I think I started using T-Mobile probably from year 2012, ever since my 2-year contract with AT&T ended. I got the 2-year contract when I bought iPhone 4 at the Apple Store in fall 2010.
Note with T-Mobile, I did not sign up the data plan. And In year 2014, I started looking at prepaid data plans (with some call minutes, and text messages included), and found H2O.
I don’t recall how exactly I found Mint Mobile, probably because I realized it’s cheaper than H2O. and I decided to switch. That was probably in year 2019. I don’t have complaints with them with 3 exceptions:
1. Their coverage which is about same as T-Mobile (in some areas the coverage is not as good as AT&T or Verizon), also because T-Mobile recently bought Mint Mobile, so I don’t expect them to improve.
2. In one or two occasions, it seems their meter went wrong, because essentially my data was quickly used up as soon as I received the new pot of data for the month. Tried to chat with the customer service via the app, and it was not very helpful either.
They have launched this product called Minternational Pass. And I used it recently in my recent China trip (to be precise, Vancouver, Hong Kong and Mainland China). It’s working for the most part, the nice thing is it’s about $2 or $3 per day, which is much cheaper than the Visible Global Pass or Verizon international roaming (which is $10 a day; $5 day in Canada and Mexico). Note Mint Mobile recently included Canada roaming for free. So if we only talk about the international roaming, Mint Mobile is cheaper. But we also keep in mind the length of the international travel, as well as the country.
Apple Watch Cellular
I found the below 2 carriers when I was doing research for my Apple Watch cellular, and potentially for my 10-year standalone Apple Watch Cellular. I think I may switch myself from Mint Mobile to one of the two below, so that I can travel or go out with my watch only, from time to time.
It seems we have to buy Apple Watch from them (as opposed to Visible we can bring our own watch). They do have a nice section about kids using watch or phone (around safety etc.).
I normally don’t bet on earnings (earning report), but when I do, I usually lose. –yours truly
And $PDD was no exception. Yesterday 08/26/2024 Monday morning, before market open, I noticed the stock was free falling. Note I bought 6 shares before the earning report. And basically this confirms another thing I talked from time to time: 买中概变乞丐 (and this is my short X thread); and my X thread on $PDD.
(Update 09-06-2025) Came across this from Ladue Middle School website.
Math Acceleration Please review this document regarding Math Acceleration at LMS. If you have questions, please contact Mrs. Sarah Schwartz, Assistant Principal and liaison to the math department, at xxxxxx
(Update 05-25-2025) It appears our younger daughter mostly caught up with her peers in this school year in terms of math. She accelerated in the beginning of 2024/2025 school year – instead of taking the 5th grade regular math, she was doing both 5th and 6th grade math in this school year.
Another note: our older daughter who is entering 10th grade in the coming school year 2025/2026, will attempt the math acceleration test again over the summer. But we as parents are asked to attend a Zoom session this coming week – probably something related to the test.
(Original 08-24-2024) I am not 100% sure how much the below section is applicable to the kids in the Ladue School nowadays. Couple things though:
1) Math is mostly a universal kind of course, meaning, there is no American math, or Chinese math, or Indian math,… there is only one math: we want our kids to learn the right math, not the wrong one (wrong math is not math, it’s probably more like a fiction 🙂
2) No pain no gain. I am not saying “work harder” is the most important. But the kid is expected to do some work, not just reading through the textbook.
My own math learning journey
I talked a little on math and math acceleration on my own math learning journey on my blog post – My Zhenhai Middle School Days我在镇海中学的日子 . Here is what I said:
……Related to that, my class got a very well known counselor and he was pretty strict too. He is unconventional in some ways, for example, he was math teacher, but he rarely gives lecture. He gave us a lot of homework instead, basically we learned ourselves through doing those homework. We joked the homework is never ending. Because as soon as we finish some, he would give out new ones 🙁 I recall some kids really struggled because they are not used to the pace, the work and I am guessing due to lack of instructions. I am not saying the teacher is all bad. Maybe he was not the best teacher for some of the kids. For me I think I learned self-study in his system……
I recall I was usually one grade ahead in terms of math, for example, when I was at grade 6, I learned grade 7 contents myself,… and so on. I wasn’t the most advanced kid on math acceleration – I recall one kid in my class finished all high school math when he was at 8th grade (the last year of middle school). Again we don’t have a formal math acceleration program, but I think probably half the class (we have about 50 kids in our class, so that means 25 kids), were able to have a pace like I had. That’s the main acceleration that I did. I don’t recall do anything extra at elementary school, for high school, I may have done some on my own (don’t recall exactly), plus the thing I mentioned below. But I do recall in terms of math education, the math teacher at my 5th grader left me impression: at one time, he put up a chart that ranks all the kids’ math quizzes. I was the top student. I understand this is likely illegal here in today’s America, and I don’t know if it’s legit in China nowadays. And imagine how the kids ranked towards the bottom would feel. But at the time, it did boost my confidence on my math. Also note: I moved from my village school to this town school at the beginning of my 5th grade: so I was also a new student there trying to fit in.
At the freshman year of my high school, I was very fortunate to have a math teacher who I like, and he also thought highly of my math skills, for some reason 🙂 I think probably because I did okay in the math competition at the local level. Anyway I was invited to the training for math competition in the summer break. Basically another very good math teacher gave us (probably 4 kids) extra lesson for a week or two. That was probably the highlight of my math journey.
And the School Board documentation (power point) on Math Acceleration: so board does have some consideration on this topic. This is mostly for elementary school students.
Mainly from our two daughters, and plus other friends’ kid.
It’s relatively easier to accelerate in elementary school. Things get harder in middle school and beyond.
Prepare early: this is probably more relevant for middle school kids, as it’s harder to pass the acceleration tests. I noticed the “Advanced Geometry” test takes two days (2 hours in each of the 2 mornings).
Why Accelerate?
Or Benefits of math acceleration. Right now, the main thing I can see is the kid get to take the Calculus, and the Physics/Chemistry curriculum that requires Calculus, also some other AP courses such as AP Statistics. Most of those STEM courses have prerequisites, and if a kid takes the math in regular pace, eventually he/she won’t have much time to take the mentioned AP courses above.
But, personally I don’t think AP courses are “do or die” for kids during college applications/admissions. Note my older kid is going to be freshman in HS this fall, so take my advice for what it worth 🙂 (Update 09-03-2024): I read from another Ladue mom that she basically said similar things regarding AP courses: don’t go to the AP arms race, take some if applicable, and show that one is capable of higher-level learning during college application.
What are we hope to achieve on kids’ math
Some of the people in the Spoede Elementary School know that I was involved in the Math Fact Scholars here for quite a few years. Personally I think both the math facts and the problem solving are important. When I grew up in China, we had to memorize the multiplication table, and all that. I understand we are at different times and different country, and I came across this tweet just today – it described some of the phenomena here in the math education in the USA, unfortunately. Let me paste the image below.
Back to the topic, I think I like to see a few things on my kid’s math.
This is most important one, that is they have confidence on math and they know how to learn by themselves. If in doubt, they know how to reach out (a teacher, or a parent).
They are not afraid of the tests: the math test, the MAP test, and other tests that potentially could use math, science for example.
They know how to apply math in daily lives, be at McDonald’s or a grocery store, and college savings/budgeting too.
Please note all this is possible. Again to get to there, instead of “being dreadful of math (or substitute with any other subject”), needs the work and collaboration between, kids, teachers (school) and parents.
Last but not least, I want to leave a positive story at the end. In my recent trip to China, we go to this “bun store” quite frequently every morning, the lady who probably got education level no higher than high school, is a math or calculation wizard, she doesn’t use calculator, she can come up with a total as soon as we ordered the “bao zi”. Her mental math is way better than me: how did she get this good? Practice, practice, practice. This is also the slogan we say at Math Fact Scholars program.
Reading Time: 2minutesSource: TrungTPhan on X (I think there are some valuable lessons that’s applicable to trading / investing here)
I used Robinhood App since year 2015, when they just got started. To be honest, I was drawn to them initially by the zero commission feature.
My experience with Robinhood over the years
I think Robinhood has some features I like, in addition to the zero comission feature that it pioneered in the industry. It also helped me to gain more confidence on trading stocks, especially between 2015 and 2019. Note in the early days Robinhood is probably the only brokerage firm to offer zero commission. Over the time, other brokerage forms followed suit too.
Other features I like:
They try to make the app fun to use, so in a way lighten things a bit such as doing some sort of confetti when a trade is submitted or executed, because trading stock actually has some pressure comes with it, believe it or not;
Once a stock is sold, the money is available to trade on the same day, as long as one does not sold it again on the same day. Day trading is somewhat complex and confusing in the US stock market. They do have a 3 strike rule: basically one cannot do more than 3 day trades over a week (5 days period). I got myself into this small trouble a few times, and I wait patiently until all 3 blocks expire.
Their app’s stability improved significantly over the years. For example, in today’s morning session, many bigger traditional brokerages had encountered issues on either website or apps, but Robinhood App did fine.
Referral
Sign up for Robinhood with my link and we’ll both pick our own gift stock 🎁
Update (01-20-2025) Amid recent Robinhood’s push into the Crypto etc., and also their gimmicks to sign up people or stir the interest (the new year promotion for example), I plan to gradually getting away from them. As some of my readers may know, I am not a believer of Crypto.
I understand business is for profit, but at the same time I do believe higher standards especially on ethics side. I believe in 君子爱财，取之有道.
I gave it more thought: I think the main difference between Cisco and say other hyper scalers such as Amazon and Microsoft are: the latter found new growth driver, AWS for Amazon; Azure and many other growth drivers for Microsoft (Xbox gaming, office 365, copilot and so on). In a way Nvidia is similar: they went from Graphics card, to crypto, and now to AI.
Google (Alphabet) is a bit different in terms of its business model change. Google is very lucky in the sense it quickly became the leader in the web search, and found a business model around search and ads (google ads, adSense for publishers). Later they bought YouTube and DoubleClick, and AdMobile. They invested early in the AI too, and they opened up what they use internally as Google Cloud: this is somewhat similar to AWS, but they kind of came to the party a bit late.
Now we are talking about great business (Microsoft, Nvidia and so on), vs. so-so business (Cisco), and disastrous business (Intel).
Also, I just recall the pioneers of mobile phone and smartphone makers: Nokia, Blackberry and so on are all becoming irrelevant in the space now. Apple is the king of the smartphone as of this writing.
For tech companies: innovate,or die (or become irrelevant).
来美国将近27年，很多方面已比较适应，包括她们这里(比较坑叔）的英制。英里，英寸，英镑等，不过我在心里换算一般还可以，因为换算相对简单。就是这个华氏的温度换算比较麻烦: (F-32)x5/9, 后来碰到一个当过海军飞行员的老兵说他们的一个简化的八九不离十的算法：(F-30)/2 好像也还可以啊。我告诉我小女儿：我的脑子里还是摄氏度。她们也知道，她们的理想室温是70华氏度，我们是75度。哪天等我做了美国总统（不过我做不了，因为我不是在这里出生的），要等我的女儿做了美国总统，我让她把这英制改了，我估计英国🇬🇧现在也是用国际的米制了吧：没去过英国 it’s on my list: no pressure girls 🙂
芝加哥到香港的直达航班
在小红书上听到这个，跑到她家网站一看，果然有 ORD to HKG 航班，价格也还公道。看来美国的航空公司短期内是不会开通 ORD to PVG 的航线了。
The three-times-weekly flight, operated by the airline’s state-of-the-art Airbus A350-1000 aircraft, will depart Chicago at 4:05pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. CX807 will arrive in Hong Kong on the following day at 8:45pm. The return flight CX806 will depart Hong Kong at 12:30pm (local time) on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, arriving in Chicago at 2:25pm on the same day (complete schedule below).
I think earlier I thought about this route (also fly portion via Cathay Pacific):
I flew Cathay Pacific CX 961 from Hangzhou to Hong Kong on 07/11. I registered the frequent flyer membership at Cathay a few hours before the flight. The flight was booked via trip.com on 06/17. I tried to look up for the booking at Cathay website right before the flight, and I was not successful. I just filed the missing miles claim on their website. Let’s see.
再说说software rewrite：我在上班的地方，参加过两次rewrite （重写）的项目，现在的项目是其中一个，大概做了两年多了：中间换了不知道多少contractors，现在好像还没有看到the light at the end of the tunnels。每次此类项目，management 一开始都有非常optimistic 的expectations：但实际工作中不是这样。
Why rewrite is hard? Or the hardest?
I can think of a few reasons.
1) Management usually has very realistic (overly optimistic) expectations. I don’t know what kool aid the management drinks, but somehow there is current “sort of working system”, somehow lead them to think “what’s a big deal: we have done that”. The reality is: “sort of working” is not equal to “working as desired”. “Done that” does not mean “the original developers for the working system” are still around.
2) Politics: sometimes the company uses contractors as “scape goat”. I have seen that quite a few times. So when things are not going well, let’s just blame the contractors, let them go, and bring in new ones. And so on. This is madness too, because the company waste opportunities to learn from their mistakes, and to grow, and to make sure not to make same stupid mistakes again. But hey, admitting “we made mistakes” is just shameful, and “we never make mistakes”. “We are perfect”. Only the contractors make mistakes. This is obviously far from truth.
Also: I wrote the article below about 9 years ago:
她家上海店的布置跟美国的很像，但是她家的早餐自助餐比美国的要多很多选择。我开玩笑说早上吃得饱一点，到下午四五再吃晚饭就省了一顿饭的钱（again开个玩笑）。其实我发现到了我现在这个年纪，尤其要注意吃饭吃个七分饱，要避免桌上美食的诱惑，与肚里的馋虫作坚决的斗争。这次我带了家眷一起住酒店。好像她们也考虑了我的想法：一个房间有两份免费自助餐，再加上12岁以下小孩全免。市场价自助餐大概是68 还是 128 元。我这次就把自助餐让给了我的家眷：我去了永和大王，以前我也去过那里吃过中餐或者晚餐。这次我发现点餐完全是微信小程序：我的手机漫游有时不是很给力。(Update: June 2025) They no longer offer free breakfast for the night that is redeemed via points or annual free night award. This is not a deal breaker for me as I don’t eat a lot for breakfast nowadays. I believe there is still option for purchase, think probably around 68 yuan (about $10). I didn’t ask at the front desk, you may inquire as needed.
除了虹桥天地 The HUB 以外，那个旁边还有一个龙湖天地天街 Paradise Walk – 我喜欢那里的西贝莜面村。这两个地方都有相当多的吃饭的地方，中外的都有不少。嘉轩酒店旁边还有一个很不错的浙江台州的餐馆叫台乡缘（在甬虹路上，从嘉轩/金臣中心过马路就到）。我最近经朋友邀请，去吃过，她们哪里的海鲜和台州菜相当不错。大屏幕上的台州风土人情也是非常好。我老家是宁波，在台州北面，我们都靠海。台州菜和宁波菜有相通之处。风土人情也是：比如说摘茶叶，我小时候摘过。随着城市后的发展，以前一些农村的小吃慢慢地就消失了，还有方言，因为慢慢地大家都讲普通话了。
备注：虹桥火车站，地铁站，再加上虹桥机场，加在一起，又叫虹桥交通枢纽（地面上还有长途汽车站）。地下，路面都比较复杂。我记得我2017年第一次从火车站到旅馆，花了点时间才找到，走到。我上面写了地址。油管上有不少关于火车站的介绍，也可以看看我的一个短视频介绍。我在虹桥天地那里，有时也会给人指路。这一次也指了一次：帮助一对夫妻从虹桥天地 THE HUB的地下，搭乘 Cordis Hotel（康得思）电梯到旅馆门口，坐上车。
最后我把嘉轩酒店 Hyatt Place 在这里单独放一下。Bonus question: 你知道Hyatt 酒店的历史吗？还有 Hilton，Marriott 另外两个美国酒店巨头（第一和第二）？你知道这三个酒店主要是靠什么赚钱的吗？Hint/提示: 她们很多时候并不拥有旅馆所在的地和楼。
Storytelling is a very important skill to have, especially in a country like the USA, and at the this say of age. I think it’s important to have this skill over the history too. For example, in this article, we can see storytelling helped human beings survive, and I quote below:
Since our ancestors evolved to live in groups, they likely used storytelling to gather and communicate information about their environments and increasingly complex social relationships.
Stories served as a way to make sense of the world and its benefits and dangers.
Below are some of the scenarios in which we need to do storytelling. I orgionally wrote them in Chinese: and I will put the English translation at the end.
我能想到我们必须会讲故事，讲好故事的场合，可能并不完全，欢迎补充。
竞选：从学生会到美国大选，讲什么故事，怎么讲她们才会投我的票
销售人员推销各种各样有用没用的商品和服务，Disney 和其它电影公司， 教练或猎头找明星队员，特别厉害的管理人员，工程师，其他专业人员， 城市要说服企业留下来或搬过来上市公司要给华尔街和投资人讲故事（巴菲特也不能避免） 中层：今天老板想听什么故事 小布拉子：今天老板想听我的故事做到哪里了(status of JIRA story)
找工作，面试：behavior questions, e.g., tell me a situation in which you overcome/play a leadership role/deal with a difficult coworker etc. 我的经验是我尽量show and tell, and I prep some war stories in advance (I had to do something I am good at instead of do all the leetcode 刷题）
求爱/求婚，高科技巨无霸要讲很多故事
看看AI 或Gen AI 能取代上面的那一项😂。答案：none, null 。不过她可以帮助我们讲故事。 父母：小孩已经听厌了我的那些故事，怎么办才能让他去好好练琴，或好好做题，而不是玩游戏和看TikTok 😂 记者/老师：今天讲什么故事，怎么讲才会让观众学生感到有兴趣听下去，要避免她们换频道，看其它内容和平台
牧师布道:
网红：今天讲什么故事，怎么讲才能赚到更多流量，有了流量就会有各种生财之道
历史是会讲故事的人书写的
English translation of the Chinese content above
I can think of some occasions where we must be able to tell stories and tell them well. These may not be complete. Please feel free to add to them.
Election campaign: from student union to US election, what story to tell and how to tell it so that they will vote for me
Sales staff promote all kinds of useful and useless goods and services, Disney and other film companies, Coaches or headhunters look for star players, especially powerful managers, engineers, and other professionals, Cities want to convince companies to stay or move here, and listed companies have to tell stories to Wall Street and investors (Buffett can’t avoid it) Middle-level: What story does the boss want to hear today Little Bullazi: Today the boss wants to hear where my story is (status of JIRA story)
Job hunting, interview: behavior questions, e.g., tell me a situation in which you overcome/play a leadership role/deal with a difficult coworker etc. My experience is that I try to show and tell, and I prep some war stories in advance (I had to do something I am good at instead of doing all the leetcode brush questions)
Courting/proposing, high-tech giants have to tell a lot of stories
See which of the above items can be replaced by AI or Gen AI 😂. Answer: none, null. But she can help us tell stories. Parents: My child is tired of hearing my stories. What can I do to get him to practice piano or do homework instead of playing games and watching TikTok 😂 Reporter/Teacher: What story should I tell today and how should I tell it to make the audience and students interested in listening to it, so as to avoid them switching channels and watching other content and platforms
Pastor’s sermon:
Internet celebrity: What story should I tell today and how should I tell it to earn more traffic? With traffic, there will be various ways to make money
This article can also be read on Medium. But this blog post has all the up to date information, while the medium.com article doesn’t get regular update.
Update early June 2025, the free plan appears stopped working in my most recent CHH trip.
Update June 12, 2025: I purchased the paid plan, and it works (again I found a sever that worked). Considering switching from the below iOS app to this Mac app for my VPN needs.
Update 06-13-25: sometimes the connection will get reset and get lost. In that case, I tried to connect to another server and it usually works.
Update 06-14-2025: I felt more confident using this app. I think this is a viable option if I need to work from CHN (right now my employer doesn’t allow that).
Update 2026-06-05: same as above. I chose “HK” for the location. After I open the lid for the MacBook Pro, I connect to VPN once. After that I closed the lid when I am done the work, and it automatically reconnects when I re-open it.
iPhone, iPad
VPN – Super Unlimited Proxy 4+ (Update June 2025, it still works, I have the premium sub now, and I know not all servers work, and I have my fav server now. Email me if you like to know 🙂
Update 06-12-2025: I noticed this app doesn’t always work flawlessly. At least in the two hotels I stayed, it didn’t like the Hotel WiFi. I don’t know how the app works exactly, but during the connection process, it seems dropping the WiFi and used the cellular data, which would cause the connection issue.
Update 06-17-2025: again, this app works flawlessly when I am in the US. Now I tend to think due to its popularity, China blocks this app’s use 🙁
Update 2026-06-05: same as above.
(Original) Note: both apps have free versions, and both have add-ons that are available for purchase. I verified them on my trip and they work for the most part, iPhone app sometimes takes a few tries to get going. The Mac app works out of the box most of the time.
Cell phone international roaming
I know T-mobile used to have it. Mint Mobile has international pass too: 1 day, 3 day and 10 day. The device can go to outside world just like the VPN would. One may have to check her/his current cell phone carrier and see there is such a program or a pass.
Cell phone roaming has its own advantage, for example, we can order food or ride-share cars as those apps are usually available on the smart phone and they usually require internet connection. But in the case of China, ideally one may want to get a local phone number, as it’s needed by the meituan and didi chuxing apps.
Other use cases:
Netflix (shows from other country etc.)
Organizations sometimes block certain social media websites: this can happen in the western countries too.
Other software
Nord VPN: paid. It takes some effort to get it working in CHN. It seems all the default servers are blocked. Had to open a ticket to get alternative server names (ip address etc.), try and error, to got it working in year 2023. Retrieved a list during most recent trip too (summer 2024), haven’t tried it out as I found the two solutions above are good enough.
Default setting for Nord VPN is working when in the USA. That’s true for the free versions for two apps above too.
(Update 01/03/2025) I found this bug a while back, the issue was when my phone is on the Mobile Data network (not Wi-Fi), and when the VPN was on via Wi-Fi before the cut over, it seems Nord VPN has difficulty connect to VPN. Took me a while to understand why I lost internet connection. I am ditching this app (and software) now – not solely because of this. It’s just another annoying thing or bug for me. I noticed it didn’t work out of box on the public K-12 school’s public Wi-Fi – had to use VPN – Super Unlimited Proxy 4+ (the free version: I may consider support them later once my Nord VPN subscription expires).
(Original post July 2024) Open VPN (I set it up on my own $DGCN server), but it stopped working for me in CHN in my 2023 trip. Bought Nord VPN in that trip too. Refer to this Chinese article if you want to learn more about OpenVPN or setup your own OpenVPN server (note it still works outside CHN’s GFW).
