just gonna go okay like no no nothing I'll just plug this in and we hope it
works script no no nothing good good I love no script yeah no script is all we
do so I'm gonna point out three things and then I'll let you I'll let you answer
like three questions okay three things that are immediately obvious about you
okay first you're a woman okay second you're Chinese yes and the third one is
actually not obvious but you're an actual engineer as well yes talk to me
about it all three whatever order you want okay okay
wait we already started sure what I told you oh my god oh my god I'm still
preparing prepare okay first time first I'm a woman yeah yeah but how come you
ended up in Sovereign Engineering like we have we have you you two X tower women
count yeah just by coming yeah yeah I was introduced by gsovereignty like we
have been I don't know every friend at Bitcoin friends for a long time probably
probably more than three years at Hong Kong and he's kind of the person
introduced me to the space all right yeah and yeah he's a very smart person
and I trust him I trust his technology taste and a lot of things and then he
told me like I was ending my contract last month and that's him like do you
need anything from my office you are going to move and then he said oh so
you're free now let's go let's go to Sovereign Engineering as it was it what what
all right yeah that's how the story begins okay yeah for the woman's and I
don't know does it matter no how did you get interested in technology in the
first place kind of well it's kind of like like the natural thing that when I
do the China’s SAT the China’s gaokao I was doing that math Olympics
previously okay so if I do math I can get extra point so I can go better
University that is how I get into math major and my graduate I was like okay
computer is more fun than math it's like more complicated and did he did kind of
was that an inborn interest or did your parents push you to do that or how does
it go how did they go for you I think it goes with natural like yeah when I do
math at China the classmate is like 10 boys and one girl's
become friends and we share about our interest and then yeah I was like oh this
is fun actually I get to know Bitcoin at the first day I get into university like
everyone yeah everyone's share about their interest where they come from this
kind of introduction and there is one guy say my name is blah blah blah and the
second sentence I think everyone in our generation should learn what is big okay
so you had a crazy guy I have no contact with him now probably he's super rich
now well when was that if I may ask like what he hasn't voting all right that's
early yeah that's very early okay so that was your first contact yes yes and
then what happened after well for for many years I only thought
Bitcoin as a ticker like like Tesla or Nvidia you can buy and sell yeah and
then like I met G he kind of like a guest lecturer at the university I went
to oh really yeah yeah professor cheese are seven the other one cost professor
is still professor yeah yeah so yeah and then one day he told me like oh I am
walking our project based on Nostr do you want to check what is it and I was
like it's natural what is Nostr and then I do some Google I download Damus I
find it's totally not useful and when was that it was like two years ago three
years ago two thousand twenty two one month before Jack Dorsey oh okay all
right yeah all right so you were earlier on Nostr as well yes earlier than Jack
I'm very proud yeah that's good that's good you should be yeah and yeah and then
brought you back to the orange coin a little bit I guess the thing like I found
super weird about Nostr at that time is like everyone is talking about Bitcoin so
actually very very yeah I thought I still like yeah you can still find my
post at that moment probably like what is the difference between Bitcoin and
other coins oh I know that post it's it's Nostr famous yeah yeah yeah I mean
like I like 300 people reply to it or something people recommend books and
oh my god what is this I started with Bitcoin and ask the right question yeah I
hope everyone was kind of helpful
I don't know I mean I'm happy they didn't yell at me but yeah whatever yeah but my
theory is um you cannot actually orange peel anyone the cool one yeah but what
you can do is you can you identify people who already accept this philosophy
and you tell the Bitcoin exists yeah Bitcoin adjacent people and then it's
easier to walk through the door but you know there's the same for a reason you
can lead a lead a horse to water but you can't make a drink you know it's like
that's the tiger so you're very sure in the end you can only orange peel yourself
yeah so how was how was the last six weeks for you so how was sovereign
engineering for you what did you expect and kind of how did it go for you it's
amazing it has a lot of up and down like life yeah amazing yeah so I didn't work
on the technology side for a year before I come here so my original expectation
is that I want to check about the latest thing what people are talking about or
if you are working on nowadays on Nostr and yeah I think I find something
super interesting like FIPS yeah yeah I don't think I will notice FIPS if I
didn't come here yeah yeah FIPS is still very very niche it's still a small
broad actually yeah kind of you know the moment when I and explain how FIPS
works on the whiteboard it gives me the same failing that the first time I try
to read NIP-01 the first time I try to figure out how people actually works
yeah something clicked so you understood that there's something there
yeah cool it just works yeah yeah how did it go for you week by week in terms
of your demos and the things you wanted to show it's very intense and for the
first three or four weeks I totally have no idea what I'm doing here yeah I
remember you told me the first week that you were like super super super nervous
yes and sweating I'm thinking I'm the stupidest person in the whole room no don't worry there's always there's always someone more
stupid never never be nervous but yeah but yeah yeah that is like it's like and
also like I don't like presentation that much yeah so but ultimately I understand
it's it's not like a typical presentation it's more like you come here
you do something and you show people how you do it it doesn't matter it's
successful or not yes yes yeah that's the point this is just show people what
you do it could it even could be lines of code yeah I like the PR or whatever
yeah yeah yeah nothing to show which means you have some problem exactly yeah
the point of the demos and it's kind of to like you said show what's inside you
show how you think show what kind of ideas you have yeah show what you want
to bring into existence and so on yes and and with the with the artifact that's
presented as the demo we have something to talk about and to discuss and then we
take it from there so it's just about literally kind of expressing yourself in
terms of code and just pushing something out yeah exactly yeah yeah and how did it
go then in the next couple of weeks because now you're not as nervous anymore
I feel like you you warmed up to it punch out helps punch out yeah bunch of
fixes fixes things really getting better is the week that Jonathan become the
captain yeah what he proposed like this week everyone should walk in team yes
yeah yeah there is the study everyone paired up right yes that's study point
for me to actually talk with people share about visions yeah talk about what
I want to do it doesn't matter it's stupid or not and we some I become
friends with some of them we talk about life - yeah definitely helps oh yeah
absolutely no no you really get to know people like you like you said it's a
very intense multi-week thing and there is no escape you just you you get to
know people and you share space a lot to walk up here actually the kind of all
right well who did you end up pairing up with like who did you pair up with oh
I am Arjen okay nice how was it what did you work on it's kind of like based on
Myco you build a file sharing system oh my not only share insights only your
apps yeah the first time I saw Myco was like oh this is air drop exactly it's
air drop for absent and other things and there is it only can share apps I was
like it doesn't make sense it should be able to share files
right yeah yeah yeah the funny thing is like Jonathan he tried to do something
this is the story told me try to do something with I am like it's like some
like fifth doctor diagnosed website or whatever and then he decided oh I want
to do something with Jeff Jeff G like they want they try to build White Noise
White Noise is that like face originally supported like yeah doesn't come in
through really but community through FIPS yeah and then he talked with I I
am fine and it's kind of like a breakup and after five minutes we were
discussing about if we can do something over over Myco yeah yeah I see I
was walking to the table next to us say oh so you move on so fast yeah yeah
things evolve very quickly what was what was something that impressed you this
cohort in terms of demos something that you saw that kind of stuck kept stuck in
your head it's more about like the energy the passion that everyone have
it's very rare in my daily life in my daily circle and walking along is hard
sometimes a question of region question about should I do this should I do that
yeah so it's very impressive that I was like how come so much engineer can get
there with so many people with similar mind it's yeah yeah it's just amazing
yeah I think partly the answer to that this you have to have a special mental
makeup to be interested in the Nostr and FIPS and especially like like
bleeding-edge Nostr development in the first place you have to be kind of a
weird insane person you know and then if you do a thing and you you basically
tell everyone okay we just want to have these people and we're gonna lock
everyone on an island you know for like six weeks only only those kind of people
sign up you know you have to be highly enthusiastic about about it otherwise
you wouldn't come yeah yeah it's a self-selecting filter that works really
well no and I'm really glad that it's working because we have like highly
highly motivated people yeah that's the point it's a point hard to get to and
hard to leave because it's like if it would be easy to leave everyone would
leave on like week two because it's just too weird in the beginning that's how it
goes so what's next for you oh that's a very good question um so before I come
here I seriously think about if I don't have a first job people will look at me
and judge me and after this I don't care there's a great book on that written by
Richard Feynman the title is why do you care what other people think you live in
a society yeah yeah yeah it's hard to just ignore you can how is it but
you must be there must be some weird people that don't fit the norm in Hong
Kong right like it's it's you're living in a place where you can't get away with
whatever going full-time Bitcoin going full-time Nostr whatever you you want to
do no I I think it's more like a mental thing you stand up for the reality thing
like the only one I need to convert convince is myself yes that's how it goes
yeah yeah so how is that going how far along are you on the convincing process
as I said I don't care so you wanna what's something you want to explore
after the court I mean you probably gonna decompress a little bit and just
you know do something that's not an oster for a couple days yeah and then
what then naturally is cool that's what the thing
FIPS is cool, and Myco is beautiful, Myco is so buggy the first thing I
want to make it actually work okay fix Myco yes that's the goal
it's Myco all right awesome Arjen will be happy
I hope I hope I hope he won't yell at me say oh you blew up my project we talked a little bit
about bringing like going global with Sovereign Engineering what would be your
kind of dream destination of where to do a Sovereign Engineering cohort what would
be a good place for it's not there Vietnam Thailand Hong Kong is kind of
pricey okay yeah yeah personally I don't like Indonesia too much okay it is my
personal failing okay but but they're a great community in Bali okay good good
options good options because we're gonna brainstorm some more okay we're gonna
see what happens we'll do we'll do we'll do we'll do a
brainstorm group yeah yeah so we all we made the whole ring any last words I
told you it's gonna be a short one oh okay I kind of feel I'm not sure how
many women engineer outside there but I think if you if you're going to plan to
come here just ignore yourself as a woman just be an engineer just do it just
go away exactly just do it yeah we're not we don't discriminate all we need is
an npub and some proof of work exactly like we don't look at the gender we
don't even know the gender from the screening process perspective we find out
very late if someone is a woman or not so you're you're already it's when we
meet you in real life basically so I want to echo that you know to all the
women engineers out there if Nostr is something that interests you or Lightning
or Bitcoin and those kind of things please come please come it was a lot of
fun to have you here exactly very very glad you came thank you so much I'm very
glad you organized this big huh until next time yeah and let's see if the
recording worked you did really really well that was fantastic thank you so
much all right alcohol helps alcohol always helps what