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‎posts/010525.md

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title: 'fear of life itself'
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tags: 'journal'
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date: 'May 1, 2025'
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---
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i got really worried about health when i had trouble eating breakfast. i couldn't "feel" anything again. i kept falling asleep in class and i couldn't muster the energy to care about things. classic burnout sysmptoms. i was afraid of the future and felt pessimistic about life. i just wanted to be alone and in bed. every moment i placed my fingers on my keyboards, i couldn't figure out what to do next, i was paralyzed. i shared my fears with W. it helped to hear my fears out loud, they lose their stronghold, i realize they're mostly unrealistic, and that i just have to focus on today, and tomorrow can worry about itself.
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i got rejection email around 5 pm and there was a milisecond of dissapointment, but it soon got replaced with gratitude. knowing that i still have options, that i'm here in SF because of my loving parents who gave me free will and to pursue my "dreams". i dislike the idea of a career. a job title to strive for. i like the idea of obsession more. to be obsesssed about certain problems keeps me going.

‎posts/020525.md

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title: 'card 2025'
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tags: 'journal'
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date: 'May 2, 2025'
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---
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today all four of us, from the "mafia" team presented badgermole ai for CARD 2025. we took waymo to present on the main campus. this is my 3rd time being there. i was thinking how nice it would be to study on campus, instead of entering a brick building that feels like attending a mini conference that lasts for a year.
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we started preparing what to say, who should say what, and fixing our demo app 15 minutes before our designated time. i was responsible for the tech stack. i was repeating the words i made up on the spot in my head, making sure i don't embarass myself.
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we were the only vibe coded presentation, amongst other proper research work like predicting deafness in mice. after that we looked around at the posters. we stood at one of our classmates' poster. they used OpenCV YOLO to turn charts into data for emissions.
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we took a lyft home soon after so wei can get food. the conversation revolved around politics. i napped in the car.

‎posts/030525.md

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title: 'research code'
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tags: 'journal'
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date: 'May 3, 2025'
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---
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i ran through all the code for my research in the server.
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i tried to do three things at once:
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1. the birdclef kaggle challenge (tried to install CUDA on windows but failed)
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2. papertrail local document classification with phi3:mini, moondream, and qwen3 0.6b
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3. research code
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i got so burnt out i forced myself to leave to buy groceries 30 min before all the shops close. i wanted to go gym at 3pm but time went by so fast when code does not work.
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i had the worst brain fog from 12 to 4pm. i remember staring at my computer, trying to figure things out, thinking about the steps to take, but unable to even move my fingers.
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i should stop context switching.

‎posts/040525.md

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title: 'sunday links #12'
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tags: 'journal, links'
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date: 'May 4, 2025'
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---
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agency
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- [School is Not Enough - by Simon Sarris](https://map.simonsarris.com/p/school-is-not-enough)
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> it [programming] has a low bar to entry and is something that parents still allow their children to “work at” do despite the hour-demands of systematized schooling. It is one of the few industries with an immensely permissionless culture
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>
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> The purpose of education is to develop agency within a child. Purposeful work and achieving mastery are tools to getting there. They aren’t the results of learning and imagination, it’s the other way around—learning is simply the consequence of doing.
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- [Jon-Kyle / Unschooling and Building with AI](https://www.jon-kyle.com/log/unschooling-ai)
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> I’ve always been a generalist. Design was the gateway—making visual things. Making things interactive lead to a technical proficiency and learning how to program. This is now called “design engineering,” but the motivation was to do whatever necessary to see an idea through from conception to completion
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>
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> Not thinking along discipline, but intuitively doing what is needed to see a project through, is the direct result of my schooling experience
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>
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> There is a misconception that the primary affordance of AI is increasing velocity. Of speeding up arriving at an output. In a sense this is true, in the same way a pencil speeds up your ability to make a legible mark on paper. But it is also a remarkable learning tool. You can ask limitless numbers of questions to satisfy your curiosity without, well, driving it nuts
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build
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- [Impact, agency, and taste | benkuhn.net](https://www.benkuhn.net/impact/)
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- work backwards from the root goal, figure out a better way to accomplish things
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- be someone who is trusted to make something inevitable
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- good taste sign: "what does it seem like everyone else is mysteriously bad at?"
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- taste is also the "quality of your predictive models and search heuristics"
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- to improve, just try it
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- spend [more thinking time](https://www.benkuhn.net/thinkrealhard/) on what to work on and on self-reflection
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- metacognition: reflect on your own (and your team's) work and thought processes, and figure out how to improve them.
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create
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- [The Creative Process](https://openspaceofdemocracy.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/baldwin-creative-process.pdf)
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> A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven
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art
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- [21 observations from people watching - by shani](https://skincontact.substack.com/p/21-observations-from-people-watching)
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> Polite has a mechanical quality to it, like carrying out all the right movements to replace batteries in a remote. Happy has a boundless quality: unpredictable, even when it is at a low level. There is an openness, allowing another person to surprise and delight them.

‎posts/050525.md

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title: 'birdclef'
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tags: 'journal'
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date: 'May 5, 2025'
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---
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i started tracking time on timelines app so that i would see when my time is slowly ticking away when i'm procrastinating.
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i focused on doing just two things today. the birdclef challenge and the local document classification.
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cooked chicken soup for my sister
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signed up for zip car but my phone number was one digit off so i couldn't get on the app.
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ordered a lyft for her and she arrived at 1 a.m.
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slept a little too late at 3 a.m. trying to get the birdclef model to train.

‎posts/090325.md

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title: 'sunday links #10'
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tags: 'journal'
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tags: 'journal, links'
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date: 'Mar 9, 2025'
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‎posts/270425.md

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title: 'sunday links #11'
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tags: 'journal, links'
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date: 'Apr 27, 2025'
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> [T]he work that needs to be done is not a finite list of tasks, it is a neverending stream. Clothes are always getting worn down, food is always getting eaten, code is always in motion. The goal is not to finish all the work before you; for that is impossible. The goal is simply to move through the work. Instead of struggling to reach the end of the stream, simply focus on moving along it.
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> — Nate Soares
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products
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- [FINH.CC](https://www.finh.cc/?curius=2055)
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- [Meet the Humans Building AI Scientists - Asimov Press](https://www.asimov.press/p/futurehouse)
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- "Data is certainly a limiting factor right now. We need both better and more data on how humans do science, including recordings of how people actually talk about it. We have almost none of this kind of data, but it is crucial to build a human-level AI scientist"
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career
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- [Career Update: Google DeepMind -> Anthropic](https://nicholas.carlini.com/writing/2025/career-update.html)
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- Scientific publications should be the method for communicating scientific results. Science papers should be written for scientists, without the puff of a PR release, and without the linguistic hedging of a legal brief. Doing this will require accepting that writing what is true is not always the same as writing what we wish were true.
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- it's important to remember that a company doesn't want anything; what matters is what the people at the company want, and what the processes make easy or make hard. I've spent well over twenty hours talking to people at every level of Anthropic from the co-founders on the leadership team down to the junior researchers, and got a consistent response that everyone was interested in improving the safety of the field as a whole in the same way that I am.
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- I'm not someone who believe that we're going to have some kind of full artificial general intelligence in the next 2-3 years. But I have [large error bars](https://nicholas.carlini.com/writing/2025/forecasting-ai-2025-update.html) and you should too.
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- [Leaving Stripe](https://jondlm.github.io/website/blog/leaving_stripe/)
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- The thought of leaving my job was terrifying yet energizing in ways I didn’t expect. I found myself up in the middle of the night thinking deeply. I wrote my long-form thoughts as an internal blog post. I rewrote them. I read them to my wife who helped me refine them into something closer to what I really care about: telling our stories more truly
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- My impression of Stripe was astronomically high. I considered it an outstanding company of refined craft, attention to detail, and engineering excellence. I always got ridiculously excited when I’d see a new product launch on Hacker News. I had listened to Patrick on podcasts and admired him as an industry visionary. The word “revered” feels fitting
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- Writing was difficult for me when I came to Stripe. I had never really written a serious project proposal in my career working at smaller companies. My writing chops felt woefully underdeveloped and the impression only grew as I read through well-crafted ships every day. I remember a sinking feeling in my chest as I would try to work up the courage to share a link to a document I had agonized over. Worse still was seeing little avatar badges on an incomplete document I was editing. Allowing my unpolished work to be seen was terrifying. I didn’t want anyone to know I struggled. I didn’t want them to know how much their opinions mattered to me
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- [Career Decisions - by Elad Gil](https://blog.eladgil.com/p/career-decisions)
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> focus on network and market and growth rate, less on the role and compensation
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agency
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- [How to get a job in 24 hours - by Carly Ayres - Good Graf!](https://carly.substack.com/p/how-to-get-a-job-in-24-hours?curius=1523)
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> Silicon Valley “high agency” — the ability to take action independently, without waiting for permission or perfect conditions. This also aligns with what many leaders are actively looking for: people who can operate without constant direction, who can identify problems and opportunities, then take initiative to address them.
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create
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1. [Frequently Asked Questions about My Writing Process](https://eugeneyan.com/writing/writing-faq/)
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> While they acknowledged that those technical skills were important, a majority highlighted an entirely different skill—communication. They explained that their most effective data scientists stood out because they could listen carefully, hear the real and unspoken challenges stakeholders faced, explain how machine learning can help, and write clear requirements for science and engineering teams. They could discuss statistics and machine learning clearly and simply, without relying on jargon like “Mahalanobis Distance” or “Restricted Boltzmann Machines” as a crutch, and instead focused on relatable outcomes like “catch more fraud” or “increase conversions”. As a result, these skilled communicators found it easier to gain buy-in, execute effectively, and earn trust
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2. [Aaron Hertzmann on perception, creativity, and the reasons AI can’t replace artists](https://research.adobe.com/news/researcher-spotlight-aaron-hertzmann-on-perception-creativity-and-the-reasons-ai-cant-replace-artists/?curius=1189)
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> The low-level reason that AI won’t replace artists is because it’s really just about tools. Each new thing seems super cool at first. After you play with it, you see that it becomes predictable. Once it’s been around for a while, you get used to it. It becomes a tool you can use in new ways.
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>
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> I’ve also started to think about art as a [social behavior](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPMCWtoC_rM), which is why it will always require humans. We create art to express our social relationships with other people, to affect them, to give gifts, to express our affiliations and tribal status, things like that. In all these cases, we care about art because it came from a person

‎posts/280425.md

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title: 'doctor appointments in sf'
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tags: 'journal'
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date: 'Apr 28, 2025'
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i finally saw a primary care at ucsf health primary care on hayes and i went to ask for two things, referral for my labral tear and for a GI. i was referred, but that doesn't mean anything yet. they gave me two pieces of paper, one which stated i should call a number for a GI, and the other was just for reference, i had to find my own PT provider that is in-network.
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so i called the number for the GI, and they said the earliest next appointment was september 23rd. september. that's an entire 5 months of wait, just to even get a consultation. i felt frustrated.
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for PT, i called the ucsf center at mt zion, and their earliest was may 29th. not too bad, but that was just a video consultation. to actually start PT, that would be 2 weeks after that. and that's the middle of june. two more weeks and i finish school and i have no more school insurance.
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i have to go home to malaysia now while i'm still a student. all the odds are against me from seeing a specialist in sf in time. the ironic thing is i intern at UCSF health.

‎posts/290425.md

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title: 'sql and python practice'
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tags: 'journal'
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date: 'Apr 29, 2025'
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practiced a bunch of sql and python on datalemur and from questions on glassdoor. i don't feel confident about my sql. i keep getting easy queries wrong. i can tell when i'm not prepared and when i know i'm prepared, but i still feel like i can prepare more. at this point, i aim for the least embarassment possible. i'm not hoping for much, just being able to practice interviewing with a big company is a reward in and of itself. the best thing about getting interviews is it becomes a forcing function for you to practice and lock in. the worst part is you can never practice enough, and it is easy to burn out.

‎posts/300425.md

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title: 'meta interview'
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tags: 'journal'
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date: 'Apr 30, 2025'
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my interview was scheduled at 3pm, so the entire morning was filled with dread dand anxiety. i took a meeting with my school at 11 a.m. for 30 minutes, and the rest of the time was filled up by more practices, and cramming the questions on the platform.
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my heart was pounding so much again i felt like i could taste my heart. i tried so hard to calm down. i did not like this feeling.
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the actual interview started out on a good note, we both had the same background. the first sql question, i joined two tables when i didn't have to. i already lost my confidence. the second question, i started with a CTE, and i got stuck. i was told to not do a CTE, and after taking way too long to come up with a solution, i solved it. the third question came in with just 5 minutes left for the 25 minute session. at that point i lost the will to do the interview. we switched to python, and i had to take a deep breath to gather my emotions, knowing that i've already failed at this point. since i ran out of time for sql, i switched strategy. i decided to spend less time on the thought process, but that backfired when i missed an obvious edge case. then the second question came and i got stuck again. then the third question came and i ran out of time again. i spent the last 5 minutes asking what working at meta is like, transitioning from healthcare, and what he thinks of zuck.
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this was good practice. i now know what it takes to pass a big tech interivew. i'm still figuring out what's worth sacrificing and what isn't. what God wants for me and what i personally want for myself. every action i make leads me an inch closer to heaven or hell.

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