It's summer!
Blogging
To be honest, while I love writing, I always end up spending more time adding new features. So here's a changelog, just to keep myself honest:
Future: Table of contents, switch to @next/mdx
5/29/25: I added a 'Notes' section to the index page and started this changelog.
5/28/25: I wanted to put my Markdown notes on DDIA and Outlive up on the site, but I don't like how it looked with the regular styling. I made a more colorful, compact, multi-column design for these specific pages. While this was not too hard to do with my current next-mdx-remote setup, I'm really considering changing to @next/mdx for even more flexibility. It bugs me that I can't organize individual markdown pages into file groups for styling right now, since they're all statically generated in one folder.
5/26/25: I have a few pages like Courses @ Brown and Now that I keep revising, and it is hard to tell when there is a new version of them. So I added a 'Recent' posts to the index page, and changed the metadata to keep track of the update date too.
Courses
I have been reflecting a bit about how much information I am actually retaining from my coursework. I gave myself this thought experiment: If I had to TA a course, how well would I do?
This is my self-assessment:
| Good | Passable | Terrible |
|---|---|---|
| CSCI 0190 | CSCI 1450 | COST 0120** |
| CSCI 1715 | EGYT 1310 | CSCI 1470 |
| CSCI 0300 | CSCI 1670 | MATH 0540 |
| CSCI 1680 | ENGN 0520* | PHIL 1665 |
| CSCI 1515 | COST 0800** | |
| CSCI 2952R** | ||
| MATH 1530 | ||
| EGYT 1320** |
*If I didn't have to do labs, I think I could bump this up into the "good" category
**Practically speaking, I think you would have to be a proper graduate student to be a good TA. Perhaps "ability to TA" is not the best measurement...
It seems like my freshman fall and sophomore spring went alright, but I've mostly forgotten everything from my freshman spring and my sophomore fall. It also seems like this is related to the number of courses I took. In semesters that I took 4-4.5 instead of 5 courses, I retained more from all of them. (The sample size is, of course, n=4.)
But in general, the results... are better than I expected. I remember good amount about the subjects I care a lot about. I'm making a commitment this summer to review CSCI 1680, CSCI 1515, and CSCI 1450 again.
As for next semester, this is what I have in mind:
- Digital Electronics Systems Design (ENGN 1630)
- Software Security and Exploitation (CSCI 1650)
- Topics in Programming Languages (CSCI 1951Q)
- Sustainable Design in the Built Environment (ENVS 1400)
- Diversity of Life (BIOL 0210)
I fully expect this to change. CSCI 1951Q is a new course, so I'll shop it and see how it goes. I'd love to fit Computer Graphics (CSCI 1230) in there somehow. I have to take a theory course at some point (500, 1570, or 1010), so this semester is as good as any other. And of course, there's still High-Performance Network Systems (CSCI 1675) on the table...
Employment
I am gainfully employed this summer. Yes!
I will be working as a SPOC (Systems Programmer, Operator, and Consultant) for my dear department's TStaff.
Future Employment
I have found work in the CS Department to be meaningful. It has brought me a great deal of happiness and fulfillment.
But I cannot escape the fact that... I am about to graduate. I need to find some other form of meaningful employment soon, or I really will go crazy out in the real world.
So there's that.
Letting (as opposed to 'subletting')
I'm leasing an apartment with my friends Aren and Jason. We'll also have Alex W around over the summer (affectionately "the W" or "the Engineer"). This is actually the group of people I spent last summer with (see summer 2024), so I'm super excited. My goals are to cook & host every weekend!
Puzzle Club
bph-site is the open-source site we run Puzzlethon and BPH 2025 on. There's a lot of good summer development to be done, now that I have the time and brain space for it.