Good news. we won div 2 regional ICPC content for the mid atlantic region. maybe i can lock in more and do div 1 next year. It was a lot of fun though and it helped me learn the ways to solve some of these tricky problems. You do need a lot of math skill. I have been into reading a lot, and audiobooks are just really op.
Also started a bunch of other projects, like im back into opengl for C++, doing the crypto project, working on some RTOS and GPU stuff.
I have branched out a lot, simply trying to improve C++ skills generally but also trying to find the things I find most interesting so I can lock in on them.
RTOS seems quite interesting so maybe I can try and do something related to that.
Getting back into streaming. Got interested in cryptography and like bitcoin stuff and I wanna see if i can write one rq from scratch. kind of a distraction but like ehh it seems kind of fun so lets see. the industry is hella scammy right now so I am not tyring to go down that path but the core technology and motivations seem really cool although the crypto bros are not that cool lol.
I also finished reading 1984, banger book obviously.
Currently reading House of Huawei, really good insight into the workings of Huawei, history of how Ren Zhengfei built it post cultural revolution and stuff. he was part of PLA but somehow was free market. interesting that Deng Xiaopeng, although he did tianenmen massacre was like vital for china to improve economy and he embraced free markets and privatization and stuff. very interesting.
Also reading the book, only the paranoid survive by andy grove former ceo of intel. another banger fr. he seems to love strategic inflection points he says it over and over and over again. but like its interesting, he goes into the pentium processor math issue and like transitioning from the memory business into microprocessor and the fierce competition from the japanese etc. im reading more books but now but im not as locked in on programming so this streaming stuff is an attempt to lock in again.
also need to grind leetcode so yeah, school is going okay but i need to still finish UC applications. overall i needa lock in basically.
Did not win VThacks, project was a little too controversial. I thought computer vision frontend would be cool but it did not work out, maybe we took a little too much risk for a chill hackathon. Demo here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZosWKu5pzYY
Working towards reading more books and cutting back on random youtube podcast stuff.
Audiobooks from libby and hoopla seem to be the way.
Reading 2008 Financial Crisis - George Soros, 1984 George Orwell, and Apple in China by Patrick Mcgee.
Hopefulyl i can keep up and finish these books.
Need to lock in on ML. Lower level ML, like vision models and understanding math behind ML seems crucial. Andrew Ngs lectures are just linear algebra mostly. Should lock in on those lectures.
Also interested in ML infra stuff like GPU and embedded stuff so look into that and figure out what is better for you etc.
Finally, I REALLY need to lock in on the UC apps. procrastinating those for ages, and i have to get it done if I wanna transfer.