Conversations on humans and computers
Coffee bags in the photo are ordered by roast date from left to right, top to bottom. Click to get a closer look. Name Roaster Tasting Notes Roast Date Origin Aggie Blend UC Davis Coffee Center, Davis, California sweet, caramel, dark chocolate April 6, 2026 Blend Ethiopia Wuri Maru Coffee, Los Angeles, California peach, blackberry, black tea May 4, 2026 Gedeb, Gedeo, Ethiopia Ethiopia Yukro Best…
LLMs are similar to compilers in the way that they are democratizing the creation of software. Before LLMs and compilers, many more humans were needed to create and maintain software. Compilers allowed us to program in plain English words rather than numbers and symbols. Many jobs of the original programmers became obsolete, but computing was also opened up to fields beyond scientists and…
It’s been getting warm lately in San Francisco and I do love a nice espresso tonic on a lazy weekend. I’ve been experimenting a bit with making my own flavors of espresso tonics with whatever jams we have around the house. We have a lot of jams at home because Christine likes to buy jams. I also like to buy jams. When I say jam, I really mean anything spreadable on toast. This can include jam,…
Agentic coding is to human software development like a word processor is to handwriting. You can achieve similar output in half the time, but the gains of agentic development are exponential compared to the linear gains of typing versus handwriting. If you can see the path from A to B, the Agent can build you the car and pave the road for you to drive there in a few hours where a human would have…
Yosemite bouldering again. First time in a few years now. Last time was probably with Paul, Paul, and Brando. Kodai forgot his puffy at the B&B in the morning. He realized it just as we were rolling up to Camp 4. We made our way towards the Wine Boulder, passing Midnight Lightning on the way up. When we rolled up, there was a dude trying Dominator, Jerry Moffatt’s legendary climb. We took a look…
We had a house warming party a few weeks back. Finally, a chance to show off the space we’d been building out for the past month. Invite all the guests, her friends and mine, maybe some overlap. Make sure we invite enough people but not too many, we only have 800 sqft to work with. I wanted to do a home bar. We’re starting at 2pm and no one’s really gonna show up until 3pm, so I’m doing a menu of…
I recently ended my tenure at Gatsby after four years. Throughout that time, I went from being a junior engineer with less than a year of professional experience to a senior member of the team, responsible for multiple product surfaces. I’ve seen many projects through to completion and into maintenance, and have felt firsthand the results of my mistakes. Throughout this time, I’ve picked up some…
After visiting Seattle in July, I noticed that many of my college friends working in big tech had bought or were buying homes. Seattle is slightly cheaper than San Francisco but it gave me hope that maybe someday I could save up enough money for home ownership. If only I could income max over the next few years. Around this time, I also started getting a bunch of recruiter emails, probably…
婆婆 died. She was a hard-ass woman. She raised three kids as a widow. She was a widow for 50 years. She never remarried. There was a story she liked to tell me that I also heard from my mom. My grandmother had to go away for a week and during that time, my uncle tried smoking cigarettes. When my grandma came home, my mom and aunt told on my uncle and my grandma beat his ass. She would still hit…
this post assumes knowledge of virtualization/windowing At Gatsby , one of the projects I worked on a few years back was creating our high performance guest list table component. At that time, we used React Window as an off the shelf solution in order to render thousands of guest rows in the table. Since then, I’ve wanted to write my own windowing/virtualization library. Lately, I’ve been working…
Previously, I wrote about making a MacOS Menu Bar app using Gemini . In that post, I left a lot of loose ends left by the generated code that I never tidied up. With a bit more time over the last few weeks, well, I tidied them up. First, I was using deprecated APIs. So I went back and updated those. I went down the tried and true path, starting with the Apple Developer Docs and then combing…
I need to switch my default browser frequently. On my MacBook, I use Chrome at work but I use Firefox as my personal browser. I have some hotkeys setup so I can quickly switch my browser when I clock out, but sometimes I forget to switch it back in the morning and end up opening links in the wrong browser. I want something more visual, like a small gui that I can check. Maybe something that lives…
They were in a little open air refrigerator at the front of the conbini. “I saw these on TikTok, they’re good if you’re sick.” “What are they?” They were little glass bottles lined up in rows. Most had pictures of lemons on them. They looked like they could be tasty, and vaguely medicinal. I picked one up and deciphered ‘5000mg of Vitamin C’ from the little bits of Katakana I could pick out. “I…
A problem I’ve been seeing frequently at work is a list of items on the frontend that is filterable, sortable, and searchable. There should be an optimal order for these three operations. Testing a few combinations: 1_000_000 Items 1. Filter: 'red' 2. Sort by: 'A-Z' 3. Search: 'a' Time: 86ms 1. Sort by: 'A-Z' 2. Search: 'a' 3. Filter: 'red' Time: 220ms 1. Sort by: 'A-Z' 2. Filter: 'red' 3. Search:…
I quit drinking coffee between June and October of last year. I wanted to prove to myself I could quit my caffeine addiction and I did, but now I’m back. The taste of coffee, the joy of trying different flavors, the dreamy energy infusion, it’s too much to ignore. This time around is a celebration of friendship, many of these bags were gifted to me by friends from around the world. Name Roaster…
The washcloth was hanging on the hook by the shower. I had received it in the mail earlier in the day and hung it up dutifully for later use. Yesterday, I had already noticed that the bar of soap was already not much of a bar. Today, it was looking much more like a mush of mashed potatoes. The water was running and hot so I stepped in. I wet the washcloth as the packaging instructed, macerating…
Jason got us tickets to see The Chainsmokers at XS at the Wynn. It was my second time going to The Strip as an adult and I wasn’t too keen on it. The first time, I went to watch Mitsuru play roulette while he was charging his car. He promptly lost $50 on red which was just enough time for his to car to finish charging. That was my first exposure to casino gambling, it will probably be my last. At…
I was sitting at Four Barrel , for the first time, finishing up Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men” when a man in a blue flannel walked over to tell me that they were doing coffee tastings up at the pour over bar. “We’re doing it from 2-3 , so no rush” he told me. I took that as a sign to take my time and finish up my book and cappuccino before sauntering over to check it out. Twelve bags…
This morning I woke up, with a bladder half full, to movement in the adjacent room. I couldn’t figure out which one was the culprit so I shuffled out of bed, towards the bathroom. As rolled myself back into the folds of my comforter, I remembered “Oh that’s right, they’re going to Boston today. No wonder they’re up at 5AM.” and that made me want to give a hug. I lay in bed uneasy, uncertain,…
Cramped into a small corner with stools lining the alcove, we sat and waited for our tropical rum inspired drinks. The sky boomed above us as rain and thunder danced on the ceiling, a mockery to nature’s true power. I was stuck to Allison again, two hyperactive hot spring monkeys, amped by booze. Not stuck stuck, just trapped against the wall in our little corner of the tropics. “So how do you…
a story from a night in Berlin in September 2023 Max had made a new friend in Berlin and she invited him to China - City, the best place for Chinese food in Berlin according to her mother. I was invited too but I wanted to climb that evening so I ditched dinner, but I joined them later after dinner. He had the keys to our apartment so we had to meet up eventually. I could have taken the bus but I…
a story from a night in Paris in August 2023, read part 1 The next weekend, Dayana invited us out again. This time to an Asian fusion place called Double Dragon. We had gone up to Sacré-Cœur earlier in the day but I went home early to work. Max had stayed out to explore Paris and we agreed to meet up later in the night. I smoked a cigarette at a park while waiting for him. Parks in Paris are lush…
a story from a night in Paris in August 2023 Max said his friend had invited us out for dinner on Friday night. We were late, I can’t remember why now, maybe Max had come back late from another “date”. Either way, we went up to 11th Arrondissement, about a half hour late, to a wine bar restaurant type thing. I can’t remember the food much now, I’m sure there’s photos somewhere but the things I do…
a story from when I was in Tokyo back in May of 2023 Mits was meeting up with Sora and his girlfriend so I was alone for that night. I figured I’d go out and do something interesting so I went down to Yoyogi park and walked around a bit. Around dinner time, I made my way back down to Harajuku. Someone, probably Mits, had recommended me Afuri ramen. While eating, I watched these girls and their…
“I think this is the most Chinese people we’ve seen in the last week”, Max said, looking around at all the East Asian faces around us. It’s a dark room and we’re about to listen to some loud, rhythmically difficult, mini-band music (Chinese Football) in a tiny indie rock Berlin venue. The guy in front me has long hair, he looks like I did back in College, except maybe 2 inches taller. He pulls his…
Traveling is fun but it slowly chips away at my psyche. I like experiencing new cultures but when I don’t speak the local language, it gives every little thing a little bit of friction. Like going to 711 in Japan and getting asked “袋はいりますか?” and just being like “huh o.o” to such a simple question. It makes me wonder how my immigrant parents felt when they first came to the States. It’s like when I…
Up Up, out of the station, up a million stairs. Rising from the gutters of the subway, into the light, into the people. I was up at Dolores for a bit, did a walk through. I sat at a bench next to girl who I didn’t get a good look at but thought it might be worth talking to her. She seemed to be waiting for someone, but no one ever came. I waited so long but I couldn’t talk to her so instead, I…
Continuing from last time , this is another six months of coffee. Coffee bags in the photo are ordered by roast date from left to right, top to bottom. Name Roaster Tasting Notes Roast Date Origin Decaf Los Montanos Ritual, San Francisco, California Cherry Pie, Muscat Grape November 29, 2022 Colombia Metapan Verve, Santa Cruz, California Green Apple, Shortbread, Cocoa December 18, 2022 El Salvador…
When I walk into the restaurant, heads turn to stare. Happens often enough when I’m the odd one out. Maybe even more so when I’m with a group of my friends. A group of East Asian dudes in small town White America. Well, maybe not even small town, just white. But then I open my mouth and out flows my perfectly slang infused slurred English and off comes my disguise. The waiter knows: maybe I’m not…
I eat like a ravenous hydra, suck down my soup like a vampiric scepter. What is food to me? Food is just fuel for the body. Some people like to savor their experience, I like to get mine over with There’s always room for dessert and limited time in a day. Let’s move quickly okay? So we have time for dessert. Food is something to talk over. Before consumption, food is a deadly topic for…
He stepped out of the Grab and was immediately hit by a cloud of sweet, savory, sticky smoke that ballooned from the simple charcoal grill. “That’ll definitely stick for a bit” he thought to himself, walking up the step into Cơm tấm Nguyễn Văn Cừ. “????” the boss lady yelled at him. He couldn’t really make out what she said, but he was sure it was in Vietnamese so he gave up immediately. “Three”…
I’ve been traveling for a bit now, working remote on the side. I feel more like a local than past tourism experiences since I don’t have as much time to kill. I’m not spending my days museum hopping, visiting historic sights, or taking photos at land marks. But that’s fine since remote work is more ideal for solo travel since I can move on my own schedule. I can wake up early or late, work a bit,…
It’s nice to be back in Taipei. The last time I was here was the summer of 2019, right before the pandemic. I slept like shit on the plane so I’ve been treating myself to nice coffee to maintain my energy levels. So far today, I’ve been to two coffee shops: Simple Kaffa and Peloso Coffee Raoster. I’ve never been to a sit-down cafe before but both of these shops are just that. The experience is…
Max’s glass was empty. It had been empty for the past hour or so. I was babysitting my spiked melon soda, still a little tipsy from our last drink up in Midtown. I tried to avoid her gaze as the waiter came around again. She looked well kept in a 1950’s boyish kind of way, her short hair was slicked back with grease, dark mascara lined her eyes. As she stopped, I could feel my chest grow heavy…
Ever since I joined the workforce, I’ve always been working remote. Normally, at home, in the Bay, I have a little desk setup in my room but for the last four weeks I’ve been living in a closet in Manhattan that had a sub-optimal office setup. I’ve been going out everyday to find a nice spot to work from. Whats the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a place to do work? Opening the…
Let’s get incredibly stereotypical. Who is a tech bro? Well, they’re pretty easy to spot, just look for the mid twenties White or Asian male wearing a Patagonia zip up with a corporate logo atop joggers or jeans ending in All Birds wool runners. If you manage to inject a few probing questions into their anti-social bubble, you might hear words like FAANG or startup followed by some ridiculously…
“This is Kasey, and this is Carey” “Hi I’m Enoch, nice to meet you. So Carey, this is your place then… Wait you’re both Carey?” “Oh no, my name is Karen. You can also call me KC, those are my initials.” “No one calls you that” “Shut up” “Wait so you moved here in October but you’re having the house warming party now?” “Yeah, well, I finally got this mirror and its the last thing I’m going to get…
I’m finally out in New York for the month of February. I feel like I’ve been talking about going for the better half of 2022 and it finally happened. The last time I was here was more than 10 years ago, back when I was a little kid. I’ve been here for four days now and I want to give my first impressions. Food I love going to bakeries. There’s a certain kind of store that Joann says is my kind of…
Noriega >> Irving >> Golden Gate Park >> Balboa >> Golden Gate Park >> Noriega I take a brisk walk, two blocks, down the hill to the dentist office on the corner. I’m rushing, I’m five minutes late, I hate being late, I don’t want to let down the dentist or the receptionist, especially after the bombardment of reminders in the weeks leading up to my appointment. My dentist today is Dr. Lee. It’s…
I stopped shampooing my hair back in September. A lot you probably think I’m disgusting but hear me out. Look at this guy, you’ve probably seen him in a history text book before. This is a photo of Stalin in 1901. Look at that hair, it’s damn bangin. Shampoo was invented in 1927, I challenge you to take a look at photos of people before 1927. They probably all have hair that looks as good as young…
I like to collect things. Maybe it’s a habit adopted from my immigrant parents. Maybe it’s an obsession of my mathematically inclined brain to collect and analyze the minutia of my life. Maybe it’s the artist in me believing that mundane objects could be combined into mixed medium visual art. Anyways, here’s the coffee I’ve drank in the last five months. I don’t have the exact dates of when I…
It’s Christmas and this year I spent it in Joshua Tree. Most people take the holidays to go home and visit their parents but my family doesn’t really celebrate Christmas. Something to do with being Chinese Christians and Christmas not actually being Jesus’ birthday. Just so happens that Daniel and Kodai don’t care too much for family Christmas either. I climbed a lot in JTree in the fall of 2019…
I started drinking decaf coffee and it’s kinda nice. Sometimes I just want to have a cup of coffee at 1AM before going to sleep. I’ve been able to separate my minds association between caffeine the drug and coffee the drink. Usually, I drink coffee in the morning because I want a quick energy boost. Now I can drink coffee at night just to enjoy the flavor. I can also drink way more coffee per day…
I’ve been doing Advent of Code this year in Fennel . (I’m updating my answers every day in a GitHub repo .) I use a few different computers day to day and I need to setup each computer with the proper Lua libraries and Fennel compiler. For speed, I want to run the Fennel compiler under LuaJIT and I also want to have access to the inspect.lua library for debugging. I got everything working alright…
Since around Neovim 0.5, Lua was added as an alternative configuration language to Vimscript. Vimscript isn’t bad but I think anyone who has written Vimscript will tell you that Lua is an easier language to learn. Fennel is a Lisp that compiles to Lua which means you can also use it in Neovim (sort of). Every now and then, there’s a post that comes up on hn about Lisp. These posts were my original…
github Inspiration I’ve been interested in dithering ever since I came across an article in Low Tech Magazine on how they made their website more energy efficient. In order to reduce network payload size when serving images, they dither all their images which reduces file size while preserving some level of image quality. More recently, I watched a video called ‘The Kuwahara Filter’ by Acerola .…
I cut my own hair yesterday. I’ve been cutting my own hair since 2020. If you’ve seen me in the last two years, then you’ve probably seen my self inflicted haircut. I like being self sufficient. It’s nice not having to rely on another human for sometime so basic. Last weekend, Elliott and Tim cooked some steaks for us. They’ve both been cooking steaks since college. I thought the steaks were…
I was finishing up my last quarter at UC Irvine when the pandemic hit in March of 2020. I came back to campus after spring break, but many other students (rightfully) decided not to return, including my roommates. For two months, I lived alone in my apartment. That was some of the loneliest two months of my life. I was confined in a 1000 sq ft box, slowly losing my mind. I could go for days…
I’ve tried a few different mediums now: music , film , photography , writing , and painting to name a few. Each medium has a number of rules that need to be understood. You can’t break the rules until you know what they are. Now-a-days, I gravitate towards the mediums that are easiest to be immersed in: writing and photography. These are mediums I experience on the day to day. With writing, I read…
I love bread. I love bakeries. I try to check out any local bakeries whenever I travel, but we also have bakeries at home. Of the ones at home, Backhaus is a lovely shop in San Mateo. When I think of food, I usually think of things in San Francisco, but there’s a host of great shops on the Peninsula. Gotta rep where I’m from. Backhaus Backhaus has both delicious bread and delicious coffee. I’ve…