What does my day sound like? I wondered. So I put together a sound collage of one of my regular workdays. It consists of buying breakfast in the morning, staying in the office during the day, and listening to a street singer in the evening. What does your day sound like?

Beginner's mind

Sound Snack E5 A Regular Workday of Mine

Last time we talked about Bo's career path, and this time we are going to talk about Bo's wife. She became a programmer after attending a boot camp, and got a job as a front end in a company in SF.  01:00 We sidetrack a bit and talked about cafe job in US and China. Then we started talking about what bootcamp is about.13:00 The coding bootcamp business in US: there used to be more, but now there are some busy acquisitions going on. And I compared the situation with the ones in Beijing.20:00 The main difference between bootcamps in US and China is the students. We also talk about how as programming languages become accessible to more people, how it will affect the industry.30:00 The value of more experienced designers and engineers in the future.

Episode 43 On Coding Boot Camp

What do you want to do for your career? What do I want to do? What can I do as a career? I guess there are as many answers to the these questions as the population in Beijing or San Francisco. Though in the end, it's really up to each individual to figure out the path in front of them, it takes time and efforts, yet talking about it, to understand how we approach it from different perspectives, can be inspiring and encouraging. So here it is, our chat on career path. 00:00 Starting with Bo's startup, we talked about how he dropped out of college, and tried to start his business in Shanghai. From there, we talked about risk management.13:00 The first job matters, but it just takes time to learn and evolve. Sometimes, personality defines what we do and how we do. But does our personality evolve over time?27:00 Bo said, it's important to pick the battle to fight. Learn to be focus, means to find the best method to work.36:00 Joy talks about her career path so far and where it might go in a near future. And we talked about the cultural aspect in making choices. 

Episode 42 On Career Path

Beijing is massive, with a population of 21 million, 20 times bigger than New York City in size. It's crowded and as most modern big cities, can easily make one feel small. I was talking with a friend the other day, about how to build connection with this mega city. We reached the conclusion that it's important to carve out my own space in the city, physically and mentally. And looking back, it's how I gradually feel like a local after three years of living here.My top 3 in the city are: Jingshan Park, my own apartment and a hole in the wall cafe in the hutong. Jingshan is touristy. But with 2 yuan, you share the view of the whole city with generations of emperors, warlords, and common folks who come and go. But the city survive all of them. This episode was about one of my favourite spaces in the city. Enjoy :)

Sound Snack E4 Jingshan

What's the deal of Uber credit card? How does millennials manage their finances with new apps? We talk about MONEY this time! 01:00 Bo got a Uber credit card and we talked about what's special about it. But can customers trust giving bank accounts to Uber? How does it compare to banks?12:00 How Uber is going to tab into the dining industry?19:00 Is it something special about American companies to issue credit cards to expand businesses?28:00 New startups to help people manage their money? Bo talked about Acron, Robinhood, and Wealthfront, but Joy was curious about how people can trust these new services.36:00 The top one financial advice from Bo to young people -- you would be surprised. :) But later we did talk about why it's worth investing in, and Bo shared his ratio on different options.

Episode 41 On Credit Cards and Finance Apps

It's been a bumpy month.There were ups and downs, expected and unexpected, happiness and sadness.Life never cease to amaze me.Inspired by the spirits of Children's Day, I give you the singing bike.Be happy :)

Sound Snack E3 - A Singing Bike

This was supposed to be a sci-fi-ish episode, until we got to the point that we both agreed that this could go very serious and very deep. But it's also because Bo was not fully awake. So this is a pretty slow and scattered episode. We talked about bits of what might happen to one's data when someone passes away. We don't have a clear answer, but it's definitely something we can keep thinking about.Anyway, I cannot believe we made it to episode 40! 01:00 Following the topic of last episode, we started talking about what might happen to one's data when someone passes away. What if the tech companies have full ownership of your data afterlife? What if the data they own actually worth a lot?10:00 If you can make someone you love but who passed away into a chatbot, would you do that as a way to hold memory to? Is it still the person you used to know, or is it algorithm?19:00 What if Facebook turn someone's page into a graveyard, is it worse?25:00 What if the digital information can decay?35:00 Then we talked about the VR graveyard in Hong Kong (what!!!).37:00 The real show stops here, but I added some parts that we discussed in Chinese and English. 

Episode 40 On Digital Afterlife

Can you recognize a city by listening? I guess there are some signatures in some cities that are hard to miss, the public transport, the accent of the people, as well as the air. This episode is going to be a bit noisy, perfect if you are listening on your way to work. It might tele-transport you to another city :)This is Guangzhou. Enjoy the journey.

Sound Snack E2 - Canton Style

Did you receive a wave of Privacy Setting Updates from most of the digital services, like Instagram, Trello, Pinterest, etc? It happened to me, and I read some of them carefully. They provoke some new questions: what are these updates about? What are they protecting? What data does user own? This is what this episode about. Enjoy! 01:00 We sidetracked a bit and talk about funeral.06:00 Bo opens up the topic by pointing out four major points in these changes: a) about data deletion; b) about data portability; c) privacy by design; d) data protection officers;15:00 Can decentralization help with the data ownership problem? We started the discussion into what data you own and not own in digital services, and what data portability means.26:00 What if the technology works in a different way, what if I myself store all the data I created instead of digital service companies?33:00 A bit recap of what blockchain is and then we start the deduction of how centralization and decentralization services approach data storage from different paths.50:00 Data deletion on blockchain? And then we touched a bit on data legacy: how would you pass down your data if you are gone?

Episode 39 On Privacy Settings

So there's something going on in San Francisco that's not happening in Beijing, sharing electric scooters!! I asked Bo on this topic. From there, we discussed about the bike sharing, the two company buyout deals happened about the same time in Beijing and SF, and the future of cities. 01:00 General intro of sharing electric scooters in SF.13:00 What's so interesting about Uber bought Jump?20:00 It's interesting to compare the two news in bike sharing in Beijing and SF. Meituan, the company that started as a copy of Groupon and grew into a tech giant covering restaurant reviews, and food delivery, bought Mobike, one of the leading bike sharing companies. This news is interesting when contrasted with Uber purchased Jump.31:00 Will Uber become the monopoly of transportation in the US? Bo mentioned it doesn't make sense for Uber to use self-driving cars for ride share.40:00 Opening up the imagination for self-driving cars and the future of cities.

Episode 38 From Bike Sharing to the Future of Cities

Hey, this is a new project by Joy, Sound Snack (Edit on Apr 13).I didn't realise I had long history working with sound, until we paused the podcast for almost 4 months. I recall that I've been a host in my junior high school radio station, playing music and reading announcements; in college, together with 3 friends, I started a project, Sound Museum, to evoke the awareness of environment by showing people sounds from nature in a website. Two years ago, Bo and I started this really casual podcast, Beginner's Mind. There's something charming about storytelling by sound. The sound, voices, and also, most importantly, the silence in-between, tell stories that all your imagination allows. I'm a big fan of spontaneity, co-creation, and interpretation based on each person's experiences. Hope these 5-minute sound clips bring you peace of mind even when it's noisy. Be happy :)

Sound Snack Pilot – By a Crossing

01:00 Great ability comes with great responsibility. Why we feel betrayed by the social network?13:00 Are you more concerned about your own personal data being exposed or the data of a mass population being exposed? We talked about regulations, comparisons between US and China, etc.30:00 How will the news change you? Bo said no affect, but pointed out that maybe it's time to separate the company into smaller companies.39:00 What would the new social network look like? Decentralisation? 

Episode 37 On Facebook

Happy holiday! Quite a month! Joy has been travelling (again) and this time, Bali. So you will probably hear some background music from the resort. Joy got up at 11:30pm and Bo got up at 7am to make the call. Both were yawning until the conversation started. We talked about Alt-School and our view on education. Enjoy! 01:00 Catch up a bit. What is Alt-School? What's going on with Alt-School? Then we started the discussion of the business model -- where it's heading by shutting down two lab schools.15:00 Would you send your kid to Alt-School? Bo says yes. We further discussed that education startups take time to prove themselves. We digress a bit to another topic: design babies.24:00 Can selling programs to other schools help Alt-School make money? The program is pretty expensive for public schools.34:00 Bo is a dropout from college, and we talked about his view on education. Joy also talked about her education in China. Then we talked about personal choice to go through the path that everyone is going through. It was my favourite part of the discussion.45:00 By comparing our own education experiences, we discussed that the traditional education method might not be failing, and sometimes it's hard to know which way is right for the kids.

Episode 36 On Education

Joy was travelling in Tibet for two weeks, and thus the show paused for a while. Now we are back on track, the topic we picked is about Amazon's purchase of wholefoods. We found the topic really interesting because it relates to Alibaba's recent moves on "New Retail" movement. 01:00 We catch up a bit on work and life, and then jump right into the topic. Amazon purchased Wholefoods couple months ago. How does that affect Wholefoods? How will it affect Instacart, a startup that delivers grocery to people's doorsteps? Bo proposed that Amazon bought Wholefoods as an experiment to find out how to support retail industry.21:00 Joy talked about her experience in Alibaba's new supermarket store, Hema. We discuss why Alibaba started the New Retail movement, why they opened Hema, and waht's their next move.41:00 One thing keeps coming back in the conversation is that the genes of a company decides the direction of their products, Amazon calling itself a "Day One" company, and Alibaba trying to "make it easy to do business anywhere". But then why do they both get into the entertainment businesses?

Episode 35 On Amazon and Alibaba

Several days before the recording, Bo sent me few localbitcoins links and suggested that I could get in touch with these sellers, and ask them about bitcoin situation in China. I didn't do, because... I explained in this episode. The episode continues the conversation of bitcoin and the recent ban in China. 1:00 Bo suggested that I could get in touch with bitcoin sellers in China and interview them. His main question is how did Chinese get crazy about bitcoin. How the ban is going to affect the market in China?16:00 Bitcoin will only be popular when it becomes a daily use, but right now there's not much progress in this approach. Big corporates accept bitcoin for some transactions, but they are not keeping them. Coinbase is one of the products that is building up the industry, from making secure bitcoin wallets to maybe a merchant app. It would be promising if an e-commerce company is built solely on bitcoin transactions.35:00 What is ICO? Bo explains it by describing it as building a casino. The three characteristics of this casino is 1) the owner is a stranger; 2) the price of the chips is not stable; 3) whether the casino can be completed or not is unknown. And the ICO that Bo might invest is a penguin lap dance business (what???).49:00 Bo makes comparison between the two investment methods, venture capital and ICO.Bonus: I attached the part when we chat in Chinese on the topic for about 15 minutes.

Episode 34 On Bitcoin and ICO

A Podcast on all kind of important random things in life from the perspectives of a developer and a designer, who are based in the Bay area and Beijing.

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Beginner's mind

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