I think he is very sincere in his motivation to learn Chinese and its brave to get up there because to us he sounds pretty foreign. People laughed because it's endearing to listen to, not really funny. To me languages are a lot like programming in that if you can get enough to hack around the problem you are half way there. Honestly its not about the $, because if you speak Chinese it doesn't make you Chinese in a Chinese's eyes, just curious and disciplined.

Just want to add that when I started learning Chinese people made it out like some impossible dream, and when I started to learn to code it was the same (maybe because I have long blonde hair and look like I'm from Florida or something). Truth is its not as hard as you think to become ok, but very hard to master. So if you are reading this and you ever thought seriously about studying Chinese but "don't have the time"... well, Mark makes time, and if you're reading HN regularly then you are definitely smart enough :)

Yes. As long as there was a hedge type clause saying if it dropped below a certain threshold it would revert to USD. Sounds a bit like working in Argentina or Zim but those would be my terms.

What's your 5 year plan?

Gardening

If you happen to be Australian: http://www.geoffmcqueen.com/2011/09/28/e-3-visa-for-australi...

5: Using 1, 3 for later and 1 regret that I won't renew when it expires.

Heya,

I also have a niggling back but no problems since I went for standing desk: http://www.fastcompany.com/3028686/my-year-at-a-standing-des...

Maybe give it a go in between sitting for long periods. Positive side effect: improved touch typing.

Good tip. I've been looking seriously as some standing desks. But is it exhausting to stand for a full day? And what do you do footwear wise? Is barefoot standing the way to go?

Thanks!

Oh, those Locus Seats looks pretty good. I wonder if they ship to EU and if it's feasible cost wise.

Thanks for the tip! I think something like that would be great!

Campus London has a kind of communal space downstairs but the coworking is through techhub: http://www.techhub.com/ Might help if you are going to be in and around Europe as a few hotdesk options... My fav place to work is Barbican library but not been there in ages.

In Asia we have quite a few if relying on your family is still bootstrapping.

Hi I'm not sure if this is useful but here in China realtime chat function for buying stuff is commonplace. I heard a stat that something like 40% of all sales on Tmall are closed via chat - be it wechat or aliwangwang. In terms of location based and in app purchase they have moved fast too.

If you need to look at consumer behavior (which for many comments here seems to be a question) it might help to look at what they are doing.