Before our team had dark era, after that it seemed going well for a moment but I'm not sure what specific things caused this feeling again.
I sit down and tried to think logically to find out the reason, why I'm not motivated, why I feel boring, why I get so tired everyday? Is it related to my personal life? Or is it because I'm already in the holiday mood? Is it because the evaluation? I kept asking myself questions to break down the negtive feelings into separate parts so that I can find each solution. But I couldn't make it, I found myself hard to stay rational, because the more I asked myself, the more cleary I can see the answer.
The answer is simple, I don't believe the guy. I don't believe we're gonna make it, to be specifically, his goal, his ambition, judging by the way how we worked. I don't know every detail stories about it, but I think I've made the judgement subconsiously. My friend mentioned the same thing at yesterday's lunch, totally different story but I think it inspired me somehow, "I've made the judgement". The feeling from subconsious is hard to deal with, hard to change, it's based on the self expierences and observations in quite a log time.
The project itself of course has potential, I never doubt that. I'm not saying he is a bad person neither. And I absolutely have resoponsibilities, how I participated the project, how I interacted with the team, etc. It just he as a leader, I've found myself hard to follow him.
We use our phones every day. They have a modern name “Smart Phone”, as it can do much more tasks compared to the old one. I’ve been using iPhone for over 3 years now. And since yesterday, I started not to use it, you probably wonder why but I got some personal issues so maybe this is one of the actions I have to take.
Anyway, here is the interesting things I found that I can’t do without a phone based on these 2 days of experience. So many surprises.
I have to find a clock alarm, the physical item, to get myself up at morning.
I feel so boring when I’m on a train. I can’t check Twitter, Facebook or any RSS newsletters. I can’t read my kindle book either.
I was in the mood of cooking, and I realized, “Oh, I don’t have a kitchen timer.” Then after I cooked, I couldn’t take a picture.
Yes I can’t take a picture whenever and wherever I want like before, my phone is the only camera.
I can’t check-in in foursquare when I enter a cafe or restaurant, to keep log of my life.
I can’t track my running records, although I have a fixed route so I know exactly how many kilometers I’ve run but still I can’t keep those data.
I can’t block the noise by putting earphone, to be specific here, a noisy child cries loudly, rolled on the floor said to his parents that he wants juice, right in the center of a shopping center, he is totally guilty and not innocent. I have to say the f**k words and hold myself try not to kill him.
I don’t know the time when I’m out. I have a watch but I don’t have the habit to wear it…
I can’t access to the Internet, when I want to search a place, I have to do the research in my laptop before moving.
I can’t keep tracking my expenses. I’m using an app to do that, now if I really want to continue, maybe I have to input the amounts in some kind of Excel-like interface…
I can’t take a note, I don’t carry a notebook and a pen with me, I was using Evernote or Apple’s native Notes app to do this thing.
And of course, I can’t contact to any friends by calling or sending text messages.
And at work, when my boss asked, “hey, this thing seems not work in smartphone browser, go check it”, “OK, damn it! I don’t have a phone…”. Really funny.
I’m not sure where I’m going, but there was not just negative “findings” about this. I found myself have time to think about something normally I would not to because I must be checking not-that-important tweets or just trying to use the phone to kill the time. Any tasks/ideas/todos comes to my mind, I have to keep it there, into my mind stack. And trust myself if this thing is important I won’t forget about it.
I wrote this post doesn’t mean I like this idea and try to convince any of you to do the same crazy-seems-nonsense thing. But by doing this, it reminds me how my social/technical life has changed within 3 years, how great iPhone it is to make life easier.
I’m sure I can go back, live without a phone completely if I really want to. I can find lots of alternative tools, I still miss paperback books, sometimes I still want to grab a pen to take notes or just skitch some ideas to the paper. But when it comes to keep connections with friends or family, it’s still very convenient when we keep our phones in our pockets.
Yesterday was my one year anniversary at Cookpad, and I came up with an idea to send a couple of mails to my friends inside and outside the company, who have helped me to join it, just want to say thanks to them in person.
I wrote in the order of the people I've met. First starts with my headhunter who introduced cookpad to me, then my first and second interviewer, etc. I didn't write to everyone I've met in the company, that will be too overwhelming and lose the point.
It ended up with 13 mails, since yesterday was Saturday and I sent to our company email address, I didn't expect any replies until next business day. But surprisingly someone already replied and seems like they love this idea, and many positive feedbacks!
WOW your friends
Since one of my purpose is to WOW(a verb I learned from the book: Delivering Happiness) those my friends so to be honest, if everything works fine, and it should, I wouldn't be surprised by these positive feedbacks. But still, after reading their sweet words, it made me feel very very happy.I'm so glad that I made it. In my daily life I never feel lack of ideas to WOW someone but I never really execute in actions.
When I was reading the book, one story is about how Tony enjoyed organising a party and make a WOW experience to his friends. At that time I didn't quite understand why he thought that way, but now I think I get it. It's really a very amazing experience. It also reminded me that back in the days when I setup or prepared a surprise for my girlfriend, no need to go expensive or fancy, just something that a little bit weird and out of the box, then I will see the most beautiful smile in the world. This is a mindset and life style which I've decided to follow up. To make this world a better place, first step is to ensure you make your family and friends around you happier, right?
So this is my way to say thank you to my friends, some of the mails maybe even contain less than 10 phrases but it's important to do it, and say it loud.
Reconnecting, A Really Unrelated Story
Oh, one more thing need to be mentioned. Yesterday I also got a message from my Senpai(先輩, Japanese, like one's mentor) which I lost his contact 3 years ago. Every time when I reconnect with someone through Internet, I really appreciate what a good job it has done to make our life better. He was my first Senpai when I graduated and step into the whole adult society, even at that time he seemed really strict to me, it turns out it was worthwhile and I'd learned a lot from him. Not like how to write down each code, but in a much higher “Macro” point of view how to work, how to think. Sometimes I'm very surprised by this Japanese Senpai and kōhai connection. This is really a word you have to self experience in Japanese society.
The applicant is willing to think and act outside the box.
Give me an example from your previous job(s) where you had to think and act outside the box.
What was the best mistake you made on the job? Why was it the best?
Tell me about a time you recognised a problem/area to improve that was outside of your job duties and solved without being asked to. What was it, how did you do it？
The applicant is more creative than the average person.
Would you say you are more or less creative than the average person? Can you give me an example?
If it was your first day on the job at Zappos and your task was to make the interview/recruiting process more fun, what would you do for those eight hours?
The applicant is willing to take risk in trying to solve a problem.
What's an example of a risk you took in a previous job? What was the outcome?
When was the last time you brke the rules/policy to get the job done?
Here is the video of Amazon Kindle Press Conference, hold on September 6, 2012. This article does not intend to cover all the hardware details but just something worth for me to write down.
Why video?
I really don't like just check the new hardware's specs and see the numbers bumped up from this level to that level. I'd always like to watch the press videos, to enjoy the process, to feel the revolutionary stories behind this. Of course part of it kind of depends on how the CEO did the presentation.
With Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) you can self-publish your books on the Amazon Kindle Store. It's free, fast, and easy. Books self-published through KDP can participate in the 70% royalty program and are available for purchase on Kindle devices and Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, PC, Mac, BlackBerry, and Android-based devices. With KDP, you can self-publish books in many languages and specify pricing in US Dollars, Pounds Sterling, and Euros.
I really think it's a good job, good job Amazon. There is a also a video clip interviewing the authors who have published and succeeded through KDP. Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, also mentioned some numbers about this business, apparently it's going well and actually helping people. To be honest, suddenly it occurs to me that maybe one day I can publish my own book, if it's really just a matter of whether I can finish it, and no need to consider about the publisher.
Audio books
I bought Steven Job's biography audio book last year, which is the first time I ever tried an audio book. Despite my English skill it was still a pretty good experience. I really encourage you to try at least once. If you keep saying, "Oh no I can never understand those English" and stop trying or improving yourself, you can never get that place. Just my opinion.
Narration
I never cared about who was narrating the book to me, until I heard this:
They're getting people like Susan Sarandon, Colin Firth Anne Hathaway to narrate these books.
So what's the big deal? I think it's better to know it's not someone who is cold heart just do his/her jobs to READ the book, but it's someone you know like big movie stars, narrating the story, vividly. I want to know the details behind the scenes if I'm really into something. So it's different for me.
Whispersync for Voice
Listen to your audio book on the way home, when you get home, pick up the "book" and start reading. Keep the place between the two media formats. I love this idea, and it becomes true.
Reading time
I almost forgot about this. Now kindle can show you how many times do you need to finish the current chapter, or the entire book. And it's based on your speed. Isn't that amazing!?
When We Make Money?
In the end, Jeff also mentioned about alignment of amazon.
We want to make money when people use our devices, not when they buy our devices.
I appreciate this. I'm sure we all know that it is the place where you are supposed to say something beautiful to the public. But I still love it, and I bought it.
It let me look back the "common" flow of my daily work. There was a time when we were told like this: "We need to make xxx money by the end of xxx, so we have to release the product before xxx! So do it and do it harder!". Ok I may extragerate too much but you got the point. I admit it's neccessary to have a business plan, including numbers, to run a business. But it would be thankful if we and our managers and BOSS stop talking about how many money we're gonna make or should make, and think about how much it's gonna be helpful and valuable to our users. You don't need to say it loud every single day, but at least consider about this in your heart.
I want to make money when people use my products, although I'm just an employee now.
Finally migrated all my posts from Wordpress to Octopress. I think it's quite popular among hackers and geeks these days, if you don't know it just google it, tons of results.
There're still a lot of works to do, like some posts with messy format or broken links, Disqus comments need to be migrated, categories are nonsense etc, but I'll announce this anyway. Done is better than perfect right?
I'm not gonna mention any migration details here, I'd like to look back and have a summary or something now.
Over 300 posts since 2009/10/07
I'm really surprised by myself. I was not aware of that I've done so many writings, and these're only published ones(I have a lot of drafts). Even though many of them are just simple code gist and programming related.
It's so easy now to "execute" an action to a resource. Like a photo, favourite a tweet or even +1 a youtube movie. So our foot prints or activities are spread everywhere and some of them might be important or meaningful to you, that just a light-single-built-in action is not enough. I want to keep those non-physical, intangible but essential "things" here, as part of my life.
Japanese, English and Chinese
There was a time I was trying to write down every single post in these 3 languages. I believe the plugin I used in Wordpress is called qTranslate, which let you write with each language or all of them.
After a while I noticed it was too hard for me. Translating same contents into a different language is boring and wasting of time, at least I tried and found out it doesn't work for me. So this time, I want this blog to be an English mainly blog, with occasional different language posts. My plan is writing emotional feelings in Chinese, and social activities or something related to Japan in Japanese.
I'm still keeping those language mixed posts here even though I think it's not useful to my "readers", not sure how many I got, I'd like to take those posts as old-days foot prints. "あの時がんばったな！ー" hehe.
About the priority or weight of each language
I want to be a top player in this programming field. In order to achieve that English is a MUST condition. I still remember when I first time read a programming book in English, it was so difficult that I hardly understood the meanings. But I keep trying and trying, now I'm very comfortable with it and believe it's more natural than any other language in programming field.
Besides the effort I put in English, I also want to start writing in my native language, Chinese. Although English is more friendly to me than before, it's still difficult to describe my feelings and emotions precisely. I need more vocabularies. I need to look back to think about if there is a grammar mistake. So when I think about some topics such as meanings of life, or what I want to left to the world, am I making this world a little bit better, etc. In these cases I need to grab my most familiar weapon :)
For Japanese, hmmm.. I'll leave it for now :)
Google Adsense
If you're an old readers of me, I hope you are, you may notice that there's no ads anymore. Yeah I used to put those ads for experiment. With 500-600 daily PVs, it gave me around 4,000￥ every month. Not that much but it's better than nothing, so I kept ads for a long time. But to be honest, as a personal blog it's just annoying. I didn't like it personally, and it's for sure it gives people bad impression, I don't like to miss a job opportunity if some head hunters open my blog and leave with a "WTF?!..".