Ben's Thoughts 💭

i need to learn an efficient way of packing with the right bags

finished 3 articles today but now my head is throbbing. today was too much productivity.

ok i’m feeling the effects a bit i kinda want music now, feeling uneasy and jittery

Acts 20:35

my frontal cortex is not fully developed yet, check back in 3 years.

Im having so much anxiety and fear about this pill esophagitis, swallowing hurts so much rn. And im going HK in two days. I hate my life

Need to stop extinguishing my sleep pressure every night around 11 pm and just go to bed instead, maybe my blog is just ruining my sleep

i definitely have a music addiction

i think i’m bad at asking for help

i hate it when people don’t even read emails properly and misunderstand you. like just spend a few more seconds reading it please. just like a warning when you forget to attach files, there should be a “are you sure you undestood this person correctly?”

it was so much pain and it lasted for 2 hours, felt so much fear and anxiety about my future, can’t believe a single pill can do so much damange to me. the worst thing about it is I can’t understand why. the surgery has side effects are inexplicable

talking to friends and hearing about their problems makes me realize my problems aren’t even real, i’m just bored and in my head too much

When I’m feeling sad is it better to play sad songs to feel the same more deeply or play happy songs to get rid of that emotion

can’t get a sidebar to work properly and now i’m triggered by spotify’s sidebar

shenzhen actually has a lot of interesting places i was wrong

i’m so going to try oil panting in Dafen

quant trading bonus can be 80% of the pay??

I forgot how good solid food tastes

Gosh im so weak and thin i hate it

testing...

i haven’t been able to do any real work since the surgery, this fatigue is normal right?

i can eat Hiyayakko everyday for the rest of my life

I should read Ecclesiastes, I didn’t know it has realism and describes of life “under the sun” as complex and “utterly meaningless” (1:2-3)

i have too many backlogs of backlogs of things to read, projects to do, ideas to act on, books to read, courses to do, i’m always overwhelming myself so easily. going to take things one at a time. have to treat my to-read pile like a river

observational accuracy is the key to everything. art is about finding your own style based on your emotional response, not chasing some style that's already established

western style photography looks for perfection, clarity, and composition, creating almost like a manipulated image. wabisabi philosophy: accepting photos that come into your camera, setting aside perfection. my goal is to take photos that look like faded memories like Daido Moriyama: “where is the boundary between memory and reality?”

hard to sleep, too many thoughts, i should read before bed to occupy my brain with other voices

i need to get my hands on a Fujifilm Finepix M603, it’s so cool

I couldn’t find peace in resting this week, particularly today. i felt frustrated, anxious, and guilty about not doing work. Feels like I’m avoiding hard things and I’m too comfortable with doing what I feel like doing. i need to push myself more but the right amount

a little worried i won’t cope in the masters program now, i’m going through some linear algebra and i’m overwhelmed. whenever I come across difficult topics I get anxious immediately, my throat tigthens. I need to approach things with curiosity.

old music i used listen to are pieces of me that have died, burried away somewhere deep, and listening back to them is almost like visiting my past selves at the grave, unearthing emotions and thoughts I used to have

fresh anxiety

what is wrong with me. i got the offer, but i’m not happy?? i don’t know who I am anymore

i was craving dim sum so badly today after watching that hong kong vlog, would be cool to visit HK. i need to up my vlogging and photography skills while im here so that when i travel im at least good enough

all i can think about lately is x100s

The exhaustion i felt today was on another level. i was tired of everything, even reading was hard.

nothing feels worth doing anymore

a lil obsessed with dominic fike lately

great BU rejected me too?? things aren’t looking great for PhD :(

I watched so much Ghibli that i can hear random Japanese dialogues playing in my head

Can i just skip to April when this is all over. I’m dreading this entire month. What can i even do in this condition. I have that interview assignment due zz

my new fav color is Celadon

Not such a great idea to leave the hospital and into a shopping mall, saw everyone enjoying good food, hanging out with friends, chatting, and I wanted that too. This entire month is going to be rough.

Feeling so weak and useless rn. Wish I was strong enough to take care of myself, but also realizing the importance of family, cant imagine going through this alone and not having anyone around.

The Wind Rises felt like the longest Ghibli movie ever. I was so invested in the story. A little confused by the italian guy he always sees. The love story was so sad i cant, absolute tear jerker. It also made me admire engineers. So inspiring to watch him fail so many times and make it in the end.

The wind rises is good i like his dream sequences

Paul Valéry: “Le vent se lève! . . . Il faut tenter de vivre!”

From Up on Poppy Hill was pretty good. Much better writing than Arrietty

i couldnt eat anything today and even sipping liquid hurts, i can feel the pain travel as I swallow. never expected it to be like this, when does it get better

Time to watch Ghibli

This heartburn is CRAZY im actually in so much pain

Wow im really doing this

Im so hungry, sketched and listen to mom tell her backstory, oh theyre here

SF life looking a bit more possible now. But cant have hopes up yet. I need to see it first.

Im a little worried about my anxiety now, i have anxiety about my anxiety, my body clearly is more sensitive to it, what can effectively reduce it besides medication?

una mattina

Ask people “how have i annoyed you recently?” And don’t be defensive, don’t react, just listen.

The expectation effect, so expecting specific positive things is better than negative ones, but what about unmet expectations? What if the positive thing doesn’t happen?

soft digestives in cold plant-based milk is my comfort food snack

ig sleeping later from today is the move if my interview is at 2am, still have yet to prepare and I am distraught

saying it all out did heal me. they’ve been cramped in the small dark space in me for so long.

need to stop having expectations i’m so dissapointed and frustrated rn

binge watching linh so i can adopt her personality i love her energy and the way she talks

how is it already friday

gonna buy Fuji X100VI as my first camera when I have the money

what i thought would take a few hours took 2 days, i’m still so bad at estimating task completion time, how to be more realistic on output? take my estimations and double it? so I feel good when i complete faster? i’m always trying to do more still, i need to internalize what i’ve learned about burnout

gosh I finally got an interview, now it’s time to prepare for it, can’t have high hopes or expectations yet

Im starting to hear phantom voices I think I’m going crazy, or I listen to too much music

Incompleteness is endemic to the human animal. You have the adventure, your Ulysses out there in the high seas, but you’re longing for Ithaca

6,6 LBS = 3,0 KG

Horror Vacui (Latin for ‘fear of empty spaces’)

Tenet of Seneca’s stoic philosophy: the acknowledgement, even expectation, of the worst of all possible outcomes

making spotify playlists on books is a GREAT idea

something you regret, something you’re ashamed of, and something you’re afraid of

We all need to be aware of the volcano we’re dancing on, catastrophe can come at any moment

i love bookstore and book haul vlogs

i wanna go back Tokyo again just to visit MUJI Ginza Flagship Store ;-;

my Dwarf umbrella tree is not making it what am i doing wrong

learning AI + math for the money, writing and art for the soul, iOS dev for the passion and interest. how to balance these three

can’t go to museums anymore so I just watch people go to museums instead. i rly wanna visit quebec

Yashica J-Mini 32mm

I stayed in bed 2 more hours than usual today, lets see what happens to my energy levels

so not looking forward to brushing my teeth from now on it was so much work

let the mind wander

Montaigne’s complete essays is 1344 pages. It’ll be my greatest accomplishment in reading when I finish this book. I am excited.

I can’t believe I never read a single book in 2022. I have to make up for it this year.

i wanna learn French again

i love the “In the Library” series by Chanel

Kierkegaard on the value of despair. Despair is a message that we just have to stop and listen to. It’s difficult and uncomfortable, but we come out the other side with new knowledge, still with that pain, but with a new perspective on things. Despair is necessary for change

Learning to label emotions

never knew Andy Warhol and Basquiat were such close friends

mercurial behaviour

need Jean-Michel Basquiat’s notebooks

it feels like i’m gonna explode i can’t take it anymore

Ugh it’s so uncomfortable

mindfulness = catching thoughts as they happen, disowning them, and skeptically questioning their validity

“we're in a constant sort of sadomasochistic compensation for an absence of love”

i wanna ride the Coast Starlight train from LA to Seattle and just read good books the entire journey and look at pretty views

excited to read Sylvia Plath’s journal so I can learn how to journal better

trying to read all the rabbit hole issues before my $5 subscription ends tomorrow. they’re so soothing and revitalizing to my soul. like a warm cup of tea while nestled in bed bed with a good book, as the soft morning sun quietly slips into the room

don’t borrow grief from later in life

“no artists tolerates reality” – Nietzsche

loving yourself becomes harder when you realize you’re required to love multiple versions of yourself that show up without warning throughout a day, throughout a week, throughout a month, and throughout a life

what are my defense mechanisms?

cherrien is such a pretty name

an app that gives you random interesting and deep questions + you can record what you and your friends say, so in the future you both can look back years later and laugh/cringe/marvel, reminisce about your past selves.

can i become a design engineer? what does it take?

ad nauseam

today was such a good day, the best since coming back

these fireworks are so annoying what’s today why are there so many

oxytocin deprivation got me stressed

胡搞瞎搞

my YT feed has more and more Alain de Botton videos and I’m for it

I have blue light glasses now I’m so happy. I look like a completely different person

Montaigne is so hard to read

I’m in desperate need of coworking friends so I have a reaason to get out of the house. the biggest thing i miss about college is being able to meet up with friends and do work together.

why are they playing christmas jazz it’s February

i’m at nippori in publika and there’s these two girls talking about tea and it’s distracting me so much I wish I had my airpods

urgency without anxiety

exercise always makes me feel so much better i want to do it more, Im really hoping I can do more after surgery

naps!

i’ve been waking up feeling like I was hit by a truck, it all feels so bleak and dull, i need a things to look forward to list / a reminder for the “why” to life, a collection of things that can motivate and inspire me to do things that I love and see the beauty of life again.

i have succumbed to ennui

i should try to go one day without Spotify, i’m too constantly stimulated. it’s borderline obsessive

is it possible to contemplate too much? what’s the difference between contemplating and overthinking? Is overthinking more negative, involuntary and destructive, while contemplation is positive, voluntary and constructive?

I can’t enter the deepest places of my heart – “go into myself” in the morning, it has to be deep into the night when it’s quiet and everyone’s asleep. time no longer exists, my soul gets aflamed, I gain clarity, I become more generative

today is yet again the kind of day where my attention is so scattered and my mind so muddled that I could not focus on a single task. i have a billion things to do, yet, i was searching for art and design books to read.

Its either I have Asperger’s, or I’m just tired, or (most likely) I just lack social skills, especially in reacting and responding to what other people share , I draw blank, I can’t think of anything to say, how does one learn this? I’m pressured to not make things awkward and come up with a good response to defuse the awkwardness. Do I just need more practice? More exposure to other people talking? Im not bring myself though, thats whats draining me the most. Im running through responses and fi

the dream life now is to read and write all day, go to cafes and art galleries and old bookstores, talk long walks, talk to strangers, watch the sunset, sketch, vlog, film

This blog and my writings is really my way to make myself easy to find, inviting people who think and consume the same things I do into my little garden and sit down and chat and read with me

We’re often not the best at describing who we are. And we are often not the best at knowing what we’re looking for.

What makes someone simpatico with you? Whats that deeper, subtle quality that draws two souls together?

Two biggest reasons why founders fail: not talking to users and not being technical enough

In meetings, answer the questions they haven’t asked

i’m in a rabbit hole of reading lists and books now, can I stop time so I can read all of them please

i just wanna stay home and finish 0 to 1

is it greedy and ungrateful and unfair to wish my mom was more like me, or at least, can relate to me and share similar passions and interests. Family is more about the act of love and care despite the differences. talk to her Ben, listen to her, come from a place of curiosity. time with her is limited. always remember that. see with generous eyes.

When was the last time you did something that you would do forever

i walk so much less now compared to before, I miss being able to walk to campus and back home. And walkking without literally melting.

making a mood and energy tracker app for apple watch is incredible valuable. imagine this + AI, telling me what hours of the day of the week am I most productive and helping me schedule tasks. glimpses of the future.

new idea, Howl’s moving castle door dial but on your phone, but instead of teleportation, it helps you switch between tasks (like Arc spaces with different colors), and you can start timers for time tracking + add little TODOs/notes. You can only set 4 tasks to help you focus and prioritize. THIS IS MY NEXT APP! I would actualyl use this.

deleted outlook from my phone again, i can’t believe i’m addicted to checking emails how pathetic am I.

my new obsession is 芋头扣肉

Intelligent people know how to get what they want. Wise people know what's worth wanting.

Im about halfway into 100days I’m so excited, now what app should i work on building first hmm and at what point will i have enough knowledge to do it, probably after SwiftData

Did I think I had the tiniest sliver of a chance for Cornell lol why am I disappointed. why did i even apply zz gimme my $100 back pls

not doing work and wasting time stresses me out more than doing the actual work itself

Back in a mall again, in starting to get really bored by malls. I want old bookstores and long walks outside on nice streets with nice weather.

Zero to One is good so far, learning a lot of history of tech like the dot com boom and bust

how can i track down the root cause of my headaches, i suspect its the medication, but im taking two rn. And i cant not take them. headaches are so detrimental to my productivity and overall well being

we’re in a culture that commodified the cultivation of happiness (social media) and industraizlied the eradication of sadness (drugs)

envy is the worst of the deadly sins?

why is it sooo hard to write this article, thought it would take a day and it’s been a week, i’m procrastinating so much on it. maybe deep down i think it’s not worth writing, that it’s cringe, that it’s a waste of my time, or it’s just hard to structure this article because I’m lost and overwhelmed in this landscape too, and I feel that I’m not credible to write it.

“blue flowers in my heart, a garden for us, I’m watering myself, and I think that I am …”

one thing that’s motivating me right now is I have to create opportunities for myself by learning and building, so that I can be in SF or a different country. i’d rather be uncomfortable somewhere else than comfortable here, the drive to leave Malaysia and be somewhere else is so strong.

With humility comes wisdom – Proverbs 11:2

advice about gifts: buy a special version of an everyday thing

the game is worthwhile insofar as we don’t know what will be the end

meaningful job = reduce suffering / increase pleasure of other human beings

micro incidents of dissapointments -> stored anger

still building this app, it’s pretty fun but also so tiring, i actually cannot stop, i think i’m meant to build apps. it’s so fun. is should be writing that article and learning about AI tho. everything is opportunity cost

So excited to show this app to my friends lol i spent the whole day building it

wait i can listen to other people’s discover weekly and mixes now??

listening is ‘empathy in action’

who knew reading letters can be so entertaining, i want to be able to bring color to words like Rilke, to write with such beauty and style that makes letters so intimite and exciting. he talks a lot about solitude and how it’s necessary to look within yourself, and to nature.

i love reading Rilke

I am a covalescent ?

making your own curriculum is so hard, I don’t know what to start first, it’s overwhelming. especially when I’m bad at estimating the time and energy it will take to complete these courses. having people tell you what to do and when to do it is so dangerously comfortable.

“compatibility is an achievement of love, not a requirement”

i would not survive a stanford class lol i’m incredibly average

“One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered”. Proverbs 11:24-25

am I even Christian? I don’t read the bible as much as I should, or pay enough attention to it. I should watch some Tim Keller talks.

i can’t stop watching film analysis videos help

"What you read actually decides what kind of a person you want to be"

6 steps of analytical reading (1) classify the book, (2) x-ray the book (skimming + preread), (3) come to terms with the author, (4) determine the message, (5) criticize the book fairly, (6) determine your own conclusion

i’ve spent the past two days at home eating blended food, reading and reviewing the underlines and notes on the two books I’ve read (typing each word out on my blog), watching film analysis of Ghibli (kiki and Howl), WKW, and Beef, listening to jazz and k hip hop and classical music, I suppose this is what rests looks like for me. Books + writing + film analysis + music

don’t just live the length of life, live the width of it as well

“Who wants you to do what you’re about to do?” Do you feel like you want to do it or you ought to and should do it?—ought to and should are red flags.

in composing a letter appealing for mercy or for love, you’d have best not attempt to organize your emotions; the prose will have a better chance if the emotions are left in disarray … since feelings do not usually lend themeselves to rearrangement

i saw baby lizard in my room. i lost sight of it. I am now in paranoia

I should watch the rest of WKW films, Chunking Express was so good. That youtube video analyzed it so well.

that’s enough living in the past for today BEN

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. . . . I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15 vv. 13-15).

Proverbs tells us that “a friend loves at all times” (17:17) but also warns that friendship can be based on wealth or gifts (14:20; 19:4 ,6) and advises that the righteous “choose their friends carefully” (12:26).

Why am i not sleeping what is wrong with me

“I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough, To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough, To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough, ….” - Whitman

what is my parvum opus and what is my magnum opus

Don’t wait for motivation to come, its fleeting and unreliable, instead, set a fixed time to do something everyday, just show up consistently, track and measure progress, reward yourself, write about it, learn and build in public, make it a habit, thats more powerful. Thats what will help you get things done, especially when it’s hard and you don’t feel like it.

I should try yoga nidra or NSDR for 20-30 minutes to increase my baseline dopamine levels -> higher working memory -> better at eliminating distractions and focus

wait do I have adhd

do i have a high levels of baseline dopamine? I think I have strong capacity to perform working memory tasks. So I can just introduce more dopamine in my perfrontal cortext and productivity goes brrr?

If you have a great work ethic, that should be matched with a great rest ethic

Rilke says Only one rule applies: ‘A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity.’

Petition to ban all uber drivers who smoke

Thank God for IV sedation and anesthetic I felt no pain at all, 2 hours went by like it was 5 minutes. I guess the easy part is over, what comes after is the hard part

Wow its the last time im brushing my teeth with all my teeth in place

ok i’m actually scared now can i even handle 8 teeth extraction. God help me.

love that is dealt in reality is the walk and no talk, the awkward silences, the words unsaid, the touches never made. it slows down the pace, makes you feel the weight of time passing by, of life's seemingly empty, boring & embarassing moments, there's more love in those void.

pmf doesn’t unlock growth, you need a go-to-market fit playbook (1-2 pages) that ordinary people can implement on how to (1) find customers, (2) engage customers, (3) onboard customers, (4) ensure success for customers)

oatmeal has melatonin???

Works of the flesh: “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.” (Galatians 5:19-21)

Peter instructed: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15).

I wish i could hang out and spend time with friends that are more outgoing and social without draining myself, like I do want to be more participative and involved, but i fail to muster up the energy for it

GERD is so damaging not only to the physical and mental, but also social, you feel like detaching yourself from people so you’re not a burden to them, so you don’t have to explain to anyone why you cant do this and why you cant eat that, its just easier being alone

I bought a Fleetwood Mac vinyl. I’m so blessed and lucky. Been feeling an intense pressure and need to focus on the right things that help create a good future for my parents and I.

It was nice meeting with high school friends again. It’s nice to just talk about dumb stuff and have a few laughs. They’re very fun and kind human beings. Realizing that I’m way too logical and serious and systematic, I need to relax and loosen myself more when meeting up with friends.

i need to learn how to do cognitive reappraisal well

need to be better at quantifying and measuring progress so I don’t feel like a complete failure when I don’t complete a task that actually takes a lot longer that I imagined.

traversing through the tree of knowledge and information while writing and researching can get so overwhelming, I wish everything would automatically organize into nice containers for me to reduce the information overload

i have a lot of frustrations about things that I cannot control - the biggest one my physical appearance, is one of the side efects of having too much taste for beauty and perfection -> inability to accept the imperfections of oneself? feel like this relates to insecurity and confidence in one self. I lose it so easily. like why do I care so much that I look like this and not like the “ideal” in my head? it’s like not being able to erase the imperfections in your sketches.

can’t help but observe people at shopping malls, judging their personalities based on looks, lots of biases and assumptions behind this, these system 1, lighting fast assessments, and realizing i have a attractive vs not attractive filter that’s built in my brain, definitely influenced by media, like when you see couples, the both unattractive & both attractive are normal and almost expected, but the attractive & unattractive ones stand out a lot.

Are new books just wrappers and regurgitations of old classic books

Love that i get to craft my curriculum now and not take boring classes, now i just have to build good habits and be consistent and learn in public. Im so excited i cant sleep

The tongue has power of life and death (Proverbs 18:21)

i want a fleetwood mac vinyl

Its hard to voice out appreciation and love to my family, must be the cultural programming of my asian upbringing, must take that first initiative and make it the norm, i rmbr one of the regrets of someone was not voicing out their love to parents

Im shifting from a why do i have to do this -> i get to do this mindset now which is good, maybe im being more grateful

Why do I feel excited about pulling out 8 teeth one shot, its gonna be hell, mentally preparing myself rn, i can see me watching ghibli movies and sketching to cope, or maybe binge a show

Feeling hopeful again. Things are aligning pretty well. I can see God’s hand at helping me find the doctor today, he fully understood my conditions, compared to 4 other ones he gave me peace and cleared a lot of confusion and uncertainty. A reminder to trust God’s timing.

i wish i was still in school now

What’s with these CRAZY moodswings

i LOVE mom’s cooking, i’ve become v dependent again coming back home. I don’t cook or do dishes. this is bad because i shld be independent, but good because I get to focus on my work. the solution? be more grateful and help out my mom more. and be nicer to her.

I have normalized staying in bed after waking up. Im devastated

Spent way too much time and effort implementing semantic search for my blog. Theres this websocket error now that I cant figure out. I get too obsessed w things, I wonder if this is an inherent trait.

Someone from LinkedIn sitting in front of me and recognizing me is WILD. Had such a good convo with her. Inspired ne to continue doing what Im doing

Book of Esther seems like an interesting story. God is leading me to strange places and I have to trust in His perfect plans

Cny songs are so annoying lol

Greek “noos” means mind. Could be a good app name

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. James 1:19

Emails from Internet strangers coming from my blog brings me so much joy

Where are my grad school interviews man

life is 35 mm

Its so hard to sketch feathers on remarkable

4 signs of immaturity: attention seeking behaviors, inability to handle emotions well, egocentrism, no filter

i was so down and moody this afternoon, but now i’m feeling amazing. my emotions are way too sporadic and unstable

i’m so excited about this turntable in my room, my dad gave me so many vinyls

grateful for the stationary bike in my house that lets me exercise everyday

i need to appreciate my parents more they care and love my so much

how do i break out of mimetic desires, how do i know if what i want IS relaly what I want.

why am i wasting time posting on LinkedIn

zzzzzZ

“Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.” — Psalm 25:16

subliminal influences

just realized studying with ChatGPT is powerful because i’m not afraid to be wrong, so I make more mistakes, and learn better that way

Cello suite no 1 in g major goes hard

The colors are so off on my Hokusai art, I guess thats the price I pay for buying off of Temu

My monet art never came :(

I need a backup plan if no universities accept me, I should apply to more masters program. Europe too maybe. I wanna be back in the US though.

I should scrape all research papers on GERD and fundoplication and fine tune a model to be my personal doctor. If I’m doing this I need assurance, and I can achieve that with data. But what if it only exacerbates uncertainty and worry hmm. Is knowing more better than just knowing enough. Seems like a case of explore/exploit trade-off again

Nature rewards the courageous. Dream the impossible dream. Hurl yourself into the abyss. This is how magic is done.

The heart, mind, and body are endless pursuits

Everything can be taken away from a person but one thing — the freedom to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, too chose one’s own way

My arms hurts from typing ig no coding for today

I feel oddly optimistic and good after reading Mans search for meaning and waking up, I hope this lasts forever, i see now that its what life expects from me and not what i expect from life

Being sedated is so nice its like the best sleep I’ve ever had

So many thoughts and revelations, imma write a blog tonight

Today is the hardest day to get out of bed, so far

Why am I so nervous for my endoscope I’ve done it twice, I can’t imagine what I’ll be like the night before surgery

I have so many iOS apps I wanna build

All my books at home are moulded i am devastated, you’re crossing the line humidity, ill never forgive you

i can’t tell if it’s foxing or mold

it’s 2024, i graduated, and I still don’t know deep learning well. what am i doing.

Im so used to playing christian music while showering now, i have a mini worship session every time

Pain is such a subjective experience. You project the idea of how much pain someone is feeling and vice versa, the person in pain believes you feel pain the same way as they do

There is no pain center, no one part of the brain you can knock out to stop pain. Pain matrix

i need to get “The Poet's Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke”

everything is distracting me

i keep losing track of the long term goals and feel like i have no idea what i’m doing and feel down and depressed, how do i constantly remind myself of the end goal? that the days are long but decades are short? I need people in my life that inspires me constantly. or is it a change within, a change in mindset. or am i just going through a lot with all the doctors appointments and endoscope tomorrow

mesh wifi is very confusing to setup

Why am i feeling this way again

DPO: Direct Preference Optimization

Why does EVERYONE keep asking if i have a girlfriend

i wanna read Man’s Search for meaning and prepare questions for meetings tomorrow but i want to sleep so i get enough sleep for my early morning focus for swift learning tomorrow so I do have the energy for the meetings. i tend to want to complete everything as fast as I can and that’s just a recipe for burn out. i need to delay gratification, where in this case gratification is completing my tasks.

my idea of what a bookstore is, is never the same anymore after Boston and Seattle

got to catch up with a friend i haven’t seen in 3 years, feels nice

“take me where your heart is” is SO GOOD

Woah there are 28k species of Orchids, and counting?

The world is full of immeasurably beautiful things that tends towards decay

abiltiy is a measure of time spent

bless u

So sleepy after breakfast

“it’s not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us” - Stephen Covey, i need to internalize this, i’m suffering more in imagination, I am not my thoughts. my sensations are fundamentally neutral, i assign positivity or negativity to them, i’m going out of my way to create negative emotions, emotions don’t last long, we keep them burning

what do i want? am i confusing what i want with what i want to want, with what other people want?

productivity should serve philosophically or spiritually important goals, not just an end itself

Aspirations, especially unlikely ones, are an essential part of living well. Always have more ambitions, plans, and projects than one can possibly accomplish.

Tried painting a wall for the first time today it was pretty fun but gets tiring very fast, mad respects to the guy

burnout happens because you have defined yourself by what you produce. Its not just the exertion of energy during the work itself, but the exertion of thought spent during the time you’re not working.

nothing is more essential to your well-being that little projects

zz i’m so broke rn my bank is in the double digits, i need money

been getting so tired at 10 lately, and waking up at 6-7. i guess this is a good thing

Golden Pomfret fish is good

i felt the anxiety again when paying for something at the counter. why am i feeling this way? i need to psychoanalyze myself

Assume everything is learnable

Reading “The Code Breaker” at popular bookstore, I’m hooked. Gene editing is so cool

Three fundamental kernels of our existence: the atom, the bit, and the gene

Hilahila a.k.a. “Sleeping grass”

What does it mean to be 22 with big ambitions and goals and be asked to slowdown because my body is too sensitive to stress and anxiety. Whats left after this?

only thing i look forward to every new week now is my spotify discover weekly

why am i procrastinating searching spotify playlist cover photos on cosmos do I have no self control

ecosocialism

no way i dreamt of Eliezer Yudkowsky as a villian

Ok France is not a good place nvm

Is there anything worse than having the love for intense exercise and having GERD which restricts exercise, i just want the freedom to push myself, i feel chained

Wanna go back to the chinese church rly bad. Im finding it so hard to adjust, is it cause it’s my first week?

I want the floating window notes raycast app that syncs with iCloud so i can dee it on my iPhone too

why am i so anxious in public, is it the new surroundings, I don’t feel this way in the US. i feel like everyone is judging me all the time.

The Color of Pomegranates (1969)

how to choose a good bedroom paint color hmm

wait where did I learn my handwriting from

what was this my first thought waking up today? why her again? How do I stop them?

its too humid to be productive, i cant think clearly, weather has such a big influence

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."— Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Walking conversations

I’m too attached to life, to people, to my surroundings. I need to learn how to let go.

dang all 4 of my wisdom teeth? that’s gonna be fun

am i pedantic

i miss the sunrise and sunsets in the US

do you ever just go to your phone for no reason and look for something to do there when you have a billion things to do and you just don’t feel like doing them cause you’re tired

curiosity is contagious

the 2 seconds delay in google searches and website loads at my hosue wifi is really annoying me I miss fast wifi

i wanna paint The Flower Garden

Stream of consciousness writing

Need to try my red light therapy

Dreamt about 豆腐花

reviewing my notes for a book is taking too long, i need a scanner with LLM that exrtracts my underlines and notes

I need to figure out how money and stop wasting time

It all feels like a dream, both the past and the present, it feels more like a nightmare now, i want to wake up from it

Did writing all that out even help

should i start learning french again and find a job in Paris. AI is strong there. not to mention the art culture there and museums. feel like it’ll be a nice place to live.

“La réalité que j’avais connue n’existait plus.…”

this life is so not worth living right now

just broke my 50 dollar smart plug because Malaysia has different electricity, things are going so great

I finished another book, i only finish books on planes lol

I rly want a cat

Sigh guess im back

better days will come

I keep forgetting to shut off the engine lol can cars automatically shut them down when i leave the car please

I like it when the decor in a restaurant matches their name

I’ve never tried eggs Benedict and idk if i ever will get to :/

Why do i never sleep well

Days don’t exist anymore when you’re traveling, it’s just mornings and nights.

Who wakes up and decide, imma build this gas station here. How do these businesses profit? Why are some gas stations cheaper than others? Is it just like a convenience store but you also provide gas?

I love edamame

GOODBYE AMES

有水分 - exaggeration, gonna use this from now its kinda cool

TIL Xi Fan/稀饭, so many names for porridge

does suffering rly give life more meaning, i feel like my life can have more meaning without this suffering, it’s making it harder to live. i want to be able to choose my suffering

I buy so many sweaters

Taking pictures of t shirts that im going to donate away to make it easier to donate them, human beings are so sentimental

Most schools are really just thin wrappers on books.

Can’t start my 2024 goals when I’m still on the road, drove on the I80 and saw the pretty sunset sky and smelly cows, felt glad i don’t have to be in the Midwest anymore after this

Is going 100 mph gonna get me speeding tickets 0.0

Blue light are cheap photons

Treat your creative work like its a diary entry, that way you stay true to yourself, you don’t lie in your diary

Should i be putting eye drops everyday if i stare at screens a lot

When you’re traveling and driving to a location, you want cheap parking spaces around it rather than the location itself, can google maps add this

memorabilia

French New Wave

nothing motivates me to get out of bed more than the potentiality of a pretty sunrise

Internet strangers responding to my cold emails always makes my day 1000x better

Wish i was in SF for countdown

I care too much

Glenwood Springs

An app for posting sunrise and sunsets daily, and be able to view pictures of sunrise and sunsets from around the world. And a feature to include a short text. Call it Hikasa, derived from "sun" (Hi) and "morning" (Asa), symbolizing the journey of the sun from sunrise to sunset.

Been feeling so nauseous after breakfast

The story we tell ourselves is the most powerful one in the world. Eventually, we start believing it, even when it's not true. — Horace Mann

Consistently doing the boring stuff builds success

Jean-Michel Basquiat: “Art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time.”

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” — Steve Jobs

App idea: store book quotes / upload images of highlights, marginalia, where and what you’re reading + track reading progress and have a widget. Make it social too. Might motivate me to read more.

My twitter went from fully AI and to a healthy mix of design, art, book quotes, and photography. Im escaping the bubble.

Value being good than being better

Your reaction to failure should be “oh thats annoying, ill do better” rather than a giant toxic shame spiral.

I need to learn the skill of highlighting. I wonder if LLMs know how to highlight well. Is highlighting a subjective and contextual thing? Or can there be objectively good highlights for a piece of writing. I guess it depends on what my purpose of highlighting is.

IN UTAH. Pretty mountains

Roasted seaweed is the best snack

Addicted to krbnb because it has good beats and i dont get distracted by the lyrics cause i dont understand it lol

“Love is not about attraction or good feelings or needing someone. It is a way of showing up for others with care and curiosity” — Henrik

What/who do you think about when you have nothing else you can think about? Even when you try to think about something else, IT engulfs every other thought. What makes us cling on to these particular thoughts? They feel like wild animals in a cage hoping to be freed. Is there value in holding on to these thoughts? These emotions? What does it take to release them?

I need to study anxiety at a deeper level, anxiety causes inaction, i need to cure mine if i want to do great things in life

I go to the cracker sections every time i need snacks

Found so many cheap and good fiction paperbacks at Half price book, doesnt have the vibe of an old bookstore in the city but serves its purpose

Im in idaho lol do i need to try the potatoes

How intensive is the camera app? Its crashing apps and draining my battery.

inveterate procrastinator

I need a restaurant finding app for a specific town that can account for reviews from yelp (for judgement of taste, vibe, what meals to get/avoid), opening hours, food restrictions, meals that I enjoy and not enjoy, etc. can this be built easily? What will be the blocker?

Can i just buy wholesale rare books from wob.com and open up a shop to sell them in a rich area in Malaysia?

“Write. Constantly. At length. Often. Don't publish everything you write, but the more you write, the more you have to choose from.”

"You are my idea of a good writer because you have an unmannered style, and when I read what you write, I hear you talking."

Seattle is nice, it feels like a mix of boston and sf

Amore mio aiutami

Rainbow clouds are a thing??

Walt Whitman: music is the profoundest expression of nature

“Understanding is love’s other name” — Thich Nhat Hanh

Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul, Written and Selected from the World’s Sacred Texts

Constantly strive to curb your natural pessimism

Finally saw the original great wave in person

I need Hokusai’s sketchbook

If we abide by the common definition of philosophy as the love of wisdom, and if Montaigne was right that philosophy is the art of learning to die, then living wisely is the art of learning how you will wish to have lived

Vanishing point perspective, juxtaposing highly detailed, close up views with distant landscapes

Wearing first gen airpods is sooo weird but i have no choice gotta do the audio tour for the experience ✨

“The best conversationalists are people who are hoping to end up somewhere they didn’t expect”

“Leadership should mean giving control rather than taking control and creating leaders rather than forging followers”, David Marquet.

“Leadership should mean giving control rather than taking control and creating leaders rather than forging followers”, David Marquet

“Do not wish that all things will go well with you, but that you will go well with all things”

spent like 30 minutes looking for a good nativity art, there’s so many interpretations and art style.

raison d'etre

hinoki soaking tub

there’s always something to live for. something to be thankful for. somethinig to look forward to

Insecurity breeds fear and attachment

Uk that moment when u read a word, and coincidentally someone says that word, its like woah

So rainy today

Wave to earth so good

I have a twitter addiction

So hard to enjoy this trip when it hurts from just breathing and existing

Sel gris = gray salt

yak shaving

endless ink was spilled

I’ve sent 750 links with hyperduck to my Mac, i just need another layer that intelligently labels the link with tags using an llm and dump it in notion

FINALLY IN SEATTLE

Need to create a travel app that discovers fun and interesting spots for scenic views and pics, like im going seattle from Spokane, give me the places to stop at, optimize for fun places, heres the time constrains

We are all just collections of everyone we’ve ever loved.

Great love exists in letting go. Most beautiful things end but that doesn’t stop them from being beautiful

Existence is so much pain

Its ok to be wrong if you iterate quickly. Plans should be measured in decades and execution should be measured in weeks

Inspiration is perishable and life goes by fast. Inaction is a particularly insidious type of risk

Audacious ideas motivate people. Its easier to do hard things that really matters than easy things that don’t really matter

GET STUFF DONE

You need to first understand the rules before you can break them

Worry less

Whos work do you admire? Why? Why do you find it interesting?

Why does freshly baked walmart bread have HFC? whats wrong with them

Why is there a billion kinds of eye drops

Packing always takes longer than you expect

Car washes are so cool

We must be idealistic realists - Miyazaki

Its so cool that i can just dm super cool people on twitter and they respond

Winter of 1889, town of Arles in South France - Sunflower by Van Gogh

surround yourself with people who are free in ways you’re not

Start or end every day with writing about your life

Put your phone down. Put your phone down. Put your phone down.

Gonna miss these taiwanese friends

how did i misplace two credit cards? i haven’t seen them in a while

Wait we consume copper in meat and nuts?

“You look depressed”

Why are malaysians so boring

I should add view counts to my posts like lee rob

i like it when i read an idea and go, oh wow I should take this as advice it’s insightful, and then read the comments and think, oh wait this is bad. i’m still lacking life experience to differentiate good and bad advice/ideas?

i guess a better reason to work in FAANG is to develop better taste. taste for good code, good leadership, and good culture. Taste > skill is better than skill >= taste. skill is the floor and taste is the ceiling

dang i got covid

Why am i sketching w a headache and slight fever my eyes are burning

New idea: imma stream my work everyday in malaysia, day 0 till 200?

But wow im done, last exam, yay

Choosing this class was a good call lol, my exams are open notes and pretty easy, but im sick and im in pain, doing that test was a struggle

didn’t know the directors of Her and Lost in Translation were married, and was those movies were birthed from their divorce

always remember the kindness and love of the people in church

new dream job: working for Arc Internet

Its not disagreement that damages most relationships, its unspoken disagreements

our preference for art reflects our psychological gaps, we hunger for artworks that compensate for our inner fragilities

William Morris floral patterns

KEEP IT UP

blasting music in the car such a nice feeling

the ability to solve poorly defined problems

intelligence is a taste in ideas

why is everyone replying my dms on twitter today lol

imma get all Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji artworks and cover all 4 walls of my room, i wanna drown myself in his art

‘If heaven will afford me five more years of life, then I’ll manage to become a true artist.’ - Hokusai’s last words

the most useful part about GPT4 is i can just dump my messy thoughts and it can write something coherent and structured for me

aging is another word for living

Everything feels black and white again, feels like I lost something a part of me, I hate this feeling

I’ve never felt pain like this before, why does it hurt so much inside, does it get easier

The whole purpose of sketching is to make an interesting drawing, rather than a strictly realistic representation

the flower garden

success is spending your day doing the things you love

Next pursuit: Embed all my blogs posts for search and visualize the embedding space as an interactive graph with atlas

ghibli music is peak peaceful and relaxing focus music

why are all these things happening to me?

Throat, chest, feet, stomach, pain and discomfort everywhere

i spent the last week and today coding so much next.js tailwind css openai debugging front end, it’s kinda fun because gpt4 is pretty good with the code, but is it a good time investment? Ig for hackathons and shipping stuff this can be a good skill, but i’m not really thinking or learning much, I should spend more time learning linear algebra and pytorch

One thing i don’t appreciate enough about Ames is how quiet it is, walking home from groceries I’m given the ability to think and be locked in a room with my thoughts, and its the negative and anxious thoughts that one has to face head on, instead of suppressing them

How are aldi cashews so cheap

A cafe with books and dim sum. Does this exist? Sounds like heaven

gave a talk to high school students starting college today, it was pretty fun

“Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addictino, a fascination, a fate. It is not a hobby”

uni applications are so expensive man

i need to take doxy and diclo and both of them can cause stomach ulcers and acid reflux, and I already have GERD, like why man, just give me a break. existence is pain

When I have these diseases that cause pain, I always compare it to normal and healthy past me, and others, I guess its better to compare to something worse, like cancer, and have gratitude that I’m still relatively healthy? It feels unfair but life could be a lot worse. I need to accept that life isnt supposed to be easy, there will be hard times, but also good times

petals on the moon

it often feels unfair that I have to go through this pain for no reason, like why, just let me be ok, please stop giving me more pain

Castle in the sky 🏰☁️

progress over perfection

Speed and effort are your main advantages, put in the hours and move fast, bias towards action, now instead of tomorrow

Write, think, and ideate publicly

Don’t be emotionally attached to who you are now. Become attached to your goal, ideally one very far out.

Your advantage is not depth of context. It is the unique context at the intersection of fields that rarely cross each other.

my evergreen plans: read things on my reading list, write things on my writing list, collect experiencess & people

new life goal is to learn how to cook good 苦瓜炒牛肉

Midwest weather man I’m so not gonna miss this

when marnie was there got me feeling way too much emotions

comfort is not happiness

Travel is the only education

Coding narrative is both really fun but also really stressful at the same time. How do people find the right balance of the joy of tinkering and creating and the frustration of errors and bugs?

I wanna be an AI expert who knows how to code models from scratch in PyTorch, can explain transformers and attention to my parents, become a python expert, get familiar with C/Rust, have a solid foundations in mathematics for ML, learn some MLOps and data engineering tools, learn jazz piano, all within the 7 months I’m home, while doing surgery and braces is that realistic.

was asked to play something on the piano today ugh, i really shoud learn Merry go round of life soon.

wow i’m graduating in < 3 weeks, slightly stressed out about grad school application, finishing narrative.ai and cuepal.ai all before december

it took me 20 minutes to find a working code to call openai with next.js v14 endpoint, tried phind, gpt4, and perplexity but it took going to the docs directly and finding sample code.

do more actions that create opportunities

writing this in an Apple Store at Boston

In Harvard book store now

Fear and trembling by Kierkegaard

Python is a great glue language, piecing different components together, a lowest common denominator for everyone, a nice interface, wrappers around powerful c/cpp code

music is the silence between the notes —Debussy

Why am i getting muscle sprains on my chest they hurt so much, is it bad posture?

i need to code more and read less, i spent way too much time going down rabbit holes these days

why does creating a db on Azure take forever lol

Nothing is finished—everything can be rethought, redesigned.

Great design is about values. Principles are universal, values are personal. Find what makes you unique

commit deeply to a few things, one or two, maybe three. be ferocious about cutting your priorities - more than what is comfortable. time, energy, and resources are precious.

I should send more cold emails and reach out to people more. Bias towards action. Just ask. That’s what separates doers from dreamers

I want a Vision Pro

role of a leader is to see potential in people that they may not even see themselves - Brian Chesky

visual pollution, found the word for why I find malaysian sterets to be messy and US to be more aesthetic

Consistently boring days make for extraordinary decades

cultural programming and family programming

Art as therapy

“Nothing has value except for the hunger one has for it” — Camille Corot

“Flowers are seductive; the color of flowers, bc of its purity and saturation combined with the silky, refractive nature of petals, approaches film color, like the sky, unattached to a surface” — Gordon in Monet

Monet on the Mediterranean light at Bordighera - “one would need a pallete of diamonds and precious stone”

“The expression of the beautiful is in direct ratio to the power of perception acquired by the artist” - Courbet

It’s so dangerous to attribute your meaning and happiness to a single person

Just get through tonight please just let me sleep

Spiraling mind, dark ceiling, stabbing pain, difficulty breathing, christian music, eyes dried, all-consuming fear, self-hatred, mentally tired,

Wheatpasting

'Amateur' comes from the Latin word 'amare', which means to love. To do things for the love of it.

Do more things that delight you and grip your soul, find them out, cultivate them. They are your passport to freedom and love - Anthony de Mello

WHY IS CLASS SO BORING

“The idea is that to design a part of a complex system, you must identify what about that part others must know in order to design their parts, and what details you can hide. The part others must know is the abstraction”

the most transformative tech unlock experiences that were prev only possible for the ultra-rich (e.g uber = personal chauffeur, instacart = personal shopper)

am i the only one who stops breathing when I get really focused on my work? is this anxiety? stress? flow? HOW DO I STOP IT

having trouble breathing the whole day it feels like a heart attack that won’t go away

good mental health = having agency and gratitude

take risk at a young age -> expand surface area of luck

Creativity is a way of being, not a skill.

movie soundtracks help me get into flow state quickly, interesting

climbing up (and down) the ladders of abstraction - Amelia wattenberger

working at breakout mid-stage starups (e.g. 100 employee) = larger network + learn pattern of success + helps with signalling compared to early-stage

Functionality and beauty are not two opposite things, beauty enhances fucntionality

Write a life narrative to better understand the self concept, who you were in the past, current, and who you want to become. Write 3-5 year increments of life defining moments, where you were, achievements, failures, etc.

Labrouste Reading Room in the Richelieu-Louvois library (Bibliothèque nationale de France, or BnF)

make a mess, a clean house is a life unlived, and a messy one is a life well-lived

humanism: reverance of artists who create rather than consume, attempting to translate the human experience of being alive

Don’t strive for an extraordinary life. Instead, find marvel and wonder in an ordinary life

Why am I so uninterested in statistics specifically testing? The Bayesian class was pretty interesting even though a lot of it flew over my head. But this class the last class I’ll ever have at Iowa State University for my statistics degree is pretty boring. I need to find a way to hack my brain to make this interesting.

You ever just grab hold of a memory in your past, and then start living like it first-person, and recall the smell, the atmosphere, your feelings at the time? Its like time traveling. Does 92914 trigger this somehow? Their music smells like the fresh air in the early morning after a night of rain.

i love how I’m able to meet people across countries to collaborate on hackathons and build cool stuff together. Should reach out to people more often.

ok i’m getting used to Arc and it’s AMAZING

first time doing dental filings, i hate the numbness it hurts when I open my mouth. Also I have a headache now. I can’t imagine how much worse a wisdom teeth extraction is going to be.

work with the garage door up

Has a major headache waking up and sketching helped.

Chatgpt for bible study is such a hack, i just give it the book chapter and verse and it gives me the text and summarizes it for me

the bottleneck to doing something is often courage not intelligence

should I devote my life to pursue AI research for preventing and curing GERD? maybe that’s my life calling

reading these cornell Ph.D. student’s SoP has to be the most discouraging yet inspiring thing ever. On one hand, I realize I’m definitely not getting into Cornell, on the other, I can see the passion they have for research and for contributing towards society, and made me refelct on what I want from my life.

how do people just decide to work on one thing for 5 years? what creates this passion and drive for this specific problem? how does one cultivate an environment to figure out the right problem to work on?

Just learned about art movement Pointillism by Georges Seurat. Love how in his art (La Grande Jatte), the meaning behind it is not so important, but his obsession with form, technique, and color theory matters more. There is geometric harmony and unity, look closely and it’s scientific and analytical, but step back and everything is measured and harmonious.

Pain

Edward Hopper - Nighthawks: the couple that are close but distant, living in their own world, the solitary man with a newspaper, a random glass, and the waiter that’s just staring out of the window

I set a goal to write my SOP and my screen time is >8 hours today, the highest its ever been

i’m constantly fluctuating between feeling not good enough for PhD and wanting to apply for masters, and wanting to save money and just go for the PhD and leave with masters, I’m also struggling with figuring out what research I’m interested in (I feel like I’m interested in everything) and finding potential advisors (is there a centralized database of professors and their students?).

Adding “Zero to One” by Peter Thiel to my reading list

zero-billion-dollar markets: ideas that create new market categories, instead of tackling existing markets. (ex: Netflix, VMWare, GoPro, LinkedIn, NVIDIA)

goal: actually start taking notes on obsidian, and create a second brain

Cornell Tech maintains and operate arXiv??

René Magritte saw painting as a chore, and hated going to art galleries (unless it was reproduction of great work), he liked the ideas more than the craft itself. He would love genai art lol

surrealism: the combination of two different or unrelated object to challenge our precondition perception of reality

I keep having headaches lately, might be my phone usage or sleeping patterns, or something more insidious?

These days I’m just going down rabbit holes for hours with curius where I discover many interesting people on the internet, collecting stuff to read, and eventually dumping them in a bookmark i call “read”, I need an app to remind me to read these, and intelligently retrieve them in the future when i need them

should I learn swift for fun and do 100 days of Swift UI

if your age was counted in days worth remembering, how old would you be?

“only agree to new commitments when both your head and your heart say yes”

goal for life: the freedom to work on whatever is most important or most interesting, at any time

i can listen to jazz forever

sheepskin effect

earnestness + formidable = unstoppable founders; earnest = doing something for the right reasons, and trying as hard as one can

“Don't ignore your dreams; don't work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy.” - PG

I should create my own sabbatical syllabus like Arielle Lok for when I go back Malaysia

Glad to have music and the people around me that keeps me going

Been feeling like i was dealt a bad hand in life a lot lately, dreading the days i have to live with this body

First dental checkup in the US, the x rays part was interesting, but there has to be a more efficient way that biting on the tool at each section of my teeth right?

avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance

two kinds of well-being - Hedonia (pleaure & fun) and Eudaimonia (purpose & fulfillment)

Why have i been sleeping at 3am these days

fundamental mechanisms underlying intelligence, understanding, and thought

"If you take man as he really is, we make him worse... If we overestimate man... we promote him to what he really can be." - Viktor Frankl

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught." - Oscar Wilde

Map out problems using logic trees - Nabeel

Even if you have “this gift of love”, a marrage requires constant attention like “a precious plant” - John Lennon

woke up @ 1pm today, i’ve never slept this much

"Intelligence is the computational part of the ability to achieve goals in the world” - John McCarthy

Why am i so addicted to checking me email how do i stop this

p(doom)

Software is underwritten and thinking is underdone in the world

Free thinking energy - Imbue (Kanjun)

MoM, MLE, Fisher Information, asymptotic variance

why are my hands always so cold, do I lack vitamin B12?

“when it feels scary to jump, that is exactly when you jump”

instead of studying for my midterms, i spent the whole day coding for this dropbox hackathon instead, and now i’m stressing out

Tried generating a logo for my hackathon project with AI tools but Adobe Logo Maker came through

USFCA MS DS ?? Dream school?

Rechargeable hand warmers: mankinds greatest invention

"The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for." -Bob Marley

why is making bread so hard

grow the puzzle around you - Jessica Livingston

tell people when you’re thinking about them to maintain connections of all degrees of closeness

gigantic bloody emptiness and nothingness

“many patients who come to therapy don’t come to change, they just to keep doing what they’re doing, but feel better doing it.”

think about going from 100% to 99% rather than 1% to 0% when facing an issue

math jargon explained: closed-form = exact answer, non-closed form = approximation

the hard part about writing blogs is writing something that people want. It’s hard to decide the value of an article if no one has read it yet, I try to look at my draft as if I was a reader, and judge whether my article is clear, useful, and brings value. It takes a lot of thinking about what to include and what not to. I’m always asking, “Would I read this?”

Neologism: acts of creativity as we fill in the gap between our symbolic understanding of the world and our documented language

now that I’m pretty sure about applying to grad school, i’m facing major anxiety about not being good enough, and a part of me wants to start heads down learning low level programming, learning AI bottom-up, get good at math, and implement AI papers.

we treat other people with respect not because of who they are but because of who we are

why am i rewatching new girl again

going to borrow a book from the library for the first time in my last semester. Always saw the library as a place to do work and forgot that I can get books from here.

Being productive != being busy, its about concentrating all your energy on the few things that matter

Lucky people are more relaxed and open

What makes people make imaginative leap?

body doubling

“Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

I’m so behind on my blog z

I miss pan fried pork buns

I love spinach

I’m significantly happier on days with social interaction, but I have less output due to time and energy expenditures. Need to find the right balance.

That scene in Ghost in the Shell (1995) where it’s just 3 minutes of the rainy and crowded 90’s Hong Kong with an insane level of detail and haunting soundtrack.

Cowboy Bebop

in the struggle to create something (project, art, company), sometimes the best strategy is slowness

last statistics class before I graduate and I have to relearn how to do integration

Red Eye is a good thriller movie

who am I? and what do I want?

Discover Weekly on Spotify is actually good

mimetic theory

math sharpens your mind and history gives you an idea of your limitation and what’s going on in the world

sell work, not productivity-improvement

Step 1: Know what you want. Step 2: Go after it relentlessly.

the capacity for joy is also the capacity for pain

define what it means for you to be productive, or you’ll never be at peace

eat till you’re 80% full, always eat still feeling a little bit hungry

score your day with music like a movie

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

behaviour = motivation + ability + prompt (B = MAP) motivation = intrinsict need to do something ability = make it possible, setup the environment prompt = reminder, integrate seamlessly into your life

remember what it’s like not to know. have empathy, consider the audience, remember where they’re coming from

good writing is expensive, poor writing costs a fortune. Poor writing transfers work from writer to reader. Good writing reads itself, allowing the reader to spend more time on the idea than pulling out the meaning.

innovation is stepping into ambiguity

The way to peace is through boredom

The key to life is to be unborable — DFW

Many things in the world happen because of boredom. People quit relationships, jobs. To some extent, entire wars happen because of boredom. If you never learn how to deal with boredom, you’ll never learn how to enjoy peace and quiet.

confidence is a self-fulfilling prophecy

olive garden breadsticks

resume drive development

Fogo de Chão Brazilian Steakhouse

"Good code is like a love letter to the next developer who will maintain it."

Intelligence, passion and courage. The first two are traits and the third is a choice

grit enables practice

learning happens fast at the edge of your abilities

Lump of labor fallacy

I want to be able to explain things without stutter, lag and at 2x speed like that dude at the demo, he was explaining 402 errors, onion routing, bitcoin lightning, all with simple terms without breaking a sweat, maybe it’s a lot of practice, and spending time understanding it

hallucination will be solved within the next 10 years

i’m still so awkward at meetups, I need to level up my social skills. I keep saying I don’t have anything to ask, or maybe i’m just burnt out and don’t have the energy to be curious

got to see people I’ve only seen on github, twitter and YouTube videos in pesron today at Dropbox, pretty surreal

I never hopes to win, but I hoped to build something at least, a little disappointed in myself that I couldn’t execute on my ideas. I need to start pushing myself to continue experimenting and building, this hackathon sparked that fire again

free food free swag free stickers thanks Scale AI

The purpose of a person’s heart are deep waters — Proverbs 20:5

“how much good can come out of today?”

when making big life choices, instead of trying to know the future, decide based on whether we want to discover who we’ll become. In other words, think about how that decision will shape you as a person, and whether that’s who you want to be.

LLM agent that can organize the interesting links I come across, resurface them when I need it, and apply it to my problems

machine unlearning and unlearned models

i’m so productive from 4 to 7pm at work

met a malaysian pastor today at an indonesian church in SF who lived 5 minutes away from my place back in Malaysia, pretty cool to meet someone so close to home, being so far away from home.

joe and the juice vegan shake was pretty good

i want to go back to not having to read ingredients of food packages, not caring about Total Sugar percentages, and just try whatever I want. Food is such an essential part of the joys of life

trader joe’s has all the healthy stuff I need, the unsweetened oat milk and non dairy yoghurt, the snacks, and everything else

God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. — James 1:12 nlt

half knowledge is worse than ignorance

“An initial period of concentration—conscious, directed attention—needs to be followed by some amount of unconscious processing…the key to solving a problem is to take a break from worrying, to move the problem to the back burner, to let the unwatched pot boil.”

“Think of life as a terminal illness.”

Don’t quench the spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19)

Wavelet thresholding - signal and image denoising. It compares each wavelet coefficient against a threshold, if the coef < threshold, it sets to 0. Otherwise, keep or modify it.

Startups have no sacred cows, no brand to protect, communication overhead. Big tech has pre meeting, a meeting, a post meeting to recap. But startups lack everything else, the brand, the customers, GPUs

Hedonic adaptation

been rewatching old black mirror episode every since s6 came out

Arthur Schopenhauer — 'Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.'

“I do not fear computers, I fear the lack of them” — Isaac Asimov

It is not darkness that dooms us, but the wrong sort of hope

The conditions of existing is intrinsically rather than accidentally frustrating

We must imagine Sisyphus happy

"You can be relaxed and dedicated. Just because you worry more, doesn't mean you care more."

GOTG Vol. 3 was so good, the feels, the action, the music, the dancing

you don’t have to believe your thoughts and ideas, you can simply observe them without assuming they are true

finally a housemate that’s an intern and is friendly, everyone else in my airbnb are old people

i’m struggling with perfectionism, it’s damaging my ability to complete tasks, and it’s slowing me down.

duck and claypot rice is so good here

didn’t feel like doing anything today, got nothing done

where are you from and where does your family live?

Driving is so tiring man (and stressful cause everything is new to me), but blasting howls moving castle on the road at night made the experience

been writing my daily blog half asleep

Focus on adding value to peoples lives > learning conversational tricks and techniques

When choosing between being kind and being right, choose to be kind

Flurry of texts

Thinking back is a b*tch

Ezekiel 37, breathing new life into us, restoring the broken

Small, good actions

walked to a skate park and watched filipinos play football, the weather here is so nice, and walking helps me reflect

Ending of Jerry Maguire made me feel schmaltz and sappy

Have the courage of your convictions and do what you think is interesting

The courage to tackle hard problems

justified in our hope, and unalone in our sorrow

felt sick today, like head throbbing, sore throat, feverish kind of sick, my entire body is sore from yesterday too

intricate patterns, pining, unvoiced, unuttered, unspoken, intellectual fulfillment, longing bubbling underneath my lungs, slivers of feelings, ephemeral memories, forcing logic onto a page, at peace with emotions

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” - Haruki Murakami

you know I don’t do contracts, but you do have my word, and it’s stronger than oak

first class used to be a better meal, now it’s a better life

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” -Jesus (John 15:13)

learned how to throw a football today, and got to play spikeball, grateful for this church community

1 Corinthians 14:34 - women silent in church verse

Will the real slim shady stand up?

There has been no shortage of ink spilled

French fry moment - delighting your customers with solutions they never expected

Its so weird interning back at the same place but with all your friends gone, it’s like a missing hole that I cant fill, but i met some new people today, so I guess thats how life works

Man ive been so busy i dont have tim to reply text, i’ve come to understand why some people are slow to reply

Romans 5:3-4 encourages us to rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

ever since I finished my exam I don’t know what to work on, coding a new app? write my data science blog? learn actually fun stuff on coursera? work on data engineering or MLOps? Read a good book? So many possibilities.

just learned about the term veg out, which is 耍廢 in chinese

i.e. = in other words, e.g. = for example

even though a lot of books are a simple idea that can be a blog post, there’s value in it being a book where it repeats ideas and persuades you about with examples and analogies, to drive the point home. Books also have cultural cache, wider reach.

necessity is the impetus for learning

Forgetting sarah marshall is a good movie to watch to just laugh and have fun

dote on somone = extremely and uncritically fond of, in SE Asian it’s lavish with affection or gifts.

hate the feeling of not knowing something in exams, with the clock ticking down, but the day ended on a good note talking to friends

There are no rules to this thing ... I hope you see things that startle you and feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view and live a life you’re proud of. If you find you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

rewatching benjamin button reminds me of my flight from Japan to the US. the dialogue barely audible, being in a presurrized metal box for 16 hours, barely getting any sleep.

cooked a piece of 8 inch steak and that was all I could eat for dinner, with yoghurt on the side ;-;

Feeling better today so far, yesterday was hell, GERD really makes me grateful for just being alive and not feeling like I’m about to die

The Rosetta Stone is one of the most important objects in the British Museum as it holds the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs—a script made up of small pictures that was used originally in ancient Egypt for religious texts

hard to focus on studying for finals when I have to worry about housing and my GERD PPI side effect rn

procrastinating on studying and learning about film photography intsead

“If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” — G. K. Chesterton

Am I outsourcing my self to something else? Am I distracting myself from the dread and despair that comes from sitting with the anxiety of life? What am I running away from that I need to face head on?

“You’ve got to have models in your head. And you’ve got to array your experience—both vicarious and direct—on this latticework of models.” - Charlie Munger

My vocal chords are kinda hurt from GERD, its scary reading it might take 2-6 months to heal, its really motivating me to get back on meds, even with the side effects

Vulnerability comes before strength, can I overcome GERD or will GERD overcome me

Unlimited Chilis nachos at KLCC with family at the window seats, the city view of KL outside, and the light shows and decorated Christmas tree

Realized I’m unable to come up with any questions in class lately, is it because I’m not interested in the material anymore? Or im lacking fundamental knowledge that helps me connect the dots, which can breed questions

craved cornetto vanilla ice cream out of the blue, I used to love eating these. Magnum ice cream too. Man the good old days

papaya in the US takes so long to ripen idgi, also first time cutting papaya, went through all the trouble of peeling it and cutting it but threw it all away in the end cause it tasted weird

second time taking the test, goes to DOT, friend’s car insurance expired in 2021, has to reschedule again to next Friday, I leave the next day to California, life is great

haven’t been out the whole day, feeling like shit

hate it when people don’t reply, especially when your day depends on them

Time management is 3 dimensional, significance (how long does it matter), urgency, and importance. Just checking off todo lists is 1d – efficiency

Have to patience to put off insignificant things

You multiply your time by giving yourself permission to spend time on things today that CREATE more time tomorrow

If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's. – Carl Jung

Illness and age makes you redefine what good means, you start appreciating what everyone else takes for granted

Just learned alzhiemers drug makes you h igh

Brain tumors are scary, you can still be functioning normally but not know its there

Watching inception again, its so good

had a dream a lot of bugs were swarming around me, they were of different species too, some where flying some where crawling around, it was suffocating, I rmbr thinking, crap it’s summer, the bugs are back

engage knowledge with sustained attention

Am I knowing too much without understanding? Well-informed but unable to get anywhere with my information?

“Books are a means of listening to the thoughts of others so that you can hear your own thoughts more clearly.” – Mandy Brown

"We learn nothing by being right."

Got access to bluesky this morning!

Without the spirit we will bite and devour each other, walk and be led by the spirit, and you will not be under the law — Galacians

Letting negative emotions take control of your thinking and actions is like watering the weeds of your mental garden, it starts to strangle the growth of other plants

loving the Averia Serif Libre font, looks good for my blog

Always keep creating/consuming > 0

Doordash is an organizational work of art

Stay close to the pulse

Turning niceness and empty into leadership is where the rubber hits the road

Been feeling like I chose the wrong major, I noticed I’m not that mathematically inclined, I’m able to find coding fun but never felt that way about statistics or math

To articulate ideas effectively, think about what you want people to do (ethos), know about you and topic (logos), and how you want them to feel (pathos).

Effective transfer of tacid knowledge requires extensive personal contact, regular interactino, and trust

technically opinionated

Completely failed at roasting eggplants

Sending this from my iPhone

Avoid Brioche at all cost in the future

Now tweeting with apple shortcuts

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart… — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Epictetus: it is not things themselves that disturb is, it is our interpretation of things

Damn didn't know Whitney Houston isn't alive anymore

had so much fun doing it almost every weekend last year for hackathons, even though I lost sleep and messed up my health a little, i regret nothing, also made some friends along the way

I get so excited thinking about side projects, I can feel my heart racing thinking about how it should work and look like

What would 2020 me say to 2023 me? Would he be proud?

1/3 into Whitney's documentary, didn't know she went through so much

It happened again, I could taste mcdonald cheeseburgers I used to have at AEON near my house in Malaysia

This midterm will define my GPA and there’s so much pressure I just wanna do literally anything but study, I’m so weak

Kinda regret how I didn’t really go out of my comfort zone enough and join more clubs, i have one last semester to go, hope I make the most of it

Worship songs calm me down a lot, I’m glad they exist

it's the difficult things that are worth doing and pursuing, if it was easy, what's the point of doing it

been saying I regret majoring in statistics and wish I did SWE instead, I need to shift my mindset, maybe it's just this bayesian class and me not doing well, and expecting things to go usually well

why does public speaking drain me so much. part of me likes meeting new people and part of me hates talking, it's so conflicting my brain hurts

met this guy who says SWE is boring and he's going to drop CS and major in music instead, says SWE is just boring

There’s no need to take control into my own frantic hands

Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).

Just learned that Israelites were given food by God in Exodus 16, they named it “manna” because it sounded like “what is it?” In Hebrew lol

Kurt Vonnegut: "Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow.”

Want to start learning jazz piano but haven’t had the time, thinking of starting in the fall

Been getting random flashes of memory about food I used to enjoy and was able to eat

The best day and the worst day of your life depends on your perception, be intentional about your decisions. Decide to happy, to look at the positive, to turn suffering into opportunities for growth

To be free from fear, practice gratitude. It’s impossible to be fearful and grateful at the same time

Beautiful minds are free from fear

Stressed about this coming week, I’m really good at avoiding studying for my test and creating unnecessary stress for real

Enjoying tick, tick… Boom ! so far, might be into Broadway

Wild Horses Jon

This more than two parameters conditional and marginal posterior stuff is wrinkling my brain

Also had a dream that I was supposed to give a speech, there was a huge crowd, my parents were in the crowd, and someone else stole my spotlight right after my introduction, I got the spotlight back again but then there was technical difficulties, wonder what that dream meant

had a dream i did badly in my exams again, always happens when I have an upcoming test

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on — Philippians 3:13–14

So many vegetables I wasnt aware of with funny names, tomatillo and rutabaga

been addicted to LÜCY this past week

like I set out to write about one thing, and my mind trails off and starts expanding on other things, is this normal?

starting this daily writing challenge is really illuminating how incoherent and messy my thoughts are, I rewrite my posts a couple times before being satisfied with it

Letting the idea that you can only control your thoughts and actions drip into your soul helps you avoid unnecessary disturbance and anxiety

"Love is learning to say yes to what is" - Richard Rohr

expectations are nothing bu dissapointments waiting to happen

Damn AutoGPT is close to 100k stars

Had a long 2 hour talk with Brian, glad to have him as a friend

Man my semester is ending, time is flying by so fast

I have hw due tmrw and I spent an hour writing instead, do I find writing more valuable deep down or am I just avoiding hw cause its hard

It's cold and windy again in Iowa

Perseverance in godliness is the proof of the genuineness of a person’s salvation

Biblical hope not only desires something good to happen, it is confident it will happen

I’ve always wondered what people talk about in their typical conversations, wish there was an app to eavesdrop random conversations people have

The best moments are when you feel stupid, shows you have room to grow

To help a friend going through a hard time, two options (1) just be there, listen, and ask questions to help them work though it, or (2) give advice. Always rmbr to check in later to show you care

Loosen your priors when hearing new opinions, your priors might be wrong, and its a chance to adjust them

You’re always exposed to one slice of a person on the internet, in reality, people aren’t as different from you as you think

Illegible = hard to read/decipher, can apply to people too

Leave everything (incl. people) better than you found it

Thoughts are messy, writing helps give them structure. It’s like taking opinions of different sizes and trying them out in the fitting room

Just went down a rabbit hole on Claire Wang, a child genius who went to Ad Astra and did neuroscience research in HS :0

Ask people the same question twice or more to get the truth (How are you, really?)

Read a good article about how crushes are just misplaced ambition, you see something in them that you want in your own life

Can’t breathe cuz rn, feeling a lump in my throat

Luo Han Guo is also known as monk fruit, it has no calories and can be used as a substitute for sugar

doing my AI homework, it's on bayesian networks

Ant man quantamania is just a 2 hr long rick and morty episode

First time baking chicken today, smells pretty good

Before taking on anything, ask "what could be?". Just become something is, doesn't mean it has to be and certainly doesn't mean it's right.

Going down rabbit holes is a good thing, it shows you're curious about X, but avoid algorithmic rabbit holes

"Creativity is just connecting things" - are.na

Feeling kinda sick

Hi Jayson

Hello World

My throat is killing me from GERD, when will this end

Dang it this timestamp isnt in my time zone

Gosh spelling errors are going to annoy my OCD ass

This thoughts page is officially deploye!

can this support links? https://twitter.com/benthecoder1

This is pretty cool, thanks leerob for the code

This shake is bussin

Who's here?

hi there!