Now

🌎 Where I Am

Los Angeles, California

👍 What I'm Doing

• Just wrapped up my 3rd year of undergrad + 1st year of my Masters of Public Policy program.
• Working at McKinsey as a Business Analyst.
• Working on a research project - I'm excited to present at the ITE conference very soon.
• I'm a teaching assistant for ISE 382, Database Systems: Storage and Retrieval using SQL. Soon to be DSCI 250.
• Running and biking 20+ miles per week.
• Doing a bit of churning. (look it up if you're not sure)

📚 What I'm Reading

• Bits about Money (not a personal finance blog, rather more of a financial infrastructure blog. It's fascinating, I promise)
• True Gretch, Gretchen Whitmer
• Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software, Charles Petzold

🤔 What I'm Thinking

• Believing you only have one option is dangerous. I believe convincing yourself of having one option is a problem that many college students face across many domains. This article had excellent actionable suggestions on mitigating that mindset.
• Troubleshooting. Troubleshooting is the most valuable skill I think I've learned from doing web development (more than programming itself). This article does a great job of summarizing the thought process.
• Hugging the X axis. "Western culture over-indexes on novelty. It suffers from commitment phobia." This is something I've noticed more and more - especially as I've moved to the West Coast where the novelty culture is stronger than average. Unfortunately, it comes at a great cost which Perell elucidates.
• How I built an AI company to save my open source project. Great bite-sized advice about the importance of business viability in the tech world. Assumption is the mother of all fuckups.
• The Peace of a Long Commute. There is, as the author discusses, solace to be found in a space where time passes but productivity simply isn't possible.
• The After Dark Bandit. This story is simultaneously gripping, thoughtful, and funny, despite covering the unique situation of a pair of Australian bank robbers who are identical twins!
• How a would be bomber rebuilt his life. A fascinating and incisive read by a former Toronto Star national security correspondent who covered the Toronto 18 case. 
• What is a "Julius"? This is an entertaining summary of people who talk, not speak + a very relatable connection to AI 'assistants'...
• Here's a fantastic read explaining why the US immigration system is broken... (and a shorter video summary by PolyMatter)
• A fantastic watch on American suburbia
• Another fantastic documentary about the BART system
• Semordnilap: A word, phrase, or sentence that has the property of forming another word, phrase, or sentence when its letters are reversed. A semordnilap differs from a palindrome in that the word or phrase resulting from the reversal is different from the original word or phrase.
• How the US Is Destroying Young People’s Future | Scott Galloway | TED. I don't entirely agree with the policy proposals made in this talk, but I do think Galloway makes some great points about what is happening to young people now.
• NYC congestion pricing. What happened here? Once again, politics have unwound what could have been a great advance for urbanism and equity in the United States.
• Truly amazing technology
• 2023 VMT Rankings. The relationship between density and good stuff (less time spent in transportation each day, fewer VMT...) is SO strong. I question the finding that LA has higher population density than NYC though...
• This is an interesting quantitative way to approach the "which city is best for new grads?" question.
• One of the school districts near me recently had some pretty serious disagreement about eliminating accelerated math classes. As someone who definitely benefited from those classes, I appreciated this succinct summary of the research and thought around accelerated math's impact.
• Healthchecks.io blog. Intriguing lens into what a one-person SaaS operation looks like and how it can be totally successful.
• Starlink's effect on a remote Amazon tribe. The super fast and drastic effects of internet connectivity on this previously unconnected tribe are striking; this quote sums it up well: "'Young people have gotten lazy because of the internet,' she said. 'They’re learning the ways of the white people.' Then she paused and added, 'But please don’t take our internet away.'"
• Lessons from Singapore: The Power of Homeownership. This is a fascinating case study in public policy and systems thinking: moving a country from a sub-30% homeownership rate to nearly 90% (if you count 99-year leases as home ownership). Even more interesting is the fact that people - even young people - are content and comfortable with the government that managed to do that.
• The collision between international relations and the internet. I used to be an international relations student, so this feels particularly relevant. I wonder what will become of all those .io's out in the wild already...
• WordPress debates. I've been following this situation for a while (partially because I'm an avid WordPress user, and partially because I just care about OSS...); this is a nice summary of what's going on at the moment.
• How California Turned Against Growth. I love civic history, and this article tells a great tale of California's unique growth, while explaining how bad policy kneecapped it.
• Millennial wealth gap. This is an interesting and refreshing perspective on the idea that millennials are doing worse financially than baby boomers.

🎮 What I'm Playing

Nothing :(

📺 What I'm Watching

Black Mirror, on and off