backfill up to pre first day of work

Author: benthecoder

posts/010725.md

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+---
+title: '28 years later'
+tags: 'journal'
+date: 'Jul 1, 2025'
+---
+
+> Dr. Kelson: Spike, momento mori, what did it mean?  
+> Spike: Remember we must die.  
+> Dr. Kelson: And it's true. There are many kinds of death. Some are better than others. The best are peaceful where we leave each other in love. You love your mother?  
+> Spike: I love her.  
+> Dr. Kelson: And Isla you love Spike?  
+> Isla: So much.  
+> Dr. Kelson: Memento amorous. Remember you must love.
+
+i went to tour an apartment with wei. it's in South Van Ness, and it's a new apartment, and he's the first to tour it and live in it. after his tour we went to watch 28 years later at AMC kabuki. the seats here are not as nice as the ones in ames. they don't even recline. i always thought every AMC in the entire US had reclining seats.
+
+realize i don't look in depth enough into each configurations. and i ran everything with the purpose of completing it. i need to give more thought into my choices in my work, or it will come back biting me in the end. i can't sacrifice quality for speed.

posts/020725.md

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+---
+title: 'apartment touring'
+tags: 'journal'
+date: 'Jul 2, 2025'
+---
+
+went to tour two more apartments today. the first one was near USF. i rushed over there to be the first to tour, but ended up not liking it because it was far and not a great space. the other one was a nice location, but something didn't feel right. something was preventing me from signing these houses. (foreshadowing)
+
+we walked around clement street, and went to some grocery stores
+
+few things that caught my eye at the park life gift shop
+
+- school of life books
+- secret language of flowers (jean-michel othoniel)
+- the emotional support toolkit
+
+bought roast pork from a store for 20 dollars.
+
+went in to green apple books.
+
+- cats and the meaning of life
+- the philosophy of walking

posts/030725.md

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+---
+title: 'next steps'
+tags: 'journal'
+date: 'Jul 3, 2025'
+---
+
+got my ead card in the mail today + heard back from OE about my onsite interview. i'm not expecting anything. and i'm seeing everything as an added benefit. no pressure. just be myself. do my best. enjoy the process. it's not life or death. if its what God wants for me, it will be mine. relax for the same result.

posts/040725.md

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+---
+title: 'homebody'
+tags: 'journal'
+date: 'Jul 4, 2025'
+---
+
+today is 4th of july. but i stayed home the ENTIRE day. i started building medai, a hugging face daily papers but for medical papers. i wanted to build it for the job talk, but i kept facing issues.
+
+two good blogs on the role of chatting in AI interfaces
+
+- [Chat Interfaces & Declaring Intent](https://lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?2085)
+- [The Receding Role of AI Chat](https://lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?2105)
+
+and watched these two videos
+
+- [Nils Reimers - Introduction to Embeddings & Retrieval](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skj-d78j4YM)
+- [Information Theory for Language Models: Jack Morris](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWIKyLSUBIc)
+
+W went to get an air purifier at a good value all teh way down to fremont. i wanted to stay back to study, but ultimately i should have just went. i didn't get any interview studying done at all.
+
+i saw the fireworks play out through my window. i recall how the past two years i watched these fireworks with friends. this time i live in SF, and i'm home. maybe that's the true sign of being an SF resident, you don't go to these crowded events anymore. you'd rather just stay home.

posts/050725.md

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+---
+title: 'move out day'
+tags: 'journal'
+date: 'Jul 5, 2025'
+---
+
+i went to the library in the morning to get some studying done. i also wanted to leave the house, so i can get cherries to boost my brain power for the next few days. B came with a few of his friends from VA to get our stuff dropped out. today was move out day for W. we went to the UHaul first to pickup a van, and i drove it back to the house. it took 5 rounds of going up and down the stairs, but we moved packed everything, including a queen bed. parking it beside his apartment was a challenge, but i managed it. after everything, we went to costco to make a return, but it was closed. and we went back to the uhaul, and it was closed as well. we went back to his house and i he treated me to japanese food. i got the unagi. i love unagi. we went home together. i did more studying the rest of the night.

posts/060725.md

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+---
+title: 'sunday links #15'
+tags: 'journal'
+date: 'Jul 6, 2025'
+---
+
+a few links amidst the busiest of times
+
+- [Tying yourself to the mast - by Cate Hall - Useful Fictions](https://usefulfictions.substack.com/p/tying-yourself-to-the-mast?ref=parconley.com)
+  > commitment is somethin you make, not something you feel
+  >
+  > commitment is a living system of obligations and consequences that cause you to rise above your temporary frailty
+- [My sentence on time management - Marginal REVOLUTION](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/12/my-sentence-on.html?ref=parconley.com)
+  > All people are equally good at time management, but some people are more willing than others to admit that they are doing what they want to do, while others maintain the illusion they wish they were doing something else
+- [Request for Curiosity](https://minusone.southparkcommons.com/)
+- [After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain • albertofortin.com](https://albertofortin.com/writing/coding-with-ai)
+  - treat AI as an assistant, not architect
+  - overreliance reduces mental sharpness and ability to plan features
+- [Cool people](https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/xge-xge0001799.pdf)
+  - the 6 universal traits of cool people:
+    - extroverted - comfortable in social situations, energized by interaction
+    - hedonistic - driven to enjoy life and pursue pleasure
+    - powerful - assertive, independent, natural authority
+    - adventurous - open to risk, novelty, and uncertainty
+    - open - receptive to new experiences and ideas
+    - autonomous - independent, self-directed
+- [The Case for More Ambition - Jack Morris](https://blog.jxmo.io/p/the-case-for-more-ambition)
+  > Research that stands the test of time is research that (a) is simple and (b) scales well

posts/070725.md

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+---
+title: 'dmv renewal'
+tags: 'journal'
+date: 'Jul 7, 2025'
+---
+
+> If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things – praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts – not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (any microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.
+>
+> – "On Living in an Atomic Age", by C.S. Lewis (1948)
+
+i wanted to renew my cali license. i took bart all the way to DMV daly city, and walked to the dmv. and along the way took some photos with my sony. studied for OE on the train. got there, and realized that my appointment was for august. i got back in line, and used the "get in line" feature. and proceeded to make my job talk slide in excalidraw. after 2 hours of waiting, and going up to a counter, i was told i needed my EAD card which i already got, but did not bring with me. one upside is i got to focus on making the excalidraw presentation with no distractions whatsover under my hotspot and in a crammed seating area. and that if i'm relocationg to austin, there would be no need to renew my licesnse. so i head home with no losses.

posts/080725.md

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+---
+title: 'sf -> aus'
+tags: 'journal'
+date: 'Jul 8, 2025'
+---
+
+today i fly to austin for my first ever in person interview of my life. my mistake was getting food from the expensive food court that had very small portions and terrible chicken. i locked in the entire plane ride on the system design question. i used gemini to study for the entire thing. it's better than o3 because it kept things simple whereas o3 and claude kept making things complicated. i liked that the airport here has a designated ride share app pickup zone in a garage. the downside is you have to walk quite a distance.
+
+i spoke with my lyft driver about my interview, and he was a student searching for a job too. i got to citizenM and realized i did not book a hotel here, but at the royal sonesta. i checked in, and then went out to get dinner. it was already 9pm. i went to cava because it was the only affordable thing around, i was excited about a malaysian restaurant nearby but it closed down. this street was very sketchy, i saw a lot of homeless around. i got my order and went back to my hotel. my second mistake today was ordering it with jalapeno sauce, which was the green sauce i innocently ordered, thinking it's just vege. it was burning in my mouth, i started getting heartburn. i had to go out to cvs to get some antacids, and this was around 11 pm. and it was the worst time to be out on these streets. i walked as fast as i could, and luckily there were people around.
+
+i stayed up till 2:30 a.m. to finish up my prep. i went to bed eventually, still feeling unprepared for tomorrow.

posts/090725.md

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+---
+title: 'oe rounds'
+tags: 'journal'
+date: 'Jul 9, 2025'
+---
+
+i ordered a lyft to the place, and it was not what i saw on google maps. it's a big three story house. i went in and sat down and there were 4 people there, and only two familar faces.
+
+i setup my computer, and the first surprise is that the whole company joined my job talk portion of the interview. i talked about my research on excalidraw, and while speaking, i could feel the pressure of not saying something wrong, or my entire cover would be blown, and they would find out that i have no idea what i'm talking about, even though i did everything inmy research.
+
+the second portion was the ml fundamentals. i was thrown a problem, and had to solve it with ml. i had issues explaining what metrics are good to optimize for, and didn't know that AUROC != performance, it's just a balance between precision and recall, and that the threshold you can select is just a number that is decided, depending on whether you want higher precision or higher recall. that was a major red flag i imposed. i kept thinking about this mistake the rest of the day.
+
+the third portion was system design. i came prepared and i was ready. it went well overall, and i just had to explain how to invalidate the cache of the system. but the ml portion the answer was all prepared.
+
+i called with J and A to share about how things went on the way back to the hotel. i planned to sleep and regain some energy, but ended up doing research work. and running some experiments.
+
+the final portion was a dinner. it was at Uchiko 955. i didn't know what to expect, but it was a very casual dinner that didn't really involve me. i mostly chatted with R and E. i didn't really know how to speak up or share any stories or thoughts. but i can feel like the new kid from around the block. i felt like i couldn't fit in. even though everyone was just having fun at dinner, all i could think about was whether i can say something to impress them or make them laugh, which was very draining. i kept thinking to myself 'why am i here', 'what do i do?' and 'im so confused'. my brain can't just relax. perhaps i had a different expectation of how this dinner would go, and it made it hard to just enjoy the night.
+
+i went home and called with mafia again. i dumped all my emotions out. i learned more about myself today, being somewhere that was unfamiliar with people i'm not close with.

posts/100725.md

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+---
+title: 'confessions'
+tags: 'journal'
+date: 'Jul 10, 2025'
+---
+
+went to whole foods to get lunch. and then went to the book people bookstore. i wasn't a big fan of the books here. then went to the capitol for some photos. i liked the SF capitol more.
+
+on the plane, i finished reading confessions by tolstoy. i'll be reading this again sometime in the future. there are a lot of themes to explore and dive into.
+
+a few important quotes
+
+> “I live, really live, only when I feel Him and seek Him. ... To know God and to live is one and the same thing. God is life.” 
+
+> “Faith is a knowledge of the meaning of human life in consequence of which man does not destroy himself but lives. Faith is the strength of life. If a man lives he believes in something… If he understands the illusory nature of the finite, he must believe in the infinite. Without faith he cannot live.”
+
+> “In general the relation of the experimental sciences to life’s question may be expressed thus: Question: ‘Why do I live?’ Answer: ‘In infinite space, in infinite time, infinitely small particles change their forms in infinite complexity, and when you have understood the laws of those mutations of form you will understand why you live on the earth.’” 
+
+> “‘What is the meaning of my life?’ was: ‘You are what you call your “life”; you are a transitory, casual cohesion of particles. The mutual interactions and changes of these particles produce in you what you call your “life”. That cohesion will last some time; afterwards the interaction of these particles will cease and what you call “life” will cease, and so will all your questions. You are an accidentally united little lump of something... The lump will disintegrate and there will be an end of the fermenting and of all the questions.’” 
+
+> “So I too clung to the twig of life, knowing that the dragon of death was inevitably awaiting me, ready to tear me to pieces; and I could not understand why I had fallen into such torment. The deception of the joys of life which formerly allayed my terror of the dragon now no longer deceived me.” 
+
+> “I look into the immensity of sky and try to forget about the immensity below, and I really do forget it. The immensity below repels and frightens me; the immensity above attracts and strengthens me. ... I see that I no longer hang as if about to fall, but am firmly held. ... From the pillar a loop hung very ingeniously and yet simply, and if one lay with the middle of one’s body in that loop and looked up, there could be no question of falling.”