books read
you have not yet heard your favorite song was an interesting book about the impact of streaming (itunes / youtube / spotify) on the music industry written by the chief data scientist at spotify. lots of fun anecdotes about how the state of the world gets reflected in music streaming analytics, eg. if you look at which countries start streaming christmas music earliest in the year the results are 1) philippines 2) uae 3) saudi arabia, 1 being because apparently filipinos really like christmas music and 2+3 being due to high concentrations of filipino migrant workers. also i thought this was really beautiful and accurately describes how exploring new genres works:
the great cool ranch dorito in the sky was ok. i mean, i love doritos so i had to read this book when i saw it in the bookstore. it’s a pretty typical YA novel about eating disorders
finally read hillbilly elegy! i first heard about this book in 2016 but procrastinated on reading it until the 2024 election. it’s pretty repetitive, but does a good job of explaining suburban decay in appalachia and problems with conservative culture. it also gave me hope that jd vance was and can be a more reasonable person than the last few years suggest
normal people was good, way better than intermezzo. at its core the book is about two people with anxious and avoidant attachment styles learning to be more secure over the course of ~5 years <3
read the paper menagerie and other stories, which blends sci-fi and asian immigrant experiences. overall i think the collection is quite good - a couple of the stories are way too long, but i enjoyed all the shorter stories, especially the paper menagerie
read a trifecta of techbro books, thought they were extremely okay
there is no anti-mimetics division was fine. the general concept was cool (how do you fight monsters that are constantly erasing all traces of themselves from your memory?) but i found the plot quite rushed and did not get to know the characters well enough to care about them as a result
the beginning of infinity was interesting. around 1/3 of the chapters are very speculative (discussing consciousness, many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, etc) and shouldn't be taken too seriously. the other 2/3 is pretty good and focuses on the history of science, the enlightenment, how new knowledge gets created, etc. chapter 10 in particular is excellent - it's a 40-page dialogue between socrates and hermes on the nature of scientific progress, how we can ever know anything, why athens and sparta turned out so differently
read finite and infinite games but simply could not figure out how to enjoy it. the first chapter lays out distinctions between finite and infinite games, which i think is important to understand. the rest of the book is the author applying this framework to various other areas of life, which i often felt was overreaching
travel
spent most of november in europe! it was a fun time
my 2 favorite buildings were the markthal (dramatic building with a large food court lobby) and the budapest house of music (extremely beautiful nature-inspired design, also features a cool music museum where they give you a headset that tracks your location and plays the music for whatever exhibit you’re standing in front of)
favorite city was prague. one of my czech coworkers commented that prague is the best-preserved german city because all the german cities in germany were heavily damaged in ww2
there’s this meme about how europe is becoming a giant museum for tourists, which is unfair but not entirely incorrect? obviously other things happen in europe too but it’s true that tourism + adjacent services are becoming a higher percentage of gdp in europe than in the usa and the locals are getting annoyed because shops everywhere are choosing to sell rubber ducks to tourists instead of anything actually useful
there was so much gothic / baroque / neoclassical architecture to look at and it was all objectively very impressive, but it also made me a bit sad. i couldn’t stop thinking about that line from the end of circe - “I thought once that gods are the opposite of death, but I see now they are more dead than anything, for they are unchanging, and can hold nothing in their hands.” being surrounded by centuries-old monuments for three weeks straight felt a bit like death. i don’t think it’s a coincidence that the two buildings i mentioned above were both built after 2010. it turns out i just really love everything contemporary and will choose glass over stone every time
spent a long time thinking about whether the european economy is sustainable or not - like, is it really possible to maintain a high standard of living long-term while working fewer hours and strangling your own tech industry + startup scene? more on this in a later post
went to vancouver for neurips. it was nice to see so many research friends in one place! my main updates were that there’s a lot of interesting work to do around dataset selection and that ilya is extremely good at predicting the future
visited parents in texas for holidays. it was alright though i did not have much to do and ended up reading / watching a lot
unfortunately during oct-dec i only spent 2 full weeks in sf… excited to actually be present in 2025!
movies / shows
speedran 4 movies on the flight back from europe. anyone but you made me lose brain cells. diary of a wimpy kid: the dog days and detective pikachu were both pretty funny. seven days war was absolutely absurd - it's the japanese animated version of home alone except it also talks about the southeast asian migrant crisis and some people are not straight
lost in translation was pretty. it’s about feeling lonely and confused in the aftermath of a relationship. tldr the directors of lost in translation and her got divorced and then each made their own film about it, which i think is a very cool concept. main complaint is that the film is set in tokyo and quite racist towards japanese people
cinema paradiso is about childhood nostalgia and the development of film. plot was fine, soundtrack is one of the best i’ve ever heard
tatami time machine blues is a cute tatami galaxy spinoff. i thought it was better than the original as the characters are already developed and more friendly
speedran your lie in april. having played lots of classical music i didn’t actually like the music sections that much, but found the rest of the story (traumatized kid learns to have fun and enjoy life again) quite good
also speedran ap bio. tldr awful teacher gets to know his students and becomes a nicer person over time, which is a trope i generally enjoy. the first 2 seasons are decent, then it gets a bit boring
flow was a really cute animated film about a cat learning to work together with a capybara, a bird, and other animals to survive a flood. there is zero dialogue but the storytelling is good enough that you never get bored
watched interstellar in imax for the 10-year anniversary re-release! absolutely sublime, greatest cinema experience i’ve ever had, hits differently with massive screen and speakers, cried for an hour straight, etc
finally watched avatar: the last airbender. i really liked the worldbuilding and choreo! to be honest season 1 was a bit boring because the main protagonists (aang/katara/sokka) are much less compelling than the secondary protagonists (toph/zuko/iroh) in my opinion, but once the secondary characters have a larger role the show really takes off
(speedrun means i watch the ~20-40% of scenes that i think are best to save time. if the writing is better i will watch a higher % of scenes)
other stuff
made an end-of-year reflection site based on a cool clock i saw in prague. not as good as the 2023 site, but oh well there’s always next year
played omori (happy route) and undertale (neutral route). both very wholesome games with well-written scripts and soundtracks!
applied to grad school, unlikely to get in or actually attend but the process was useful for clarifying my research interests
i have a new favorite picture of myself, drawn by one of my friends!
late but filipino fun fact is that philippine christmas season starts in september!! hence streaming :>