Jon Hancock
Met 2024-11-30 13:00 at Chengdu Wenjun Courtyard Hotel, Chengdu, China.Born 1969, same as me. From Georgia, moved around America, then to Shanghai for 10 years, Chengdu for 4 years, New Zealand for 10 years, now living in Le Shan, near Chengdu.
We talked a lot about programming (Erlang, Smalltalk), raising kids in Wellington, New Zealand, and universities.
Took his son to visit Columbia University in NYC while hundreds of 19-year-olds were outside shouting about Palestine, and he his reaction was, "Really? You just recently heard about this and now you know better than those living it, and are sure enough about that to scream over everyone?" He's building an app to try to help people communicate with each other better.
His son was quite advanced, having moved from China to Wellington New Zealand, and being very studious, so when they asked the local high school what they can do to accomodate advanced students, their answer was, "We can't and don't." The NZ school system is designed to help the average. They also don't give GPA reports to international universities, making it much harder to get in.