Regular Fascination

I only smoke cigarettes for the expressionism.

He fell into the dirt. Scuffed, but unharmed, the kid observing nearby said "how do you get up??" in that annoying whiny voice. The question was irrelevant, and so was his statement. Neither

Cockatoos (short story)

Easy. Relaxed. I perched myself on the bed. A chiptune of Aussie birds peckering in the background, punctured by the raunchous screams of a cockatoo. "AAARRGH AAAAARGH" barked the existentially tormented bird, as

photoblog

Sublime Moodboards.

Some photos I've taken.

books

Man's Search for Meaning - Notes.

Back in January I read a Lindy book called "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl. It was during a period in which I was contemplating my own philosophy quite a lot. The

frontend

Analysing frontend data fetching patterns - MakerDAO dApp.

Frontend engineering is a minefield when it comes to learning about effective patterns. As part of my personal study, I'm reading real open-source codebases to understand the patterns in the wild. Today I've read the codebase for a decentralised finance (DeFi) dApp called MakerDAO.

lisp

Observations on Lisp (pt. 1) - implementing a proof-of-work algorithm in Common Lisp.

I've been reading the SICP classic and learning a religious symbol of hacker culture – Lisp. A quote to start us off- Lisp transcends the utilitarian criteria used to judge other languages, because the

empathy

Empathy.

The best conversation I had in 2020 was with an Uber driver for $15. He was a well-spoken man of Asiatic origin, perhaps Japanese, and spoke in those humble strokes of breath.

culture

Every Day. A Little More Dali.

I watched an interview of Dali yesterday and came across this beautiful quote. In response to "what did the famous painter enjoy doing every day?", his answer was simple.

culture

Anti-Social Social Media

The year is 2020. The president of the United States is posting the latest memes about politics and hiding in a bunker. The rest of the United States are posting the latest memes about politics and trying to destroy such bunker.

habits

Building Habits, Feedback Loops

I always despised people that went to the gym. The idea of training inside a box, paying money to do so, instead of exercising outside just baffled me. Until I got a job.

defi

How bZX got hacked for $330K (cc: flash loans and Kyber)

bZX was 'hacked' recently, and it's quite interesting as a milestone for decentralized finance. Featuring a $1M flash loan, price manipulation, and on-chain price oracles (Kyber). All on the week after "$1 billion dollars in decentralized finance". Let's dig in!

solidity

How to design modular smart contracts in Solidity

In this article, I'll describe how you can modularise your smart contracts using something called the target pattern. Using standard Solidity, you will learn how to rewrite your brittle, tighly-coupled calls to clean modules and separation of concerns, using abi.encodeSelector and target.call(data)

diabetes

I'm a cyborg now! (On Building My Own Artificial Pancreas)

Given the choice between a) changing my lifestyle to be boring and b) hacking my metabolism, I chose the easier option. B.

blockchain

Drugs and Inventing Currencies: Blockchain's Fiction

Blockchain is vacuous, messy and undefined. Here's a story that will make it simple to understand.

projects

Building the first-ever ZKDAO POC at #ETHParis

Two weekends ago in Paris, we built the first POC of a zero knowledge DAO. Since January I had a fascination with the idea, and after meeting Zac from AZTEC at EthCC, a key component of the solution crystalised. In this post, I'll explain the design considerations and potential implications.

language

The Roots of ‘Mountain’ and other Language Motifs

Ever wonder why every image of a mountain invokes a spiritual pilgrimage? It's not you, it's me(aning). In this post, I fascinate myself with the etymology of the word 'mountain' and experiences of the Dutch language from my time in the Netherlands.

hackathons

Beers, Trains, and Blockchains – Hackatrain 2018

A photostory of my first hackathon in Europe. The creation of an open transport marketplace on the blockchain, how we got there, and the wonders of Berlin.

projects

Building Spotify's "Who's Listening" for Hackers

I designed something that shows you what your friends have been hacking on, in real-time! Here's a blog of the process of ideation, graphic/interface design in Sketch, and the engineering of the

projects

Integrating NLP into Language Learning with Dutch

Google Translate is boring. If I want to learn a language, I want all the benefits of part-of-speech tagging that we have nowadays - show me the verbs as infinitives, show me the

Making Trust Free: How Blockchain Disrupts Systems

Blockchain has been compared to the Internet in terms of what revolution it will bring. It's incredibly hyped, there is an abundance of hubris, and the array of technologies is not yet well

projects

PageRank, AST's and the Kernel Method

I learnt a new term for an intuition I've developed for a couple different problems recently called the kernel method (or trick, method sounds more philosophical). Firstly, some background: one of my hobbie

And I'm back.

The ADHD of writing has taken its magnificent turn again - I'm back baby!

python

Building a simple Pong clone on the Raspberry Pi, using an LED matrix and gyroscope

UTS Prototyping Physical Interaction — Spring 2017 - this is a reblog of a uni. assignment. Design context Develop an element of an interactive system using one or more sensors. What I've developed: a

projects

Metric: Building a quantitative self app in Meteor and React

From March to May of this year, I built my own realtime web app for quantitative self called Metric. Here’s a write-up on what made it awesome. Metric project on GitHub What

apps

The Web in 2014: progress and predictions

Here are some thoughts on the state of web app development in late 2014. The web is still the largest open platform of choice for both documents and interactive media (apps). It’s