current obsessions and inner chatter

Look on the bright side...you're not dead!

2008-10-12T19:31:00.000-07:00

As I'm sure you've heard, there is a lot of bad news out there in the world today. Some examples:

At best, the world economy is on the brink of recession

World Heading for Great Depression II

One in four mammals face extinction

Ocean Dead Zones May Be Worse Than Thought

Bronchitis Forces Cher To Cancel Several Shows

Well, I say, look on the bright side of things.... Here's a little chart I put together of human history by era along with average life expectancy. According to this, the simple moving average life expectancy would be 22.2 years. Thus, if you are older than 22, congratulations...every day is a gift. Even if you just look at the years since Medieval times, the simple moving average is 26.7 years.

-Joe

p.s. Always look on the bright side of life.

What are you listening to?

2007-10-08T13:36:00.000-07:00

brick walls

2007-09-24T21:22:00.000-07:00

Great article about an inspiring talk.

Brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough

link

Congrats Uchie!!

2007-08-07T01:02:00.000-07:00

On your new book!

Blog posting...

2007-05-11T03:01:00.000-07:00

I should post an entry at least once every 6 months, so here it is :-)

...Our brazil trip photos. Thank you couchsurfing.com for hooking us up with great people in brazil.

YPulse Media

2006-11-12T22:27:00.000-08:00

I've come across a couple of interesting blogs on marketing topics lately. One is especially great, and dedicated to the teen market - YPulse. Another writes about interesting web/social media with a refreshing angle - craphammer.ca

http://www.craphammer.ca/2006/11/transient_trans.html

http://ypulse.com/

My wife's expressions

2006-05-12T23:27:00.000-07:00

My wife Natalie likes to interject interesting and poetic lines to punctuate her speech. Here are two recent examples:

"Well Joe, you can't contain fire in a paper sack".

and

"There was a famous Chinese general who led his men to a decisive battle across a powerful river. When they arrived he immediately had all the boats burned. This way, the men knew they must fight and win, since retreat was no longer an option".

She'll just casually throw these little sayings and stories into our conversation. She makes them up, but they sound like they're from a book. I love that.

Update...

2006-04-20T22:33:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking of switching this blog over to myspace. I know I'm probably too old for myspace. well, i did hear that it is "30% over 30" but that may be bull.

Haven't blogged in a while since i've been too busy (in a good way).

It's easier to get forgiveness than permission

2006-01-15T18:50:00.000-08:00

"It's easier to get forgiveness than permission" -- one of the most valuable lessons I learned while at MIT.

I see that Bansky lives by this motto also: http://www.banksy.co.uk/help/index.html

Shanghai

2005-12-05T07:17:00.000-08:00

Here's an excellent audio description and guide to Shanghai:
http://www.chinesepod.com/blog/2005/12/05/we-do-love-our-metropolis-shanghai/

I heart shanghai.

Thanksgiving!

2005-11-27T18:48:00.000-08:00

Natalie and I had a fantastic thanksgiving at my p's place in Idaho. They had just returned back from northern canada on a polar bear excursion, and were trapped overnight in the airport on the way back, not arriving back to boise until wednesday afternoon. In spite of that, my mom managed to prepare a rather large thanksgiving feast in time for our arrival on thursday night -- wow! We were stunned....it was great.

There is a lot to be thankful for this year, including several very exciting developments on the startup front...but I can't talk about them here.

Class, Weather, Etc

2005-11-09T02:13:00.000-08:00

They cancelled my Chinese Level 4 class due to low enrollment... but then called back to say they had a couple of last minute additions. What a relief! Learning Chinese over the past few weeks has been a great distraction from just working on startup stuff all day long.

The weather in Seattle turned really cold all of the sudden, and the days seemed to have been cut in half recently. None of this seems to have happened gradually.

学习中文

2005-10-26T23:55:00.000-07:00

见天在中文教室看中国的有意思的电影（我拟在一起）。很有意思拉了！这个电影有很多的生词和语法很难。我的中文不好。别笑我。

Chinese Taking Over

2005-10-17T21:00:00.000-07:00

In some schools in the USA, when all the little school kids are saying "I pledge allegiance to the flag", there is a Chinese flag hanging there. And right now as I type this, Chinese astronauts are orbiting the earth overhead. Indeed, the Chinese are taking over.

It's not surprised that there's a surge of interest in studying Mandarin. In my class, there are 6 students and half of them (including me) studied Japanese in the 90's. I guess its a certain type who is brave enough to study a language like that, so not surprising that they would now turn their interest towards Chinese. But the fact that Chinese is entering the public school curriculum is awesome.

"Chinese is our new baby," said David J. Domovic, the principal of one of the 20 New York City school schools offering instruction in Mandarin. "Everybody just wants in."

It's also fascinating to think back to just a few years ago when news coverage about China was generally about "negative" issues like Tibet and human rights. Now, the mainstream press is filled with positives like China's booming economy, recent Chinese tech company IPOs and progress towards the Beijing Olympics. The mental image for China has changed from the lone protester blocking a line of tanks to that of a booming downtown city scene, men rushing to meetings, fashionable women on cell phones, bicycles riding along side of BMWs, old men pulling carts of coal...

Things we all hate about IVRs

2005-10-17T08:10:00.000-07:00

IVR = Interactive Voice Response (see full definitions)

Here's a set of things I believe many IVRs do that annoy most people.

1) Long lists of menus "press 1 for this, press 2 for that", cascading into many levels.

2) Cliches such as "please listen as our menu items have changed" and "please hold for a representative".

3) Getting hung up on instead of transferring to a human. "I'm sorry, we couldn't recognize your account. Please try your call again later. Good bye."

4) Hearing a mix of multiple different human voices (or mix of human + text to speech). If you've ever paid a parking ticket in California, then you know what I'm talking about. There are at least 5 diferent voices (different ages, male/female, various accents) just to ask for your ticket number, credit card info and other details.

5) Forcing the user to wait with their key presses until the IVR is ready to listen.

6) Monotone & dull overly-official sounding voices (also, its evil twin: "reefer-smoking surfer dude will handle your banking inquiry today")

7) Being treated like a first time caller every time you call. Why can't the traffic line learn that when I'm calling at 8AM I would like to know the traffic conditions for eastbound 520? "welcome to the puget sound department of transportation line. This automated system is available to let you, the caller, get automated up to date information....blah blah blah... press 1 for highways, 2 for ferries and 3 for airport information..."

8) Getting transferred to another IVR (or human) who then asks you to enter some information again.
Agent: "Hi. What is your account number".
You: "I just entered it 10 seconds ago...."

9) Being placed on hold "until the next representative is available", and holding for a really long time. Even worse, being placed on hold when in fact it is after hours and the next available representative is a 12 hour wait.

Recent Leaps

2005-10-15T20:58:00.000-07:00

I'm blogging now and this my first post! My recent leaps (no particular order). Its scary and thrilling to take leaps.

1) Learning Chinese. I enrolled 2 weeks ago and will see it through. I have been putting this off for over 5 years! Time flies....Thinking back on all the reasons I kept it low on list of priorities since wanting to start learning mandarin seriously 5 years ago! On one hand, its a bad feeling to think how excellent my mandarin would already be had I actually started 5 years ago. On the other hand, the Beijing Olympics are 3 years away and that's plenty of time to become conversant.

2) Starting a Company. Two weeks ago together with two friends, I left my full time job to start a company of our own. I'm giving up a nice paycheck and devoting myself full time to something that is unproven and speculative. As one of my professors said, "starting a company is an irrational decision, and you may fall flat on your face, but you must take the leap of faith".

3) Podcasting and Blogging. 20 years from now my kids will be able to Google me and listen in on my thoughts circa 2005. Think about if you could listen to your parent's thoughts before you were born? My podcast is "my experiences learning Chinese".