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When I use a Canadian bank app, I often get the response: ‘There is a problem on our server, please try again later.’
I have never experienced this with any Chinese bank app, even when accessing it in Canada across the ocean.
This is critical and severely harms the user experience.
It is definitely a software problem, not a network lag.
I don’t understand why nobody in the bank cares about this.
If I worked there, fixing this would be the highest priority.

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One of my favorite YouTubers talked about the book The NVIDIA Way.
Two small stories caught my attention:

  • When he was 15 years old, Jensen Huang won third place in the U.S. National Table Tennis Championship.
  • One of NVIDIA’s early investors was introduced to Jensen by the owner of a restaurant where he worked as a dishwasher. Impressed by his work ethic, the owner believed he could succeed at anything.

Jensen Huang is truly a talented person, both in sports and intellect.
He is the heart of NVIDIA.

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In the 1990s, Pepsi tried to compete with Coca-Cola.
It aired a TV ad, telling people that they could earn Pepsi points by drinking Pepsi and redeem them for prizes.
The biggest prize was a Harrier fighter jet, which required 7,000,000 points.

A 23-years-old young man, John Leonard, from Seattle noticed this.
He caculated that he would need to drink 16.8 million cans of Pepsi to collect 7,000,000 points,
which would cost around \$4 million.

At that time, a Harrier fighter jet was worth \$30 million, making it a valuable deal.
However, since he didn’t have \$4 million, he ignored the idea.

Things changed a year later when Pepsi introduced a new policy allowing people to buy points directly for 10 cents per point.
This meant that 7,000,000 points could be acquired for only \$700,000.

John Leonard borrowed money from a wealthy friend and sent a \$700,000 check to Pepsi, requesting to buy 7 million points and claim the Harrier jet.
Pepsi returned the check, stating that the advertisement was a joke.

John sued Pepsi, demanding that they honor their advertisement.
After three years of court proceedings, Pepsi won the case.

Netflix made a documentary about this true story.

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Today I had dinner with my ELT classmates to celebrate the Lunar New Year.
It was a Chinese restaurant, and the food was delicious, but a small crack on one of the dishes was noticed by two Korean friends.
They mentioned that in Korea, serving food on a cracked dish is considered very impolite.
However, this is acceptable in China.

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I am currently job hunting these days as a software engineer.

Yesterday, I got an email from someone who claimed to be the HR representative of Concours Auto Products Company.
He said I was a perfect fit for the role and wanted to interview me via Zoom.
I did not remember applying for this company.
However, I accepted the interview.

The interview was via Zoom chat, no video, no voice, only text.

He first asked me “Tell me about yourself”.
I replied.

Then he told me the role was a Data Analyst position, fully remote, and the pay was \$43/hour.
I confirmed it.

After that, he asked me 13 questions, none of them related to my experience, all were behavioral questions.
Something like “How do you understand Privacy and Code of Conduct?”.
And one question was “Do you have a regular credit card?” which made me feel like he could be a scammer.
However, I answered all the questions.
He said he needed to discuss my application with the manager and would contact me soon.

In less than 30 minutes, he texted me via Zoom: “Hello! After reviewing your application with the team, I’m pleased to share some exciting news.You have been selected for the Data Analyst position with CONCOURS, and we are excited to welcome you to the team.”
So easy?

Then he told me the company would provide funds to purchase remote work devices, including a laptop and high-speed internet, and asked me whether I wanted a check or direct deposit to my bank account.
I picked direct deposit.

What happened next is shown in the screenshot below:

Since then, he has never said another word.

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Who hung these bananas?
My wife did.

Why hang them?
Because when bananas are hung, they “think” they are still growing on the tree and won’t ripen.

Does it work?
No, they still ripen.

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Today, NASDAQ fell 3%, and Nvidia dropped 17% due to a chinese AI company, DeepSeek.
This company developed a new AI model that can compete with the newest ChatGPT-o1 at 1/50th the price and requires only 1% of the compute resources.

Based on recent pace of AI evolution, I believe that real AGI(Artificial General Intelligence) would become true within 5 years, and all humans will lose their jobs - engineers, artists, teachers, accountants, even soldiers.

The fictional scenarios in movies like Matrix and Terminator are coming to life.

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Today, I went to FreshCo to buy some groceries. At the checkout counter, I realized my iPhone wasn’t in my pocket.
I couldn’t remember if I had taken my phone with me when I got out of the car.
After my daughter paid the bill, we hurried back to the car, but my phone wasn’t there.
I had lost it, in the supermarket!
We rushed back into FreshCo and searched for my phone in every corner.
Suddenly, my daughter said: ‘I remember you used your phone to take photos when we were picking out butter.’
Yes! I remembered it too.
We rushed to the butter section, where a security guard was waiting.
I told him I was looking for my iPhone.
He asked me about the model and color, and then handed it back to me.
What a journey!