The Idea in Brief

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to my corner of the web.

My name is Justin. In some circles, I go by zzz.

I am currently working as a math tutor in NYC. From Fall 2027 to Spring 2031, I plan to go to law school during the evenings while teaching classroom mathematics during the daylight while also building my analog computing company during late nights and weekends. From Fall 2031 onwards, I plan to work on the company as my full time job.

When I am not working on things, I play chess at Washington Square Park and mail letters to friends and assemble cassette mixtapes and write various materials and run recreationally and hang out with my cat. I have several knowledge interests including but not limited to: mathematics; ancient languages and literature; natural science; and the intersection of law, politics, and economy.

I am relatively new to electrical and electronics engineering, yet always eager to learn more.

Trivia

• I was born Tues 5 November 1996 at 11:30AM.

• Preferred OS: Ubuntu. Previously I used Arch Linux and/or OpenBSD, and while both taught me things, eventually I gravitated to something that would work with minimal user intervention.

  Preferred editor: roughly evenly split between vim and the one that ships with Ubuntu. Both have their cases, plus PARC would feel sad if I didn't use a graphical interface where it genuinely facilitates things.

  Preferred programming language: roughly evenly split between perfboards and English. Previously I've written small morsels of code in TI-BASIC, Java, C, and LISP, not counting things I did as assignments for classes. I think LISP might be my favorite "real programming language":

  (defparameter *dx* 0.01)
  (defmacro of (f x) `(apply ,f (list ,x)))
  (defun avg (x y) (float (/ (+ x y) 2)))
  
  (defun deriv (f x)
    (/ (- (of f (+ x *dx*)) (of f x)) *dx*))
  
  (defun definteg (f a b n) 
    (if (zerop n)
      (* (avg (of f a) (of f b)) (- b a))
    (+
      (definteg f a (avg a b) (- n 1))
      (definteg f (avg a b) b (- n 1)))))

  Never have I ever attempted a project large enough to merit serious version control, though it isn't something I'm avoiding by principle.

  I do have a fun medium-sized software project in mind that could be pretty useful to others, but its so far down the todo list that it isn't even worth expounding upon. I guess the only reason it isn't already dead is because it does nag at me a bit that I haven't written something substantial in C or similar yet, and I might want to eventually kill that nag so that I can think without it hindering.

• Religion and politics: mostly I'm still in the early days of developing a solid working understanding of either. I tend to approach these topics with a scholarly attitude before putting my epistemic weight on anything. I believe heresies that clarify are counterproductive to demonize.

  My take on the problem of evil ("why does a powerful god do bad things if he could prevent them from happening") has to do with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: doing good and acting fair may be, in some sense, conjugate actions. In order to weigh this against the assumption of omnipotence, I speculate that any violation of Heisenberg Uncertainty drains some divine statistical-mechanical capacitor.

  Another thing I like to think about is how concepts themselves have a sort of immortality through timelessness, and how maybe the Land of Limitless Light could possibly be a sort of vanishing point toward which the world progresses, guided by Maat. In this imagining, perhaps every other "world" (as in the multiple worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics), besides the one acting as substrate of shared human experience, corresponds to a sort of hell realm where things are slightly off for some insidious reason. My guess is as good as anyone else's, though.

  I strongly appreciate the point Graeber makes in his book on debt about how, post Nixon, the world economy draws its power partially from the fact that no one person understands the totality of its mechanisms. I like reading the Wall Street Journal with a pen in hand to underline things. On a related note: NYT is owned by the Sulzbergers, WSJ is owned by Dow Jones. Who is more immune to bias? Exercise for the reader.

  I find that, at their best, religion and politics clarify perception and fortify judgment; in turn, at their worst, they cloud perception and embrittle judgement. Yet I also think prideful ignorance of either (much less both) is possibly the most dubious position to hold.

• I think MBTI as a neat little set of sixteen boxes earns its keep more readily than most of the rest of what academics refer to as psychology (Freud, anyone?). The concept of major/minor axis conflict is something I find especially elegant. The entire function stack feels like it could be a change of basis sourced from the Noble Eightfold Path.

  I have some reservations about the persistence of type though; namely, the boxes become fuzzier and less meaningful as one journeys through the later stages of identity development.

• As to how I got this way, I've listed some of my favorite media and cultural influences here.