i am a founder, engineer, and researcher, currently living in NYC. i am a 26 year old American lady. i have a partner who i live and travel with and a big fluffy dog named alan turing.
i am the founder of a company building large-scale onboarding to filecoin. think backblaze, for filecoin. We built a cool filesystem and a private fileshare that uses it in the browser or locally. We're currently working on selling it to defense and civilian buyers by embedding it into a variety of apps.
my free-time activities include some research and freelance development for money and fun.
i like to read. my partner is a big philosophy and religious studies guy and encourages me to read more. my favorites are pretty basic.
some books that made me think include the closing of the american mind by allan bloom, how to win friends and influence people by dale carnegie, propaganda by jacques ellul, the antichrist by nietzsche, philosophical investigations by wittgenstein, various platonic dialogues but alcibiades the most (+ thomas taylor youtube videos)
darwin's descent of man, julian jaynes' bicameral mind, pessoa's book of disquiet, murakami 1q84, houellebecq particules elementaires, thomas ligotti conspiracy against the human race, de beauvoir's second sex, minima moralia, various random religious and myth texts, jung's aion and some surrounding secondary lit, .
i also like management and finance books and writing... i love paul graham, the design of everyday things, the great ceo inside, ed batista, venkatesh rao, reminiscences of a stock operator, soros' theory of reflexivity writings.
finally, i really like a lot of spiritual stuff. i am a jewish convert (נשמה circa june 2022) but my deeper learning is currently limited to some gemara and halacha lectures (hoping to change that soon). i like more eastern religious stuff as well- i read a lot of the upanishads and a bunch of suttas a while back and got a lot out of them, as well as a big stack of bhante G books.
some composers i like include debussy, chopin, bartok, bach. some music i like that was released lately is mewithoutyou, mount kimbie, blood orange (and all other stage names), against all logic (and all his other names), and massive attack.
i like to be positive and see the bright side of everything possible. at the absolute worst, it was a learning experience! it's just a better way to be.
i like yoga and dance. i am not great at dancing. both are very fun and i like improving. i also lift weights and hike sometimes.
i like cooking and growing hydroponic herbs and vegetables in my tiny apartment. i also like fermenting things in my tiny apartment, to all roommates' chagrin.
i used to be pretty decent at piano and cello but am not anymore. trying to stop moving apartments long enough to pick it back up. i still really love classical music and want to learn irish trad and bluegrass.
i work in crypto. yes, it IS 95% scams, yes, my soul DOES hurt, yes, these people DO suck and i'm worried I'm becoming like them. the technology is cool and i'm reasonably good at architecting it... enough said.
i think humans are generally pretty good. that's why i try to make my money by building people honest products that increase their autonomy and improve their life. currently the relevant layer of the stack I work on is usable encryption technology and better peer-to-peer networking.
i do not like EAs or rationalists and my opinions here broadly align with this essay, which i am extremely thankful to be able to link to, so grateful that someone shares my feelings about them and wrote them up more concisely and correctly than I ever could dream to.
i mostly do not like people with strong political opinions unrelated to their family or friends' life and limb, as someone who has sworn off strong political opinions like that. check out the true believer by eric hoffer.
i do not like people who can't be silly and i do not like people who can't be serious. if you try to manipulate me into buying things i don't need, you are my enemy. i like people who are genuinely kind and good and noble and hope being around them will make me the same way.
one day i would like to get a phd and found a hardtech company. i really do like being a founder and building things people like.
github is here!