it turns out life becomes far busier and harder to summarize when not working
content:
read norwegian wood and kind of hated it even though the prose was very well-written. people often complain about his female characters but even setting that aside i thought the depiction of mental illness felt really awkward and unrelatable? it might be time for me to give up on murakami (though i did love kafka on the shore)
everyone's a aliebn when ur a aliebn too was okay. i read it because a friend said it reminded them of my blog. personally i didn’t see the resemblance but the cartoons were cute
watched perfect days. i did not expect to enjoy watching someone clean toilets as much as i did. the ending scene really captured what it’s like to just listen to music and go through all the feelings
finished both seasons of march comes in like a lion and really liked it! very beautiful depiction of adolescence and depression and passion. the colors and water imagery are especially good. i also realized this is my first true slice-of-life anime and i should probably give the genre another chance (i assumed it was boring as a kid)
rewatched eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. it was cool to be able to pay more attention to all the writing and practical effects details the second time around. i also realized watching it at a normal time vs immediately after a breakup are two completely different experiences, though both good
watched pride and prejudice (1995 show) with my housemates. it was not as gorgeous as the 2005 film visually or musically, but still very entertaining and true to source material
“work”:
participated in an extended brain tech hackathon! i spent a few days frantically cramming physics, mostly related to acoustic waves. it was my first time relying extensively on perplexity to learn something and i don’t really see any other way i could’ve gotten up to speed quickly enough; i’ve been using perplexity regularly ever since. after that i spent a week working on beamforming and ultrasound imaging, which was fun and confusing especially considering i hadn’t thought about physics or electrical engineering in maybe 1.5 years. i think we’re releasing a summary via blog post soon
there was so much equipment i hadn’t touched before - lock-in amplifiers, vacuum chambers, ultrasound probes, fancy 3d printers, etc. it reminded me of something one of my housemates wrote - How could you do science without mysticism? You need a wild, primitive imagination to have faith that the future will look vastly different from the present. You need to be able to look at our magnetometers, water pumps, sequencers, vacuums, furnaces, solenoid valves, blenders, cotton gins, electroplated cutlery, elemental aluminum, airfoils, NMR coils, zinc batteries, chemical refrigerants, hydraulic brakes, brushless motors, murano glass, confocal microscopes, and know that this is not even a drop in the ocean of all that humanity will ever create.
started working with friends on a new project related to llm interpretability and safety. it takes up around 3-4 days of my time each week, which is a bit more than i’d like but it might die down in around a month when we release something
applied to a job at the dwarkesh podcast for fun. i think my application was the exact opposite of what he wanted, because shortly after my (research-oriented) submission he tweeted to clarify that he wasn’t looking for a researcher
health:
resumed going to the gym regularly after a yearlong hiatus. i also went to barry’s for the first time to try it out; the hiit was fun but i disliked how unpredictable the non-running portions were (and i found the instructions hard to understand)
invented a new exercise which i’m pretty happy about called lunge circle - my housemates and i space ourselves around the perimeter of the kitchen and do lunges in laps until one person overtakes everyone else. it’s quite effective in pushing people to lunge harder
spending a lot more time on grocery shopping and cooking now that i don’t have an infinite supply of free food from job. it’s very pleasant; i didn’t realize how much i missed browsing grocery stores
i've been consuming a lot of harvest snaps baked green pea snacks! they are fun to eat and the stats (0g sugar 20% protein 40% fiber) are pretty close to ideal for me, possibly the greatest snack of all time
other:
went to the national museum of african-american music. it was very cool! they have a spotify-like app where you listen to artists’ songs and can navigate around a graph connecting artists with their peers / students / inspirations, which i think is a good and underutilized format
decided to relearn complex analysis since i don’t think i did it properly the first time. i finished working through the princeton book (stein and shakarchi) and was also planning to go through visual complex analysis because i was told it had really good diagrams, but after skimming the book i think its insistence on developing all the math visually results in presenting concepts in a strange order that is more confusing
dyed my hair for the first time. i think it was supposed to be purple fading to blonde but i was impatient while bleaching and stopped early so instead it became red fading to brown? idk how this is supposed to work
multiple friends visited over the summer and made me extremely happy! tried lots of new things including clubbing and finally learning to swing and some other activities that probably warrant separate posts
my instagram feed has been incredible for the last few months. i used to get lots of clips from sports and tv shows but at some point the algorithm discovered i like reading and now i only receive poetry and wholesome writing about love and friendship and care! for the first time in years instagram is actually a joy to use, 100% of the time
goated snack fr
Ok tbf we have different math backgrounds but I think visual complex analysis is such a joy to read