Categories
Fun Life Life Tips Shanghai Composite

Weekend thoughts 04-24-2022

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The spring finally came, or one can argue the temperature yesterday in St. Louis is like summer (above 80 Fahrenheit). I already cut grass once, and this morning I did a bit more yard work. I like yard work, to some extent. It made me to move a bit, in addition to run / walk I did from time to time. I signed up a few more races in May, btw. Such as this Jim Schoemehl 10k run for ALS (May 7 Saturday), and St. Charles Half Marathon (May 15 Sunday). I have another 5K upcoming, but I will hold it as a secret for now.

More random thoughts: yesterday evening Serenity was talking to a friend about my job, and parents job in general. Her comment is interesting: my dad does twitter and stock trading in addition to his software engineer job. I guess I need to be more serious about my day job and cut down on both tweeting and stocks.

Another slightly interesting discussion, in the car (minivan) Serenity (my 6th grader) talked to my 2nd grader about sex / gender, I don’t recall how the discussion started. But it reminded me of the Florida law, and I commented perhaps we should hold on talking too much on this topic with Sophia. How about we talk more when she is 4th grader 🙂

In Peson Events

On past Friday evening, I went to an event, which is for LEF Ladue Education Foundation fund raising (online auction website here). From April the school and many other places seem much more open in terms of large gathering (like pre-pandemic), I was able to see people in person at more events, and it’s a bit thrill. It started with a work related conference “no fluff just stuff” java conference. I am not a big social person, but I think for many people me included, seeing colleagues or old friends after a long time (more than 2 years) was a bit unreal.

Stock Market

Last week the market didn’t do well.

YouTube videos I watched recently

加拿大 移民 | 985大学毕业，移民加拿大炸薯条，剁肉，送餐……

加拿大 移民 | 47岁DIY移民加拿大，从端盘子做起，如今笑的比蜜甜

Shanghai Lockdown Week 4: FREE AT LAST???

True stories under current Shanghai COVID-19 lockdown丨43/25,000,000

2022年中国真实做电商的中产家庭，也是难上加难，还要帮小舅子找工作

Categories
Edu-and-Ladue-School Fun Technology

Any interest in the Integirls program?

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Do you want to be an “involved parent”? I guess at least, we don’t want our kids watching ASMR on youtube all day… or for that matter, watching YouTube shorts, TikTok, Instagram and doing Snapchat? And may I add roblox, adopt me, Minecraft, and Fornite 🙁

Sorry this is the only games I know my girls do these days (except Fornite?) I am not against the social media and mobile games, for that matter, I think some exposure to those are okay. I just think both myself and my kids are wasting way too much time on iPhone (me) / iPads (them), this is not too surprising considering the pandemic and personally I spent way too much time on Twitter and WeChat (think WeChat is a combination of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok and PayPal / Venmo, mainly in Chinese).

Anyway, enough Ted Talk from me. Integirls Math (math competition) is something I was working with my daughter Serenity (6th grader), math or other stem problems that’s a bit interesting. For example, since I mentioned Ted Talk here, I recall recently Serenity asked me this locker problem when I was driving. This is a bit intimidating problem at first look. But it was similar to some of the problems that I worked when I was learning computer programming, when I was in middle school (or high school? Sorry I forgot the exact timing), and it’s similar to some of the coding problem that I asked candidates during technical interview in recent years. Full disclosure: I am a software engineer with about 20 years of software development experience.

I understand Math sounds hard or may not be interesting to some

As parents I encourage my daughter to learn more math, more STEM, and more coding if possible. But at the same time, I do understand in our Ladue school, there are many talented kids and sometimes it could be a bit intimidating to participating the math club, the science club etc. This is probably applicable to my daughter (her introvert personality), as well as being a girl. I recall at the beginning of this school year, she was invited to join a team for math competition, and she does not want to do it. The reason: “I don’t like math“. Personally I think she probably does not like competition. I am okay with that. But I don’t want to leave her an impression that “my math is not that good”, or something along those lines. I think looking purely from the grade level, her math is very good.

What I like to see

No, I don’t expect her to solve the locker riddle in the TedEdu. Or some of the “math / algorithm” problems I collected in this file (some day I will organize it better 🙂 But I want to work with her, and show her some of problems in the InteGirls is doable at her level. “Empowering girls in STEM” is my goal, to be more specific, my selfish goal is empower my daughter in STEM.

How I plan to do it

Again I will work with Serenity, and potentially some of her friends. Here is the pdf file location for one set of sample problems (how I get here: I click on “Winter 2021 Math Contest” from the home page, from there, I scroll down, click on the Solutions – MS folder, it leads me to the google drive folder that has the PDF problem (and solution). I will try to work on a few problems (say 5) in 30 mins to 45 mins session. And ideally I want to make sure the kids know how to approach a problem. Teaching is not my strength, but I feel comfortable with English and middle school math (numbers, algebra, geometry etc.).

Are you going to form a team and compete?

I don’t know. But again my goal is first to practice then we can mutually decide if it’s something we can do. Again from the web page, score card, I saw some familiar names. I am not keen on winning a certain place, but if the girls are getting more confident, even if they only solve one problem (on their own), I will be happy 🙂

PS: yesterday I came across a video which is about basic finance and investing, and (at about 45 minutes mark) it has two interesting math (and psychological) problems too. Now I think about it, when I was in China, attending Zhenhai Middle School (its equivalent to both middle school and high school here in the US), and from time to time, I met some really good teachers and had some inspiring or interesting discussions or problems. Just think math teacher like Po Shen Loh here in the USA (CMU). If you know Chinese, I think 李永乐老师 is the best on math, science, life and literature (yes I said it he is good on everything 🙂 And Po Shen Loh (CMU math professor) is pretty close on that too.

(Update 03-24-2022) I just noticed the Spring 2022 contest is on: April 16 Saturday. Here is the link. Noticed this too: We will also be hosting a game and math review session on Wednesday, April 13th at 8 PM CT. You will have the opportunity to play fun games with your team, review math concepts for the contest, and meet others all over the country! Sign up for the session by registering for the contest.

Appendix: I collected some interesting math problems at this GitHub repo. I started collecting during the pandemic shutdown and that’s the reason it’s in that repo.

Categories
401k and Personal Finance Fun Investing Life Tips Stocks

Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting 2022

Reading Time: < 1 minute

PDFs

Genenal info; Omaha visitor guide

Hotel (below is copied from the general info PDF above)

TRAVEL & HOTEL ASSISTANCE
If you need assistance in arranging lodging, we recommend contacting Travelink, American Express:
Travelink, American Express
Hotline: (866) 301-3011
(615) 277-5179 (Outside the U.S.)
Email: to teampearl@travelink.com


Hotels fill up fast, especially in the downtown area. There are many options outside of the downtown area that offer more competitive rates and conditions. Berkshire provides shuttles to many of these
locations and they might serve as a nice option to the higher priced downtown hotels.


VISIT OMAHA – Find hotels and view rates

Health info; note the Clear app and website (for health / vaccination pass)

Please note proxy material varies by broker: e.g., TD Ameritrade website, it’s under “My Account” => “History and Statements” => “Shareholder Library”, this is the direct link just in case. If you have multiple accounts with TD Ameritrade, please make sure you select the account that has $BRK.A or $BRK.B . Vanguard sends an email, and I have’t tried, but I believe if click on it. It will lead me to the proxy materials after I log into Vanguard website. This leads to the meeting credentials.

Meeting credentials: one shareholder can request at least 4 meeting credentials. And it can only be obtained by following the instructions laid out in the ami.pdf file (again it’s bundled in the proxy material above), and get it in mail.

Last but not the least, investinyourself5k

PS: I made the trip and wrote this blog post.

Categories
Life Tips Technology

Math in Focus, Singapore Math Textbook

Reading Time: 2 minutes

(Update 12-04-022) Today a friend told me about another book, prealgebra, which is roughly about a 7th or 8th-grade math textbook in the USA. My daughter (7th grade) is doing the exercises on Afficient (this is a bit like the online version of the good old Kumon).

(Original) In my daughters school, we started this math curriculum about 5, or 6 years ago. One thing I noticed in the US, the kids usually don’t have paper textbooks that they can bring home. My impression is the school usually provide the books when kids are in school, during the class. I also think each teacher can do it in a different way.

For the Math in Focus (a variant of Singapore Math) though, the textbook is available online. Here is the link to get it (this is the Clever portal, note one needs to be in Ladue School and has the right login information in order to access). Once one logs into the Clever portal, go to “think central”, and it has the links to the math textbooks (or student book, exercise book). There is .epub format textbook to download too. Note we have not really taken advantage of the ebook yet. But it’s probably a good idea to know where the textbook is, especially when we try to explain the bar model to the kiddos 🙂

Btw, please note Clever is a single sign on platform in which we can see other apps in addition to thinkcentral. For example, I saw the “Big Ideas Math” there too, which is used by my 6th grader. I am guessing other school districts (or other schools) may use the Clever platform too.

We used to find a place that the old textbook is online. It seems it’s no longer available. For big ideas math, I did see an online book (free, no need for login), for example this is grade 6 book (from a school link here).

Last but not least, we also bought the “big ideas math” (common core) textbook for my older daughter the 6th grader as well. We asked around and bought it online: it’s a bit unusual for book sellers as they usually work with schools (wholesale as opposed to retail). I believe Amazon has math in focus textbook too.

Categories
Life

Weekend review 03-05-2022

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I wrote this review a few days late, due to a few factors. One is the war in Ukraine which get many people’s attention including mine. I know there is a lot of tension on WeChat as well (especially the WeChat shorts for the lack of good word, basically its the WeChat’s answer to TikTok, or YouTube shorts). The sanction on Russia is quite swift (no pun intended, I do understand the SWIFT international money remittance / messaging system has shut Russian banks). And yesterday the last few US holdouts Coca Cola, McDonalds’s and Starbucks all decided to pause operation in Russia. Most US companies did offer some compensation for local Russian workers. The sanction reminded me in 2008 there was an incident on Olympics torch relay in Paris, France, and there was a short boycott against French. I also wrote two short blog posts on the topic (1 and 2).

My view on boycott and sanctions has changed since then (14 years ago), especially after the pandemic last 2 years, and after I saw the horrific images of the children’s (maternity) hospital in Mariupol was bombed by the Russians (video by cnn) today. I understand the sanctions will impact the lives and jobs of many ordinary people. But this is also a price that’s needed when we are trying to achieve greater good, in this case stop Russian invasion and the loss of lives of innocent civilians.

Saturday 03/05 was also my old daughter’s 12th birthday.

Categories
gadgets Life Tips

Dental work

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Dentist is usually not the person people like to see. But at the same time, dental health is both important aspect of personal health, as well as important perception (impression) in the professional world. Since my background and bad habit (grow up in China, and never truly serious about dental health when I was young), it’s an issue that I tried to get away but at the same time I could not. So long story short, I was seeing a dental periodontist at the recommendation of my general dentist. After consultation, and I did the scaling (to clean up plaques between gum and the teeth), and they recommended some newer tools and suggest I do daily clean better. Here are some of new gadgets I just had or bought.

Oral-B iO Series 9 Electric Toothbrush (link is Amazon Smile link).

GUM Proxabrush Go-Betweens Interdental Brushes, Wide

GUM – 872FC6 Proxabrush Go-Betweens Interdental Brushes, Tight

and better floss Gum Butlerweave floss

I am also trying to do a better job each day after eating. And I only did this for 2 weeks, and I can say I feel better.

Categories
Edu-and-Ladue-School Featured Fun Life Life Tips Saint Louis

Summer Camps in Saint Louis metro area

Reading Time: 9 minutes

(Update 01-17-2025) Sanborn Western Camps: this is “An OUTSTANDING summer camp in Colorado”. The price is not cheap, but personally I think it’s probably worth to consider if the kid is ready, and the family can afford. There are some other cheaper options such as Boy Scouts per a mom I know.

(Update 06-13-2024) I gave summer camps more thoughts. I think for different families: the need for summer camps are also different. For example, doctors, nurses, restaurant workers, and some other jobs that parents or guardians need to be in office and usually have a 8 or 9 hours working day. If we add commute time, it means those families who need probably 9 to 10 hours of child care (younger or little kids). In those cases, the families likely need before and after care. Not all summer camps do that. If I can categorize camps, I think there are two types: one with the need I just mentioned above, another one is more like “give parents a few hours break, also give kids a few hours of camp / play time”.

Also, for me personally, I am at a stage of my career that I can work from home, and also I can be quite flexible. In that case, I will choose the later camps or camps without before/after care.

(Update 04-18-2024) Ms Donna Matthews, Ladue School District Gifted Specialist, shared this list (google spreadsheet) for summer camps that are suitable for middle school and high school kids.

(Update 12-05-2023) from LCC FB group I came across this Camp ThunderBird at Minnesota. It seems lots of outdoor fun. Seems like a good option for sleep away camps, for the families/kids who want to do sleep away camps (also see Sleep Away Camps (added 05-08-2023) below). I also vaguely recall there is a thunderbird camp in Arizona. I could mixed it up with the Thunder bird school in AZ though.

I know I know, when my older daughter was doing the sleep away camp at Cub Creek in summer 2021, I was refreshing their photos and emails website every 5 minutes in the 1st few days 🙂

(Update 07-01-2023) Came across this one at Webster U. But I could not find it at their website. It seems Webster U has quite a few camps for middle school and above age kids.

(Update May 2023) Added more sleep away outdoor summer camps. Scroll down or search for “sleep away” on this blog post. Also Creve Coeur Racquet Club.

(Update Spring 2023) Some minor edits including adding the FB link for the D & A basketball camp. Added Master Qi Martial Arts school (at the end of this post, good thing takes time and needs patience 🙂

Spring break camps: the J (or JCC), Olivette, and McCormack basketball camp.

Two horse riding camps: Kennedy Farms and The Stables at Lake St Louis. And one cheerleading camp.

(Original Spring 2022) I wrote a piece on summer camp choices a while ago, to be precise, 5 years ago. My kids are growing older and they have attended more summer camps in the past 5 years. Below are some of the camps they attended and are planning to attend this summer, in alphabetical order. Also since a few years ago the Missouri legislature passed a law that pushed back the fall public school opening by about 10 to 14 days, and that makes the summer camp a bit more important for the kids and working parents. Private school were not impacted. I think a general rule of thumb for summer is: take some family vacation if the work schedule allows, spend a few days or weeks at home (if parents work from home); for younger kids, it’s important to put them in a routine, provide some fun activities as well as get off the screen and games when possible.

All American Gymnastics and Super Ninja: this is a popular place for some of the Spoede, Creve Coeur and Olivette kids. They do gymnastics, games (hide and seek), arts and craft (tie dye shirt etc.), and water (field) day. The kids need to bring own lunch. 9 am to 3 pm. Pick up along the car pool line. (Update 01-08-2024: they usually do promotions on early Jan) 🌞Summer Camp Registration Is Open to ALL! | Save $100 until 1/14!🌞

Andrews Academy: our go to camp before pandemic, especially for our old kid who is 6th grader now. She used to go to the neighboring Hope Montessori when she was pre-schooler. They have fantastic activities, food, and field trips. They also do one gathering / open house, with food for parents (picnic, food from Kenricks) for parents and siblings (before pandemic). There are activities after dinner too. Last but not least, before pandemic we had friends come from China did summer camp at Andrew’s academy too. They had good experience there (I recall the kids were about Serenity’s age now about 11 years old).

Cub Creek Science Camp: this is a sleep away animal science camp in Rolla, Missouri. (from FB Ladue community or Ladue parents community group: this camp is popular among Ladue kids. Note the cost is about $1100 for a week 🙂 We signed up our old daughter for one week this summer. Update: she was very happy with the camp. She is going there for a week this summer too.

JCC: they have different tracks too. They usually do swim daily. My older daughter went there the summer before her kindergarten year. They drop off and pick up at the back of JCC, by the pavilion next to soccer field. (Update summer 2023) My younger daughter did 2 weekly sessions there: she made a friend in the 1st week, and later she came back for another week so that they two can be together.

Kids Camp Ladue (KCL)*: lots of kids in the ladue school district and neighboring area. Mr. Long, Ladue Middle School science teacher has been doing this (mostly as a community service for working parents) for many years. Btw, I saw a familiar face on the website 🙂

Ladue Camp Legacy: for the older kids who are entering grades 6 through 9 in the fall.

Maryville U robotics program: signed up my two girls for summer 2022 (one week each). The camp is two weeks long, btw. My girls like to do one week, which is okay. Btw, the school campus map here. It looks like the checkin is at Auditorium. I am hoping to write a post on Arduino soon. Personally I think it’s interesting. Note: parents for the girls, you may notice there are usually more boys than girls as this is STEM arena. Please don’t get discouraged. Send your daughter over to explore, and they usually love the activities there, and those enhanced their confidence on STEM as well. So win-win 🙂 I am speaking from my own younger daughter’s experience, she felt more comfortable with the MIT Scratch game at school after doing this at Maryville last summer.

MICDs Summer Camp*: it’s not cheaper compared to Andrews Academy (the after hour care cost extra money). But MICDs has good facilities including the fairly new indoor swimming pool. They usually have a play (a show) for parents come to watch.

Olivette: usually held at Olivette Community Center. It’s popular among the kids in Olivette and Creve Coeur (did you know some people pronounced it like Creamed Corn 🙂 || Btw, heard Webster Groves has some camps such as fire safety, soccer etc. Sounds similar to Olivette summer camp. Our younger daughter attended one week of Camp O this year (year 2022).

Also, some specialized camps. Bobby McCormack basketball camp.

SPICE Chess Camp at Webster U: my older daughter Serenity did a week in summer 2018. I believe she participated the “girls only” session.

St. Louis Chinese Language School: 圣路易中文学校 2023 Summer Camp During pandemic Serenity attended a few classes (math came to mind, Zoom only). They have in person culture and martial arts camp this summer (maybe more are coming).

Some Ladue school specific camps or camps led by Ladue School Teachers

there are also D&A basketball camp (Dockery & Anderson, they are Ladue PE teachers and basketball coaches) , as well as Jessica Mitchell’s Spanish camp (Ms Mitchell is Spanish teacher at Spoede elementary).

Spoede teachers / coaches Dolan and Williams have a PE and STEM Math camp too. My old daughter did Dolan / Williams camp before pandemic (once), and my younger one did Spanish camp (twice). (Update 04-06-2023 new for summer 2023), Dolan and Williams’ camp is back, here is the peachjar flyer.

(04-19-2023 added Hadfield Enrichment Camp, as a friend asked about the writing enrichment.) This is the flyer.

Cross Country: saw 2 familiar faces right there, Coach Strayhorn is Ladue Middle School math teacher and Ladue High School girls cross country coach. He has been doing the camp for a while too. I signed up Serenity for session 2 this summer (2022). Interesting question on the google form: on scale 1 to 5, 1 means “my parents make me do it”, 5 means “I love running”. I thought in America, we don’t force kids do things they don’t like. LOL. Our old daughter did this camp in summer 2022.

Ladue School District Summer Enrichment Programs (July 6-30, 2021) An invitation and details will be shared with eligible families.(copied from Ladue Schools e-Connect Newsletter — April 30, 2021). Note some of the program are invitations only.

Ladue Camp Legacy (new in Summer 2022, and it’s there for 2023 as well, note this is a fee based program, and open to all.

(04-12-2023) Today I learned there are also ESL (English as Second Language) and Ladue LEAP program (this one is for selected incoming kindergarten kids).

(We have not done the below camps) There are other Ladue teachers led specialized camps: reading, baseball etc. Those are usually communicated via peach jar (email). Contact me if you like to get some more information.

Below are some of the camps in the area that I am aware of, or we think we may attend.

Community school summer camp: I learned they have a summer camp when our Spoede teachers (coaches) used their campus (facilities) once for summer PE / Math (STEAM) camp. Of course some of people may know CS (community school) is a feeder school for MICDs and John Burrough school (JBS)

Creve Coeur Tennis-Camps-and-Lessons: please check with the city of Creve Coeur, the Parks and Recreation dept.

Creve Coeur Racquet Club: “We are going to start offering Day time (tennis) clinics on Tuesday and Thursdays starting May 30th from 1:30-2:30 for orange and green ball kids. You register by the day. A minimum of 3 kids must register for the clinic to go for that day. Registration is open online. If you have difficulties registering online, please email the proshop at proshop@ccrctennis.com. Please let me know if you have any questions. -Toni”

Forest Lake Tennis Club: Summer Junior Camp

GRC: gifted resources council summer academies. This is open to everyone. Unlike the gift programs in many schools that require a test. They have activities (learning labs) during regular school year too, it’s being held at Wydown Middle School (clayton), on Saturdays. Before pandemic, I have been to their “Creative Convention” and my older daughter also attended the “equation competition”.

Camp Invention: saw it from school communication, I don’t have any knowledge about. If you have any feedback or comments, please email to minjie.xu@gmail.com. Thank you.

Highland Golf & Tennis Youth Camps: at forest park. This seems to be a popular place for many families. Note on some summer afternoons, St. Louis could be really hot and I assume they will put kids in indoor facility with AC (as playing outside could be dangerous).

John Burroughs summer program

Laumeier Sculpture Park art camp:

Missouri Fine Arts Academy: this is actually in Springfield, MO, the Missouri State U campus. Note invitation only: it’s a selected program. The kids can apply and the camp will decide who are chosen. || I came across it from FB: “A total of six Rockwood School District students – 5 kids’ names (Eureka High) and 1 kid name (Rockwood Summit High) – were chosen to participate in the Missouri Fine Arts Academy this summer! The Academy, which runs June 4-17 on the campus of Missouri State University in Springfield, is a two-week summer residential program for highly motivated student artists in visual arts, theatre, dance, creative writing and music. The Academy offers an intensive schedule of classes in interdisciplinary and discipline-specific arts and a wide range of co-curricular activities. Congratulations to these outstanding student artists!”

St Louis Academy of Dance (SLAD) summer program: our daughters go there during regular school year. Typically they have quite a few Spoede/OB/Ladue kids.

SIUE (Edwardsville, IL): my old daughter’s percussion teacher at LMS send us the information on percussion institute.

More Sleep Away or Outdoor Camps (added 05-08-2023)

I am aware of a few, and I saw friends sent kids there. My kid so far only went to the Cub Creek Animal Science camp I mentioned above.

Camp Manitowa: 12770 North Benton Rd., Benton, IL 62812

JCC Camp Sabra: this is in the lake of Ozarks.

YMCA Camp Lakewood: 13528 State Hwy AA, Potosi, MO, 63664

Those looks quite fun both in terms of outdoor actives, as well as let the kids have some independence (a necessary training, so that we know when we send them away for college, they would have some experience on their own). Also I did notice the price is more steep than a normal summer camp: consider the room and board. It’s a good experience for the kids though (both being away from parents, bonding with new friends, at a cabin, outdoor environment, doing new activities).

St Louis Modern Chinese school: check back for more info.

SLU Summer Camp: I just heard about it. One friend recommend the swim camp, another the cooking camp. It sound like something I can send my 2 girls next summer.

UMSL bridge program: saw a parent sending kids there (FB friend)

Webster U middle school challenge (assume a bit similar to wash u program below): saw another parent sending kids there (from Twitter)

wustl summer camp for middle school kids: link here. We were thinking about it, the cost is $780 for a week (wustl employee / family has 10% discount). Noticed the 6th grade is full now. We won’t go this year due to a conflict. Personally I feel 9 am to 5 pm is too much for the kids. For that matter, I feel 9 to 5 is overrated for grownups too (which is off topic, I know). Also noticed they have need based scholarship, too.

St Louis Master Qi Kungfu School : 麒师傅 (Master Qi) has opened the martial arts school in the Olivette/Ladue area for a while. He has after school program for the kids, and summer program as well.

========

*: means the older kids (incoming 7th graders and above for KCL, and high school for MICDs camp) will have opportunity to be a counselor, think that as an leadership training opportunity.

No longer actively maintained posts on summer camps

03-10-2017 : Summer Camp Recommendations

04-14-2014 : Kids Summer Camp In St. Louis Area

Categories
Business Career Life Life Tips

Weekend thoughts end with 02-05-2022

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I bumped into a youtube talk on Lin Biao (who was the No. 2 between 1966 and 1971, at least figuatively, behind Mao Ze’dong in PRC. See wiki: this English wiki has information regarding his death aka the 9.13 incident as well). The talk was given by Professor Gao Hua (who passed away about 10 years ago at a fairly young age), in Mandarin Chinese. It was an interesting talk to say the least.

Along those lines, I also bump into an interesting person who was dragged into the infamous 9.13 incident (wiki Chinese), and his name is 李伟信. And here is his brief intro or story. Sorry this is again in Chinese.

My point here is “it’s never too old to learn”. I understand this is more or less a cliche. And the world famous investor said something along similar lines too, and btw he is a learning machine per his sidekick Charlie Munger. Back to Mr. Li, he was born in 1934, and he was about 37 in 1971. Almost died from the 9.13 incident. Was put in prison for 15 years. Started to learn architecture in prison (he may have some artistic training, aka drawing when he was young). And later on he became an important in the architecture world. Here is some information re: him at Zhihu (more or less like China’s wiki or quora).

李伟信，九十年代中期加入贝聿铭设计事务所，主管上海办事处，成为华裔建筑大师贝聿铭的得力助手。李伟信在全国各地设计了不少项目，还多次到上海的知名高校讲课。也算是中国建筑行业的大牛了。

所以说，奋斗在任何时候都来得及，改行在任何年龄都不算晚。你条件再差，也不会比一个年过半百的老头子差吧。

Above is from Zhihu (please see the link above)

PS: I was born on the year in which Li Biao 9.13 incident happened (1971). I remember my mom told me she was called to a meeting on that topic when my elder brother was about 2 years old. At that time, I have 2 old brothers, they were 2 and 4 years old.

I do remember quite vividly when chairman Mao died (1976), and that’s the first time I heard someone died, and was 5 years old. In my hometown tradition, the new born is 1 year old, so I was 6 in Ningbo tradition. My main memory is the sad music in the broadcast system (wired to every home, we probably had electricity from year 1973 or 74 in our village). And many people are making the white paper flower, as well as the black elbow clip (both symbols for memorize someone recently died). For a little kid like me, it was quite significant event. Remember that year we also had the Tangshan earthquake, and I do recall we spent a night in the yard instead of the house, just on the safe side.

Categories
Software development Technology

High profile high impact outages

Reading Time: < 1 minute

High profile or high impact outage or incidents are just a way of the life in modern internet, or public cloud. The key is to recover quickly from the incident, and learn from those incidents: post mortem analysis, or in some places they do root cause analysis or RCA, and in my personal opinion, RCA is usually useless exercise, both due to the political nature of scapegoating in large orgs, as well as there are usually some unique breakpoints in an incident.

FB

https://blog.cloudflare.com/october-2021-facebook-outage/ (written by Cloudflare, good)

Update about the October 4th outage

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/05/facebook-outage-what-went-wrong-and-why-did-it-take-so-long-to-fix

Roblox

Below is written by Roblox, and it’s good.

https://blog.roblox.com/2022/01/roblox-return-to-service-10-28-10-31-2021/

AWS

https://www.thousandeyes.com/blog/aws-outage-analysis-december-15-2021

https://aws.amazon.com/message/12721/

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Weekly thought 01-22-2022

Reading Time: < 1 minute

I listened to or watched a few interesting youtube video and or twitter space recently. The most significant one is the “storytelling”, I believe this is probably as important as “compounding effect” in investing and life time learning.

Below is the youtube video, how to speak, by Prof Patrick Winston of MIT

Twitter Space (how to tell stories): by Justin Garrison and some others (this reminds me need to write a few war stories when I was working for the credit card company as SRE, biz ops or production support). || Justin also suggested this book: Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling

This is also in line with Warren Buffett’s emphasis on “public speaking” and I believe he was quite shy when he was young, and he signed up the Dale Carnegie course to improve his public speaking skills: the rest is the history.

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Second topic I am interested, somewhat related to the story telling, is transitioning and level up in the IT / Software space. This is the twitter space: benefits of dating jobs in Tech. I understand the title maybe a bit hard to understand, but I think the content is good. I did some of that in the past, notably in year 2013, 2014, and 2015. Also did some of that (looking internally) when I was with the credit card co. between 2016 and 2018.

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Last but not least, I have two good newsletter to share. This English one by Juston Garrison (same Justin as above). There is a subscribe (weekly email option which I recommend.)

科技爱好者周刊 by ruanyf : github; available at WeChat too. Note for WeChat this is just one weekly magazine, I think you may consider subscribe it via WeChat.