stlplaceEngineering Intern – Shape the Streets of Kirkwood! (college)
Teen: Shaw Institute for Field Training, SIFT
Missouri Botanical Garden has other internship opportunities as well.
I bumped into Angus Cheng accidentally the other day, on YT – I make $40K/month with this one website
And I had to admit, I love read his dev stories or technical deep dives. Here is one on X. And here is his profile on X.
I think I would share some of my dev stories from now on too – probably via YT (as I am not a big fan of X platform, mainly because I don’t like its owner 🙂
After I changed the battery (2 AA batteries) it seems it got stuck in the “starting soon” and I did a google Emerson thermostat starting soon reset
It eventually restarted after I flip the power switch (downstairs) and reset the controllers (the thermostat) couple times.
References:
Moved this WordPress website (again)
SaaS and SaaS stocks apocalypse
Thinking somewhat more bullet proof idea in this space is Constellation Software Inc., which is a Canada based software conglomerate (TSE:CSU; OTCMKTS:CNSWF). And I looked at both Robinhood and Schwab, it appears the former doen’t have it, the latter one has to pay $6.95 to buy the Over the counter market stocks. I don’t think $7 fee should be a deal breaker if one is truly believer of the company and the stock, though. Also, refer to this YT video Broken Compounder or Rare Sale? Constellation Software Stock Explained by Drew Cohen. And his stock researches here.
From software to real estate, U.S. sectors under the grip of AI scare trade | Reuters – (this is a quote) AI-focused logistics firm Algorhythm Holdings (RIME.O), which previously sold karaoke machines, said its SemiCab unit boosted customers’ freight volumes by 300% to 400% “without a corresponding increase in operational headcount”.
The news triggered a rout in stocks such as Landstar System (LSTR.O), opens new tab and C.H. Robinson (CHRW.O), opens new tab. The Dow Jones Transportation Average (.DJT), opens new tab fell 4.4%.
Jefferies analysts, however, said the reaction was disconnected from fundamentals. “Proprietary freight data and physical networks remain durable moats,” they said.
The company seems problematic for me, to say the least, looking at its stock price here. And here is its linkedIn profile (Algorhythm Holdings Inc. and SemiCab).
Anxiety of AI among white collar workers and parents, high school and college kids
Two sad incidents
I came across this news today: Man who fatally shot woman in Starbucks drive-thru robbed someone in different drive-thru days earlier, police say NY Post article.
And it reminds me of another incident I read about recently. ‘Was just like a war’: Rideshare driver gunned down in Ferguson was unintended target – As a former Uber driver, I felt incredible sad… I have been to Ferguson a few times in my short Uber driving tenure (10/2024 to 09/2025).
I moved the host of this WordPress website again. It’s on a smaller Droplet. There was some AI bot spike recently (since mid-Dec), and also the previous droplet has been there about 10 years ago. It’s time for a cleanup etc.
More details are forthcoming: as practical as possible, obviously.
Note this also marks my 20 years of blogging.
I wrote this one too fast – Some kids not that interested in learning to drive nowadays 🙂 This seems to be confirmed by this Yahoo article – Gen Z is slamming the brakes on getting a driver’s license.
话音未落，I started to teach my old kid to drive. We are already on the road, btw 🙂
We practiced on the parking lot 1st, but she got a bit bored of the parking lot, so last 2 days (I started writing this post in late Dec, FYI) I have taken her to quiet neighborhood, and she was practicing on the road. Note she is new on the road. And understandably sometimes she would get nervous if another car come by both in the front (opposing traffic), or behind. Today she almost panicked at a four way stop sign 🙂 But we survived.
12-31-2025 Today we got honked by people the 1st time, at the Hilltop neighborhood.
1-1-2025 We finally hit the real road, I mean the road with traffic lights (not just Stop sign). We drove at the Lackland near Westport, also from the Walgreens St. Ann (St. Charles rock road and Ashby) to home. Many years ago (confirmed by my wife) I taught her driving, at the industrial compound at Westport.
02-07-2026 We continued practicing on the real road, mostly on weekends.
02-10-2026 S8 drove from the St. Louis Premium Outlet Mall to home, via local obviously. She was fairly proud that she made smooth left turn from Chesterfield parkway to Olive. And re: Olive Road, she said she may miss it when she goes off to college. Other interesting facts she told me is an old story between her mom and her as her mom drove the similar route quite a few years ago – they were going to the mall as well.
Amother longer road (route) we drove recently: Olive west (from Warson), Clarkson, Manchester, and West Country Mall. She got honked when near the west county mall. There were quite a few cars because it was weekend.
Side note – Road Rage
Road rage (lu nu) is prevalent in the USA. Here in STL it’s not extremely bad, but from time to time you will see those impatient drivers or impatient people in general. Recently as I started teaching my older kid to drive, and also as I reflect on my own driving and so on, I felt I have a bit burden or worry when she eventually goes out and drives on her own.
In China people honk, here in STL people may not honk as much, but the road rage is definitely there. And in extreme or rare cases, it could turn out to be deadly (because of firearms aka the guns).
Nowadays I rarely honked at people, and I rarely honked back. I did some of that when I was younger and also when I am lacking sleep.
Started this a bit over a month ago. Better late than never. I had Apple Watch since Jan 2017, and Apple Watch released sleep tracker in 2020.
Some observations
If the watch was taken off during the night, say 2 to 3 hours, the sleep tracking got reset – which means you will likely get a bad sleep number (low score).
Also, I am not sure how accurate the Apple watch does in terms of sleep tracking – I assume it measures the heart beat (from the pulse in the elbow). I had similar questions re: the Apple watch swimming tracking too. It seems to me they are rounding up the number there.
New habits re: health and fitness
Swim:
Run: I didn’t run a lot. I did run a few races (for run): the Ladue Dogwood run, the ‘Due Run for Education (LEF) and Frostbite Run at Forest Park organized by the St. Louis track club (short distance).
I started using Apple Watch to track sleep.
Other new adventure I decided to take on
Learn music, guitar and piano
Stocks
Need some more patience there. A good example may be $MDB at 04/04/2025: it was under $155 then. Today it closed at about $399.65.
Family and China Trip
Started teaching my older kid to drive
Realized that “Good habit is important – easier to correct in the beginning than to correct later on – similar for the music learning too”. Today 01-01-2026 she even drove from the Walgreens in St. Ann (St. Charles rock road and Ashby road) to our home – via Ashby road. I was the passenger. (Update 01-02-2026) Today’s practice route here.
Btw, I paused the Uber driving for now. It was fun ride to say the least.
YouTuber or creator instead of blogger?
Thinking I may archive this blog site and focus more on the video content creation instead. Haven’t made final decision yet but leaning towards this – it was a good 20-year journey but couple things made me to re-think about my blogging journey – very few people are reading my blogs these days, that’s probably true for other newspaper, magazine website too – people are mostly switching to video or short videos over the years due to many reasons. Video is more engaging, or much easier to absorb. Also, video especially short video is quite addictive. Other reasons are the cost of hosting this website, as well as the recent AI bots scanning my website continuously (they appear are from CHN).
和阶层固化: 这个词不经常听到，今年夏天回国时见同学时，听到同学太太提到这个词，我们都是89级/93届的本科生，感觉阶层固化是我们现在这个时代，中美都存在的一个问题。斩杀线我也不常听到，因为我不怎么玩游戏。
“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science and technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces.” ― Carl Sagan via X
Links to bilibili and YT below
Bilibili – 我也来说说美国”斩杀线” – 第一集
YT Shorts – 美国斩杀线第二集
Bilibili – 美国斩杀线第三集
YT Shorts – 美国斩杀线第四集
Bilibili – 美国斩杀线第五集 (about 6 minutes long)
YT Shorts – 美国斩杀线第六集
我想对我们多数/普通人来说，最重要的是防止”被斩杀”(Google)。
PS: from X – An educated populace is a threat to power.
At about 5:30 pm, I got a call from neighbor R: it’s about help them to put together the electric scooter. It was not too bad – mainly I need to put in the handle, and put in the screw. I mentioned the neighbor once here (I didn’t elaborate for the privacy reason).
In general I am willing to help as long as I can. I think the work I did above is mostly just 举手之劳 a small effort. (Update 12-25-2025) This afternoon as I walked by, one of the kids said “thank you”. That made me happy. A few months ago, it was one of the little girls’ b-day. I bought b-day gift for her as my younger daughter used to go to the same elementary school with them, and they took the same school bus. One day the two little girls probably took the advice from their grandma Ms. R, came bye and said “thank you for the gift”. That made my day too.
Some random thoughts: it was probably in Christmas night of 2002 I slided into a ditch when I was driving on highway 270 near 370. Quite a few drivers stopped and tried to help. But they cannot get me (my car) out of snow ditch. I called AAA eventually and I gave the tow truck driver $5 tip.
My two kids wanted to watch the classic Christmas movie Grinch on Peacock but the big TV (LG TV) seems doen’t have the Peacock app. So they are watching on the computer (MacBook Air). Meanwhile, I need to practice both Guitar and Piano.
Last few days I was teaching my older daughter to drive. We were practicing at the parking lot I taught my wife about 16 years ago. And so far so good.