July 2017 Updates

This month was exciting in a couple of ways.

hackernews-newsfeed made the front of page of Hacker News and the Github repository has over 300 stars. It was my first project that went viral on the internet and I find the stars to lines of code ratio absolutely hilarious, since my script for the chrome extension barely contains 60 lines of code. I guess creating something that people actually want is important, and it helps that I wrote hackernews-newsfeed because I wanted it for myself above all else.

My friends and I also started working on a project that has prompted me to learn server-side, full-stack web dev, which includes Node.js, MongoDB, and Express. This has been interesting because I'm used to writing static websites with HTML and CSS exclusively. And at HackBrown this past February, the webapp that we made in node was pure trash with APIs just stapled together, so it's nice to learn good practices from the ground up.

Work-wise, I learned a lot from having lunch with some of Dell's older employees in the the group concerned with learning about new technologies. Some of the more interesting ideas I've learned is how because the Von Neumann memory bottleneck is preventing further increases in CPU processing speed, it's likely that the conventional CPU architecture will be challenged in my lifetime. For my project, I discovered that the deep learning load wasn't being allocated evenly between the GPUs in my server box, so now I'm learning parallel programming, specifically how to use a Message Passing Interface (MPI) library for C++.

I've been very interested in cryptocurrencies recently, and find the concept of smart contracts for Ethereum absolutely fascinating. I enjoy listening to Vitalik Buterin explain concepts on YouTube and reading his Medium blogs, and I messed around with writing contracts in Solidity. I am optimistic that digital currencies will be more widespread in our lifetime, but they face setbacks such as eliminating overhead for non-technical users, and more importantly, security. This month has been particular interesting with the $32M Parity wallet Ethereum heist since the vulnerability was a pretty low-level coding mistake. Now I understand why formal verification has become such a buzzword in the crypto community and I am excited to dabble in it when MIT starts.

I also experimented with mining digital currencies for the kicks and giggles, since MIT has free electricity and Robert and I have tons of Raspberry Pis and at least four computers lying idle, one of which has an i5 Intel processor. I joined a mining pool using my ThinkPad with an i7 Intel processor since my hash rate is way too low. My computer was mining Monero on 4 CPUs and it was getting pretty hot so I stopped mining after a while, but based on my calculations, I would make at most 50 cents a day. SO NOT WORTH IT.

I am very interested in the idea of passive income, especially after making some profit off of a bot I wrote in May, but which I discontinued because it wasn't ethical and I was mostly experimenting as a proof of concept. I've been dabbling with traditional investments in index funds such as Vanguard S&P 500 (VOO), but I wonder if there are other, cooler ways. I hope that if I keep an open mind, when an opportunity comes up, I will be able to see it.

In other news, I've been pretty unhappy this summer. I don't have a car here so my movements are pretty limited. Although I've been fortunate enough to make many friends here, whom I love dearly, I feel lonely in spirit. Every night, I look forward to video chatting with Robert to share thoughts and discuss ideas with him that no one else around me cares about. I underestimated the importance of being in a stimulating environment; Texas is not one of them, and I'm looking forward to going back to MIT in the fall.

Based on my recent observations, I've realized that my absolute BIGGEST pet peeve is bullshit. I enjoy interacting with people that come clean with what they're thinking and feeling, and who ask questions if they don't understand something. I don't like it when people feel a need to play up an image. Also, I can't stand busy work because my time is much too valuable. Realizing that minimizing bullshit and irrelevance in general is very important to me has shaped my values and my dreams. I can't imagine working for a place like Dell for the rest of my life, and the contempt for selling your soul to the corporate world is really resonating with me.

I should end this post on a positive note so I'm sharing one of James Franco's paintings, which by the way, are absolutely HILARIOUS.