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People tend to avoid admitting to their own faults. But Billie Eilish got a whole crowd to confess in unison, chanting that  "maybe I am the problem." Definitely refreshing in a finger-pointing and blame-shifting society.

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Maybe I am the problem


I met God the other day! All He said were “hello test batch #3,141,592,653,589,793,238,462,643,383,279,502,884.”

A strange encounter


Perhaps the most grave awakening in modernity is that to the universe’s mortality. Like humans and all life, it shall also succumb to a dark death, in a long time but a finite time. The 19th and 20th centuries saw an explosion of theories that painted the universe as a trillion year symphony, and we finally understood our place in it. But ultimately, a trillion years is still shorter than pre-modernity’s Edenic sense of indefiniteness. A Second Coming with no preset date and an unending afterlife in Heaven. Oh how the ignorant were blissful. Modernity has given humanity the courage to lift its head towards the future, but by looking up we saw the existential dread of an approaching void. Curiosity has killed the cat. We invented the microscope but in turn uncovered the universe’s terminal cancer diagnosis that is the second law of thermodynamics. God is dead.

Terminal diagnosis of entropy


There is not enough knowledge hierarchy in academia! Every person can only read \\(n\\) papers, and unless we undergo significant genetic modifications, that number will stay a constant. Yet as more and more research papers are published each year, the collective academic consciousness will grow to be more scattered. A scholar in one hemisphere may remain totally unaware of recent breakthroughs by scholars in another. Researchers may unknowingly duplicate or contradict each other's work. Literature reviews help, but frankly academic is growing so rapidly that it is now only a bandage. Today and tomorrow, we need a knowledge hierarchy. I'm calling for "layered" literature reviews that build atop each other. We need annual digests for every reputable scholar. Journals need comprehensive quarterly synopsis. This century marks the awakening and wiring up of a *collective academia brain*. The first agenda item should be organization and ontology.

Academia's hierarchy crisis

Reflections on how luck has played a role in my life.


I've always been a curious follower of [Veritasium](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHnyfMqiRRG1u-2MsSQLbXA)'s adventures. I like them because they explore cutting-edge science as well as the nature of life and society. [One video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I) of the latter which left an impression on me was about the role of luck in our lives.

[Derek](https://www.veritasium.com/about)'s concluding advice: dream, pursue, work with the belief that you are the author of your success, but always reflect in hindset with an appreciation for the luck that propelled you along the way.

I strongly believe by acknowledging the role of luck in all of our paths, we can create a more empathic society. We can celebrate each other's achievements while deeply understanding the unpredictability of chance. Society can offer a warm embrace that listens to stories of both win and loss, of both fortune and misfortune.

I wanted to give an appreciation to all the luck that I've somehow stumbled into in my life.

1. My parents are hard working, especially my mom who was the first in our Chinese family to attend college and immigrate to America.
2. When I immigrated to America, I could only print "hello world." My first teacher in second grade devoted a lot of her time to tutor me in this new language and put me on my feet.
3. In that year, I created lots of miniature books filled with messy drawings, half-formed English, and funny titles. They were dumb, but my teacher gave them love and praise, which strenghthened my confidence in that year of transition.
4. In third grade, while my English skills were still budding, my teacher gave me _Old Yeller_, by Fred Gipson. Her confidence in my abilities empowered me to reach outside my comfort zones and sparked my love for learning. I consumed that book passionately.
5. By the sheer luck of the Connecticut magnet school blind lottery, I got a ticket to attend the Academy of Aerospace Engineering high school.
6. My geometry teacher shared his love for proof-based maths. The class was rigorous and difficult. But my brain became hardwired to love the euphoria of devising logical geometry proofs following Euclid's propositions. Since then, I've loved deconstructing complex, murky problems with logic and fundamentals.
7. My European history teacher treated every. single. one. of our academic questions with a passion that filled the room. No stupid questions — that was her motto. My inquisitive nature was born there. She taught me to be curious, sceptical, and reflective.
8. Our school had a connection with local aerospace companies in Connecticut. I had the opportunity to work in quality engineering, handling and inspecting real aircraft components just after my senior year. I learned the responsibilities of employment, the exactness of engineering, and how to talk to my boss.
9. In the first week of college, I sent an email pitching a course planning app idea to a computer science professor, expecting no response. Instead, he returned with encouragement, guidance, and good criticism. He's been a mentor since.
10. And all the countless moments in-between which guided my path.


🎲 The dice of life

At the scale of the universe, the law of large numbers becomes deadly. The human race needs to develop a new framework of interstellar geopolitical thought.


Photo by [NASA](https://unsplash.com/@nasa?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/cosmic-warfare?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText).

The law of large numbers tells of a scary future about cosmic sociology. The universe is incomprehensibly vast. With certain inputs, the [Drake Equation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation) tells us that there should exist boundless numbers of extraterrestrial civilizations beyond our Solar System. This number can grow so large as to make nearly all probabilistic events occur with certainty.

What's scary about this? Almost all of our actions that propagate beyond our Solar System carries inherent existential risk. Sending the Golden Record on the Voyager probes, for instance, involved risk, albeit miniscule. Failing to regulate radio waves that get lost into deep space is also a risk, far more substantial. That we don't have any laws or deterrence systems against anyone from sending signals revealing Earth's location, is an enormous risk.

While we've been familiar with understanding risk levels as probabilistic events, we're not prepared to consider them as deterministic events. Suppose we evaluate the risk that any extraterrestrial civilization which detects our rogue radio waves will then exhibit evil warmongering intentions as `0.001%`. This number may seem small, but with the law of large numbers combined with the sheer magnitude of numbers from the Drake Equation, we can effectively assume this is `100%`. While any one civilization is unlikely to respond in a threatening manner, that the billions of civilizations out there will all remain neutral is a near-zero possibility.

Therefore, for Earth to survive this new interstellar era, we must treat all risk as certainties and gamble nothing.


A great danger of cosmic sociology

My personal toolbelt of apps designed well for humans.


As someone with a UI/UX design background, I'm often pretty critical when trying out new apps. I'm a pretty picky user and hence it takes some time for me to settle on an app that fits. This list curates apps that I thought were well-scoped and well-designed.

### [Typora](https://typora.io) — a truly minimal markdown editor.

![Typora](../assets/post-images/appbelt/typora.png)

### [Tab Space](https://mytab.space) — a cache for your internet browsing.

![Tab Space](../assets/post-images/appbelt/tab-space.png)

### [Notion](https://notion.so) — your second brain.

![Notion](../assets/post-images/appbelt/notion.png)

### [Pocket](https://getpocket.com) — a unified read later list.

![Pocket](../assets/post-images/appbelt/pocket.png)

### [Flow](https://moleskinestudio.com/flow/) — a natural notebook.

![Flow](../assets/post-images/appbelt/flow.webp)

### [Roadtrippers](https://roadtrippers.com) — an Atlas for America.

![Roadtrippers](../assets/post-images/appbelt/roadtrippers.png)

### [Archimedes](http://www.archimedescalculator.com) — should be the default iOS calculator.

![Archimedes](../assets/post-images/appbelt/archimedes.png)

### [Tot](https://tot.rocks) — a whole new clipboard.

![Tot](../assets/post-images/appbelt/tot.png)

### [Paletro](https://appmakes.io/paletro) — ⌘P anywhere.

![Paletro](../assets/post-images/appbelt/paletro.png)

### [Photomyne](https://appmakes.io/photomyne) — digitize the past.

![Photomyne](../assets/post-images/appbelt/photomyne.png)


📱 Appbelt

My all-time movie picks. Grab some popcorn!


Here's my all-time movie picks.

_Interstellar_, 2014

_The Matrix_, 1999

_Ex Machina_, 2014

_Parasite_, 2019

_Inception_, 2010

_Whiplash_, 2014

_The Social Network_, 2010

_Dunkirk_, 2017

_The Greatest Showman_, 2017

_The Man Who Knew Infinity_, 2016

_The Big Short_, 2015

_The Founder_, 2016

_Rogue One_, 2016

_V for Vendetta_, 2006

_Snowpiercer_, 2013

_The Imitation Game_, 2014

_Forrest Gump_, 1994

_Titanic_, 1997

_The Shawshank Redemption_, 1994

_Steve Jobs_, 2015


🍿 Cinema list

Some books I consumed during COVID that I'd recommend.


Here's some books I consumed during COVID that I'd recommend.

_Recursion_ by Blake Crouch

_Three-body Problem_, _The Dark Forest_, and _Death's End_ by Cixin Liu

_The Redemption of Time_ by Baoshu

_Where the Crawdads Sing_ by Delia Owens

_Cloud Atlas_ by David Mitchell

_Flatland_ by Edwin Abbott

_Self_ by Yann Martel

_1984_ by George Orwell

_Brave New World_ by Aldous Huxley

_Animal Farm_ by George Orwell

_Damocles_ by S.G. Redling


📚 Books of quarantine

There's two B-to-B ratios homo sapiens should be proud of. We've always celebrated the first: our large brain-to-body radio. But it's about time we also honor the second, our remarkably large butt-to-body ratio.


Human buttocks are at the foundation of our advanced civilization. How? They give us the ability to _sit_. And not just any sitting, but prolonged sitting while retaining free command of our arms. We take this for granted, yet such is quite rare in the animal kingdom.

Most four-legged animals rest by collapsing all four legs, thus rendering them effectively immobile. Without arms, they won't be typing on a keyboard in their leisure time.

![Bison taking a rest on a grassy field.](../assets/post-images/human-butts/bison.jpg)

Some two-legged animals, most notably other primates, do contend with us on this front. However, the human gluteus maximus is the largest of all primates. As such, other species tend to squat more than sit.

Sitting is keystone to humanity's emergence as an advanced species. Sitting creates time for socialization and productive activities. Whether it's crafting an obsidian axe or implementing the latest and greatest progress web app, both tasks share one trait: they require us to be still for a sustained period of time.

There are many crucial checkpoints in our evolution. Cooking our food increased energy efficiency which gave us more leisure time, and bigger brains enabled us use that leisure time intelligently. However, it's our glorious glutes that allowed us to draw the blueprints for the 1903 Wright Flyer from a comfortable position.

"But why couldn't we have just adopted standing desks?" cries out a newly-converted standing-desk-workshipping-entrepreneur. It's the reason why most IDEA standing desks are adjustable: we can stand for far less than we can sit for.

Actually, most of us can walk for longer than we can stand still for. Continuously standing still is a very unnatural activity for our bodies. This is because we're never absolutely motionless. Our lanky bodies are an unstable system that can topple over to the ground if it weren't for the constant minute adjustments made by our lower-leg muscles. These constant but small adjustments gradually tire out those muscles.

![Graph showing frequent muscle adjustments needed to keep us standing.](../assets/post-images/human-butts/graphs.jpeg)

<p class="image-caption">What goes on under the hood when as stand still: periodic and subtle muscle exercions! Data from this <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1664994/">paper</a> from <em>The Journal of Physiology</em>.</p>

Walking around, on the other hand, uses our far stronger quadriceps and glutes to help maintain balance. Our dual-leg system are in a constant cycle of load-shifting when walking which allows our muscles to rest. Moreover, constant motion generates pressure on the veins to increase blood flow.

Now we all have another reason to appreciate our hindquarters, and another reason to read articles like [this](https://www.glamour.com/story/this-is-what-sitting-all-day-does-to-your-butt).

P.S. The cover image for this post is courteous of [Mel](http://melissanigro.com).


Our butts are essential to the development of modern civilization

Recent advances in longevity research can help the environmentalist cause by fixing a broken incentive system that has long stagnated action.


Science has [turned back the dials of age](https://www.gwern.net/docs/longevity/2019-fahy.pdf), and longevity research has been a growing field. Environmental advocates should celebrate. Why? Humanity's lethargic attitudes toward climate change comes in large part from an incentive misalignment. We can't readily feel the negative impact of bad environmental policies right away. Even in our lifetimes, these impacts may not manifest fully. The majority of the damage will come after we are long gone, and we so kick the can of problems down the road.

But if we begin to live far longer than the modern 120 year expectation with the advent of revolutionary advances in longevity, we will face more of the environmental consequences of our actions today. What we do today _will_ actually matter because we'll be there to live out its effects. Hence, boosting longevity is a means to fix the broken incentive system that has stagnanted environmental activism since. Humans need to be held accountable for their actions.


Longevity and environmental action

I hate it when I can't recall something that's so relevant to the moment. Here's a system I'm building to improve peripheral memories.


If you're like most digitally connected humans of the 20s (2020s, to be clear), endless streams of information rushes through your awareness each day. Push notifications, email subscriptions, endless-scrolling social media, and news feeds ping you at every minute of the day, creating a Chicago rush hour of information trying to squeeze into the peripheries of your consciousness.

We consume so much, yet retain so little. I actually do learn interesting facts during YouTube binges; I do find thought-provoking opinion pieces amidst mountains of journalism; I do pick up noteworthy shenanigans from social media feeds. But these infrequent gems of knowledge get drowned out amongst the all-too-noisy backdrop of today's Information Age.

As I droned on for the past few years consuming and then losing gigabits of information, I started to wonder why I should even bother to read something if I'm going to forget about it. I reflected a lot on how I absorb information and how it departs without a proper goodbye.

From here, I started a project whose goal is to create a robust system to collect and endure new information that I absorb and then recall them with a rythm based on that information's relevancy to my daily flow.

I partioned my brain into two distinct levels. The "core" level holds information that get recalled and augmented through my day, my L0 cache, if you will. For instance, I reference my knowledge in software engineering and UI/UX design for work on a daily basis and I also keep important updates about my family and closest friends through everyday conversations. I'm not worried about losing this kind of information because their frequent usage ensures their endurance. When I accumulate more bits for these areas, those bits funnel directly to this persistent store.

What I do worry for is the "peripheral" level. Information stored here don't get used on any predictable or frequent basis. On occasion, they may be recalled in big bursts. Take, for instance, my memory of Unity's keyboard shortcuts when I'm creating a VR project. I'll have these shortcuts in hot memory access for a couple of months, but they quickly grow cold after the project's completion. In other cases, information is recalled with a predictable basis but at a very low frequency. A poignant example is the password to my FASFA account which I use once a year (hence I've adopted password managers).

Some examples of core level information:

- Full-stack software engineering principles
- UI/UX design patterns
- My most committed clubs at college
- Everything rock climbing
- Shooting photos
- Events surrounding my family and close friends
- Basic life errands, like what to shop for groceries

Some examples of peripheral level information:

- An emerging furniture design trend that I love
- Latest iPhone leaks
- A new word I learned: protean
- What happened during my last car servicing
- A really profound shower epiphany
- Insights from a neat conversation with a colleague

One key characterstic about the peripheral level is that knowledge can slowly gravitate toward the core level if repitition or predictability increases. Peripheral knowledge also tend to coalesce into larger blobs as they enter the core level. As a college student, I'm strongly considering entering the tech industry. Thus, my knowledge base about that field lies at my core level. However, through countless career fairs, infosessions, news articles about X, Y, and Z companies, I accumulate scattered bits of information that unite together to evolve my perception for the tech industry. These small bits of information first started at the peripheral level, but merge together with other semantically-adjacent bits and eventually all converge toward my core level.

Now, the inverse is also true, wherein knowledge at the core level can fall into the outer rims of periphery. However, core knowledge tend to be far more stable. The overarching knowledge categories at the core level core are more centralized and comprehensive, whereas the categories at the peripheral level are very distributed and can have a variety of sizes. For instance, a broad category at the core level can be "work-life balance in the tech industry," whereas at the periphery level, a category can be merely "recent remote work policies by Facebook."

The Öpik-Oort Cloud is a theoretical sphere of matter enclosing our solar system. It's inner and outer boundaries are estimated to span 2,000 to 200,000 astronmical units (Sun — Earth distances), and its outer boundary is considered the edge of our solar system. The spherical cloud is kept in equilibrium by the forces of Sun's gravitational pull and gargantuan galatic tides from nearby stars and the Milky Way. It's hypothized that certain types of comets, including Halley's Comet, originate from the Oort Cloud, formed via disruptions of equilibrium by giant outer planets.

// connect the metaphor

// talk about implementation (Notion API, repetition algorithms)


Personal Oort Cloud


I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this [conjecture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collatz_conjecture) for which this HTML website is too small to contain. /s


Ziray
Hao

Home

Thoughts

Projects

Travels

Thoughts

Maybe I am the problem

A strange encounter

Terminal diagnosis of entropy

Academia's hierarchy crisis

🎲 The dice of life

A great danger of cosmic sociology

📱 Appbelt

🍿 Cinema list

📚 Books of quarantine

Our butts are essential to the development of modern civilization

Longevity and environmental action

Personal Oort Cloud

Proof of the Collatz conjecture

ZirayHao

Thoughts

Ziray
Hao