stlplaceThere seems to be a disconnect between the econ data and job market right now. Consumer sentiment is not very good recently mainly due to the K shaped economy.
WSJ YT video: Kyla Scanlon on the Disconnect Between Economic Data and Consumer Sentiment
THE WASHINGTON POST: 7 charts that explain why the job market is so tough right now (Apple News)
THE WASHINGTON POST: Why the U.S. job market is so hard, especially for recent college graduates (Apple News)
My work at Ascension
I recall I was pulled into evaluation of ambient ambulatory environment (mainly hospital) mainly around voice recognition and recording to EHR/EMR. The vendors I recall: AWS, 3M, Nuance (bought by Microsoft later, news) and Google (actually it’s more like Suki – ai company starts with S – Google Search). Keep in mind at the time, Ascension just signed a work agreement with Google (Google Health and GCP).
My contribution is minimum during the evaluation, but it’s a good opportunity for me to learn the AI mainly around voice recognition and recording in a healthcare setting.
Stocks
SOUN $6.54 (▼3.68%) SoundHound AI Inc | Google Finance
C3.ai: the company claims doing industry (industrial) AI
Recent Development
OpenAI
Anthropic: they had crazy or mind-boggling growth recently.
I received a promotion from Uber and they promise $130 for 10 rides before May 22. And I decided to take the offer. I did 3 rides yesterday afternoon from 5 pm, and 7 rides this morning and afternoon. Total 10 rides or trips.
Today I had 2 eventful trips (among total 7). In one trip this morning, from Lindell Blvd near WUSTL I met a guy who is originally from Sweden, and he was not a fan of my car (minivan)’s cleanness (or dirtiness to be exact). I googled a related topic on this (are sweeden people germophobic).
In the afternoon, I shuttled a disabled person, along with a friend of that person, and 3 kids. Took a long time to load, and unload. This is probably the most severely disabled person I took in my total 315 trips although the passenger appears to be only in 40s. I have taken older passengers, and some use wheelchair too, but today’s passenger is challenging because it’s very hard for her to get on and get off (get on is harder between the two). It appears she doesn’t have any strength in her legs. I did one more trip after that one, which is take a HS kid to Jack in the Box, and I received the additional $130 after completing the that trip.
I noticed there was a promotion of $200 for 20 deliveries recently too, which I didn’t pay attention and didn’t take. It’s a bit harder to cmpelete 20 Uber Eats deliveries, as Uber Eats is much smaller than Door Dash, and regular Uber passengers.
PS: at this time I don’t plan to resume Uber, but I am going to periodically taking those “quest” offers (promotions). Note the total online time was 4 ours 20 minutes (or 260 minutes), total earning is about $250 (this is after including the #130 quest/promotion money). So about $1 per minute (roughly match my IT/software day job hourly rate)
PS 2: yesterday one of my Uber passengers is a Fedex driver, and I asked about driving for Fedex 🙂
$FISV (Siyu Li, X)
Also this one – last I recall, “system of record” talk was used by $CRM and $NOW too. Right now the market is skeptical on that – at the same time I am not a firm believer that Anthopic or Vibe Coding are winning or already won.
$PYPL (Morningstar Morning Filter YT 00:29:16 What takeover talk for PayPal may mean for its stock)
Last but not least, may I add the all mighty $BRK could become a value trap, too? I recall in 1960s, shortly after Warren Buffett bought Berkshire Hathaway in a bit like “cigar butt” investing approach, he himself quickly realized BRK is a value trap too – he pivoted it to insurance very quickly, and the rest is the history. Btw, I understand people are looking at the most recent 13F filings.
google search (Togglz user name case sensitive)
Why is Launch Darkly this expensive? (Launch Darkly is a comparable SaaS product) => Yagni
We have the scoop on the ‘Scandinavian Sleep Method’ — and how it could help you rest easier (Yahoo and Amazon selling bedding products?)
Why Your Phone Is Quietly Turning You Into a Loser Doom scrolling in bed is bad !!!
Have trouble falling or staying asleep? Try cognitive shuffling.
If you often find yourself lying awake in the middle of the night worrying, sleep experts say that cognitive shuffling might be worth a try.
Start by thinking of a word — something neutral or positive, like the word “house.” Then, think of as many words as you can that start with the first letter: horse, harmonica, honey. Try to picture each object or idea for 5 to 15 seconds, maybe even imagining a scene with yourself in it. (You’re riding a horse. … You’re playing the harmonica. … You’re harvesting honey!)
Sleep Less than 7 Hours? This Exercise Can Save You || The Sleep Trick That Actually Quiets a Racing Mind
The crowd size at the meeting went down quite a bit this year since Warren Buffett’s retirement.
But I think both Warren and Greg handled the questions well. I will put links later, but two things I learned from them.
Valuation is not attractive for them to deploy the cash right now. I think a good example is stocks such as $CAT, used to be blue chip stock, and now has a PE of 47. On the other hand, I just googled – what is apple’s PE when warren started to buy their shares in 2016 – it was 10 to 14. Back to $CAT, its data center segment’s backlog is substantial though – you will need to do a bit research to get a number – Google just gives an overall number.
Another observation or lesson I learned from Warren is here (YT) and tweet – this is about gamblign mentality which is prevailing in current market.
Greg and Ajit duo – and the default mode is No.
Another observation re: Greg (vs Warren). It seems to me Greg is more about operation efficiency, including but not limiting to technology innovation (e.g., from Geico to BNSF), while Warren is more hands off. “The devil is in the details” – I think from my own experience, this is a good thing. As long as we don’t go to “micro management”, we are good there. Note Greg is 30+ years younger than Warren, and has more background in operation compare to Warren’s finance background.
I was at the meeting about 4 years ago – YT video.
(Working in progress as of 04-05-2026, soft launch for now as I expect summer travel to take off towards the end of May. Thought may be helpful for friends who have not visited China for a while)
I am learning from the one and only Apple in terms of their iOS new versioning convention – iOS26. Their new versioning scheme is not entirely ground breaking, btw. If you pay attention to the new cars in the USA (likely in China nowadays too), the new car model or next year model is usually available the year before. For example, right now 2026 Toyota RAV4 is already available. I was a car junkie back in the days – I could tell almost every car’s make and model on the highway when they drove by because I am a slower driver 🙂 But this is mostly useless knowledge too 🙂
Yesterday I came across 2 blog posts almost 20 years ago – More Shanghai travel tips and Travel tips for Shanghai. A lot has changed since then, this is obvious because not only because of the 20 years but also because of the smartphone revolution happened in last 15 years or so.
App, 微信支付 WeChat Pay
Let me give an example, I recall in March 2023, after a break of more than 3 years (2020, 2021 and 2022), I flew back to PVG and saw my parents again in Ningbo. At the KFC store, they already stopped taking orders from the counter, everything is done via app or via 微信小程序。I didn’t know. Just like I didn’t know way before that, at a bank branch in Shanghai, I am supposed to take a number from the computer (printer), which is equivalent to the ticket dispenser here in the US. But I didn’t know and waited in line directly until I realized that I didn’t have a number. Anyway, at KFC, the cashier or 伙计 tried to teach me to download the KFC China app on my iPhone, and because my app store country is set to the USA, it could not find the app 🙁 She has to manually put in order for me, and I was able to pay via WeChat pay though.
Hotels
I wrote quite a bit of kids friendly hotels that I stayed in China: mainly Shanghai and Ningbo Beilun.
Eat
This is mostly for my own benefits 🙂
Shanghai: 台乡缘（2024）
文兴酒家久光百货店（2025）
桂满陇虹桥枢纽浙菜 (2025)
Ningbo:小鱼厂私厨 鄞州 (2025)
And I am open to all suggestions 🙂
Some background – amid the most recent war and the turmoil in the middle east, I thought about quitting JCC earlier next year – I shared my thoughts here YT Video (in Chinese) a few days ago.
Now I think I may do it a bit sooner – the earliest time I think is starting next month May 2026. This is a bit like if people decided to move on from a relationship or a job, it doesn’t make much sense to hang around long, if they don’t expect things to change. In this spirit, I think about cancelling the membership at the end of April – before they start charging me the month of May membership. I know I had said a lot of good words for the J, the short name for JCC, over the years: including my blog posts over the years and this one in particular. Both my kids participated the Day Camp there in summer. But now I think it’s time to move on.
I am thinking about some alternative locations for indoor swimming, if I continue to do that. Another thing I like to have is an indoor walking track – West County mall is one option (in that case The Lodge at Des Peres may be fit the bill?). I like to walk outdoors. But here in STL, there are quite a few months in the year that the weather will be either be too hot or too cold to walk outside, or too rainy. And I can think of the below list. I will be taking time to decide my next move as I am not in a hurry. I would join the Olivette’s Five Oaks off Warson, the closest community center (walking distance from my home), if they have one of those. But it seems to me they only have work out (exercise) machines (treadmills, bikes, weight machines etc.), and pickleball and basketball court. I am decent on pickleball, but I haven’t been fully sold on that sport. Btw, about 2 years ago I poked fun at the pickleball here.
The list
Center of Clayton || Membership rates below (monthly), probably the closest among all the gyms.
| catergory | Resident | Corporate | Non-Resident |
|---|---|---|---|
| Youth (3-17) | $32 | $38 | $42 |
| Adult | $47 | $56 | $67 |
| Senior (65+) | $38 | $45 | $49 |
| Family | $78 | $90 | $111 |
======
Maryland Heights Community Center: it looks like their rate is much cheaper than the J membership.
Prices below are listed as Resident/Non-resident
Adults (Ages 16-61):
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Not too far from Maryland Heights CC, the YMCAs (Edward Jones branch)
Richmond Heights
Lifetime Fitness (this one is a bit more expensive; I feel it’s too expensive for my income or taste)
Forest lake tennis and swimming club (outdoor pool only): my younger daughter is already doing weekly tennis clinics there.
The Lodge (Des Peres)?
or SaaS
CashBoard: quite a while ago, I did a side gig job (year 2012), and I used this app for PDF invoice (professional looking)
ServiceTitan Inc (now a public company TTAN): saw a plumber uses this to generate receipt for me when I paid via CC. Just as I was looking at a possibility to look at buying some of their stocks, I realized they have quite high stock based compensation. ServiceTitan Announces Fiscal Fourth Quarter and Full Fiscal Year 2026 Financial Results (My Q: are they the biggest in the industry?)
Google Search: “how much of servicetitan’s operating free cash flow is from stock based compensations”
Niche players in their respective markets
Bumped into latter two because my younger daughter does violin and dance.
MyMusicStaff (Teipen Music Academy uses it)
The Studio Director (SLAD uses it)
Other examples of vertical industry software (or SaaS)
Constellation Software (Wikipedia): this is a Canadian conglomerate of vertical software companies. It’s probably the latest of its kind. Its stock is traded at Toronto Stock Exchange.
Personally I worked for companies such as Siemens Digital Industry Software (Wikipedia) and Autodesk, both in the CAD, and related CAM, CAE, PDM/PLM industry.