Category: blog

Twitter Open House

Went to an open house event at twitter NYC office. There were 2 short speaks: one was a twitter semi technical introduction and the other was about real time search. Not very in-depth actually. Some Q&A were quite deep though. I guess most audiences were engineers and some of them do search-related works.

An interesting thing is I met @nk, who I saw once 2 years ago in Beijing QCon. He gave a presentation about real time search at that time, a really great one. It’s very nice to see him again and have some talk.

In twitter office there are some photos on the wall, with tweets. The most impressing one is a photo of the airplane on Hudson river. That was probably the first photo of that accident online. And a funny video to tell u tweet is faster than earthquake.

I have always been respecting twitter as a company. They are doing something

  1. Changing the world.
  2. Helping ppl’s daily life.
  3. Open. Compared to close system like FB and Apple.
  4. Elegant. From a product perspective.

The more I respect twitter, the more I feel sick of sina weibo…

My Wife is Young

2 ppl came to my place today to check bills. Xw was at home.

They introduced themselves, blar blar blar. But xw couldn’t understand them well.

So they asked: “Are your parents at home?”

PARENTS? REALLY?

iPhone is a life changing gadget

I started to use iPhone after moving to NYC. It has been 2 months. I want to say it really changed some part of life.

First, I rarely open my laptop at home now. Almost all casual tasks can be done on iPhone, with an as good or even better user experience. Email, twitter, IM, video call, search, browse web, ebooks, a little bit music sometimes… All well supported by iPhone. The only chance I need to open laptop is for playing some pirated movies, actually. Or serious works like reading a long doc, but that’s more of an office case.

Second, I’m even more closely bound to Internet now. I have been a heavy user of Smart Phone (if BlackBerry can count :/) for years. However it was in China and it was stupid BlackBerry and poor 2g network. The bandwidth and the fucking GFW limited my mobile digital life to an eunuch level. Now, welcome to Zion… Unfortunately, or fortunately, I still have 1.5 hours Internet-free time each weekday because of subway. But it’s definitely not iPhone-free. Kindle app and Podcaster are my company.

Last word: I used an Android phone in US for a few months. It’s not the same thing. User experience matters. It determines whether you want to stick to phone or open a laptop, though the difference is hard to be measured.

Between 2011 and 2012

I can still clearly remember that dinner with Diane and lxl during my first travel to NYC. It was a nice Japan restaurant, semi-basement, cozy and decent. We ordered fresh sea urchin, very delicious. Part of that table talk was about China and US, pros and cons, typical topic among Chinese ppl, too big that no one can convince others with different opinions. In the discussion I suddenly threw out a sentence: “Anyway, we should try hard to get the next generation born in US.” A short silence. It seems everyone agreed for a moment. No matter how much you love the country, how much you’re used to the food and the society, when decide for your own baby, it brings up an “objective” and “ultimate” choice.

The opportunity came fast in a very unexpected way. In Sep I got the news and the position. At the end of Sep I flied back to China, did the wedding ceremonies in my hometown and xw’s hometown, in a rush. Then flied back to Beijing. Got the visa. Sold everything, from game consoles to mattress, from tables to chairs. Finished not-so-pleasant bargaining with the subleaser b****. Sent bobo (my cat) to a friend of xw’s friend and hopefully I’ll bring her to US on my next travel. Lived in a friend’s place for the last 2 weeks before flying to US. Looked for apartments in NYC remotely by riki’s help. Everything happened so fast and I had been excited and anxious until we finally got a place in Brooklyn and bought some furnitures in.

I can’t say this is all for my 2011. Xw and I had a great travel to Japan. We held countless board game parties in our home, on the great big table :) And we went to IKEA so many times, and installed so many stuff in that place… However, moving oversea should be the second big item… second to getting married, lol!

For 2012, I resolve to do a good job and live a good life.

It is 2012 in China now and still 2011 in US. I’m going to push the “publish” button and play Skyrim for a while, will attend a cross-year party tonight. See you in 2012, if the world is still there!

More Furnitures, and Guests on Floor

Went to IKEA yesterday with xw, because there was an one day only sale! 1$ for 8 wood hangers… we got 4 packs, lol

And a metal TV stand, my big TV finally has some place other than floor. A nice armchair, which reminds me of my first visit to Beijing IKEA, I laid in a chair, so comfortable that I dropped my wallet there. A small metal cart for bathroom. A clothes rack in bedroom. And a big weaved box as a small table with storage. xw and I spent around 2 hours to setup all of them, before dinner. Really fast!

Then sly, fruitcc and a friend of theirs arrived. They came for a tour in NYC, will live in my place until new year. These guys just borrowed one sleep bag and one blanket from Jack, and slept on the living room floor. I have no idea how they spent last night.