[[You may be looking for About this siteAbout this site
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I am a generalist in the field of computer science, with a current focus on designing resilient privacy-focused networks.
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I have been experimenting on my own with software development since January 08, 2013, I have been getting paid to work in IT since October 29, 2016, where I started out with hardware repair while designing websites on the sideI started with WordPress site development, with some PHP development on the side. After getting tired of hackers, I moved on to static HTML and CSS site design, then discovered static site generators..
Regarding my professional experience, I don't have some remarkable story, nor have I worked for any organizations that you'd recognize, as I take an intentionally understated approach to my career and research. I have an immense passion for learning and sharing knowledge, which is why I started this site.
Insomnia
“The best ideas come when you’ve been awake for 40 hours and have no idea which is left and which is right”
— No one ever
I struggle with insomnia, occasionally caught in that liminal space between alertness and exhaustionLongest awake yearly record:
2025: 47 hours awake
2024: 37 hours awake
2023: 25 hours awake
2022: 30 hours awake
2021: 40 hours awake
2020: 25 hours awake
2019: 27 hours awake. During these hours, I often write code, chat with people on Signal, and occasionally dictate thoughts into my text editor, which form the basis of these blog posts.
Hardware
I am currently using a new Lenovo E16 Gen 1I selected this laptop due to a recommendation from another sysadmin that deploys hundreds of machines. Apparently the failure rates on this model are lower than average; time will be the judge of that. Historically, I've used discarded laptops from work as personal machines. Surprisingly, I've never had a drive fail on a used machine, it's typically everything else that fails around the drive. When it takes 5 minutes to get set up and working, it's probably time for a change. laptop (see my Review of ThinkPad E16 Gen 1Review of ThinkPad E16 Gen 1
In November 2024, I was gifted a Lenovo ThinkPad E16 Gen 1 by a good friend. This is my review of that laptop.
The laptop was selected as it's the standard issue laptop at my day job, which means ...) with an 13th Gen Intel i5-1335U (12) @ 4.600GHz, 24GB of memory, and a 256GB SSD. I also have a Logitech MX Master 3s mouse and a System76 Launch Heavy mechanical keyboard. Typically, the laptop is connected to two 23" 1080p monitors, which I got for free years ago, which sit atop a glass and metal desk.
Software
I use KDE Neon as my Linux-based operating system of choice, with KDE Plasma as my desktop environment. I use Firefox as my web browser with uBlock Origin for ad-blocking, and DarkReader to prevent migraines. Kate is my text editor primarily due to its excellent support for Chinese glyphsI tried Vim, Helix, and other modal text editors, but couldn't get used to the excessive use of keyboard shortcuts required to do basic functions., and Bash is my shell. As I type a lot using Pinyin (汉语拼音), I use iBus as my input method editor, with SunPinyin as the SLM.
I experiment with locally hosted open-source AI models through Ollama and Jan. I prefer the Llama series of models by Meta(Facebook) due to their ability to be concise and remember context better than the SaaS models like Claude.
The only proprietary software that I have installed is Minecraft purely because it still makes enough money for the time I put into content sales to be worth it. The Bedrock Edition is notoriously hostile towards Linux and VMs, so I have one Windows laptop (saved from a recycling pile) with its webcam and microphones removed which is only used for exporting game files in the .mcworld format, then gets shut down and unplugged.