My First Ever Blog, From Someone Who Can (kinda) Write.

As I sat down and finally started typing something that was not HTML, I realized that I should explain why I even bothered to make this website in the first place. Whatever the reason that brought you here, thanks for spending the time to read what will probably be my most personal blog.

I have just finished my third year of university in computer science and mathematics, specializing in artificial intelligence. Even before my graduation, I reflect back on my younger years in school both awed and surprised with how much I've changed. Beyond the learned technical knowledge like mathematics, algorithms, systems, architectures, etc, my mentality has also shifted significantly. The experience of dealing with post-secondary, the good and painfully bad, felt invaluable. I'm not necessarily saying that everyone needs to go through university, it really depends on the individual's situation, but being in an environment surrounded by fellow students and post-secondary opportunities (co-ops/networking/events), probably accelerated years of character development. Some notable changes are:

• I've learned how to learn better and enjoy it, going out of my way to teach myself skills/knowledge and self-motivate myself to take on bigger endeavors. A much healthier mentality rather than just "getting it over with", that many of my peers surrender to.
• Networking felt super intimidating when I was more introverted. That is until I finally gathered the courage to throw myself into a professional convention (Upperbound 2024), and just started talking to strangers. Turns out most people are pretty alright, and initiating conversations is no longer a monumental feat of courage.
• Nothing could have prepared me for the trial by fire that was a six-member team, multi-month group project, rocketing my stress levels to record heights. This can only be taught by experience, so I'm thankful for the experience of getting my pride slapped away and showing me the whole spectrum of collaborative development.

I wanted a way to share experiences like these with others, to write down my thoughts in as easily sharable format, and so I found myself building this website. Maybe other students will relate to my group project struggles, fellow programmers looking for the answer to that niche topic we both stumbled upon, or hiring managers looking for the stuff I've done. I don't want to fall into the trap of writing for the sake of engagement or being forced to like a job, so everything I blog about will just be things that I made/found interesting enough to commit a few hours to write down. I also expect most of my content to be about computers and technology; Any personal stories would serve to highlight the thesis and no further.

This is also just a more interesting way to show off the projects I've done beyond a few points in a resume. That's also why I made each entry under the projects page a blog post in of itself, so I can nerd on in great detail and reflect on everything I've discovered. Many of my fellow C.S friends are obsessed with building resume-worthy projects, for the sake of just their resume and nothing else. With the current job market as is, I don't blame anyone for locking in for co-ops/internships/careers, I've just been through enough burnouts from projects I don't enjoy making to finally stop bashing my mental into my keyboard.

Just another quick note, the only AI I will use when blogging is Grammarly, for grammar... No generative LLMs or other text-generation tools, because then what would be the point of reading my work over prompting an LLM for a similar result.

As both a writing exercise, and why I'm starting with a blog website over other forms of social media, here are my super-distilled, compressed thoughts on other social media platforms. I see:

• Medium (and other commercial website hosting services) as going to be my original choice, with free hosting and MAYBE ad revenue!? However, below the echelon of informative, well-structured Medium articles, is the horizon-spanning pile of whatever post, answering some common question that feels like it's just there to appear at the top of a Google search. Why should I choose your article about Q-Learning vs SARSA over the dozen other sites with the exact same title?
  • Plus with Medium needing an account, and even locking some articles behind a subscription, goes against the open, simple website that I want to control myself. Basically, I want my content to feel personalized, and hosting on a corporate site ruins that vibe for me.
• YouTube as being too involved with the creator as a personality for what I want. Not in the mood to become an internet e-celeb just to talk about my personal achievements, only want to maintain an online presence with my content, not my face. Of course, I'll put up Kdenlive if I eventually needed videos for something, whatever that may be...
• Twitter/X/Bluesky (or whatever similar alternative exist) as way too disconnected for personal blogging. The focus on short, attention-seeking tweets to attract as much attention in the algorithm has created an ecosystem where meaningful discourse feels hopeless to find.
  • This issue also extends to other social media platforms like Facebook and Reddit, where honestly, less and less of anything feels authentic anymore. Truly the Dead Internet Theory of all time. Then again, I probably don't need to tell you all this~
• LinkedIn as the decrepit hybrid between Twitter/X and Medium, where every post is trying to teach, and/or sell you something by shouting into your ear, in the style + word limit of a Twitter/X tweet. We all use it, but the majority of professionals I've talked to rarely hesitate to dunk on LinkedIn. I keep my LinkedIn strictly for work and nothing else.
  • Even putting all other issues aside, like the toxic "corporate" culture and constant spam messages, my biggest pet peeve is how those "preaching to the masses" posts always use one-sentence paragraphs and bulletin points. It gives the appearance that it's actually saying anything while leaving no space for meaningful discussions (or even sources). It just becomes people shouting provocative statements as facts, and the algorithms eat it up. This could become an entire blog in of itself so I'll save it for later.

Thank you again for looking through my blog. This is my first attempt, and I promise future articles will be more structured and less about ranting about social media platforms.