general update

there are somewhat important things i need to write about but i am struggling to figure out how to communicate them so in the meantime you’re getting this post 😐 

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some links:

• i’ve been trying to tweet more often. here’s my profile. i’m not sure about the extent to which i want more followers; if i do, i probably need to reply to other peoples’ tweets and quote and mention them and whatever which feels like a lot of work that isn’t terribly interesting, so for now i will not bother. also frog and toad is officially my favorite twitter account
• apparently i wrote usajmo problem 1 this year. mildly surprised because nobody told me it got accepted. i don’t really care anymore, but i guess high-school-vincent would be happy, or maybe they would be sad because they hated functional equations
• i’ve been probably a bit too enthusiastic about bitconnect for the past few weeks. it’s honestly the funniest thing i’ve seen in months, though also quite sad when you realize carlos matos got scammed hard
• curius has changed a lot since the last time i mentioned it in november. you can still find my profile and articles i read on the internet that i found interesting here (and if you want ways to organize your reading i again recommend getting the chrome extension 🙂 ) i think everything under my “favorites” tab is worth reading, and everything else is only worth reading if you and i have overlapping interests. i’ve been trying to be somewhat more active lately though it’s actually not that easy to find bookmark-worthy content on the internet. i used to read lots of mainstream media, got bored and started reading lots of hackernews, and now i am getting a bit tired of that too; that’s probably why i’ve been reading more books and blogs lately
• i think i’m supposed to advertise the new ohms album. it is actually pretty good

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other things: 

• dorm assignments for next year came out and i got macgregor, which i’m not particularly excited about, though it is probably still better than living off-campus. i am a bit worried about my relative lack of friends there, so i will try be more aggressive about inviting people over and going to other peoples’ rooms
• i passed 7.05 (biochemistry) for the semester and will probably try less on the remainder of the class because i just don’t find metabolism as interesting as the stuff we covered earlier, and the second half of the class seems to have less support in terms of lecture video functionality on mitx
• i was starting a new project for asimov and asked my boss if they had suggestions or feedback for what to do next and they said “just do something you find interesting” which, idk… could mean they’re happy with my work and just want me to stay engaged so i return after college, or it could mean they’re so disappointed that they think nothing i do in the next month could possibly be of value. i guess it could also mean a lot of other things
• heroku banned my account so i was sad that some of my code stopped running but it was also cool because it meant i was apparently doing things noteworthy enough to get banned? then a few days later they reactivated saying it was just a general issue they had with randomly deactivating accounts so it was really all for nothing
• i’m around 40% done with a pattern language and it’s such a beautiful book. it’s nominally about urban planning but really about the general philosophy of design and user interaction, and the first section on how to organize towns is a summary and critique of modern american life in general, eg. they talk about the role of coffee shops and old people and carnivals and religion. some of the claims are outdated or far-fetched but in general the patterns described align with my experiences. it’s also really easy to read; the book is divided into 253 sections of around 5 pages each, so the sections are short enough to trick you into continually reading if you don’t pay attention to time. it definitely is helping me get into the mindset of thinking more about system design and user interaction
• aside from a pattern language i’m reading the rust book right now, though i’ve had to put it on pause for the moment due to having too many priorities. but after that i think the plan is to read meditations, and i ordered a copy of the anthropocene reviewed which is getting shipped to my parents so i can’t start that until i go home. it’s a bit out of character for me to actually buy books but i’ve become a much bigger john green fan over the past year, or at least i more clearly recognize how rare internet presences like his are
• some of my friends (at around my age) got married recently and some others (younger than me) wanted to get married soon to get financial aid. it seemed like a generally cool and funny thing to think about so i asked a lot of friends if they wanted to get married and they all said no. i guess that means i technically proposed to ten people in one day
• i’ve been walking a lot! here’s a map of where i’ve been. you can’t see any actual locations through the coloring but i don’t really mind; the goal is just to cover the map in as much red as possible. i haven’t had any motivation to go to the southern half of sf though, mostly just because it’s somewhat annoying to access via public transit