Fediverse, they’ve effectively enabled me to have my own #Mastodon instance. Most Mastodonians rely on the generous support and donors of server space. Now I can turn my wp.com website into my own instance. A fantastic development!! #wordpress

[elizabethtai]

A reaction to a fascinating essay on Substack about the cultural pressure of "leaving the mother tongue" and adopting other languages for class mobility. I reflect on the dynamics of language use among Malaysian Chinese, where the shame is about not mastering more languages or being slow at learning languages. #Languages #Chinese #Mandarin #Malaysian #SoutheastAsia #LearningChinese

Of abandoning mother tongues and shame

[elizabethtai]

I'm often frustrated by the writing community's misconceptions about AI in writing. I wish more writers were more open to AI's potential in the craft and stop crucifying those who dare to say they use AI. PS: By writing openly about this on English social media, I know I'm inviting attacks (they won't bother reading my article. Their minds are made up.) Stick your head in the sand, if you must, but focus on perfecting your craft instead. That's a better use of your time. #AI #Writing #Fiction

Writing with AI isn't always generating entire novels with a prompt

[elizabethtai]

Claude is the "cool kid" of the retail AI services world. However, thanks to its snobbish attitude to some geographical locations, token limitations, and corporate ethos I ended up in the arms of Mistral. Why I use Mistral and why it honestly doesn't matter how great the model is as long as it serves your needs.

Why I use Mistral as my personal paid AI service

[elizabethtai]

Pu Songling’s "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" are more than just ghost stories. They also serve as critiques of Qing Dynasty bureaucracy. With the help of an LLM "literature professor", I explore the deeper insights of "The Haunted House", one of the stories in the 300-year-old collection. #Amreading #Books #Literature #Chinese #Culture

Reading Pu Songling's "The Haunted House"

[elizabethtai]

A quick update on what I'm up to these days.

March 2026: What I'm doing now

[elizabethtai]

I want word processors to be boring again. And other fascinating links. #link #links #linkdump #linkblog #articles #tech #writing

Linkblog March 26, 2026: On typing

[elizabethtai]

Sometimes the challenge of UX writing is not what to write, but how we write our copy. Here is a case study of how I streamlined the UX copy review process for my team. The aim was to reduce mistakes and cognitive friction in the UX writing and design process. #UXwriting #UXcopy #UIUX #UXwriter

How I conduct UX copy reviews

[elizabethtai]

What I learned in Malaysian history class

Malaysian secondary history classes have changed so much, so I am not sure what is being studied now. But during my time, we studied the history of Malaysia (of course), world history, which includes Islamic civilisations, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. We didn’t go in depth with all of them; we just learned their big highlights.The one thing I remembered about the Islamic civilisations,…

[elizabethtai]

In this Linkblog, I share Chinese culture, technology and how it impacts society. #links #linkdump #linkblog #blogging #articles #tech #AI #Chinese #Culture

Linkblog March 12, 2026: Platform blues

[elizabethtai]

A New York Times article about Coral Hart, an indie romance author that generates 200 novels using AI has gotten most of the writing community clutching their pearls. Me? I'm just tired of this cycle of unproductive outrage. #Writing #WritingCommunity #AI #LLMs #CoralHart #Writer

The Writing Community's AI Panic

[elizabethtai]

Weekly (hopefully) linkblog featuring articles and blog posts I found online. This issue is about China, tech & being Chinese. #blogging #Indieweb #Links #linkblog #linkdump

Linkblog Feb 26, 2026: The Chinese issue