Posts

Chiraq Addresses

There are two implications to being young. In the first place, you have time to grow and think and mature and you have a daily routine to follow. Second, however, there is little importance or urgency in your life alone so you can while your time away easily. And yet, there is a deep resentment no matter which attitude is taken so that the developing individual is encouraged to ignore the minutiae of one's daily routine as a consequence of the imposing nature of the mirages of the stages of life through which one progresses. Given the gun problem in Chiraq, fingerprint-based biometric authentication is a good solution to ensure that only the individuals who are judged as being competent users of the weapon use it. Because of the danger of guns, another possible enhancement to them is the installation of a small user-facing camera, microphone, screen, and speaker on the gun so that it is possible to legally mandate LLM-enabled therapy with the user before the user is allowed to pull...

West of Eden

John's Steinbeck's masterpiece East of Eden  takes place in a region that symbolizes the land where Adam and Eve were driven out to after eating the forbidden fruit. It is a place of labor and difficulty, in contrast to the idyllic paradise of Heaven. It is a matter of interpretation whether the stories of the Bible can be compared to true stages of development that humans encounter in life and whether the fall from paradise can be likened to a barrier from what was formerly perfect that is temporal, spatial, generational, technological, or biological. The East, being the place from which the sun rises, represents a solar injunction to the duty of one's day at daybreak, and as the day carries on past midday, the sun casts shadows upon people and disappears past the horizon of the West into shade. But can we humans, knowing now as we did not know previously at the time of the writing of the Bible, that the Earth is round and not flat, attempt to reenter paradise by circumnav...

Thoughts on LLMs and Modeling

I am sharing here something I have written about LLMs and modeling. Most of it leans towards the science-fiction side, but it is at least partially based on reality and hopefully it will serve as a foundation for some future research ideas. Hope you enjoy! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1He_KZDnfAaKOfcLkrfY_XVwMsHLmdhHK/view?usp=drive_link

My Summer

So today is Saturday, October 7th. Yesterday was the end of Week 1 of the quarter, meaning that we have about 10 more weeks before Winter Break, which doesn't seem like a lot. Summer this year was eventful. Firstly, I joined Smash Gyms for about two months, which I attended in the evenings after coming home from my internship. I attended the Muay Thai and Strength/Conditioning classes mostly. Secondly, I interned this summer at the same place I had interned at last summer, Cadence Design Systems. I enjoyed my time there and I didn't feel very stressed. Thirdly, during the last three weeks of summer break, which were also roughly the first three weeks of September, my parents went to India, leaving me and my brother to take care of the home, which we did. Now that I am growing older, I feel that I should be more careful about the words I choose, particularly on a public-facing blog like this one. There are pros and cons to this blog being public. The self-critical voice inside m...

A Realization

I just realized something that is simultaneously great and terrible--that hard work is the key to satisfaction. It is great because it means that if you work hard, life will be better. But at the same time, it is terrible because it means that you have to work hard even if you don't want to. I woke up around 8:30 full of fear, worry, and frustration. After I finished a long day of work (~10 hrs work at least I think), however, I feel satiated and fine. I still have a lot of work, but I feel a little calmer. I also had a random thought a few days ago that I thought I would talk about. Religion seems like not just one thing but rather a combination of multiple things. It is the stories and literature or mythology that comprise the story it tells. E.g. The Ramayana It is a set of rules by which you must live your life and tells you your values. E.g. The Ten Commandments It is your personal relationship with God. It is a source of comfort and love to help you get through tough times an...

Reflections

I realized yesterday that I haven't been living up to my full potential. I have been doing my math homework at the last moment, going to bed late, skipping lectures, and underperforming in my classes. I have been lazy, staying in bed a lot and watching too much YouTube. The fact that I have been lacking is not good for my reputation or academic performance, but it also makes me feel lowly and rotten inside. Yesterday, I had dinner with a fellow CS student, who impressed me in a few ways. Firstly, he seemed to have a vast knowledge of math during our discussion, mentioning his enrollment in honors complex analysis and discussing some advanced mathematical concepts. Secondly, he secured an internship at SpaceX, for which he completed an 8-hour interview problem. Thirdly, he talked about how he built a productivity app in CS97 that reached a hundred downloads in the past week. Additionally, he appeared to have a vast social group, referencing clubs such as StartupUCLA, and personally ...

Regarding Good Art and Artists

  On occasion I find myself relieved that the human lifespan, typically speaking, is as long as it is. Because when I read the great works of the writers who immaculately and beautifully string together words with masterful precision and beauty when I gaze upon the artwork of artists who have a creative imagination and incredible technique too, and when I listen to the controlled, intentional keystrokes of master pianists, I am overwhelmed by a great sense of inferiority and awe. In part, this drives me to continue on my mission of becoming a better artist. I imagine that when he was my age, Jordan Peterson would have been a better artist in nearly every conceivable manner. Better writer, better speaker, better artist, better pianist, better dresser. And the attainment of these tremendous artistic capabilities obviously is not something that can be cultivated in an instant but rather requires the dedication of many quiet, focused hours. So, I do want to become a more cultured per...