Ligang Yan
Full-stack software engineer in Halifax, Canada. Twelve years across Android, React and Node.js, from a 1M-DAU e-commerce app to small tools I ship on my own. This site holds my writing, the things I'm building, and experiments that don't have a home yet.
颜力刚 · ligangyan.com
Recent writing
All →- Rebuilding my personal site on Astro and Cloudflare WorkersThe first post on the new site, on why I picked this stack and how the site is meant to grow.
- Does Canada really have no estate tax? The real gap between the two countries' death taxesCanada has no estate tax but it has deemed disposition: every unrealised gain is taxed at once on the final return, and an RRSP is included at 100%. The US has step-up in basis and a $15 million exemption. Four household scenarios with the bill worked out, plus a trap few people know about: a Canadian holding more than $60,000 of US stocks has a US estate-tax filing obligation.
- Hong Kong participating insurance, taken apart: structure, commissions, sales scripts, and how it compares to just investingThe guaranteed part is about 1%; the illustrated 6 to 7% only approaches after twenty or thirty years, and break-even usually takes 15 to 20. First-year commissions once reached 100% of first-year premium. It does not escape CRS reporting and is not a compliant way to move mainland renminbi offshore. All of that laid out, then compared with term life and an index fund.
- Importing from China to Canada, end to end: 22 steps, 9 parties, one cost checklistUsing my first small shipment of EV charging accessories from a factory in Guangdong to my home in Halifax as the example: Incoterms, what a freight forwarder actually does, CARM registration, HS codes, cUL certification, bills of lading and telex release, customs and taxes, and the trap of clearing under someone else's name.
- The Coca-Cola "Dividend Arbitrage" Is an IllusionBuy before the ex-dividend date, sell after, and pocket the dividend for free? The price drops by the dividend amount on the ex-date. The people claiming they made a thousand dollars in a few days made it on the share price — and the post is usually an ad for tokenized stock.
- Solar From First Principles: From Car-Roof Panels to Intermittent Compute as Buyer of Last ResortSolar already beats farming per square metre, and cells are already cheap. What actually stops us covering the world is deployment cost and the fact that electricity can't be boxed up and shipped like tomatoes. Breaking the cost down per square metre, then looking at one path out.
Projects & tools
All →SweetValueLab
Equity research your Claude can use. Connect it as an MCP server, then research stocks, paper-trade and review your portfolio in one conversation. Free tools include a portfolio backtester and a FIRE calculator.
US Equity Research
My own equity research, one interactive page per company: sum-of-the-parts valuations, earnings breakdowns, what you have to believe, and the risks. Starts with SpaceX.
The Debate Arena
Critical-thinking practice for kids aged 5 to 12. 25 questions with no right answer, an AI opponent that argues back, and an audience of 20 that only moves for good reasons.
Mahjong AI, from zero to playing
A learning project with a 16-chapter tutorial: write a Mahjong engine, a rule-based bot, train a network to imitate it by supervised learning, then beat it with PPO. Includes a full Riichi Mahjong engine.
System Design Notes
My system design interview notes: eight classic problems (Ticketmaster, Uber, Web Crawler, TinyURL and more) written as the questions an interviewer asks and the answers I'd give.
IELTS Notes
IELTS study notes in Chinese: speaking topics with model answers and General Training writing samples for every letter type and common Task 2 theme.
Travel
All →Places I have been. The goal is to fill in the whole map.7 of 195 countries · 48 places