Misc on not quite an expert

Untethered again

Sat, 02 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Since college, I’ve always operated under some “name”. I attended a well-known program of a well-known university, then worked at a series of recognizable companies, one your mom would recognize and some your venture capitalist would recognize.

A “name” or two get your foot in the door at many places. However, at some point, you can stop. An over-attachment to the “name”, the pull of the “prestige magnet”, gets you schlumped. You find yourself trying to justify yourself “not like other girls” on the subway post-midnight (la madrugada).

Shallowly practical

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

When I left my previous company I didn’t have a lease, so I truncated my sublease and took the train to bum off my friend in the DMV. He’d previously offered his guest bedroom for “one month, no questions asked”, though I tried to pay him back with good coffee and guest bedroommaking (similar to homemaking, except confined to the guest bedroom). I got some rugs from Target for the connected bathroom, and hung a 60-inch by 20-inch print above the bed.

My bucket hat destiny

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Before I travel, I should get a hat to protect my face and neck from the sun.

Since I managed to lose 2 Uniqlo baseball caps, this time I’ll try procuring a bucket hat, which should also protect my neck from the sun.

When I tried the Uniqlo bucket hat at the store, I saw a middle-aged Asian dad in the mirror 🤔🪣. I could imagine myself in incredible detail squinting under the sunlight over one of the Wonders of the World, discovering the camera button on the iPad is exactly where it was last time.

Untethered

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Having left my previous job, not having decided my next job, I’m exploring the remaining Smithsonian museums, completing the sense untethered.

Last time I was exploring the Smithsonian museums, I was checking Slack and had to interrupt my exploration to handle issues as the only engineer on my project. This time I have no deadline except when the museums close. If I don’t see something today, I can see it tomorrow; if I don’t see something tomorrow, I can see it whatever day.

Schlumped!

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ah, your old friend, the Monterey Jack chicken taquito from 7-Eleven.

You think you’re hot shit, then the week of annual performance reviews your Senior Director DMs you you need to “step up” and the Head of Product blows up your project.

So you work to pick up the pieces, and you find yourself near midnight unable to find a bag, holding your oily old friend in your bare hand, schlumped!

Reflections from a rough move

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve moved every year for the past 4 years. However, this move felt especially rough. After 3 days of packing, staying up until 4 AM, 5 AM, 6 AM, I had to call U-Haul to fix my reservation from Flushing to Park Slope.

Thank goodness I’d hired moving help to move my packed stuff into storage. I spent the day exhausted, napping in my friend’s sublet before stumbling my way through a delayed bus and a delayed flight back to Michigan in la madrugada.

Used on eBay

Sat, 20 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve noted before to reduce, reuse, THEN recycle - in between reduce and reuse I buy open-box and used items, mostly from eBay, which has become the go-to marketplace for those items, though sometimes from Amazon for books and from Kaiyo for furniture.

Theoretically, buying open-box or used means 1 less new item produced, hence between reduce and reuse. It also makes me more aware of finding a good new home for items I don’t need anymore. For example, I sometimes give them away to people in my office I know would use them.

Putting myself in a soapy situation

Sat, 06 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Last time I tried to copy an Aesop fragrance for myself, it didn’t go well. While shopping at Target, I examined the Dossier bottles and realized an entire secondary industry of copycat fragrances exists. I can buy instead of make copycats!

I first considered buying samples from The Essence Vault, though a legitimate review describes

None of them smelled anything like the originals, not even remotely close. … The projection is poor and they do not last very long, maybe 2-3 hours, not that you would want them to last any longer or have better projection.

Uniqlo x JW Anderson

Sat, 30 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Why isn’t the toilet flushing? Maybe something clogged the pipes, or water pressure something something, maybe. You engineer software, not hardware; you can’t tell. You don’t know shit, so now you know shit water, plunging it over, and over, and over until the water level recedes into the porcelain throne. You think some of the literal doo-doo water splashed onto you. Though best not to think, best to wash your hands of the whole situation by filing an urgent maintenance request.

Roundabout Method

Sat, 05 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Yeah, I put the “mentalist” in “environmentalist”! So upon rethinking my cleaning supplies, I bought the concentrate, instead of the plastic bottle, of Method foaming hand soap. I already had a reusable soap dispenser from when I wanted to scent my own soap.

However, when I mixed the soap concentrate into my soap dispenser, it didn’t foam because I didn’t have a foaming soap dispenser. I felt like a soap dummy!

Hot yoga death

Sat, 28 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I used to live across the street from a yoga studio offering unlimited classes for a fixed price per month. So I did so much yoga that the yoga instructor memorized the first 6 digits of the phone number I used to register for classes.

So when the person behind the counter of the new yoga studio asked if I’d done “this kind of yoga” before, I replied with humble hubris: “I’ve done yoga before”.

Edges of NYC

Sat, 21 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The edges of New York City resemble the suburban sprawl I grew up in. After getting a New Haven style apizza, I walked toward the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge, seeking water. Along the stroad, the small specialty warehouses (refrigeration? truck repair? Thai food?) lifted my flickering awareness of long supply chains to the foreground.

Though we constructed these spaces for vehicles, not people, I ventured deeper until I encountered a perfect gate, with a chain lock to block intruders and a gap just big enough for me to squeeze through. And so I did, sliding my cold leftover apizza and warm gas station sparkling water beneath the gate to accompany me. Though the wholly rectangular waterway looked ugly, it felt beautiful, as if I had rebelled against suburbia.

Insulating my pipe

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

No, “insulating my pipe”, not to be confused with “insulting my pipe”, doesn’t mean anything dirty.

People designed New York’s old steam heating system to encourage people to open their windows, even in the winter! However, I didn’t want to open my windows, because I didn’t want to let in the noise. And I couldn’t control the steam heating pipe running through my room; the building controlled it.

So I consulted my physics friend, who explained that proper pipe insulation would lower the rate of heat from the pipe into my room, thereby lowering the equilibrium temperature of the room.

The Threshold of my bedroom

Sat, 08 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I want nice things - selfishly, to feel good; generously, to reduce waste. And it seems like Target’s private label brand Threshold consistently provides the right balance of quality and affordability for me. For example, their sheets got recommended by Wirecutter, which I’ve mentioned before as a good curation source.

So I got the Threshold blackout curtains, and when they arrived, they felt so good. Enveloped in their softness, I rushed to my bedroom to put them up. And in the privacy of my bedroom, I stroked them gently, admiring the color and texture with a quiet sigh…

Notes on Hampton Bays

Sat, 20 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I spent the trip out of place: the only non-frat guy in the rented house, and the only East Asian guy at all. Well, if you don’t count the Buddha figures in the rented house; the Buddha lived in South Asia anyway.

After dinner, I didn’t join everyone else in the club. Instead, I finished Interior Chinatown in one sitting, engrossing myself further in living outside others’ expectations.

I carried out little quiet rebellions, not even rebellions, really: running along the roads clearly meant for just cars and entertaining McDonald’s in a house probably worth 7 figures.

Curating curation

Sat, 08 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

With online consumption, we have more choices than we can effectively individually evaluate. Recommendation algorithms can help. However, they reflect the oft-unknown biases and incentives of their creators, and often suffer homogeneity.

While you could just satisfice, my posts demonstrate that I don’t just simply satisfice. I use curators to navigate the vast space of online consumption.

I use curators so much, in fact, that I’ve curated curators:

specialized curators, like Sleep Like The Dead for mattresses
rigorous general curators, like Wirecutter
community-based curators, like Reddit

I’ve felt more efficient satisficing via curated curators.

Furniture, choose two

Sat, 13 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve moved to New York! Now I need some furniture.

With furniture, consider:

Good price
Good quality
Good convenience

Now choose two.

I chose good price and good quality. I got used furniture, which requires navigating limited selection, and will take a few weeks to ship.

Before I Ramp up

Sat, 06 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’m recording my expectations and aspirations before I start at Ramp.

What I expect

Semi-lean startup semi-chaos
Fin+tech bro-dom

What I want

Friends among similar-ish peers
Fast career growth (I want to get recognized and promoted in 6-12 months)

What I don’t want

Unpredictable hours
Deep backend-only work

4 states

Sat, 19 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Four Corners Monument marks the “quadripoint” where the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet. If you stretch yourself out, you can place a limb in each state.

In my mind, I’m playing a solo game of Twister, a limb contorted into each state of Stupid, Bold, Idiosyncratic, and Proficient.

Locked out in sight

Sat, 15 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Did you know my apartment building’s clubhouse doors auto-lock around midnight? I learned that after coming back from the restroom, tugging, pulling, YANKING at all doors till my hands and arms became sore.

I could SEE my backpack and laptop. And while staring at them INDIGNANTLY, I put them in lost mode. Then I went to sleep, trying to forget about it.

I forced myself to wake up early the next morning. And after waving to the janitor, I, relieved, retrieved my stuff.

Birthday backpack chase

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This year, I celebrated my birthday by chasing my backpack!

Don’t worry, I also had a party and brunch over the weekend.

I left my backpack on the bench and got on the 5:50 northbound train. Grasping my empty shoulders, I found out only after the train started moving.

At the next station, I took the 6:16 southbound train back. As I eyed the bags of others, I slowly realized someone had taken my backpack!

A day by your self

Sat, 10 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

To be alone is to be entirely your self. Well, as much as an individual constitutes a self.

(You can bike 6 miles to consume an unusual pastry. And screw it, follow that up with a frivolous coffee flight and museum visit.

(You can quietly seethe at the golf course you have to walk through, and the European’s sculpture of Le Chinois, the Chinese man.

(And you can walk to the beach and take pictures of amazingly ugly rocks. And the backs of strangers clearly having a moment from embarrassing angles.

Fight-or-flight bit

Sat, 27 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Doing a bit can activate your fight-or-flight response.

Fight - look your manager in the eye on the last day of your internship and bite into a banana unpeeled - CRONCH.

Flight - run through the kind-of restricted area of the public garden, and to the horror of the kindly approaching family and your new shoes, step in a covered puddle - SPLOOSH.

Really fun either way.

Hello Sleep

Sat, 22 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

As I researched more on CBT-I, I came across a new book by behavioral sleep medicine specialist Dr. Jade Wu: Hello Sleep: The Science and Art of Overcoming Insomnia Without Medications.

I didn’t want to unnecessarily add to my growing backlog of books to read, so I looked at the book preview.

I’ve never felt so seen and called out by a book at the same time! The prologue “Sleep Is a Friend, Not an Engineering Problem” tells the story of Kate, a software engineer with insomnia obsessing over sleep data. I, of course, saw myself in Kate.

My scariest bike ride

Sat, 15 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

After visiting my friend in the southern part of the Mission in SF, Google Maps directed me to the scariest bike ride I’ve ever taken.

In the dead of night, the trip began by passing under the highway on the highway. I learned, in my futile search for bike lane markings not there, that this road did not have room for me.¹ With the lights of the cars behind me, I felt the real fear of getting run over.

CBT-I

Sat, 08 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions. Connecting thoughts, emotions, and behavior, CBT aims to reshape negative (patterns of) thoughts and emotions to reduce negative behaviors.

People often know CBT as treating depression and anxiety disorders. However, one form, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), aims to treat insomnia. This fits with my previous description of insomnia as a behavioral disorder.

CBT-I represents the most effective, scientifically supported treatment¹ we have for insomnia. The American College of Physicians recommends CBT-I as the first-line treatment for chronic insomnia. In general (at least as I, not-quite-an-expert, understand CBT-I), we want to:

The 3 Ps of insomnia

Sat, 01 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Since I’ve been experiencing insomnia, I thought I’d share the helpful things I’ve learned about insomnia.

For many people, insomnia represents a behavior, rather than purely physiological, disorder. Under a behavioral model of insomnia, we can imagine insomnia going through 3 Ps.

Predisposition

Certain people have a predisposition for insomnia. These predisposing factors can range from personal, e.g. internalizing unrealistic expectations about sleep, to environmental, e.g. living in a noisy place. Note these predisposing factors (thankfully) don’t automatically determine you will experience insomnia; they simply increase the chances you might experience insomnia, if you encounter the subsequent Ps.

Moving chaos 7: lingering insomnia

Sat, 25 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Though I had moved out of the noisy unit, I was still waking up at 5 or 6 AM.

In hindsight, it would make sense that the month in the noisy unit would linger within me, as a mild insomnia. However, I catastrophized my new quieter unit was disrupting my sleep. My anxiety triggered a vicious cycle, making my sleep worse and worse.

It surprises me how quickly and deeply mental disorder re-shaped my experience and perspective. At one point, I even considered breaking my lease (again, except in this case early termination would cost 2 months’ rent), and moving to the Middle of Nowhere.

Moving chaos 6: Spacemacs mover

Sat, 18 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This time, I hired a mover to move my stuff. Somehow, I found the one mover who also uses Spacemacs, a particular community configuration of Emacs.

Unprompted, the mover told me about Free Software, Lisp machines, and Richard Stallman. I had only told other people about these topics; it felt almost surreal to have someone tell me, doubly so my mover!

My mover went to UC Berkeley, and had to drop out due to immigration issues. I felt a real kinship, and that mere circumstance kept us in wildly different conditions. So for the first time, I left a 5-star review, and tipped over a hundred dollars.

Moving chaos 5: moving again

Sat, 11 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I liked my new apartment, except the landmine I tripped on.

My bedroom overlooked the street, right off the highway into the roundabout. And every day, independent of when I went to sleep, I would wake up around 5 or 6 AM. I was getting only 5 or 6 hours of sleep most days.

2 weeks in, I had had enough. I tried earplugs, and a white noise machine. Yet I could still hear the street, haunting me, taunting me.

Moving chaos 4: getting new stuff

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Since I had to dump my old table and couch (I didn’t like them that much anyway, since I got them free from my friend moving out when I was moving in), I had to get new ones for my new place.

When you furnish or remodel, you want three properties:

Good quality
Good price
Good timing

You can choose two. If you want good quality quickly, pay up. If want good quality cheap, wait. And if you want cheap quickly, go to Ikea.¹

Moving chaos 3: unloading strategically

Sat, 21 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

To avoid some of the burden I experienced loading my stuff into storage, I booked a mover to drop off and later pick up my U-Box at my new place.

The first mover I booked didn’t answer my six attempts to contact. Having learned to cut my losses earlier, I canceled that booking.

The next mover I booked answered immediately, and offered to also unload my stuff into my apartment for some extra cash. I took them on the offer.

Moving chaos 2: storing my stuff

Sat, 14 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

While finding a place with my second roommate candidate, I needed to store my stuff for about a month.

I booked my first storage service a week ahead of time. The day before, I got a call from the warehouse: the historic rainfall had damaged their storage units. They couldn’t offer the storage service till after my lease expired. So I had to cancel my order.

Then I booked my second storage service. When I called to schedule the drop-off and pick-up of the storage unit, the customer service representative told me we would need a permit from the City of San Francisco. How long would that take? 7 business days. I did not have 7 business days before my lease expired. So I had to cancel my order, again!

Moving chaos 1: finding a roommate

Sat, 07 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

My previous roommate wanted to move into a studio apartment; they recently started dating more seriously. When I was first moving into San Francisco, I was working for a huge company and found them through the internal roommate spreadsheet. Now I needed to search for a new roommate through other public channels.

Facebook served this search fine enough. Though the public Facebook roommate search groups suffer from botspam, enough people use them that I found two compatible roommate candidates.

Return to Ann Arbor

Sat, 31 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This week, I revisited Ann Arbor, the town of my undergraduate years.

Besides the nostalgia for cheap eats, behind the sense of the same, different, I confronted lost opportunities.

I saw the same buildings, with the same names, without access. I had 4 years to explore museums, concerts, and hidden corners, and instead I learned the parking lot outside my apartment window.

I don’t regret my time in Ann Arbor; I regret not adding a few small final touches. Acting within my sphere of influence, I have taken the spirit of exploration with me to San Francisco - most weeks I find another piece of the city.

I focused so hard I ended up in San Jose!

Sat, 10 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In December, the Caltrain is running on a modified (reduced) schedule due to construction. Oh well, I’ll just have to time my commute more precisely.

In some stations, including mine in Palo Alto, both lines, northbound to San Francisco and southbound to San Jose, are temporarily using the same track. Oh well, I’ll just have to check which track and cross under.

Friday night, after a particularly long day, I’m finally heading back from Palo Alto to San Francisco. I appreciate the train over a car because I can zone out. Put on my noise-canceling headphones, and meditate, read, or just, you know, splay out like a crime scene. Today, a particularly longer day, I’ve pulled out my laptop to wrap up some code.

Consuming experiences

Sat, 19 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

“Buy experiences, not things”, so goes the popular advice. Things, after a short-lived honeymoon period, will quickly come to disappoint you. Experiences, by their short-livedness, will not.

A notable body of research supports this, though as with many (trendy) social science findings, I’d test intuitively and tentatively, waiting to see if the theory reproduces and generalizes.

Under this guidance, I have consumed many new experiences. I have traveled to see friends in different cities, for example. I treasure those times.

The season's worst trench coat look

Sat, 12 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

March 2019, the University of Michigan had a shooter scare. As fear spread throughout the student body, I rushed back to my apartment, and plugged into the frantic network of texts warning people to stay clear of central campus.

One group text I still remember today: people spotted a suspicious figure in a trench coat running across one of the main streets.

The University didn’t actually have a shooter. The sounds of “gunshots” actually came from a sorority popping balloons.

SF Fog Week

Sat, 08 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Today, I biked to the Presidio Tunnel Tops to see the SF Fleet Week air show. Over 4 miles of biking the hills of San Francisco, silently cursing American city design, my body, and the car owners driving past me, and I get there, out of breath, raggedy, and ready. I felt so pumped to see planes, and I looked up.

I saw fog, and only fog, for the next half-hour or so. I heard planes, as if to taunt me. Just like I heard fireworks on July 4th.

Yoga at 1.1x speed

Sat, 24 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Recently, as a mindful mommy, I’ve been going on my 30-day Yoga Journey, a free yoga video series on YouTube. Those who remember I used to listen to music at 1.4x speed will suspect I don’t follow along at regular speed. Indeed, I’m sprinting along the path of my journey at 1.1x speed.

Yes, at first it felt almost sacrilegious to me too. I want you to cast aside your initial judgement, though, and re-consider the arguments I presented in my post about music at 1.4x speed. As consumers of media, we have the power of interpretation - to reproduce the media in our own way. That includes on a TV or on a phone, in a quiet apartment or in a noisy bar, and yes, at a slower or at a faster speed than 1.0x.

Human taquito

Sat, 27 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

You know those mattress-in-a-box companies like Casper or Purple that ship mattresses directly to consumers? Taking advantage of their generous return policies, I ordered 3 mattresses in boxes my senior year, just after winter break.

Each of these mattresses they sent compressed in a giant plastic bag, so suddenly I had a gigantic pile of plastic. Rather than try to recycle the plastic, I kept it beside my bed, to … I don’t know … admire.

Suburbia

Sat, 13 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I’m traveling the 2 weeks in between jobs, to Boston, Chicago, and New York City to see friends. In between, I’ve stopped by my hometown.

I grew up in the suburbs outside Detroit. “Metro Detroit” we’d say, so people would vaguely know where. Surprisingly, Madonna graduated from my high school. Of it, she said:

When I went to high school, we moved to a suburb that was all white. And we were, a bit, living above of our means. … I just felt like I was with rich people, and I wasn’t and I felt out of place. And I felt like they were members of country clubs and they had manicures and they wore nice clothes and I didn’t fit in. … Have you ever been to Rochester Hills, Michigan? … I just didn’t want to go back. I can’t be around basic, provincial-thinking people.

A race against flushing my money down the toilet

Sat, 23 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Normally, the time before a flight affords me nothing. However, this time I remembered my limited purpose flexible spending account (LPFSA).

Your LPFSA expires when you leave your current employer. In other words, I have 2 hours to spend $500, fast!

Ok, let’s see what I can spend it on. Vision and dental.

Crap, I need to catch the subway to the airport.

Ok, glasses. I can buy some from Warby Parker online using my LPFSA debit card. Wait, my old account has the email @jgjin.com. I lost that domain a while ago.

Airport limbo

Sat, 16 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Have you experienced limbo? Or rather the airport food court.

Once through security, the airport before flights represents a rare broad space where you don’t have to do anything. At the same time, you can do many things, and most luxuriously, nothing.

Nothing, I don’t find much room for nothing. Nothing can really help you think, or process. What you do during nothing lays bare your defaults. Wrangle your children? Potato about? Eat? For me, I’m catching up on writing.

III: Recruitment and transition

Sat, 09 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I have applied to 13 companies.

I dipped my toes into recruiting with a first round of 3 companies: Roblox, Patreon, and Crosswire. They had reached out to me, and I mixed my interest in them with an interest in practicing interviewing. To my delight, I got offers from all 3. However, I turned them down, Roblox and Patreon too mature and Crosswire too early for my taste. The last one I declined nervously, knowing I would not have any standing offers for a while.

II: Unwellness and resilience

Sat, 02 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I emerged from senior year into closed doors. Over the course of the global pandemic, I worked for Google as a Software Engineer. Two opposites stand out from this time: unwellness and resilience.

At first, I couldn’t even refer to the COVID-19 pandemic by name: not “corona”, instead a “crown”; the “Inside Times”. Isolated, insulated, I cried and thought of death. Overwhelmed by It All (et al.), I traveled to 7 cities in 7 weeks, and cried again.

I: Competence

Sat, 25 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Since high school, I have seen myself as 1. good at computer stuff, and 2. getting good at people stuff.¹ Hence I pursued a dual degree in computer science and business administration.

My sophomore summer, I interned as a Software Engineer at Google, and I turned that into an Associate Product Manager (APM) Internship junior summer. Noting the prestige of the APM program, I saw myself as a Product Manager, in the intersection of computer and people stuff.

Apples and moons

Sat, 04 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

What type of apple do you like the most? When I visited Seattle, I took a bite of the semi-famous Cosmic Crisp. Sweet, tangy, crispy, until very recently the Cosmic Crisp represented my favorite apple. This week I journeyed to the Berkeley Bowl to continue my Apple Quest.

After getting off the BART, I biked over to The Cheese Board Collective, a semi-famous pizzeria lauded by a stranger I met drunk at a party. I ordered myself a whole pizza and a rose lemonade in a fancy glass bottle, and parked on the edge of the outdoor seating. Donning the semi-famous Chicago Lean to not dirty my white shirt, I faced the road to watch people zip by against the backdrop of California’s hills.

Emerging adulthood

Sat, 23 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Emerging adulthood describes the period of life emerging from the stability of adolescence toward the stability of adulthood. In-stability marks this transition, changing homes, jobs, and relationships.

Uncertainty has become the greatest feature of my emerging adulthood, excitement and fear for what I will find. However, the global pandemic has formed the most notable feature. I emerged into closed doors - shuttering businesses, social distancing, and mass protests.

I wonder, and worry, that I have grown stunted, that emerging from the chrysalis into such a world has clipped my wings. And yet, it continues.

Out of belonging

Sat, 19 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

During my visit to Mountain View, I stumbled upon a satellite building. In it, I found

the chill of abandoned space: chairs and chairs and chairs: boxes in boxes in boxes: and a handicap door button out of belonging:

This button belongs on the wall, not the floor! Seeing it out of its normal context provoked the question of belonging within me. Do I find myself out of belonging?

Perhaps more kindly, like a traveler lingering aimlessly in the limbo of an airport lounge, we can see the button as in between belongings. In that way, I’ve never related to a button so hard.

My hair parts

Sat, 29 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

My hair parts left.

In middle school, I looked in the mirror, felt self-conscious, and with a comb decided.

My hair parts left.

Through high school and college, I sustained the habit.

My hair parts left.

In the Inside Times, my mom refused to go to a barber. She cut my hair and I told her.

My hair parts left.

The first week I moved to San Francisco, I went to a fancy barber, and I explained.

A Bay baptism

Sat, 15 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I have finally moved to San Francisco, one and a half years later than expected.

People attach resolutions to transitions. On top of moving, I have welcomed in the New Year. And after a stagnant year, I have a heaping barrel of resolutions.

When I landed, the Waters of Bay baptized me: from now on, “not quite an expert” has died, and you may call me “Super Expert”!

I’ll learn 1 new language, make 20 new friends, visit 300 museums, attend 4000 conferences, and lose 50000 pounds! Just you wait! New year, new city, new me.

I cried annotations

Sat, 08 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Because my parents cried, the saddest I could remember, and I loved them so much
Because my parents suffocated me, made me scared they wouldn’t let me go

In early 2020, my mom went to visit family in China. When the Virus hit, she booked a flight home. When the Virus spread, she moved her flight one day earlier. She arrived home the day travel closed between China and the US, for a long time.

I cried

Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I cried

Because my parents cried, the saddest I could remember, and I loved them so much
Because my parents suffocated me, made me scared they wouldn’t let me go

Because I couldn’t go anywhere, the Virus locked me Inside
Because I couldn’t move on, to the next place, to the next stage

Because I feared death, coming mid-paragraph, putting an End
Because I feared life, of how I would live and live on

Vent beads

Sat, 25 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

As a child, I looked at a heating vent in the floor of my house and thought I can pour water down that. And so I did. Gathering water from the bathroom sink into my cup, I delicately poured water down the heating vent and walked away, proud of my achievement.

A few days later, I discovered a glossy bead near the heating vent. The vent had left me a gift of appreciation! In a feat of logic straight from Alice in Wonderland, I reasoned pouring water down the vent created this bead. So naturally, I poured more water down the vent.

Searching product spaces

Sat, 27 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

For Black Friday and Cyber Monday (which I’ll abbreviate BFCM from now on), lots of American sellers are offering significant discounts. To take advantage of the sales, every BFCM, I try to get one nice thing for myself. The past few years, I’ve gotten one nice piece of audio equipment. I’ll discuss the topic of audio in a later post; for this post I wanted to briefly describe 3 practical strategies for BFCM shopping.

Kerry Park

Sat, 20 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

From Kerry Park, you can witness a magnificent view of Seattle.

The first time I went, I put on Nurture by Porter Robinson. I felt a deep catharsis swell within me: the loneliness of staying in a city where I knew no one, the fear of a future already rattled by circumstances unforeseen, the satisfaction of the freedom to explore and change.

I went again, during my week in Seattle. The second time I bought a pack of sparkling water. I was feeling social, or quirky, and had this admittedly unusual fantasy of offering a drink to a stranger over an inspiring landscape.

Sitting in a chair

Sat, 06 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I spent one elementary school summer at a Wayne State University youth camp building Lego robotics. Since both my parents worked full-time, the camp doubled as a daycare. After all the other kids got picked up, I would follow the counselor to some office to wait for my dad.

I didn’t like sitting still in some boring, stuffy office. I fidgeted, shook, whatever children do outside the bounds of adult manners.

🎃

Sat, 09 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Week 1

I’m staying at a friend’s place. I bought a smol orange pumpkin for decoration. I plop it onto their bedside table.

J: Did you buy a pumpkin?

not quite an expert: What do you mean?

J: The pumpkin beside my bed.

not quite an expert: Where did you get that pumpkin?

J: 🤨

not quite an expert: 🙂

Week 2

I bought a smol white pumpkin. I replace the smol orange pumpkin, hiding it in my bag.

Lady Bird

Sat, 31 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

“Please, please come home.”

As the Delta variant grew, so did my mom’s worry. She could not sleep, stressing over me in Seattle. And so she texted, begging.

“Come home now. You can do whatever you want at home. Please, please come home.”

When I did not respond immediately, she called, texted and called until my throat ran sore.

I did not want to go. I remembered having to wait a week to open packages. I remembered a yelling match over eating a stem of basil unwashed. I remembered a fork doused in boiling water till the plastic melted away from the rest of the handle.

Danger! Water gun!

Sat, 24 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

You know water guns. I don’t need to explain water guns. If you don’t, re-read the name, a gun that shoots water.

Safety

Children like shooting things. Shockingly, parents don’t like their children getting shot. Therefore, parents buy their children water guns to play with. We normally distinguish a water gun by its safety.

Danger

A few days ago, I read an article about a protester shooting a water gun at the Olympic torch. I found this incredibly interesting. Because in that moment, the water gun presented arguably more danger than a traditional gun. It really highlights how power and danger can arise contextually.

The last mile

Sat, 10 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

How did my trip from the airport to the hotel cost nearly as much as my trip from Detroit to Chicago?

Last mile travel

In transportation, the “last mile” refers to the final leg of a route. Last mile travel stands out as the least efficient: the least distance per cost and the least distance per time. This holds true because of how we design our transportation systems.

Hubs

In many transportation systems, many routes significantly overlap. For example, many people travel from the Detroit area to the Chicago area each day. With limited resources, you optimize by building hubs near the points of significant overlap. By selecting hubs this way, we can take advantage of economies of scale for legs between hubs. So many people travel Detroit to Chicago that airlines can offer cheap flights between DTW and ORD multiple times per day.

Versioning and unbundling

Sat, 12 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A continuation of this post

Introduction

Let’s talk about some non-hurdle means of price discrimination. For a definition of price discrimination and hurdles, see the previous post.

Versioning

In versioning, the seller offers different versions of the same product at different prices. Going back to airlines, airlines offer a business-class version of tickets and an economy-class version of tickets.

Now hold on, arguably, “different versions of the same product” could just mean “different products.” A seller offering “different products” doesn’t exactly break new ground. In practical terms, versioning involves:

Price discrimination

Sat, 05 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Continued in this post

Introduction

People value the same products differently. Therefore, they will pay more or less for the same products. How, then, as a seller of products, do you make the most money? You try to charge people as close to the best price you can get from them.

Simplified example

Let’s say you sell Lorems. Lorems cost $2 each to make, and only three people care about buying Lorems: Alpha, Beta, and Omega. Alpha will pay up to $10; Beta will pay up to $5, and Omega will pay up to $1.

I dreamt of class once more

Sat, 08 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t recall dreaming about school that often. However, this dream seemed separate from any recurring theme or motif.

In this dream, I was attending a prestigious English course. To my surprise, the teacher announced a vocab quiz. For each word, we had to remember its “run time” as a grade. For example, the word “apocryphal” had a “run time” of C– (remember dreams don’t have to make sense).

I had not studied for the quiz, so I had no idea of the run times of the words. Did “zoological” have a run time of B+ or B (the answer, of course, A-)? Stuck shooting in the dark, I didn’t even get to put down enough answers.

I dreamt of missing class

Sat, 01 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

again. I commonly dream about school, I guess because school had dictated my life for so long. When I miss class in these dreams, I don’t miss one class. I discover I had some class all along, and I have missed all classes so far.

What a silly fear, obviously. In the waking world I would never fully and repeatedly forget an entire class. However, the dream world doesn’t have to make sense. In fact, it rarely does.

An ode to 6

Sat, 24 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

6 is a ✨perfect number✨, the sum of its (positive) proper divisors. 1 + 2 + 3 = 6.

Any Mersenne prime m, when substituted into m (m + 1) / 2 will yield a ✨perfect number✨, as foretold by Euclid and Euler. The founder of geometry, and the founder of so many things they had to start naming them after the second founder, united after two millennia.

6, though, is special among ✨perfect numbers✨. It also equals the product of its proper divisors. 1 * 2 * 3 = 6. It divides evenly into halves and thirds.

The auto industry

Sat, 06 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I

The auto industry has employed my mom for most of her career. For as long as I can remember, she’s worked for General Motors.

My junior year, the CEO of General Motors spoke to my class. As I thanked Mary Barra, I thought of how hard my mom worked to give me these opportunities. Then I called my mom to thank her for … everything. I stayed through the tears until I could find all the words for her.

Is seaweed a plant?

Sat, 20 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

I was eating seaweed salad and this question occured to me.

What is “seaweed”?

Seaweed refers to (many species of) multicellular marine algae, where according to me (not quite an expert), algae means “not necessarily plant.”¹

For simplicity, let’s focus on edible seaweed, which falls into 3 common groups:²

green algae, such as green caviar (a.k.a. sea grapes)
red algae, such as nori (of sushi fame)
brown algae, such as kombu (of miso soup fame)

What is “plant”?

You might’ve heard of the kingdom Plantae. Like I, you might’ve thought Plantae (“ooh, Latin, look at me”) had a precise, generally accepted definition. Well, you can take that thought, that temptation of a straightforward answer, and throw it in the trash.

I, we, you

Sat, 19 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I

vacillate between festering and taking the opportunity to improve myself. Today, I woke up from a 3 hour nap at 9 PM,¹ and did a full workout (a rarity before the Inside Times).

I generally know what I should and shouldn’t do for my well-being. Knowing has not made the difference; whether I can draw energy from my often mysterious well resolves the split.

Recently, I have seen myself frequently in the eyes of others, more specifically in the limbo before the video call. Such impressions, negative or not, have driven my attempts to make more of the Inside Times.

Haircut

Sat, 12 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Today, my mom cut my hair for the third time this year.

Or perhaps the fourth? Fifth? Since the start of the Inside Times, I’ve found it hard to count, well…many things.

Through comb, scissor, clipper, trimmer, my mom sculpted my unruly hair.

“When I was young, your grandma told me to learn to cut hair.”

I remembered my trip to China roughly 10 years ago. We paid the barber only a few dollars.

100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars

Sat, 05 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

First, a relevant video link. No, your eyes don’t deceive you. The 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollar note represents a curiosity in fiat money and hyperinflation.

Fiat money

From the lens of economics, money serves as a medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value. In plain terms, this means money serves as a persistent, comparable amount of value that enables people to easily trade valuable items.

Historically, people made money out of intrinsically valuable materials, such as gold. We call this commodity money. However, making commodity money at scale becomes difficult because of material limitations. The world only has so much gold, and mining it takes a lot of effort.

My room

Sat, 21 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Today I woke up to cloudy weather. Properly isolated and rather aimless, I cleaned my room.

A transition, an interrogation

In the beginning, I slept in my parents’ room. Once I grew old enough, I moved into my own room. And once my grandparents moved out, I moved into my sister’s old room.

As a result of shifting spaces, this room belonged (belongs?) to more than me. As I rummaged through the cracks, I found DVDs in a language that often escapes me (Mandarin, my grandparents’?), notes in another’s handwriting (my sister’s?), and CDs in genres outside my taste (my parents’?). I wouldn’t call these things “mine,” yet I felt sad throwing them away, as if simply their company meant something to me.

Deep dab-tastrophe

Sat, 31 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Memes live through curious stages. After entering the mainstream, memes sometimes re-surface ironically, as if to meme on of their own mainstream-ness. After Clinton dabbed on The Ellen Show, dabbing did just that.

For those of you not familiar with dabbing, or specifically deep dabbing:

In the summer of 2019, I lived in a massively shared house with over 20 other people. Yes, over 20 others. One day, we decided to venture to the local public park to play Ultimate Frisbee, the Official Sport of Frat and Tech Bros.

5 Rs for the environment

Sat, 24 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

When I moved out of my college apartment this year, I realized just how much junk I had. Looking at the boxes full of stuff I didn’t even want anymore, I resolved to follow the 5 environmental Rs more thoroughly. You’ve most likely heard of them as a triplet: reduce, reuse, recycle. However, I prefer to add two more: refuse, reduce, reuse, repurpose, recycle.

Note the order: earlier Rs generally yield greater impact, so you should consider them first.

The smoking backup

Sat, 17 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Story time, buckos.

Flashback to freshman year, a time when people could go out without weighing the risk toward public health. Remember outside?

I had entered the Nesbitt Room, a public study room where you pretended to get work done while listening to math students complain. On one hand, “my math classes have too much work!” On the other hand, “my non-math classes have too little math!”

Hoping to make progress on my EECS project, I busted out my trusty laptop and started to “work.” My laptop had been bothering me for the past week. The bottom case had came loose, and the resistance to pushing it back into place indicated something had bent or shifted inside. However, “don’t fix what ain’t broke,” I reasoned, since I could still use my laptop without issue. Oh how wrong, this excuse!

RBG

Sat, 19 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Ruth Bader Ginsburg died yesterday. The Court, already precariously balanced, has tipped away from me. In witness, I have finally registered to vote.

Conditional probability and the gambler's fallacy

Sat, 11 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

I’ve been playing a lot of Warframe. In the game, loot is dropped according to predefined probabilities,¹ so I’ve brushed up on my statistics.

Conditional probability

Formally, with events A and B, the probability of A knowing B has already occurred equals the probability A and B occur together divided by the probability B occurs with or without A. Let’s see an example.

Bird watching example

Last week, you went bird watching with your good friend Sam at Bird Park. You know there are exactly 100 birds in Bird Park, including 50 doves. 40 of those 50 doves are green, and the remaining 10 are yellow.

Gold and feathers: a story of bad units

Sat, 15 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Which weighs more, a ton of feathers or a ton of gold? Your System 1 might immediately intuit that gold is heavier, while your System 2 would probably reason that a ton of anything weighs the same: a ton. The full answer, as you might guess by this post’s existence, is more complicated.

A ton of tons

Living in the United States, a ton means 2000 pounds to me. However, there are at least 3 common definitions of ton used today: