Difference between revisions of "User:Almonds"

• 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, or ask me in person.

About me

• 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
• TriCaster
• Raspberry Pi
• Teensy (3.2)
• 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, Sublime Merge (text editor)
• Shotcut (video editing)

Talk to me 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
• Metamodernism
• 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
• 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
• E.g. heart, liver, kidneys, eyes, anterior pituitary, hippocampus
• Cardiovascular disease in general
• Statins
• Hypercalcinosis
• Soft tissue calcification
• Arterial plaque formation
• LDL, HDL, 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
• Brain oscillations
• Migraines, auras
• Opioids, 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
• Gender identity
• Gender-neutral terms
• Sexual attraction
• Psychology in general
• Jung, Horney, Kübler & Ross
• Ruth Benedict, Weston Price
• Culinary history
• Anything

Favourite animes

Not necessarily in any order.

• Rick and Morty
• Re: Zero
• Nichijou (My Ordinary Life)
• Mob Psycho 100
• One-Punch Man
• Superjail!
• South Park

Roles on hall

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 .

Not a MedLink

MedLinks are trained in MIT Medical resources, procedures, and policies, in when to seek medical attention, and in how to treat common aches, pains, cold & flu. Please take the time to peruse their kits. Dani is (at the time of writing this) floorpi's MedLink.

Sometimes the MedLink isn't on hall. In that case, you should email out to the ec hugs and drugs mailing list. EC has so many MedLinks.

All this said, I have a lot of first-hand experience with MIT Medical and MIT Mental Health & Counseling, and I am confident in explaining how the two work. I also have first-hand experience with medical resources outside MIT, namely, Boston Medical Center, Mass General Hospital, and Mt Auburn Hospital. Talk to me about insurance, like, what a copay or prior authorization is, or what "in network" and "PPO" means, or the difference between the insurance plans MIT offers its students.

Like a MedLink, I also have items I'm willing to share with my floormates. Ye be warned, however, unlike the average MedLink, in exchange for use of some of the items below, I will likely heckle you about methods to solving your issues that are etiologic rather than symptomatic. For a taste of that: if I was asked for melatonin, I would quite likely talk in-depth about the importance of sleep hygiene with respect to the ever-developing brain and lecture you on the pharmacodynamics of melatonin & the natural mechanisms the brain utilizes to produce its own.

Reminder, Dani is canonically the MedLink.

Also, friendly reminder that all MIT students are fully covered for Mental Health & Couseling.

My Courseroad

Undergrad

Prior credit

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

Freshman year

Fall

• 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 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

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

Junior

Fall

• 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

• 21G.901 Korean I

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

• 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

• 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/

Senior

Fall

• 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)

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.

Tau Beta Pi reached out to me the beginning of this semester offering me membership.

But they have additional requirements they tell me I need to complete in this semester:

• Committee application (~1 hr)
• Personal essay (~500 words, ~1 hr), respond to one of the following:
  • Write about a time that you faced a moral dilemma and what you did. Please don't write superficially on this -- talk about the particular dilemma, but also include more substance such as background, context, and consequences.
  • Write about the most unforgettable experience you've ever had.
  • Write about how you want to impact the community, and what legacy you wish to leave behind.
• $60
• 2 community service events (2 days)
• 2 social events (2 days)
• Fulfill committee requirement (~2 hr/wk), by taking lead in one of the following committees:
  • Tutoring committee (meet with students weekly; host small group review sessions near midterms/finals)
  • Community service committee (organize and lead community service events)
  • TBP Fellowships committee (publicize and coordinate TBP by distributing posters, organizing info sessions, reviewing applications, attending interviews, ...)
  • DaVinci lecture committee (recruit an audience of at least ~25, provide dinner, get a Lecture Coordinator to carry out a DaVinci lecture)
  • xFair committee (corporate relations, run the fair)
• Volunteer with xFair (~1 day)
• Recommendation letter (a quick email)

I must say, ironically, juggling those requirements would hinder my ability to confer honor upon my Alma Mater and participate in my community as an engineer and MIT student. I'm pretty booked this semester. However, if I am offered the membership again next year, I might go for it.

Spring

• 9.40 Intro to neural computation
• 6.UAR SuperNotFun
• 6.006 Intro to Algorithms
• 18.06 Linear Algebra
• 6.320 Feedback systems design

Grad

I've decided to MEng in 6-2????????????????????????????, focusing on the topic of Artificial Intelligence or BioEECS or Graphics and Human-Computer Interfaces, in a fifth year at MIT. ????????????????????????????

I forget what specific class numbers I put on my application, hence the blank sections below.????????????????

???

1st year

Fall

• 6.THM
• 6.811?
• 12.387?
• 6.525?

IAP

•  ???

Spring

• 6.THM
• 11.004?
• 6.320?

Advice corner

It is here that I answer questions that my past-self once had, that you, young stormtrooper, may also be thinking about.

How many classes should I take?

TL;DR: Zero. Up to you.

My Fall semester Senior year, I took six classes and took an extra two as listener status.

Although I was able to pull it off, I was only able to do so by sacrificing basically all of my personal time. I was pretty miserable, my GPA dropped by 0.3-0.4 points, I was eating less than I should have. My stress tolerance lowered. When I earned poor scores on assignments that I had worked my arse off for, I felt dead, and vomited water out of my eyes, so to speak.

What I'm getting at is, as for my advice: consider taking only as many classes as you are comfortable taking / the number you're used to. I'm used to taking 4 classes, sometimes 5, sometimes 3.

I'm sensitive about how I perform in academia, maybe your personality is different and has a higher tolerance to these things. Everyone's different. Up to you.

6.UAT or 6.UAR?

I took both, so I can offer a unique perspective on these classes simultaneously.

TL;DR: 6.UAT and GTFO, IMO.

Option 1: 6.UAT was a course in manipulative psychology, so if you're a psychopath, definitely go for UAT over UAR. Parent-Child dynamics, cherry picking & re-framing the data, sales pitch smiles, impersonal rhetorical strategies like alliteration. That sort of thing. We had to make a video of ourselves explaining what we appreciated from the course. This is a classic strategy used in e.g. religious indoctrination camps. Disregarding the irony, one heuristic I appreciated learning was to tell the audience ahead of time what you will be discussing, step by step, so both they and you know what's going on. Each instructor is looking for a slightly different set of skills to grade by, so that influences how the class feels.

Option 2: "To enjoy 6.UAR, you have to have a good project," they said. "Then it'd be OK," they said. I thought I was on the positive end of those odds, but I ended up hating my research and the class; I'm unsure as to whether course 6 research just isn't for me, or whether I've just hit some bad luck. Just make sure your instructor is a nice, understanding fellow, and that you have a project where data can be gathered. Why did I choose to take UAR even though I had taken UAT? Because it would satisfy my 6-2 EECS requirement and, in some vague way, prepare me for my MEng. But I felt it equivalent to having signed a pact with a demonic beaver, exchanging my soul for things I had no genuine need for: I really, passionately wanted to drop the class. At the same time, I felt I couldn't because I felt my committment was too great. There's more pressure to stay in a UROP group and class than just a class. One thing I appreciate learning is that I need to practice being aware of when things are going awfully wrong and make changes ASAP instead of dealing with it. This class was traumatic to me. I balled a lot due to this class and I'm having acute moments of emotional distress writing about it. I researched for hours without fruitful results, had to pull an all-nighter and still didn't get results, and I had pressure from five other classes like being chewed up by a ceiling collapsing onto me. God the more I write this paragraph, the more I'm sick of UAR. I'm fine writing all this personal information about my experience as my self-esteem is pretty high.

Option 3 thru 6: Change majors to 6-9 or 6-7. Or to something non-6. It was too late for me, is it too late for you? Take a year/semester off to pursue your interests. Maybe drop out. These options are my fantasies. They may not appear desirable at all, yet, still consider them; they're completely valid and possible, and there is no right way to life.

Extra curriculars

• Avionics sub-team of Rocket Team. We do Cool Things™, namely launch rockets. Avionics deals with the electronics of the aircraft -- communication with ground, parachute control, camera control, data collection. It's like the central nervous system of the rocket.
• Pleasure education, as I mentioned above.

Personal projects

• My open source stuff on GitHub
• My dev server online resume Thing, which might be offline sometimes idk
• My super cool retro Atari 2600 game (talk with me if you wanna play it)
• Relatedly, a RetroPie setup in the floorpi TV lounge