User:Almonds

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Note: This page was last updated in the 21st century.

  • Zillennial from NorCal suburbs 🌴
  • I am a HUNAM located at EARTH, just like you.
  • For my email, phone number, online handles, or life story, then feel free to email me, call/text me, reach out to me online, send me a carrier pigeon, or ask me in person.


About me

Lovely human being
Room W303
Year Spring 2020
Major Electrical engineering & computer science (6-2)
Minor Brain & cognitive sciences (9)
HASS concentration Archaeology and archaeological science
MEng Spring 2021?
  • Hobbies? Being with friends, writing stories, comics, animation, complaining about bureaucracy, playing/creating video games.
  • What games? Couch co-op, horror, Pokémon, Minecraft, really old games.
  • Comms? I have been a part of AVComm, KitchenComm, Fruit Comm, and MovieComm.
  • Favourite foods? Steak.
  • Favourite music? Trap, hardstyle, heavy metal, happy hardcore, EDM, or whatever I'm in the mood for.
  • Want to hear a joke?
    Why did the man fall into the well?
    -- Because he could not see that well
  • Have more questions? Talk with me in person!
  • Have too few questions? See here.

Languages learned

Abridged. In rough order of when I started. Cannot guarantee mastery.

  • English
  • ASL
  • Windows batch script
  • VBScript, Visual Basic
  • Reverse Polish notation, lambda calculus, currying
  • Windows Powershell script
  • Java, C/C++, C#
  • Bash
  • Lua
  • Loglan
  • Lojban
  • French
  • MATLAB
  • Python
  • 6502 assembly
  • Korean
  • Julia
  • Ruby
  • HTML, CSS
  • JavaScript
  • F#
  • Rust

Media I've worked with

By "media" I mean artistic media, but also computer software as well as computer hardware.

Physical

Abridged. In rough order of when I started.

  • Paper and crayons/pencil/pens (comics)
  • Chalk
  • Painting (paint made from the chalk)
  • Play-Doh
  • Countless sticky notes and note pads (2D animation)
  • Watercolor
  • Play-Doh (stop motion animation)
  • Legos (stop motion animation)
  • Acrylic paint and canvas
  • Photography
  • Linoleum (linocut, stamp making)
  • Screen printing
  • Glass mosaic (from scoring)
  • Papier-mâché
  • Calligraphy
  • Pastels
  • Acrylic paint and wall

Hardware

Abridged. In rough order of when I started.

  • Computers in general (mostly Windows, Ubuntu, Arch and other Linux distros)
  • TriCaster (in hsgh school broadcast club)
  • Raspberry Pi
  • Teensy (3.2, 3.6)
  • ESP32
  • Arduino Uno
  • ESP8266
  • STM32

Software

Abridged. In rough order of when I started.

  • Flipnote Studio (drawing, 2D animation)
  • Microsoft Word, etc.
  • Visual Studio (coding)
  • GIMP (image manipulation)
  • Windows Movie Maker (video editing)
  • Sony Vegas Pro (video editing)
  • Adobe Photoshop (image manipulation in HS broadcast club)
  • Final Cut Pro (video editing in HS broadcast club)
  • Minecraft (Redstone, command blocks)
  • Blender (3D modelling, 3D animation, video editing)
  • Autodesk Maya (3D animation)
  • MATLAB (coding)
  • Krita (drawing, 2D animation, comics)
  • Arduino (hardware programming)
  • Unity (game/scene demos)
  • Sublime Text 3 (programming environment / text editor)
  • Sublime Merge (convenient git client)
  • Shotcut (video editing)
  • Adobe Premimere Pro and After Effects (video editing)

Talk to me about

Click for a bunch of topics I like to learn or talk about
  • Anything
  • Co-op games
  • Very old games
  • Horror games
  • Art and science of coffee
  • Chocolate science
  • Sex, lube, condoms
  • Fatty acid metabolism
  • Carbohydrate metabolism
  • Capitalism
  • Socialism
  • Climate change
  • Nihilism
  • Absurdism
  • Meta-modernism
  • Hominin evolution in general
  • The Great Rift Valley
  • Neanderthals
  • FOXP2
  • The Younger Dryas, Neolithic
  • Government nutrition recommendations
  • Storytelling
  • Story structure, Cambpell
  • Taoism
  • Satanism
  • Animism, personification
  • Experimental literature
  • Genre subversions
  • Art deviance, fascism and cultural narrative
  • Kafka
  • Bureaucracy
  • Pre-columbian art
  • Vision
  • Vitamin C and scurvy
  • Antioxidants
  • Hormesis
  • Nootropics
  • Types of bots actively roaming the internet
  • TOR, the dark web
  • UV-vis spectroscopy
  • Mussel byssus threads
  • The bonding behavior of telechelic metal-coordinating polymers in hydrogels
  • Development of the teeth, jaw, & facial structure in general, braces
  • Dental caries
  • Functions and physical locations of various organs & brain structures
  • Referred pain of these various organs
  • E.g. heart, liver, kidneys, eyes, anterior pituitary, hippocampus
  • Cardiovascular disease in general
  • Statins
  • Hypercalcinosis
  • Soft tissue calcification
  • Arterial plaque formation
  • LDL, HDL, subclasses, and cholesterol in general
  • Triglycerides
  • Osteoporosis
  • Hashimoto's, grave's diseases
  • Neuroactive steroids
  • Alzheimer's, dementia
  • Anemia
  • The brain
  • Microglia, astrocytes, & oligodendrocytes <3
  • SSRIs
  • Ketamine, anaesthesia, analgesisc, sedatives
  • Dissociation, depersonalization, derealization
  • Cotard's syndrome
  • Brain oscillations
  • Migraines, auras
  • Opiates, addiction, the opioid epidemic
  • Alcohol
  • Sleep
  • Polyphasic sleep
  • Healthy cell differentiation
  • Hair follicles
  • Oncological etiologies
  • Exponential map (exponential function) <3
  • Laplace transform
  • Complex numbers & quaternions, split-complex numbers, dual numbers
  • Differential operator as algebraically manipulable
  • pi vs 2pi (tau)
  • Factorial vs gamma function
  • Fractional derivatives
  • Fractal derivatives
  • Peppermint, soy
  • Animal rights, use of animals in experimental research
  • Mice
  • Cute animals in general
  • Blood tests
  • Haemochromatosis, ferritin, hepacin, blood donation
  • Bone marrow donation
  • Modelling everyday systems as electronic circuits
  • Modelling everyday systems as systems in general
  • Electronic music
  • Trap
  • Hardstyle
  • Instrumental metal
  • Slavic hardbass
  • Happy hardcore
  • Psytrance
  • Gender identity
  • Gender-neutral terms
  • Sexual attraction
  • Psychology in general
  • Jung, Horney, Kübler & Ross
  • Ruth Benedict, Weston Price
  • Culinary history
  • Anything

Favourite shows

Not necessarily in any order.

  • Rick and Morty
  • Re: Zero
  • Nichijou (My Ordinary Life)
  • Mob Psycho 100
  • One-Punch Man
  • Superjail!
  • Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart
  • Tuca & Bertie

Roles on hall (as of 2019-2020)

Hall chair tray table

Elected for the 2019-2020 year. Feel free to talk with me or Julian for reimbursements, if something on hall is broken, for hall conflict, if you wonder how floorpi or EC operate...

Pleasure Educator

Pleasure is a student-led group at MIT; our goal is to reduce sexual violence and to promote healthy relationships at MIT.

If you ever find yourself needing to share something deeply personal, then talking with me is an option. I can listen, I can provide resources for building a support system, and I can help you work with those resources. I am trained for these situations.

(Note: Sometimes people don't want to share such personal information with their peers; sometimes they would like to speak to someone new. That's totally valid. In such a case, see here: resources.mit.edu.)

I can also talk in depth about:

  • sex,
  • the many birth control options,
  • health concerns,
  • relationships (workplace, platonic, romantic, sexual, ...),
  • identities (gender, sexual attraction, race, class, ...),
  • the many resources at MIT

PLEASURE is actually an acronym, it stands for Peers Leading Education About Sexuality and speaking Up for Relationship Empowerment .

My Courseroad

Undergrad

Prior credit

  • 6.0001 Intro to CS programming in Python (ASE)
  • 18.01 Calculus (AP credit)

Freshman year

Fall (2016)
  • 3.091 (Grossman) Intro to solid-state chemistry
  • 8.01 Physics I
  • 18.022 Multidimensional vector calculus
  • 21W.031 Science writing & new media
  • 12.000 Solving complex problems

3.091 was my favorite subject for freshman year. Unless you're thinking of being a course 5 or 10, I recommend it over 5.111. 8.01 -- hey, that's pretty good. Unless you want to be a course 18, there isn't really reason to take 18.022 over 18.02. The p-sets are straightforward if you attend lecture and go along with the textbook, but they're tedious. 21W.031 is an excellent class that teaches you how to communicate science & technology. I took it because I didn't realize HASS classes that don't start with "21W" exist (same reason as 21W.747). That said, I recommend it; it prepared me for UROP, SuperUROP, 6.UAT, and surely will my thesis. 12.000, AKA, Terrascope, an excellent and supportive community. Highly recommend, although you're likely not a prefrosh so it's almost certainly too late to choose.

Spring (2017)
  • 1.016 Complex environmental issues
  • 7.014 Intro biology
  • 8.02 Physics II
  • 18.03 DiffyQ
  • 18.05 Intro to probability & statistics

1.016 -- just as for a UROP or thesis project -- if your project has a lot of setbacks, you're gonna have a bad time. It's up to you whether you'd like to continue your Terrascope Mission. As for 7.014, well, it's a GIR. My only complaint is that the professors focused a lot on carbohydrate metabolism and did not discuss a process more vital to mammals -- fatty acid metabolism. That said, I doubt anyone would share my complaint. Penny Chisholm co-taught the subject and discussed her fascinating research on and the importance of ocean microbes. On the topic of global warming, TL;DR we're screwed. 8.02 -- hey, that's pretty good. 18.03 is my favorite math class I've taken. I have a red passion for the exponential map. I took 18.05 because it satisfied my probability/statistics requirement. Sure, maybe I should have taken 6.008 or 6.041 instead, but I didn't know any better.

Summer (2017)
  • 3.UR UROP in Materials science & engineering

3.091 in the Fall got me interested in majoring and UROPing in course 3, which is what I declared at the end of freshman year.

Sophomore

Fall (2017)
  • 3.UR UROP in Materials science & engineering
  • 6.152[J] Micro/nano processing technology
  • 6.002 Circuits & electronics
  • 21W.747 Rhetoric

By this time, I've decided I'm a course 6. I ended up helping my graduate student by coding an algorithm that uses statistical and machine learning techniques anyway. I chose 6-2 for a few reasons, including that I was confused between the differences between 6-2 and 6-3. I'm more of a 6-2⅖ in the end.

A close friend recommended 6.152 and so I naively went for it. It's semiconductor fabrication, and I got to work in the Lincoln Lab among other neat places. I did impressive things, but it was a bit intense, and the lectures were monotone in a dark room. The hands-on labs are great, though. I would recommend it if you're more 6-2 than 6-3. The p-sets aren't difficult if you pay attention in lecture but they're tedious. 21W.747 was a lovely class taught by Steven Strang. If you are at all interested in circuits & electronics, I highly recommend 6.002. I took it the year it was first updated (among other changes, it previously did not have a lab component) with David Perreault. 10/10.

Spring (2018)
  • 3.987 Human evolution
  • 6.003 Signals & systems
  • 9.00 Intro to psychological science
  • Lab assistant for 6.002

I didn't take any HASS classes in freshman Spring, so I decided to take two this semester. I wanted to take 3.987 last semester but it's only offered in the Spring. Max Price is an intelligent and friendly guy. I hope my passion for waterside hypotheses of human evolution have made their way into the curriculum 👀. 9.00 is a classic. 6.003 is the only class I've gotten a "B" in. There are several classes I've felt I've deserved a "B" in instead of an "A", but this class in particular, I feel I deserve an "A". The labs were long and the checkoff queues longer. Yes, I'm salty. Perfect 5/7. Highly recommend.

Summer (2018)

I worked on personal projects back home in California. I might write more here later.

Junior

Fall (2018)
  • 6.034 Artificial intelligence (taught by Patrick Winston)
  • 6.036 Machine learning
  • 6.S081 Human computational intelligence
  • 6.801 Machine vision
  • 9.85 Infant & early childhood cognition

Instead of 6.S081, I actually wanted to take 21M.361 Electronic Music Composition I. I attended their final project concert the previous semester and was inspired. (1), I'm a fan of electronic music and would like to have a taste of producing it professionally, and (2), it's already my Junior year and I still need to satisfy the HASS-A requirement. Sadly, it didn't fit my schedule. So instead, I signed up for 21M.080 Introduction to Music Technology, a brand new HASS-A subject at the time, teaching material similar to 21M.361. I was kicked out due to over-enrollment. I had to push my HASS-A to my senior year. I took 6.S081 instead, a rewarding class with Bob Berwick, which, by petition, helped partially satisfy my major's AUS2 requirement. I'm still salty though.

I also recommend 6.034. The grad students running behind the scenes put love into that class. Sadly, Patrick Winston doesn't lead the class anymore, as he has passed away.

For Splash, I co-taught a class on chocolate science & truffle making.

I decided to minor in BCS, since I'm interested in BCS, I've already taken a few of the required classes, and CS and BCS make a great pair.

IAP (2019)

I also signed up for 6.S097 Introduction to Julia (the programming language), as I had heard about it from Deniz Yuret's talk on Knet in 6.034. By email, I was told to drop the class for going over a credit limit of 12 units. I immediately asked if it could be changed to listener status and did not hear a response until after 6.S097 was over, so I never attended any of their classes. (You can in fact take a class as listener during IAP without setting off this credit limit warning.) I'm salty.

I also participated in a student-led American Sign Language course. I appreciate learning, in addition to the language, about the history, the social conditions (i.e. in hospitals, stigma of cochlear implants), and the culture.

Spring (2019)
  • 6.08 Intro to EECS via interconnected embedded systems
  • 6.UAT Oral communication in EECS
  • 3.094 Materials in human experience
  • 3.985 Archaeological science
  • Lab assistant for 6.002

6.08? An Introductory EECS subject? Finally! I've been wanting to take 6.08 as my Introductory EECS subject since sophomore year, but it never fit my schedule! Due to this, this class was the most forgiving I've ever had. I am a big fan of the Internet of Things. 6.002 is a good continuation of 6.08.

My freshman year, there was a HASS concentration in BCS; now all evidence of it seems to have disappeared. I had to shift gears this semester and choose to concentrate in archaeology, since it interests me and I've already taken 3.987. I had to squash so many of my precious course 9 subjects into next year and take three more HASS classes than planned. Yes, I'm salty.

Summer (2019)
  • UROP in 6-2.

I worked with Joe Steinmeyer to create a microcontroller graphic interface for students, researchers, or really anyone who uses microcontrollers -- https://github.com/almonds0166/6302view/

I joined [pleasure.mit.edu MIT Pleasure] (see section above).

I also joined the avionics sub-team of MIT Rocket Team, attending the Hermes II in the Mojave Desert.

Senior

Fall (2019)
  • 9.01 Intro to neuroscience
  • 9.021[J] Cellular neurophysiology and computing
  • 9.66 Computational Cognitive Science
  • 3.986 Intro to archaeology
  • 6.UAR SuperUROP
  • CMS.307 Critical Worldbuilding
  • 6.034 Artificial intelligence (listener status)
  • 6.035 Computer language engineering (listener status)

Yes, six graded classes. A bit traumatic actually. I drank ~two cups of caffeinated coffee a day and ~four cups of decaffeinated coffee a day (thank you btilden so much for maintaining the undergraduate lounge's supply). These classes magically fit together, allowing me to attend all mandatory-attendance classes.

I wanted to take 9.46 because I've enjoyed the prereq for it (9.85), but it conflicted with 9.021, whose schedule is determined by the course 6 department. I need to take 9.021 because it satisfies requirements for both my major and my minor. As a backup, I wanted to take 9.49 because it is a new class that aligns with my interests, but it conflicts with that course 3 subject, which is a requirement for my HASS concentration.

CMS.307 is the HASS-A that fits my schedule. The wait list was five times the capacity of the class, but magically I was accepted in. Worldbuilding is quite literally the creative process of building an imaginary world.

I'm taking 6.034 as listener because it was such a lovely class, that I want to be able to attend the lectures (legally) and to maybe help out on the Piazza.

I'm interested in programming languages, so I'm taking 6.035 as listener. One thing I didn't know was that it's really a project-based class, so participation is a significant component. The final project is making a decent compiler.

Spring (2020)
  • 9.40 Intro to neural computation
  • 6.UAR Undergraduate advanced research seminar in course 6
  • 18.06 Linear Algebra
  • 6.320 Feedback systems design

18.06 was a nice, well-paced mathematics course with practical curriculum. Throughout the semester, we used Julia, that one powerful mathematics / linear algebra dynamic programming language. Alan Edelman is a wholesome professor who loved putting Philip the Corgi in the spotlight, which was especially stress-relieving when in person and on campus. After exams, Alan sent us letters thanking us for taking the course.

I found 6.320 to be a practical graduate-level course where I gained intuition to analyze the mechanics of systems and to design microcontroller-based feedback systems. The labs were slightly short-staffed, but what catsoop-oriented class isn't? In any case, Jacob White and the staff were quite personable in spite of MIT's C19 policy effect on the curriculum. Since the course is project-based, we were given kits in order to keep the class hands-on.

Grad

1st year

Fall (2020)
  • 6.006 Introduction to algorithms
  • 2.75[J] Medical device design
  • Lab assistant for 6.002

2.75 is quite stressful and demanding; it feels like I'm taking four classes total this semester. Due to covid, I was home in California for the first two months of this semester, and in Massachusetts for the remainder.

Spring (2021)

This ended up being a pretty good semester because I was living with friends in an apartment in Cambridge -- it was as if I were back at floorpi! I was also happy to TA for 6.08, it's probably my favorite class, sentimentally.

I enjoyed 6.864 because it gave me a lot of the tools, knowledge, and practice of building my own NLP models. It made me eager to work on NLP projects the following summer. I recommend the class if you need to take a grad level course 6 class (:

6.822 is... not for everyone, it's not for me. To me, this was a class where if I got lost early on in lecture, then the rest of the lecture made no sense, and at that point, it's not obvious which questions I could have asked to get back on track. I've never felt more intense imposter syndrome than this semester from this class. And I didn't like this class because it's all or nothing, like a game, a gamble, where one insight can mean the difference between 50% and 100% on a pset. And the pset problems take (me) hours. Maybe take it as listener, and just read the textbook, pset notes, attend the lectures, maybe hop in OHs if you have time. I got an A, but at what cost

Summer (2021)

This summer, I flew back home to California -- I can take the heat, it's that lack of humidity that I keep coming back for :P

  • I was able to confirm a TA position for the fall! I'm so happy! It's for 6.009
  • I'm teaching an intro to programming class with Python to students in the Caribbean under the Caribbean Science Foundation
  • I made my own dev server! The last one was on a raspberry pi in my dorm room. This one is actually a real VPS with a domain name that I own. Reach out to me if you'd like some help setting up your own, I'd love to help out.
Fall (2021)
  • 6.THM Master's
  • 6.981 TA for 6.009 ❤️
  • ES.S71 Varieties of human experience (seminar led by Charles Kaufmann)

I was living in Cambridge with friends. I said goodbye to MIT!

It was such a pleasure to TA for 6.009, connecting with younger peers, learning and refining programming skills together, and I appreciated the instructor-level perspective.

Early in the semester, I joined a seminar class, Varieties of human experience, that was only two hours once a week -- a perfect respite for my final semester at MIT on the topic of human consciousness. It was high-level and got me thinking about all that I've learned at MIT leading up to then. Chuck is an inspirational sage in whom I see myself. Apparently this class was an experimental study group (ESG) seminar, which is interesting since I was a graduate at this point in time, not an undergraduate freshman. (How did that happen?) There were only about four of us total, an excellent teacher:student ratio! I focused a lot on Meaning this semester (ask me about it!), thinking about what I want to do after graduation (see below). It's now a favorite activity of mine to ask friends what gives them meaning.

Oh yeah, my thesis topic was on photonics-based neuromorphic hardware: Benefits of branches in sparsely connected networks, cheers

Did you really read this far down? 🤔

In any case, have a good day!

Now what?

Now that I've graduated, I'm taking time off to work on personal projects and to travel to see my friends who live in different parts of the USA. The plan until the end of the summer is just to relax. I haven't had a proper break from school since... never. And as I'm typing this now, it was totally worth it to take this time off, I feel happy, unconstrained, as I've been removed from the pain/stress/distraction of a demanding system, I can focus on my self and the moment now. You can tell how important freedom/independence is to me by how happy I am to have gotten my very own bike for the first time in my life this Spring!

I think I want to go into teaching. I did an ikigai study/activity with a friend, and teaching happened to end up at the center. I'm hesitant because there's generally not a lot of compensation in that job, but maybe I can make it work. When I was doing this activity, I also noticed that a ton of artsy passions ended up close to the center -- like animation, storytelling, and creating games -- but I'm less confident in art's ability to earn compensation than teaching, it seems all around risky being an artist; maybe someday, after investing in art projects on the side, maybe I can get lucky and launch an art career. I can certainly combine art and teaching; putting together a lecture is a form of storytelling, for instance. MIT's Education Arcade combines games & curricula for fun learning. And furthermore, I can work on art projects on the side of my main career (although in my experience, the free time available while working (as a student) was horribly constricted).

In sum, I've figured out that I'm really still a kid at heart, one who enjoys forms of play -- teaching/learning, storytelling, art -- still so much. And I hope to find stable employment someday that can wield this fundamental passion of mine in a positive, healthy way. That's the dream.