- at the beginning of the semester i ate a lot of candy every day, mostly because there was abundant supply both from the physics lounge and from my dorm. then someone reminded me about type ii diabetes so i stopped. i was actually very surprised by how easy it was to quit candy, since i was worried i’d become dependent on it, but all i had to do was announce that i wanted to stop and since then i haven’t eaten any candy. it’s reassuring to know i still have plasticity
- running into people wearing last year’s web.lab shirt makes me happy! very pleasant reminders and i’m glad i was able to help teach such a large class
- i experienced several rejections that stung a bit – most notably from desres, monad, and openai. i was actually pretty excited about each one since they seemed like cool industry research environments but didn’t get to do technical interviews with any of them – they basically all rejected me on resume screen. this is probably a sign that i need to take on larger projects
- people convinced me to watch LoL worlds finals and it was surprisingly entertaining despite me not knowing how to play! the event was legitimately more engaging than actual sports broadcasts. very good graphics, production, and commentary. i definitely understand the appeal of esports / league in particular now
- nanotech is hard and program synthesis is confusing. i’m glad i’m taking these classes but definitely feel out of my depth and have had to spend more time on each than i would like to. i’m not convinced my projects for either of these classes will work out (one is a tandem silicon/organic solar cell; the other is a symbolic algebra optimizer)
- also, i had two funny conversations i wanted to document
- the first one was a reverse reference call, with an investor interviewing me to see if a professor i’d worked with was worth investing in
- vc: do you know what professor x’s motivations in life are? does he care about Business or Research?
- me: i think x enjoys solving hard problems, which is why he worked on his research and why he wants to start a company now
- vc: has x talked to you about Social Good before?
- me: not really, though i imagine he’d probably be interested in it
- vc: in a previous conversation with me, x mentioned wanting to work on projects for Social Good. do you think he will be able to balance Business and Social Good?
- the second one was with a friend
- me: are you an optimist?
- t: no
- me: oh, so you’re a pessimist?
- t: no
- me: oh you just mean you’re neutral or something like that
- t: no
- me: what
- t: well i’m not an optimist yet but trying to become one, and admitting to being a pessimist wouldn’t help with that
- i’m thinking about starting another club, the spiritual successor to the tiktok/viral videos club i tried last fall. i realized the main failure there was that the scope was too narrow; i liked making tiktoks but there are many other things i’d also enjoy making and which could attract a wider audience. general project co-working might be better
- i stumbled onto this quote from all quiet on the western front again: “Had we returned home in 1916, out of the suffering and the strength of our experience we might have unleashed a storm. Now if we go back we will be weary, broken, burnt out, rootless, and without hope. We will not be able to find our way any more.”
- many institutions are in need of reform and the people with the most knowledge about necessary changes are the ones who have experienced the institution, but that experience often leaves them too burnt out to do meaningful work eg. in the case of mit, full-time work, etc.
- i suppose this is another reason why you should start (though not necessarily finish) the work you care most about while you’re young, instead of waiting for your second job / retirement
A Slice of My Mind 
probably a sign that i need to take on larger projects » no it’s a sign of the decaying tech industry
general project co-working » now that sounds too general
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no it’s a sign of the decaying tech industry » large tech layoffs are a sign of the decaying tech industry but niche startup/research lab performance isn’t
now that sounds too general » yeah i’m still fleshing it out
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unrelated to this post, but do you have any tips/thoughts for a hser trying to get into the zk industry?
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depends on your background. i would say reach out to organizations like 0xparc / personae labs, engage with them on twitter (the accounts are small enough that they’re likely to read most msgs/replies), write some small (but still useful) circuits or tools and put them on github so people know you know how to do stuff
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thanks! i got rejected from the 0xparc Halo2 Learning group over the summer, and applied to PARC squad a few days ago (really hoping that ill get in). i’ve written circom code for a hackathon, and have a website where I sometimes post thoughts from watching MIT6.875 lecture videos, but neither are especially eye catching.
do you have any thoughts on whether I should become an anon/does mentioning that im a hser have any benefit at all? i haven’t gotten anything saying im a hser, but the times I didn’t reveal my age I got much better results (ex. i got offered by worldcoin to go to devcon to go for free , but im not 18 yet so i couldnt go + my parents didn’t think Bogota was safe). i feel its not the best idea to hide my age while not being an anon, but also don’t want to tell ppl my age because they’ll look at me differently…
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i think it’s fine to hide your age while not being anon, at least until you turn 18
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tbf this was probably the greatest lol worlds finals (and possibly overall playoffs bracket) ever by a substantial margin
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t sounds like a straight legend 😂
The last line of the quote reminded me of something said by Yamada Michiyoshi, a shogi master:
“Don’t lose your way. You have to do it. If you fail, you’ll collapse and die in the wilderness. You’ll be fine.”
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