writing on a wall

2026-05-05T23:34:30+00:00
Favorite quote I re-read today from Hackers and Painters</a>:
Maybe it would be good for hackers to act more like painters, and regularly start over from scratch, instead of continuing to work for years on one project, and trying to incorporate all their later ideas as revisions. </blockquote>
The things I've built during my mid-late 20's are so much better than the things I built during my early 20's. It's not close.
2026-05-05T17:52:44+00:00
what are the odds that the mailing script for wall.evanchen.cc works first try let's find out xDD
2026-05-05T11:32:05+00:00
actually it warms my heart so much when i see my friends add themselves to https://list.evanchen.cc</a>.
2026-05-04T01:52:40+00:00
TIL the meaning of "wall time" (coming from the clock on a wall). Actually think that's a cute jargon term.
2026-05-03T18:22:24+00:00
Is this too desperate?
Learn to code, please, I implore you, for the love of god, I am so sick of people who just say "idk code" and adamantly refuse to learn, please grow a spine </blockquote>
2026-04-30T22:43:09+00:00
I wish dishwashers and laundry machines would have a button that says "wait 10 minutes, then start" instead of just "start". Because I swear to god every time I start the dishwasher, five minutes later I realize I forgot to put something in it.
2026-04-30T13:40:21+00:00
Thinking of #37</a>, I think we should enable Insults</code> by default for sudo</code> as well…

2026-04-30T04:18:58+00:00
Long live Accuracy</a>. So much Shiv damage yay.</p>


2026-04-27T17:21:41+00:00
thank you to the kind soul who figured out the
filter rules that let me read calvin and hobbes</a></p>
! Gocomics Ad Spaces</span></span>
gocomics.com##div[class*="AdDisplay"]</span></span>
gocomics.com##div[class*="HeaderAd"]</span></span>
gocomics.com##div[class*="UpsellSectionBreak"]</span></span>
gocomics.com##div[data-paywall]</span></span>
gocomics.com##html:style(overflow: auto !important;)</span></span>
gocomics.com##body:style(overflow: auto !important;)</span></span></code></pre>


2026-04-25T14:08:21+00:00
Spotted while scrolling through my student's submitted solution to IMO 2025/2:</p>

I SOLVED THIS DURING SCHOOL MATH CLASS SINCE IT
WAS LITERALLY SO BORING LMAOOOOOO XDDDDDDD</p>
</blockquote>


2026-04-24T17:02:45+00:00
slay the spire makes flights fly by ㅎㅎㅎ</p>


2026-04-24T03:15:03+00:00
Found 크록티칼. More 시연 content~</p>


2026-04-21T22:09:47+00:00
the fact that i can just spawn as many domains as i want on *.evanchen.cc</code> is
killing my productivity</p>


2026-04-19T02:17:41+00:00
TIL that Denmark's postal service stopped delivering letters last year,
after 400 years. Little heartbreaking.</p>


2026-04-18T21:40:21+00:00
How does anyone get any work done inside a web browser?</p>


2026-04-16T13:12:49+00:00
Today I learned you can add the modeline</p>
vim: path+=docs</span></span></code></pre>
so that using gf</code> on content.md</code> will cause Vim to look for docs/content.md</code>
too. It's about time.</p>


2026-04-15T14:47:23+00:00
whoo ale#5115</a> got merged!</p>
long live rumdl</code></p>


2026-04-15T12:22:13+00:00
You know, I actually like the URL https://web.evanchen.cc/personal.html</code>
over the more modern https://web.evanchen.cc/personal/</code>.</p>
I think this might just be Stockholm syndrome but I actually like
how it seems more old-fashioned.
And tells you about the underlying technology: that it's just an HTML file.</p>


2026-04-14T17:05:03+00:00
Apparently in Asymptote you can just do 2P</code> instead of 2*P</code>. I had no idea.</p>


2026-04-13T22:12:36+00:00
I feel like people can see what I've been up to lately my checking my GitHub
commit history because recently everything I do gets pushed to public repo's.</p>


2026-04-10T17:48:24+00:00
the day has finally come where I reviewed my 21G.901 Anki deck and didn't have
to use the again button</p>


2026-04-09T23:49:21+00:00
Caring about normal is for people-homogeneous things.
For example, human anatomy is quite consistent from person to person, so if
your blood pressure is significantly higher than the population average, then
your doctor is right to worry.</p>
Whereas pursuit of interests is pretty much the opposite of that.</p>


2026-04-09T00:16:40+00:00
sometimes i wish i had registered evanchen.dev</code> instead of evanchen.cc</code>,
although i don't think .dev</code> domains were available for sale yet back then.</p>


2026-04-08T00:29:28+00:00
Note to self on how to use virtualfish</code> to create a new uv</code> environment with a
specified Python version</p>
vf</span> new -c ENVIRONMENT_NAME --python (</span>uv</span> python find 3.12)</span></span></code></pre>
Honestly the virtualfish</code> and uv</code> situation is worthy of a blog post… maybe
it'll help some confused amateurs like me? If I have the time.</p>


2026-04-07T14:56:58+00:00
Programming languages are also</em> judged by the proficiency of their users</em>.
So a programming language with good design principles attracts good developers,
which in turn increases its reputation further.</p>


2026-04-07T14:53:37+00:00
I ran out of Claude credits so I ended up refactoring build.py</a>
in web.evanchen.cc</code> by hand, which took way longer than making a robot do it,
but I feel like the final product was also better than it would've been
if I had an LLM do it.</p>


2026-04-07T11:56:11+00:00
Switched from Pelican to Zola for wall and it feels so clean. (And fast.)</p>


2026-04-07T11:17:55+00:00
TIL that sed</code> can delete all lines matching a pattern:</p>
sed</span> -i</span> '/pattern/d'</span></span></code></pre>
I think I should learn more about sed.</p>


2026-04-06T18:41:31+00:00
Woke up to Tailscale DNS not working on desktop.
Ended up installing openresolv</code> to replace resolvconf</code>, to match my laptop.
I have no memory at all of installing either.</p>


2026-04-04T22:44:51+00:00
I hope Python and Rust rule the world together.</p>


2026-04-04T20:03:20+00:00
Spent the morning trying to wrap my head around the nvim IDE stuff
and wrote up a note to self</a>.</p>


2026-04-04T17:15:09+00:00
Reading about mkdocs falling apart</a> is… huh.
I had no idea.</p>


2026-04-02T22:41:11+00:00
CI is killing my productivity because I feel like I can't focus on the actual
work until the CI is set up perfectly.</p>


2026-04-02T20:36:50+00:00
Might really switch from prettier</code> to rumdl</a>.</p>


2026-03-31T03:23:17+00:00
Finally realized I could use CloudFlare's functions/_middleware.js</code>
for a small basic HTTP authentication. That's nice.</p>


2026-03-29T02:27:47+00:00
Something about running this command was deeply satisfying:</p>
$ rm -rf Therapy/</span></span></code></pre>


2026-03-25T14:40:59+00:00
Trailing commas being forbidden in JSON drives me nuts.
I hope Python gets TOML 1.1 support into a builtin module soon,
for now I have to keep including it as a dependency.</p>


2026-03-25T01:35:21+00:00
Isn't fate pull</code> such a good command name?</p>


2026-03-24T16:48:09+00:00
On the litellm attack</a>:</p>

We discovered it when the package was pulled in as a transitive dependency by
an MCP plugin running inside Cursor. The .pth</code> launcher spawns a child Python
process via subprocess.Popen</code>, but because .pth</code> files trigger on every
interpreter startup, the child re-triggers the same .pth</code> — creating an
exponential fork bomb that crashed the machine. The fork bomb is actually a
bug in the malware.</p>
</blockquote>
(Passed to me by a work colleague.)</p>


2026-03-23T01:37:34+00:00
Man, I can just like, upload whatever I want to PyPI and it's great.</p>


2026-03-22T17:15:10+00:00
I really want to like biome</a>,
but having to have a configuration file to cause it
to use spaces over tabs (the default for prettier</code>) isn't great.
I don't have .prettierrc</code> and don't really want to start with biome.json</code>
either.</p>


2026-03-21T21:55:28+00:00
What does it say about me that tinkering with CI is more addictive than Netflix?</p>


2026-03-21T13:50:46+00:00
python -m http.server</code> is such a nice built-in command and I wish I knew about
it like ten years ago</p>


2026-03-20T23:27:23+00:00
I think I have an unhealthy addiction to setting up CI.</p>


2026-03-19T02:11:27+00:00
Are people really so slow at reading emails that having an LLM summarize the
email for them is useful? I can't imagine not preferring to just read the
original.</p>


2026-03-18T03:56:52+00:00

we learned that apparently the actual purpose of MOP was to mine OTIS
diamonds buried deep within the earth</p>
</blockquote>
that has got to be one of the quotes of all time</p>


2026-03-17T17:02:15+00:00
all i want for christmas is django support for ty</a></p>


2026-03-16T22:08:43+00:00
Appreciated this paragraph from gasche</a>:</p>

The policy that I proposed has been described to me as:</p>

disturbingly anti-AI by people who are very positive about AI usage for
programming</li>
disturbingly pro-AI by people who are very negative about AI usage for
programming</li>
</ul>
My immodest take-away from these conflicting sentiments is that the proposed
policy is in fact reasonably balanced.</p>
</blockquote>


2026-03-16T21:59:08+00:00
I think I would have liked to have a teacher like Dijkstra</a>.</p>


2026-03-16T18:56:34+00:00
Reading ocaml PR 14369</a>
generates so much entertainment value for me every time.</p>


2026-03-15T14:27:14+00:00
Actually one of my favorite parts of the MOSP hunt is the
rec letter in the Epilogue</a>
of Chapter 1.</p>


2026-03-14T15:08:33+00:00
Are these log messages</a> too snarky?</p>
log</span> "♻️  RELOAD TRIGGERED. Every day I'm shuffling 🔀"</span></span>
# …</span></span>
log</span> "☀️  GOOD MORNING, my glorious webmaster! How are you this fine $(</span>date</span> +"%A in %B")?"</span></span>
log</span> "🩷 Please enjoy these logs, I wrote them just for you 💌🖋️"</span></span></code></pre>


2026-03-14T14:39:35+00:00
why do i push updates to production right before going to bed on a Friday night
isn't that just asking for trouble</p>


2026-03-11T18:24:02+00:00
oh it's almost april 1 which means it's time for me to decide on a new career</p>


2026-03-11T02:52:05+00:00
I'm always reminded of this sentence in esr's how to ask questions</a></p>

When asking your question, it is best to write as though you assume you</em> are
doing something wrong, even if you are privately pretty sure you have found an
actual bug. If there really is a bug, you will hear about it in the answer.
Play it so the maintainers will want to apologize to you if the bug is real,
rather than so that you will owe them an apology if you have messed up.</p>
</blockquote>
I feel like I always did this, and it just seemed like common sense to me.
In fact, I assumed that's what everyone did. But apparently not?</p>


2026-03-11T01:13:11+00:00
It's pretty nice that most of the museums in Washington DC are free.</p>


2026-03-09T01:12:43+00:00
New mosp.evanchen.cc</a> archive up and running!</p>


2026-03-06T05:03:22+00:00
Maybe binge-watching High Potential</em> is not a good way of coping with not
having enough time to finish my work.</p>


2026-03-05T14:15:08+00:00
A sentence I read on Wikipedia today:</p>

On 30 April 2015, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration announced it will
order Boeing 787 operators to reset its electrical system periodically, to
avoid an integer overflow which could lead to loss of electrical power and ram
air turbine deployment, and Boeing deployed a software update in the fourth
quarter. The European Aviation Safety Agency followed on 4 May 2015.
The error happens after 2^31 hundredths of a second (about 249 days),
indicating a 32-bit signed integer.</p>
</blockquote>


2026-03-05T03:24:24+00:00
Played through For Love is Heartbreak</a>
on a whim and was unable to discard or put away a single item in the room.</p>


2026-03-05T00:28:48+00:00
… I actually find this rutabaga situation pretty funny.</p>


2026-03-02T19:16:49+00:00
can't the IRS learn to use email or something</p>
i swear it's either postal mail or holding on the phone for forever</p>


2026-03-02T05:20:47+00:00
Seems like repeatedly pressing the center autosuggestion on my phone</a>
currently gives the following sentence:</p>

The only way I could be happy with the fact I can be a good friend is to
have you in the corner and I will always love it when
I can see your face in my life again</p>
</blockquote>
Dunno how to feel about that one.</p>


2026-03-01T20:56:01+00:00
Me realizing that the daily database backup script has been broken for two
months and I didn't notice. Whoops.</p>


2026-03-01T00:10:43+00:00
From Crying in H Mart</em>:</p>
Some of the earliest memories I can recall are of my mother instructing me to
always “save ten percent of yourself.” What she meant was that, no matter how
much you thought you loved someone, or thought they loved you, you never gave
all of yourself. Save 10 percent, always, so there was something to fall back
on. “Even from Daddy, I save,” she would add.</p>
…</p>
I envied and feared my mother’s ability to keep matters private, as every
secret I tried to hold close ate away at me. She possessed a rare talent for
keeping secrets, even from us. She did not need anyone. She could surprise you
with how little she needed you. All those years she instructed me to save 10
percent of myself like she did, I never knew it meant she had also been keeping
a part of herself from me too.</p>


2026-02-22T15:12:09+00:00
So I know xkcd makes fun of tar flags</a>
but I have even more difficulty with rsync</code>.
I think my default flags should be something like rsync -zhvaxPAX</code>.</p>


2026-02-21T18:13:46+00:00
Answering emails at my desktop feels like clearing a field.</p>
Like, I imagine I'm outside surrounded by grass that's taller than me, and I'm
holding this farmer scythe (Vim + Mutt). And I just keep swinging it around
wildly, until the emails are all cleared away and I can see in front of me again.</p>


2026-02-21T17:14:13+00:00
Look, kids, "I'm just being honest" is not an excuse for being mean.
Believe me, I can tell the difference between someone who is being honest
because they're trying to help, versus someone looking for an excuse to be mean.</p>


2026-02-18T21:46:35+00:00

One of the most surprising things you'll discover, if you start writing
essays, is that people who disagree with you rarely disagree with what you've
actually written. Instead they make up something you said and disagree with
that.</p>
</blockquote>
Yeah, that sounds like what I remember on the few occasions I see people talking
about math contests on Reddit.</p>


2026-02-17T22:31:04+00:00

Messenger.com won't be available after April 14, 2026</p>
</blockquote>
fml</p>


2026-02-16T23:48:55+00:00
TIL I learned that 않다 is a contraction for 아니하다, so -지 않다 is another
example of a grammar pattern in Korean that is actually just the composition of
simpler principles. I think that's the thing I find really nice about Korean
grammar… so many constructions are actually composed from other ones.</p>


2026-02-13T23:26:51+00:00
oh wait I did not know that sl</code> even has command line options. that's cute.</p>


2026-02-13T20:42:49+00:00
I'm going to miss having access to eduroam.</p>


2026-02-12T18:44:29+00:00
If anyone wants to follow the T-Mobile struggle bus,
here's the link</a>.
I think at some point I'll make it into a blog post just for comedic effect.</p>


2026-02-10T05:07:12+00:00
I finally got around to cleaning up INSTALL.sh</a>
in my dotfiles and it feels so much better.
That file was an utter mess for the longest time.</p>


2026-02-08T17:44:12+00:00
EWD 854</a> and EWD 1036</a> talk about the dangers of trying to make
predictions about the future by using analogies to the past. Actually I feel
like I haven't heard many other people say the same thing.</p>
What happens if I tune out all predictions about radically new territory which
are justified with a comparison to the past? Is that ignoring history?</p>


2026-02-08T15:35:56+00:00
TIL the story of Čech and higher homotopy groups</a>.
Bit of a sad story.</p>


2026-02-08T05:44:49+00:00
Nobody told me about tmux</code> being able to detach (like nohup</code>). I'd always
assumed it was just something like a window manager inside the terminal.
Glad to learn something new.</p>


2026-02-06T20:52:03+00:00
Achievement unlocked: file complaint with FCC.gov.</p>


2026-02-06T16:55:12+00:00
i thought i had no meetings today what a fool i was</p>


2026-02-06T13:16:56+00:00
Anguilla winning the TLD game:</p>

"In the years before the real breakthrough of AI, revenue from .ai domains
made up less than 1% of our state income, by 2025 it will be around 47%,"
explained Jose Vanterpool, Minister of Infrastructure and Communications
(MICUHITES), in an interview with BBC.</p>
</blockquote>


2026-02-05T21:07:23+00:00
The name "AxiomProver" seems like kind of an oxymoron.</p>


2026-02-05T02:53:02+00:00
Advertisement I enjoyed:</p>

Boxaroo enjoys answering some of the world's hardest questions, like,
"how do I get out of this room?" and "is this a puzzle?".</p>
</blockquote>


2026-02-04T04:07:38+00:00
I could write a whole blog post about how mad I am T-mobile right now, but I'm
so hosed I don't have the time right now.</p>


2026-02-02T00:07:51+00:00
I turned my Anki retention for Korean back to 88%, and it actually feels better
somehow… fewer feelings of idiocy? But also 30% more reviews.</p>
You get what you paid for, I guess.</p>


2026-02-01T21:55:31+00:00
TIL that "braille" should not be capitalized. Never knew that, actually.</p>


2026-01-31T14:12:43+00:00
Me calling T-Mobile to trying to explain to customer service that their DNS
server is returning a wrong NXDOMAIN</code> for evanchen.cc</code>.
Their reply: for my security, they can't file a ticket unless I have the primary
account holder with me.</p>
; <<>> DiG 9.20.18 <<>> evanchen.cc @1.1.1.1</span></span>
;; global options: +cmd</span></span>
;; Got answer:</span></span>
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 24770</span></span>
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1</span></span>
</span>
;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:</span></span>
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232</span></span>
;; QUESTION SECTION:</span></span>
;evanchen.cc.			IN	A</span></span>
</span>
;; ANSWER SECTION:</span></span>
evanchen.cc.		300	IN	A	104.21.4.50</span></span>
evanchen.cc.		300	IN	A	172.67.131.172</span></span>
</span>
;; Query time: 96 msec</span></span>
;; SERVER: 1.1.1.1#53(1.1.1.1) (UDP)</span></span>
;; WHEN: Sat Jan 31 08:44:39 EST 2026</span></span>
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 72</span></span></code></pre>


2026-01-31T03:48:08+00:00
Today's off-topic browsing:
Target pregnancy prediction scores for target advertising</a>.
(From troyhunt.com</code>.)</p>
Excerpts:</p>
As Pole’s computers crawled through the data, he was able to identify about 25
products that, when analyzed together, allowed him to assign each shopper a
“pregnancy prediction” score. More important, he could also estimate her due
date to within a small window, so Target could send coupons timed to very
specific stages of her pregnancy.</p>
About a year after Pole created his pregnancy-prediction model, a man walked
into a Target outside Minneapolis and demanded to see the manager. He was
clutching coupons that had been sent to his daughter, and he was angry,
according to an employee who participated in the conversation.</p>
“My daughter got this in the mail!” he said. “She’s still in high school, and
you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to
encourage her to get pregnant?”</p>
[Later] on the phone, though, the father was somewhat abashed. “I had a talk
with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my
house I haven’t been completely aware of. She’s due in August. I owe you an
apology.”</p>


2026-01-30T20:40:19+00:00
what do you do when the DNS doesn't work? just, like, pray?</p>


2026-01-29T00:55:58+00:00
It seems like today is one of those "my airpod fell out of my ear into a storm
drain" kind of days. Fortunately my Uber driver lent me a spare windshield wiper
that I was able to use to retrieve it.</p>


2026-01-27T04:59:35+00:00
I feel like when a business website throws HTTP 500, you should get the right to
skip to the front of the customer support queue.</p>


2026-01-27T03:53:09+00:00
First time I encountered the "counter too large" error. I had been numbering
subsections in my diary with letters, like 1A, 1B, 1C, ..., and I had a diary
entry so long it was 29 subsections.</p>


2026-01-21T20:45:46+00:00
how did I live without mango</a> before
I'm so glad I don't have to deal with other people's unwrapped lines ever again</p>


2026-01-21T05:53:22+00:00
"If you look inside good software, you find that parts no one is ever supposed
to see are beautiful too."</p>


2026-01-21T02:12:56+00:00
Actually it still spooks me that growing up, I never noticed the English
expression "long time no see" does not follow English grammar at all.</p>


2026-01-21T01:26:15+00:00
Maybe teaching an intro class is actually just being like a tour guide.</p>


2026-01-20T02:19:21+00:00
Wow. I scheduled a meeting four days ago and straight up completely forgot about
it today (having also apparently forgotten to put it in my Calendar).
I don't remember the last time I just missed a meeting like that.</p>


2026-01-20T01:04:17+00:00
Mystery Hunt over, back to real life 🥲</p>


2026-01-15T20:51:10+00:00
Setting homework and exams reminds me a lot of game design, actually.
I wonder if other teachers would agree?</p>


2026-01-13T06:17:51+00:00
Two hours of surfing r/Teachers</code> later I think I might want to seriously
consider moving out of the United States if the quality of education is as bad
as people on Reddit are making it sound.</p>


2026-01-13T04:56:29+00:00
I somehow stumbled upon r/Teachers</code> and it ruined my day.
Man am I glad I get to teach a specialized group of students.</p>


2026-01-12T00:10:09+00:00
Whoa, Python 3.14 argparse</code> has colors in help by default. That's nice!</p>


2026-01-10T19:18:48+00:00
You can tell how much I'm enjoying any given month by how many diary entries I
have for that month.</p>


2026-01-06T06:21:52+00:00
Things always feel unnatural to me once there is enough money involved.</p>


2026-01-04T06:41:04+00:00
Oh I just saw the updated Christmas Clawd too, with asterisks for snowflakes.
That's cute.</p>


2026-01-04T06:00:29+00:00
I think it's really cute how in Claude Code, the Clawd mascot makes > <</code> eyes
and runs away from the mouse cursor. Like petting a cat or something.</p>


2026-01-04T00:37:57+00:00
I swear my postegresql</code> always needs a major version upgrade.</p>


2026-01-03T05:07:47+00:00
olypack#7</a> is the stuff of my nightmares.
worst code outcome in a while.</p>


2026-01-02T21:14:44+00:00
Okay, to get this in writing, my New Year's resolution is to make my task
management system actually say what I mean to do. That means:</p>

task next</code> should show immediate next tasks, not a laundry list of
things-to-do-at-some-point.
Tasks that won't happen until tomorrow or later
should be scheduled for future or someday</code>.</li>
Daily routines should be completed in dijo</code>,
or marked with X if I need to skip a day.</li>
</ol>
If both things are done correctly, then as a corollary,
my Google Calendar should show a schedule of things to be done in
task ready</code> and dijo</code> (this is one of the daily routines in Dijo).</p>
I feel a bit apprehensive because I never paid much
heed to task management before, cf XKCD 874</a>.
But I also feel like my to-do lists have gotten so long
I can no longer have them in my head.
So I want to see if this helps me focus on a single task at a time
while not having to spend headspace thinking about the other $n-1$.
(Well, even if it doesn't, if it increases my dijo</code> success rate
it's still a win.)</p>


2026-01-02T04:57:47+00:00
imagine being so bad at code that you write unit tests that only fail at certain
times of day. couldn't be me 😵‍💫</p>


2026-01-02T03:50:26+00:00
The stepmania</code> packages on AUR are such a mess hahahaha. Anyway, starting out
2026 by pulling out the old dance mat (after a year of not playing due to
breaking my ankle at the start of 2025). I've missed this game.</p>


2026-01-01T17:13:01+00:00
I feel like there's more and more of a tendency to do installations into
~/.local</code> or Docker containers or similar, instead of /usr</code>. I guess I can
understand the rationale, but I do miss the times I felt like my package
manager took care of everything.</p>


2025-12-31T20:29:06+00:00
I really don't have a concept of holiday. Woke up on New Year's Eve and went
straight into a 3-hour work meeting.</p>


2025-12-31T06:43:49+00:00
oh yeah, I get to update my Common App profile to say "Dr. Evan Chen" instead of
"Mr. Evan Chen". One of the few places that might actually make a difference...</p>


2025-12-31T01:36:00+00:00
I think a lot of people who write to me asking for advice actually are asking
for therapy. And it's like, I do want to help, but I don't actually know how.</p>


2025-12-28T19:14:47+00:00
What happens if I wake up one day and my computer won't turn on? It's not like I
know anything about hardware or kernels.</p>


2025-12-27T01:44:17+00:00
the horrors of realizing that random columns in my database are still on
utfmb3</code> no wonder emoji never worked sigh</p>


2025-12-24T18:15:58+00:00
Super enjoyed the boss fight with Gerson Boom</a> in Chapter 4 of Deltarune.
I think I just really like this character.
Glad to see him getting so much new screen time since Undertale.</p>


2025-12-24T04:40:04+00:00
how do you beat the hammer of justice jesus</p>


2025-12-23T00:39:37+00:00
Today I learned that "AAAA" records (for IPv6) are named that way because IPv6
address are four times longer than IPv4 addresses. And that you're supposed to
say quad-A.</p>


2025-12-22T03:29:19+00:00
"rapid life syndrome" is actually such a strong song title</p>


2025-12-21T11:54:51+00:00
Today I installed a website I knew nothing about onto a server I knew nothing
about, and it was fine because it was all inside a Docker container. I think I
better understand the point of Docker now.</p>


2025-12-18T21:17:47+00:00
"You don't have to be crazy to be my friend, but it helps."</p>


2025-12-16T07:01:14+00:00
I wanted to visit my Korean teacher in January again when I stopped by Boston
for Mystery Hunt, but now my Korean is so atrophied I think I'd be too
embarrassed.</p>


2025-12-15T02:31:54+00:00
I made a folder called ~/Freezer</code> to dump all my old stuff I never look at in
and now my ~/Sync</code> folder feels so much lighter</p>


2025-12-15T00:38:44+00:00
I miss the time when my workload was light enough that I didn't need to
prioritize or triage. (Back then I just used a greedy algorithm: pick whichever
task I felt like doing next off a list, without planning ahead.)</p>
All the time spent planning is time not spent working on anything.</p>


2025-12-13T08:49:52+00:00
Latest song on repeat:
number one rockstar</a></p>


2025-12-12T17:07:25+00:00
Okay the following testimonial for shellcheck</a> is actually great:</p>

At first you're like "shellcheck is awesome" but then
you're like "wtf are we still using bash"</p>
</blockquote>


2025-12-12T04:42:40+00:00
You know, if I could have a full-time job teaching, like, 18.02 or 18.06 (and
nothing else), I like to think I'd do a pretty good job, and I think it'd be
pretty fun and rewarding for me. In the shower I keep having these ideas for
things I could do if that was actually my job.</p>


2025-12-11T18:54:03+00:00
I wonder how different writing Lean code is from writing assembly code.</p>


2025-12-11T04:18:44+00:00
every time i read something on twitter i'm glad i'm not on twitter</p>


2025-12-10T00:00:50+00:00
I feel at this point I have three different versions of every linter: a system
version, a mason version, and a prek version. Feels kind of wasteful.</p>


2025-12-08T16:42:37+00:00
Just discovered ln-hunt</a> exists:</p>

Puzzlehunting in another world with my absurd skills</p>
</blockquote>
So I was going to catch up on work this week, but maybe...</p>


2025-12-04T18:11:23+00:00
claire suggested naming this blog to wall-e(van)</a>
which i have to admit is super cute</p>


2025-12-04T16:55:20+00:00
I don't know why I didn't make mango</a> earlier this is so much better than wrapping lines by hand</p>


2025-12-03T05:36:54+00:00
I've decided to take revenge on all the scrapers poking /wp-admin</code> on my
websites by redirecting them to a cool music video.
https://github.com/vEnhance/django-bot-rickroll</a></p>


2025-12-02T04:05:03+00:00
Back when I was still a teenager, Rusczyk</a> showed me the sentence
"The internet makes dumb people dumber and smart people smarter".
I'm starting to feel the same about AI.</p>


2025-12-01T17:02:09+00:00
Spotted today in OTIS server logs:</p>
⚠️ Not Found: /robots.txt</p>

Method: GET</li>
Path: /robots.txt</li>
Agent Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36
(KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36; compatible;
OAI-SearchBot/1.0; +https://openai.com/searchbot</a></li>
</ul>


2025-12-01T04:42:45+00:00
Freaking /wp-admin</code> 404 errors polluting my server logs.</p>


2025-11-30T01:05:30+00:00
TIL http://nyarchlinux.moe/</a> exists this is so funny</p>


2025-11-28T17:15:48+00:00
omg the Papago app has a Christmas earmuffs it's so cute</p>
</p>
Also I totally did not know this but:</p>

The name Papago comes from the Esperanto word for parrot.</p>
</blockquote>


2025-11-28T04:43:53+00:00
I finally know the difference between UTF-8, UTF-16, and Unicode.
It was actually easy to understand, I just never thought to until now
when I was surfing Wikipedia and actually read about character encodings.
Wish I had earlier just for feeling less ignorant.</p>


2025-11-26T15:35:43+00:00
I am grudgingly trying out Pomodoro</a>
for my Anki study sessions to see if helps my concentration.
Feels like a death knell.</p>


2025-11-26T03:58:36+00:00
Actually I find it kind of cute that in Korean, 결혼하다 (to marry) is an
intransitive</em> verb (unlike in English where it's transitive ---
so you "marry with someone", rather than "marry someone").</p>


2025-11-25T18:30:07+00:00
OTIS-WEB is now on uv too and all the Django applications are in harmony</p>


2025-11-25T17:34:04+00:00
Technology tried out today:</p>

direnv</a></li>
copier</a></li>
</ul>
Seem to be working as advertised.</p>


2025-11-25T02:21:50+00:00

At one point, the Internet was a place where anyone could carve out
a little piece and say, "This is me."
(source)</a></p>
</blockquote>
Yeah... I feel that.</p>


2025-11-25T01:23:41+00:00
You know, gunicorn</code> just kind of worked with no fuss.
(SIGHUP works as advertised and now I don't have downtime when I update my site.)
I feel like usually software doesn't do that for me so I feel grateful for that.</p>


2025-11-24T23:25:46+00:00
Despite being a myself human, I feel is if I have no real understanding
of how to teach humans how to solve math problems.
I just go off vibes and what-seems-to-work-in-practice and then kind of pray.</p>
Trying to teach robots is even worse, because I'm not a robot,
so I don't even have empathy as a compass to fall back on.</p>


2025-11-23T20:53:35+00:00
Me learning how to send HUP to gunicorn</code>.</p>
#!/usr/bin/env bash</span></span>
</span>
set -euo</span> pipefail</span></span>
umask 002</span></span>
</span>
reload</span>() {</span></span>
    uv</span> sync</span> --all-extras --no-dev</span></span>
    uv</span> run</span> --no-sync</span> python3 manage.py migrate</span></span>
    kill -HUP</span> "</span>$GUNICORN_PID</span>"</span></span>
}</span></span>
</span>
trap</span> reload HUP</span></span>
</span>
# Initial sync and migrate</span></span>
uv</span> sync</span> --all-extras --no-dev</span></span>
uv</span> run</span> --no-sync</span> python3 manage.py migrate</span></span>
</span>
# Start gunicorn in background</span></span>
uv</span> run</span> --no-sync</span> gunicorn atheweb.wsgi</span> &</span></span>
GUNICORN_PID</span>=</span>$!</span></span>
</span>
# Wait for gunicorn, restarting wait after signals</span></span>
while</span> kill -0</span> "</span>$GUNICORN_PID</span>"</span> 2></span>/dev/null</span>;</span> do</span></span>
    wait</span> "</span>$GUNICORN_PID</span>"</span> ||</span> true</span></span>
done</span></span></code></pre>


2025-11-23T05:46:40+00:00
Somethings comes over me when I'm coding. It's like I can't stop until
everything is written and polished and perfect. Or it'll just bug me to the
point I can't work on anything else.</p>


2025-11-22T06:00:13+00:00
I think my mom is finally starting to remember that the puzzle hunt I go to every January is called "mystery hunt", not "treasure hunt".</p>


2025-11-21T21:04:03+00:00
Now that I have 3 Django projects instead of 1, I feel like I'm trying my
hardest to make sure the infrastructure is as similar as possible between them.
The ideal case is .pre-commit-config.yaml</code> and Makefile</code> can just be
copy-pasted between projects while ci.yml</code> is project-agnostic:</p>
name</span>:</span> CI</span></span>
</span>
on</span>:</span></span>
  push</span>:</span></span>
    branches</span>: [</span>main</span>]</span></span>
  pull_request</span>:</span></span>
    branches</span>: [</span>main</span>]</span></span>
</span>
jobs</span>:</span></span>
  ci</span>:</span></span>
    name</span>:</span> ✨ Full CI Audit Workflow</span></span>
    runs-on</span>:</span> ubuntu-latest</span></span>
</span>
    steps</span>:</span></span>
      -</span> name</span>:</span> 🧾 Checkout code</span></span>
        uses</span>:</span> actions/checkout@v6</span></span>
</span>
      -</span> name</span>:</span> 🐍 Set up Python</span></span>
        uses</span>:</span> actions/setup-python@v6</span></span>
        with</span>:</span></span>
          python-version</span>:</span> "3.13"</span></span>
</span>
      -</span> name</span>:</span> 📦 Install uv</span></span>
        uses</span>:</span> astral-sh/setup-uv@v7</span></span>
        with</span>:</span></span>
          enable-cache</span>:</span> true</span></span>
</span>
      -</span> name</span>:</span> 📥 Install dependencies</span></span>
        run</span>:</span> uv sync</span></span>
</span>
      -</span> name</span>:</span> 🧼 Check formatting</span></span>
        run</span>:</span> make fmt</span></span>
</span>
      -</span> name</span>:</span> 🔍 Run checks</span></span>
        run</span>:</span> make check</span></span>
</span>
      -</span> name</span>:</span> 🧪 Run tests</span></span>
        run</span>:</span> make test</span></span></code></pre>


2025-11-21T18:09:59+00:00
Still amazed by uv</code>.</p>
I'm completely unqualified to take about programming, but something about uv</code>
just "feels right". I don't what I'm referring to, but it's a feeling I've had
ever since I started using it.</p>


2025-11-19T17:58:39+00:00
Turns out that it's not actually that useful to memorize your friend's birthdays
if you don't know what the current date is.</p>


2025-11-16T19:45:55+00:00
okay yes i admit it. pre-commit</code> (and prek</code>) are better than the glue scripts
i was using before.</p>


2025-11-14T15:15:11+00:00
First time I've had my name misspelled as "Professor Loh".</p>
Hi Professor Loh,</span></span>
</span>
My name is $NAME, and I am working on a project called $APP under my</span></span>
company $COMPANY.</span></span>
</span>
I've been following vEnhance for years, and I deeply admire the clarity,</span></span>
creativity, and rigor you bring to mathematical explanations. Your approach</span></span>
to problem solving and mathematical thinking has inspired countless</span></span>
students preparing for Olympiad-style contests.</span></span>
</span>
Because $APP's mission is closely aligned with empowering students to</span></span>
think more deeply and develop strong reasoning skills, I wanted to reach</span></span>
out about a possible collaboration.</span></span>
</span>
$APP is a math Olympiad practice app for Grades 1--12 (currently 1--8). It</span></span>
features problem sets designed around competition-style thinking, with</span></span>
progressive difficulty, logical reasoning challenges, XP-based progression,</span></span>
badges, streaks, and topic-level performance tracking.</span></span>
</span>
Students use $APP while preparing for contests such as the AMC, AIME, IMO,</span></span>
Math Kangaroo, and many school-level Olympiads.</span></span>
</span>
...</span></span></code></pre>


2025-11-14T05:13:55+00:00
The NearlyFreeSpech FAQ</a>
is actually really addicting to read.
Has a lot of personality.</p>


2025-11-13T20:30:45+00:00
I can't take people who use the word "democratize" seriously.</p>


2025-11-13T03:41:59+00:00
Why is it that when I'm paid per hour, I'm suddenly rushing to finish tasks as
quickly as possible? Naively I would have expected the opposite.</p>
I guess my "spend as little money as possible" habit applies even when it's not
my money being spent.</p>


2025-11-12T01:26:03+00:00
i wrote this lecture</a>
as a teenager and now in my 30's people are still emailing me for solutions</a>.</p>


2025-11-11T20:46:05+00:00
I should have moved to a real static site generator for
blog.evanchen.cc</code> years ago.
Feels so much better to have everything being generated by a Git repository.</p>


2025-11-10T19:28:35+00:00
From the preface to An Introduction to Automorphic Representations</a>:</p>

The student should not be overly discouraged, however, because there
is no person currently alive who has the necessary prerequisites to really
understand the entire subject.</p>
</blockquote>
Yeah, sounds about right.</p>


2025-11-10T13:35:45+00:00
So when everyone says that the way LLM's work is just by predicting the next
word, is that actually an accurate description of what's going on? Or is that
just what everyone repeats because it's easy to relate to?</p>


2025-11-04T19:03:15+00:00
i hit a claude code session limit while writing django and now feel like a lazy bum.</p>


2025-11-04T03:13:19+00:00
Me running /init</code> in Claude Code with just a pyproject.toml</code>:</p>

This is a Django application for handling OTIS (Online Training Information
System) applications. The project is in early development stages.</p>
</blockquote>
... Nice guess for the meaning of OTIS.</p>


2025-11-02T22:09:18+00:00
I opened Stephen's Sausage Roll today on a whim and started a new save file.
I have no idea how I managed to play this game before holy crap it's so hard.</p>
Literally was trying to find a tutorial level to remember how the rules worked
and instead wandered around looking for any level I could do at all.</p>


2025-11-02T16:45:26+00:00
Found the following poem</a>
that compiles in Perl 5.6.1:</p>
BEFOREHAND: </span>close</span> door, </span>each</span> window & </span>exit</span>;  </span>wait until</span> time</span>;</span></span>
    open</span> spell book; </span>study</span>; </span>read</span> (spell, $scan, </span>select</span>); </span>tell</span> us;</span></span>
write</span> it, </span>print</span> the </span>hex</span> while</span> each</span> watches,</span></span>
    reverse length</span>, </span>write</span> again;</span></span>
           kill</span> spiders, </span>pop</span> them, </span>chop</span>, </span>split</span>, </span>kill</span> them.</span></span>
              unlink</span> arms, </span>shift</span>, </span>wait and</span> listen</span> (listening, </span>wait</span>).</span></span>
sort</span> the </span>flock</span> (then, </span>warn</span> "the goats"</span>, </span>kill</span> "the sheep"</span>);</span></span>
    kill</span> them, </span>dump</span> qualms, </span>shift</span> moralities,</span></span>
           values</span> aside, </span>each</span> one;</span></span>
               die</span> sheep; </span>die</span> (to, </span>reverse the</span> =></span> system</span></span>
                      you accept (reject, respect));</span></span>
next</span> step,</span></span>
    kill</span> next</span> sacrifice, </span>each</span> sacrifice,</span></span>
           wait</span>, </span>redo</span> ritual </span>until</span> "all the spirits are pleased"</span>;</span></span>
    do</span> it (</span>"as they say"</span>).</span></span>
do</span> it(*everyone***must***participate***in***forbidden**</span>s</span>*e*x*</span>).</span></span>
return last</span> victim; package body;</span></span>
    exit</span> crypt</span> (</span>time</span>, </span>times</span> & </span>"half a time"</span>) & </span>close</span> it.</span></span>
           select</span> (quickly) </span>and</span> warn</span> next</span> victim;</span></span>
AFTERWARDS: </span>tell</span> nobody.</span></span>
    wait</span>, </span>wait until</span> time</span>;</span></span>
           wait until next</span> year, </span>next</span> decade;</span></span>
               sleep</span>, </span>sleep</span>, </span>die</span> yourself,</span></span>
                      die</span> @last</span></span></code></pre>


2025-11-02T14:05:24+00:00
Spent part of yesterday getting a local Hanabi-Live</a>
working again so I could help bring some of the recent pull requests
to the finish line.</p>
This is super weird, but I think there's something about the
jankiness of the code that I find charming.
The website is feature-rich and has a lot of thought put into it,
but you can also tell it's done by hobbyists and not a corporate entity.
Gives it a bit of soul.</p>


2025-11-01T21:37:44+00:00
Someone told me that
$$\left( \frac{1+\sqrt5}{2} \right)^3 = 2 + \sqrt 5$$
and I feel kind of spooked.
Doesn't feel right that the denominator disappears.</p>
Well, $\mathbb Z[\sqrt 5]$ isn't integrally closed.
Maybe that's a good way to drive that point home.</p>


2025-11-01T20:17:47+00:00
I've reached the point where seeing Romanization of Korean words is annoying and
I wish people would use 한글 so I can actually tell what the words are.</p>


2025-10-31T18:43:42+00:00
I've gotten used to using pre-push hooks but I feel like most other people I
know are using pre-commit. Makes me wonder if I should switch.</p>


2025-10-31T18:31:24+00:00
Do I drink too much French vanilla?</p>


2025-10-30T18:57:36+00:00
Played Aperture Desk Job</a>
on my most recent plane ride and had a good laugh, it was so entertaining.
Should've played this when I first got the Deck.</p>


2025-10-23T15:51:55+00:00
Recent in-flight movie review:
The Nightmare Before Christmas</a> was a bit slow
but I can see some of the charm.
More importantly, now I understand the context behind the
the 2019 Mystery Hunt</a> a lot better.</p>


2025-10-22T20:33:27+00:00
Actually, it shouldn't be a surprise to me that I don't like most parents,
because I don't like most people, and parents are people.</p>
It tangentially reminded me of a Calvin and Hobbes comic where Dad says:</p>

It's funny... when I was a kid, I thought grown-ups never worried about
anything. I trusted my parents to take care of everything, and it never
occurred to me that they might not know how.</p>
</blockquote>
That was definitely my childhood too.</p>


2025-10-22T20:24:55+00:00
I realized when playing The Farmer Was Replaced</a>
how I've gotten used to not</em> optimizing my code in real life.</p>
For me, the most important thing with my Python code
is that it's easy to read and obviously correct.
For my applications a runtime of 1 millisecond vs 10 milliseconds doesn't matter.
(If runtime did</em> matter, I might not be using Python anyway.)</p>


2025-10-19T17:20:20+00:00
Man, whoever wrote this comment</a>
would be such a good teacher.</p>
This was a response to "what is the difference between 긴습, 응급, 비상"
which all can be translated into English as "emergency".</p>

You'll hear terms like "긴급뉴스" for like "breaking/urgent news"</p>
You'll hear the term "응급실" for hospital emergency room.</p>
You'll see "비상구" if you fly on an airplane on a Korean based airline.</p>
</blockquote>
But the important part is the "teach how to fish":</p>

I used to constantly ask questions like this,
so instead of answering the simple questions,
let's teach you how to answer them yourself.
The first thing I would do is check up all the examples on Naver dictionary.
Then look at all of the example sentences to get a feel for how they are used.</p>
Next , since all of these words are all Chinese roots,
the next thing I would do is see what other words the various roots are in.</p>
급 (急)</a> seems to have a "urgent, rapid"
feel in all of the words that it is in, so for the first two, this is the same.
So what about 응 and 긴, how are they different?</p>
응 (應)</a> seems to have a feeling of "responding".
Since 응답 is a fairly beginner word, you can now connect
the two 응's in your mind.</p>
긴 (緊)</a> seems to be more "tense",
and is the same 긴 in 긴장.
So this makes sense.</p>
Then there is 비상.</p>
The 비 (非)</a> is a negative</p>
Then 상 (常)</a> is frequent or common.</p>
When you put the word 비상 together you get the true sense of the word
which is like "not normal" so when I look at a 비상구
I think "this is NOT the REGULAR exit,
but the one i use in special circumstances, such as an EMERGENCY".</p>
tl;dr - If you want to get a feel for
"how is this word different than that", then definitely use Naver dictionary,
get some example sentences, idioms, fan subs, etc,
then get the Chinese chars and pop them into hanjadic and build your vocab web
and know the differences between words better than most Koreans :P.</p>
</blockquote>
The power of concrete examples cannot be overstated.</p>


2025-10-16T14:33:05+00:00
Recent in-flight movie reviews:</p>


How to Train Your Dragon (2010)</a> is really cute,
and I was disappointed the sequel wasn't available on my return flight.</p>
</li>

A Minecraft Movie (2025)</a>
is super derpy but makes me want to try playing Minecraft,
so I guess it's doing its job as an advertisement.</p>
</li>
</ul>


2025-10-13T00:30:04+00:00
Got burned by
CloudFlare email forwarding not working</a>.
I've missed six days of emails. What a headache.</p>


2025-10-09T11:59:08+00:00
Was staring at a student's code that had the line donthaveanyfunction=0</code> in an
if</code> block that was never used anywhere else, wondering why. Took a while to
figure out it's because the student didn't know there's a command called pass</code>
for a no-op. (I think.)</p>


2025-10-08T01:26:07+00:00
okay Penny's battle theme is actually really good 🔥</p>
can we play this during TSTST or something 🤔</p>


2025-10-07T14:53:29+00:00
"You can lead the horse to puzzles, but you can't make it solve them."</p>


2025-10-07T12:37:24+00:00
They took out set mode in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet? Yeesh.</p>
And here I was thinking about playing some of the newer games.</p>


2025-10-06T20:14:31+00:00
Straight-up in an OTIS application:</p>

i'm too lazy to learn coding</p>
</blockquote>
Tsk, tsk.</p>


2025-10-06T15:41:25+00:00
Turns out you can use usepackage("hwemoji")</code> to enable emoji in Asymptote.</p>
size</span>(</span>12</span>cm</span>);</span></span>
usepackage</span>(</span>"hwemoji"</span>);</span></span>
pair P </span>=</span> dir</span>(</span>80</span>);</span></span>
pair A </span>=</span> dir</span>(</span>210</span>);</span></span>
pair B </span>=</span> dir</span>(</span>330</span>);</span></span>
</span>
draw</span>(A</span>--</span>B, red);</span></span>
</span>
pair D </span>=</span> foot</span>(P, A, B);</span></span>
pair H_1 </span>=</span> orthocenter</span>(P, A, B);</span></span>
pair H_2 </span>=</span> midpoint</span>(P</span>--</span>H_1);</span></span>
</span>
pair E_1 </span>=</span> extension</span>(A, H_1, P, B);</span></span>
pair E_2 </span>=</span> extension</span>(A, H_2, P, B);</span></span>
pair F_1 </span>=</span> extension</span>(B, H_1, P, A);</span></span>
pair F_2 </span>=</span> extension</span>(B, H_2, P, A);</span></span>
</span>
draw</span>(A</span>--</span>P</span>--</span>B, lightblue);</span></span>
draw</span>(P</span>--</span>D, heavygreen);</span></span>
draw</span>(E_1</span>--</span>A</span>--</span>E_2, lightcyan);</span></span>
draw</span>(F_1</span>--</span>B</span>--</span>F_2, lightcyan);</span></span>
</span>
pair X </span>=</span> extension</span>(E_1, F_1, E_2, F_2);</span></span>
pair C </span>=</span> 0.6</span>*</span>X</span>+</span>0.4</span>*</span>B;</span></span>
</span>
filldraw</span>(</span>circle</span>(</span>midpoint</span>(B</span>--</span>C),</span> abs</span>(B</span>-</span>C)</span>/</span>6</span>),</span> opacity</span>(</span>0.1</span>)</span>+</span>brown, palered);</span></span>
label</span>(</span>"🦥"</span>,</span> midpoint</span>(B</span>--</span>C),</span> fontsize</span>(</span>32</span>pt</span>));</span></span>
</span>
draw</span>(C</span>--</span>X, red);</span></span>
draw</span>(B</span>--</span>C, dotted</span>+</span>red);</span></span>
draw</span>(F_1</span>--</span>X, heavycyan);</span></span>
draw</span>(F_2</span>--</span>X, heavycyan);</span></span>
</span>
dot</span>(</span>"$P$"</span>, P,</span> dir</span>(P));</span></span>
dot</span>(</span>"$A$"</span>, A,</span> dir</span>(</span>270</span>));</span></span>
dot</span>(</span>"$B$"</span>, B,</span> dir</span>(</span>270</span>));</span></span>
dot</span>(</span>"$D$"</span>, D,</span> dir</span>(D));</span></span>
dot</span>(</span>"$E_1$"</span>, E_1,</span> dir</span>(</span>45</span>));</span></span>
dot</span>(</span>"$E_2$"</span>, E_2,</span> dir</span>(</span>45</span>));</span></span>
dot</span>(</span>"$F_1$"</span>, F_1,</span> dir</span>(</span>135</span>));</span></span>
dot</span>(</span>"$F_2$"</span>, F_2,</span> dir</span>(</span>135</span>));</span></span>
dot</span>(</span>"$X$"</span>, X,</span> dir</span>(</span>270</span>));</span></span>
dot</span>(</span>"$C$"</span>, C,</span> dir</span>(</span>270</span>));</span></span></code></pre>


2025-10-05T19:10:36+00:00
omg i never realized 🐐 stood for "greatest of all time" that makes so much
sense now</p>


2025-10-04T22:21:45+00:00
Quote of the day: "inner peace is not having any rec letters to write".</p>


2025-09-30T16:47:16+00:00
It occurs to me I'm now like the professor in
the left panel of PhD Comics 1047</a>.
(I definitely used to be like the grad student in the right panel.)</p>


2025-09-30T16:00:47+00:00
I actually think answering email from Vim/neomutt is a speedup of a factor of 2.
Using the Gmail web interface just feels awful now.</p>


2025-09-28T15:12:37+00:00
It occurs to me that when I'm learning Korean, the set of words I frequently use
(from my tiny vocabulary) tells much about my personality.
I have a lot of words like 멍청하다, 게으름을 피우다, 창피하다.</p>
Feels a bit like a deck-builder game for your thoughts.</p>


2025-09-26T16:31:52+00:00
Cute patch notes:</p>

7.70.0.
We fixed a bug on Microsoft Windows that made the Signal Desktop title bar
orange instead of blue. If you've grown to love the citrus-themed color scheme
over the past few days and this bugfix makes you feel blue, you can adjust
your system accent color in your Windows settings.</p>
</blockquote>


2025-09-24T14:47:39+00:00
Tonight's dream: I'm working on the final meta-meta puzzle of an online hunt,
and I'm pretty stuck on it.
Then it occurs to me I haven't seen FAIR PLAY</code> as an answer yet, so I was
like, "huh, wait a minute... was that not promised?"
And so I call in FAIR PLAY</code>, and it's correct.</p>


2025-09-23T10:33:00+00:00
How does anyone learn linear algebra taught via matrices?
Like, I don't think I could understand what was going on in 18.06
if I hadn't taken Math 55a first, and I have a PhD in math.
I can't imagine how confused the poor undergraduates must be.</p>


2025-09-23T02:04:41+00:00
I appreciate papers like
Bluffing in Scrabble, arXiv:2509.10471</a>:</p>

It is well known that in games with imperfect information, such as poker,
bluffing with some probability can be a component of the optimal strategy.
However, as far as we know, nobody has ever exhibited a Scrabble position in
which the optimal strategy involves bluffing, or even a Scrabble position in
which the optimal strategy is a mixed (i.e., randomized) strategy. We present
a carefully constructed Scrabble position, that could actually arise in a
tournament game with no invalid words played, in which the optimal strategy
(assuming that a tied score leads to the point being split equally, with no
recourse to so-called "spread points" as a tie-breaking mechanism) is to make
Move A with probability 1/3 and to make Move B with probability 2/3. Move B
can reasonably be called a bluff, in the sense that it sets up a threat which
the player cannot in fact execute, but which the opponent may not be able to
rule out.</p>
</blockquote>


2025-09-22T03:37:49+00:00
After all these years, there are some MO problems for which I don't remember
anymore how I came up with the solution, and others for which I definitely do.
I like it when my students ask me about the latter and not the former,
because I'm lazy and it's less work for me to answer their question.</p>
Wouldn't it be convenient if those also turned out to be the more instructive
problems? I'm secretly hoping that this laziness happens to causes me to have
better taste in problems, but I don't think I'd be able to test that.</p>


2025-09-22T00:17:33+00:00
So Claude Code actually outputted reasonably good Asymptote code for me today,
which is a surprise to me,
because usually the LLM's are really bad at Asymptote.</p>
I was trying to convert the following into Asymptote:</p>
\begin</span>{circuitikz}[american]</span></span>
    \node</span> (P) at (0,0) [left] {</span>$</span>P</span>$</span>};</span></span>
    \node</span> (Q) at (13,0) [right] {</span>$</span>Q</span>$</span>};</span></span>
    \draw</span> (P) to[short] (1,0);</span></span>
    \draw</span> (1,0) to[short] (1,1) to[R=</span>$</span>x\,\Omega</span>$</span>] (3,1) to[short] (3,0);</span></span>
    \draw</span> (1,0) to[short] (1,-1) to[R=</span>$</span>\frac{1}{3}\,\Omega</span>$</span>] (3,-1) to[short] (3,0);</span></span>
    \draw</span> (3,0) to[short] (4,0);</span></span>
    \draw</span> (4,0) to[short] (4,1) to[R=</span>$</span>y\,\Omega</span>$</span>] (8,1) to[short] (8,0);</span></span>
    \draw</span> (4,0) to[short] (4,-1) to[R=</span>$</span>\frac{1}{3}\,\Omega</span>$</span>] (6,-1) to[R=</span>$</span>\frac{1}{3}\,\Omega</span>$</span>] (8,-1) to[short] (8,0);</span></span>
    \draw</span> (8,0) to[short] (9,0);</span></span>
    \draw</span> (9,0) to[short] (9,1) to[R=</span>$</span>z\,\Omega</span>$</span>] (11,1) to[short] (11,0);</span></span>
    \draw</span> (9,0) to[short] (9,-1) to[short] (9,-2) to[R=</span>$</span>\frac{1}{3}\,\Omega</span>$</span>] (11,-2) to[short] (11,0);</span></span>
    \draw</span> (9,-1) to[R=</span>$</span>\frac{1}{3}\,\Omega</span>$</span>] (11,-1);</span></span>
    \draw</span> (11,0) to[short] (13,0);</span></span>
\end</span>{circuitikz}</span></span></code></pre>
The output from Claude</a>
actually worked.
Though the most jarring part is probably the presence of import olympiad;</code> at the top.
A lot of Asymptote users from the AoPS math contest community... it shows.</p>
I cleaned up the output and posted it on AOPS</a>.</p>


2025-09-21T23:25:52+00:00
Some real Ace Attorney material here:</p>

In one of nature’s most remarkable convergent evolutions, koalas have developed fingerprints
that are virtually indistinguishable from human fingerprints, even under electron microscopes.
... Each koala possesses unique fingerprints, just as humans do, with distinctive whorls, loops, and arches.</p>
</blockquote>
Snopes says this doesn't seem to have happened yet</a>.</p>


2025-09-21T00:34:03+00:00
I kind of think "irregular conjugation" was a poor choice of name for the verb
conjugations that follow one of several rules depending on the ending, because
they're still mostly following a fixed rule.</p>
To me "irregular" should be edge cases like 돕다 becoming 도와 which are
actually</em> edge cases
(irregular irregulars</a>, anyone?).</p>


2025-09-19T15:18:12+00:00
Made me laugh</a>:</p>

One thing you have to be careful about, though, is that duct tape programmers
are the software world equivalent of pretty boys… those breathtakingly
good-looking young men who can roll out of bed, without shaving, without
combing their hair, and without brushing their teeth, and get on the subway in
yesterday’s dirty clothes and look beautiful, because that’s who they are.
You, my friend, cannot go out in public without combing your hair. It will
frighten the children. Because you’re just not that pretty.</p>
</blockquote>


2025-09-18T16:47:35+00:00
How much of life is lost in customer service</p>
(in both directions)</p>


2025-09-16T06:05:22+00:00
When playing poker with friends:</p>

You know you're screwed when your opponent takes a photo of their cards.</p>
</blockquote>


2025-09-16T05:28:37+00:00
I don't know why but my iPhone's Notes scans have increased a ton in size.
It's annoying. But somehow the following procedure fixes it:</p>
pdf2ps</span> unreasonably_large_phone_scan.pdf tmp.ps</span></span>
ps2pdf</span> tmp.ps compressed-output.pdf</span></span></code></pre>
Like, I just scanned a 9-page document that was 37MB before and 1.4MB after.</p>


2025-09-14T20:24:18+00:00
Let's see if this makes it any easier for me to pull up my calendar:</p>
bindsym $mod+g exec qutebrowser --target=window "https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/r/customday" :'mode-enter passthrough'</span></span></code></pre>


2025-09-13T16:47:34+00:00
Maybe it's a good thing that my Amazon Prime is dying soon</a> so
that I stop buying random stuff I don't truly need.</p>


2025-09-13T06:02:10+00:00
Education is so doomed.</p>


2025-09-12T18:58:39+00:00
I appreciate someone who would bring a red panda plushie to a wedding because
it's cute.</p>


2025-09-10T18:36:09+00:00
me digging through my closet wondering if i still own a suit</p>


2025-09-08T23:23:18+00:00
Latest tinker:
disabling links on Wikipedia</a>
so I stop doomscrolling when I look stuff up.</p>


2025-09-07T14:51:28+00:00
I wish we lived in a world where the pacman</code> option ILoveCandy</code> was on by default.</p>


2025-09-05T21:37:50+00:00
Honestly there's actually few things I enjoy watching live more than people
working through my puzzles.</p>


2025-09-05T04:00:02+00:00
The OPAL hunt starts tomorrow. Took way too long to write. We got the last
testsolves in just today. Hope the kids like it.</p>


2025-09-02T17:26:02+00:00
From today's homework stack:</p>

i did like half these problems while walking around yellowstone for vacation
and they definitely made vacation more fun lol</p>
</blockquote>
Sounds like me growing up</p>


2025-09-02T17:00:02+00:00
Trying to fact-check logic puzzles for uniqueness without grilops gives me the
heebie-jeebies.</p>


2025-09-02T00:20:02+00:00
Every time I visit Boston it amazes me how little of the Cambridge and Boston
area I managed to explore during my time here as a student.</p>


2025-08-31T19:34:49+00:00
The Internet still feel like a house of cards to me</a>.
How has it not collapsed yet?</p>
Every few days I have this feeling of, like,
how is it that my computer still does what I tell it to?
I take it for granted, but I have so little understanding of the underlying
hardware that I really should be amazed every time.</p>


2025-08-30T12:18:19+00:00
Apparently "Häagen-Dazs" is an completely artificial invented name.</p>

His daughter Doris Hurley reported in the 1996 PBS documentary An Ice Cream
Show that her father sat at the kitchen table for hours saying nonsensical
words until he came up with a combination he liked. The reason he chose this
method was so that the name would be unique and original.</p>
</blockquote>


2025-08-28T03:07:36+00:00
You miss N% of the shots you don't take for any every integer N.</p>


2025-08-28T01:11:42+00:00
You can tell I got nothing done today because my dotfiles repository has 265
lines of changes in the last 12 hours 🙃</p>


2025-08-27T16:55:17+00:00
tried out astral-sh's typechecker ty</a>
which i found out about today.
as usual i'm blown away.</p>
if i knew rust i would seriously consider applying for a job at astral</p>


2025-08-26T20:00:02+00:00
Today was another "oh crap the kernel broke time to regenerate fstab</code>" day.
My laptop's /boot</code> ran out of space.</p>
Turns out there isn't actually any reason
that initramfs</code> or vmlinuz-linux</code> need to go on the EFI partition.
So the solution was to</p>

Create a new mount point /efi</code></li>
Move the EFI partition under that mount point.</li>
Make a normal /boot</code> folder (not a mount point) on the root partition.</li>
Move initramfs</code> or vmlinuz-linux</code> onto that folder.</li>
Rerun grub-install</code> and grub-mkconfig</code>.</li>
Regenerate /etc/fstab</code>.</li>
</ol>
Could've been worse.
Thanks Reddit</a>.</p>


2025-08-26T18:07:47+00:00
Anki reviews have become way less painful since changing desired retention from
90% to 84%. I guess my memory is just too bad for 90% to be a realistic goal.</p>


2025-08-26T16:22:47+00:00
Still love the feeling of having an idea for a feature at 10am on a Tuesday
morning and having it shipped and live on production by noon.
Gotta love Django.</p>


2025-08-26T01:09:17+00:00
The more I learn about Korean grammar, the more I'm convinced that English
grammar makes no sense and is way less elegant.</p>


2025-08-25T12:47:01+00:00
Korean adjectives (형용사) behave quite similarly to as verbs (동사),
so much so the term 용언 refers to both (= 형영사 + 동사 + copula),
and sometimes people use the term "descriptive verb" instead.</p>
And then there's a different</em> part of speech called 관형사
for noun-modifiers ("adnouns") that actually goes before the noun.
형용사 can be conjugated into 관형사,
but so can 동사 (analogous to "running" in "the running car", say).</p>
I wonder if I should just ditch the English words and use the correct Korean
terms instead. I don't think the English terms are used consistently between
different textbooks.</p>


2025-08-24T20:30:25+00:00
I think the top idea in my head now</a> is Korean,
despite the fact I barely get any practice and haven't improved much.</p>


2025-08-23T23:13:40+00:00
One thing that's always surprised me about things like contest math or chess or
StarCraft is how people can express a personality through their play style. For
something formalizable with a clearly defined objective function, it's still
not clear to me a priori</em> that should happen.</p>
Maybe that's a symptom of depth to look for in domains --- whether it naturally
lets people express unique personalities.</p>


2025-08-23T14:11:28+00:00
I've learned that it's easier to respond to emails and questions with "please
provide 1000% more detail" or "I don't understand what you're asking" than to
try to guess what the question is.</p>


2025-08-22T20:47:35+00:00
Trying to understand 는 것 in Korean and it reminds me so much of doing category
theory.</p>


2025-08-22T17:27:10+00:00
One OTIS student's reason for choosing the linear algebra unit:</p>

If lin alg catches me doing non-school stuff i can say this is lin alg</p>
</blockquote>


2025-08-22T14:07:50+00:00
Finished setting the last feeder for this year's OPAL hunt. I hope the audience enjoys it!
So much work went into setting this 🥲</p>


2025-08-22T12:26:56+00:00
It's a sad work environment where I feel like I need to not only disobey
higher-up orders, but also intentionally not tell my colleagues and assistants
to give them plausible deniability. We all knew the higher-up orders were
idiotic, but I still felt I needed to preemptively throw myself under the bus.</p>


2025-08-20T19:51:50+00:00
I still wish "Nash equilibrium" and "optimal play" weren't treated as synonyms.</p>


2025-08-20T01:27:06+00:00
We need more papers like this in the world:</p>
Replication of Quantum Factorisation Records with an 8-bit Home Computer, an Abacus, and a Dog</a></p>
From the paper:</p>

2.1. Terminology</strong>
New technologies, when introduced, are typically given names that overstate
their capabilities, usually by equating them with existing familiar systems or
technological artefacts. For example the first computers in the 1940s and
1950s, often little more than glorified electric adding machines, were
nevertheless described as “electronic brains”. More recently, large language
models (LLMs) have been touted as “artificial intelligence”, and complex
physics experiments have been touted as “quantum computers”. In order to avoid
any confusion with actual computers like the VIC-20 with which they have
nothing in common, we refer to them here as “physics experiments”. Similarly,
we refer to an abacus as “an abacus” rather than a digital computer, despite
the fact that it relies on digital manipulation to effect its computations.
Finally, we refer to a dog as “a dog” because even the most strenuous mental
gymnastics can’t really make it sound like it’s a computer.</p>
</blockquote>


2025-08-20T01:00:34+00:00
Spotted on a homework submission from one of my students:</p>

I remember you are solving, and struggling with this hilarious problem on TV
while I was eating breakfast before going to school</p>
</blockquote>
It was AMC 10B 2022 problem 18</a>, which I
must have done during one of my AMC 10 runs.</p>


2025-08-19T02:25:55+00:00
thinking about all the time i wasted during high school on writing inspid
english essays or making posters or whatever</p>
what if i'd spent that time learning something like ipad art instead</p>
why don't high schools teach anything fun?</p>


2025-08-19T01:55:17+00:00
i will still never understand how installing tex live on windows is an overnight
process.</p>
maybe i can use this to convince more windows users to switch to linux</p>


2025-08-18T23:15:33+00:00
"the song we couldn't write" would have been a good song title</p>


2025-08-18T16:17:25+00:00
TIL that conky config files are actually Lua scripts that you can run any code
you want in so now my whole morning is gone</p>


2025-08-17T23:19:49+00:00
glad i switched to postmark for all OTIS emails (instead of hacky SMTP through
Gmail for transactionals and another marketing system for announcements). faster
and cheaper and more elegant. i'd been scared of transactional emails for a long
time but no longer.</p>


2025-08-17T02:46:46+00:00
used blue switch keyboards for the last 10 years or so but recently got a red
switch one for my new apartment and it's really growing on me.</p>


2025-08-17T02:37:14+00:00
me opening procreate for the first time in years and being like how do i draw a
straight line in this thing again hahahaha</p>


2025-08-16T18:40:29+00:00
I got this in an email today. Who is teaching kids to write like this? Or am I
just being trolled?</p>

I am writing to express my ardent interest in the Otis program, albeit
belatedly, as I have only recently become acquainted with its existence.
Regrettably, I have discovered that the enrollment deadline has already
elapsed, which poses a considerable impediment to my participation.
Nonetheless, I am eager to solicit your benevolent consideration for a late
enrollment, notwithstanding the aforementioned constraint.
Furthermore, I must confess that my financial
circumstances are exceedingly straitened, rendering it an onerous task for
me to defray the program fees. In light of this pecuniary predicament, I
respectfully implore you to consider providing me with access to the
program gratis, thereby facilitating my participation and obviating the
financial burden that would otherwise preclude me.</p>
</blockquote>


2025-08-16T16:57:40+00:00
Spent 20 bucks to try Claude Code so I can I sit around
watching the token count increase instead of using my own brain.
Don't know how I feel about that.</p>
On the other hand, it did d65eee7c</a>
by itself so it probably was already worth the 20 bucks.
Keep experimenting I guess and see if I want to renew in a month.</p>


2025-08-15T13:08:33+00:00
Making uv</code> play nice with virtualfish</code>:</p>
# Automatically sets UV_PROJECT_ENVIRONMENT when VIRTUAL_ENV changes</span></span>
</span>
function</span> __uv_sync_virtual_env --on-variable VIRTUAL_ENV</span></span>
    if not</span> status --is-interactive</span></span>
        return</span></span>
    end</span></span>
    if</span> status --is-command-substitution</span></span>
        return</span></span>
    end</span></span>
    if</span> set -q VIRTUAL_ENV</span></span>
        set</span> -gx UV_PROJECT_ENVIRONMENT $VIRTUAL_ENV</span></span>
    else</span></span>
        set</span> -e UV_PROJECT_ENVIRONMENT</span></span>
    end</span></span>
end</span></span>
</span>
# Run once on startup to sync current state</span></span>
__uv_sync_virtual_env</span></span>
</span></code></pre>


2025-08-15T07:32:36+00:00
uv</code> is so fast holy crap</p>
i'm so blown away</p>