I would categorize myself as an introvert, an indoor person, and a tech enthusiast/nerd. Nontheless, people around me usually see me as friendly and outgoing. I don’t know what makes the huge difference 😅 maybe ‘cause I am good at acting?
A few of my interests are listed below.
Tech
I like tech. I am fond of shiny new things. I love reading tech news. And I HATE ADS.
Here are the news sources that I check everyday.
- TheVerge: The only subscription that I’m so proud of myself. I love how they are connecting the geek news to the cultrual stuff. I especially look forward to David Pierce’s weekly newsletter Installer.
- Hacker News: the chaotic place to look for interesting topics and discussions.
- Reddit: I don’t like where reddit is heading towards, but the niche communities are so good that I can hardly find alternatives. Discord might be one but it’s difficult to search for things from the search engine.
- r/LocalLLaMA for all the LLM news
- r/SteamDeck for pushing myself hard to just buy one
- r/ProgrammerHumor for some fun and imposter syndrome
Gaming
I used to game with my bros on weekends. Multiplayer games like PUBG, Apex Legends, Insurgency Sandstorm, Don’t Starve Together, Valheim, and Age of Empires IV. I am a bad competitive game player, so most of the time we just chat about life updates and trash talk. However, life has changed a lot for all of us, so I’ve been gaming less and on my own. My recent favorites are Dave the Diver, Hades I & II, and Monster Hunter Wilds (this one’s a love & hate relationship).
My main gaming gear is a 4070 desktop PC in a NR200 case. However, I have been planning to downsize it even further (maybe a T1 or a FD Terra), or just get a Steam Deck.
Programming
I find programming fun, but I’m definitely not a good programmer (insert imposter syndrome here).
LeetCode
Leetcode to me is fun and exhausting at the same time. Same as Advent of Code. I do like solving puzzles, but doing it under pressure or competitively makes me sad. Now I do it just as a habit and in fear of disqualification from the job market.
Languages
As a tech nerd, I am constantly exposed to shiny new languages and wars among them. I have been learning Rust for a while, but only through solving leetcode problems.
Another one I’d want to learn is Nix.
Linux, Self-Hosting, Open Source
- Arch and/or NixOS: The 2025 is the year of Linux desktop meme. I’ve dual-booted my laptop with NixOS, but am too dumb to use it productively. Skill issue, obviously.
- Self-hosting: I am still paying for the Google One 2TB plan, but someday I’m gonna build my own NAS and deploy Immich on it.
- Open Source: I aspire to be an open source contributor. Slowly working on it…
Keyboard
I’m putting this here just because I type during programming.
- I’ve bought Sofle PCBs, soldered them myself, and failed spectacularly.
- Then I gave up. Bought pre-builts from Taobao, configured it with home row mods, and lived happily ever after.
Music
I played the keyboard in the jazz music club at my high school. Haven’t touched the piano for quite a while, but I still love music, not limited to jazz.
- Hiromi Uehara: my all-time favorite pianist.
- Jacob Collier: the rising star, the master of re-harmonization. Makes me dance and calms me down.
- Yussef Dayes: recent favorite drummer. Magically suitable for both dancing and focusing (?)
- Snarky Puppy: the wonderfully chaotic band.