The Best from my Blog

It always excites me when people enjoy reading my posts as much as I enjoy writing them.

Each of audiences shows their love in different ways. The Hacker News & Reddit community sends tons of page views and shows their interest by discussion on their respective platforms. Those interested in culture, language and lifestyle like to email me or leave comments on each post. Bitcoiners and entrepreneurs tend to retweet or find me in person.

I’ve put together a selection of posts that readers like and a few of my personal favorites.

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Apple

My post on how I caught everyone’s favorite fruit company practicing on-device censorship got picked up by Tom Grundy of the Hong Kong Free Press and Paul Mozur of the New York Times before taking on a life of its own and making the rounds in tech and mainstream media both in the US and abroad.

It also managed to get some traction behind a term I made up for software that disables features on a device or app to comply with Mainland Chinese laws, the “China Kill Switch,” with both Time and Fortune using it.

While I was flattered by the interest in this post, (people read my blog! yay!) I would have preferred the censorship to not have occurred at all. I fear we are still in the early days of on-device censorship and law enforcement.

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Tech Startups

Calling out Silicon Valley VCs for pushing for more immigration only for tech workers generated almost 40,000 unique visitors in 24 hours, much of it from this Hacker News thread.

I’m a big fan of Paul Graham and his work, but let’s push for more immigration in all industries, not just the ones that are politically unorganized!

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Chinese Language

Language in China is closely tied to identity and politics. I wrote my post about why the future for Cantonese didn’t look bright a month before I became a Hong Kong resident, a short time after I began studying the language.

The post has continuously generated daily traffic and has attracted by far the most comments of any post on my blog. Hundreds of people have written comments sometimes stretching on for several paragraphs agreeing or disagreeing with my post.

Mandarin and Cantonese and their relationship are closely tied to how people perceive themselves and how they view Hong Kong and its relationship with Mainland China.

After spending over five years in Hong Kong, I am more positive about Cantonese’s future. Technology is allowing more people to write the language than ever before and a surge of localism connected with the Umbrella Movement protests sees renewed interest in Cantonese culture.

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Hong Kong

Where we’re going, we don’t need offices! Offices can be depressing and unproductive…in Hong Kong they’re also really expensive. It’s no surprise that lots of readers share my excitement about working out and about the city.

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China Business

Many things are different in China than the rest of the world…invoices are one of them. This post still gets lots of interest from China business newbies trying to get a handle on China’s infamous fapiao.

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Bitcoin

This post is a personal favorite, not because it generated much of traffic or is particularly well written, but because I rediscovered this post in 2015 only to discover that I’ve what I’m looking for in Bitcoin. If only I was one of the tiny crowd of (now very rich) people that knew of Bitcoin back in 2009 when I wrote this post!