Hacker-ly Blog

2026

The Waterfall of Slop

3 minute read

Published:

Progress on both Kitpicks and my academic research work has slowed a bit in the past few months, in part due to (happy) distractions in my personal life. But also, both projects are in this kind of bogged-down phase of being probably not-quite-ready for publication. I don’t have much control over that call on the research front, but at least with Kitpicks, the decision to release the app is fully in my court. And I think it’s in a place where there are no glaring bugs, although there are some pretty key missing features, and quality for both UI design and for the recommendations is much lower than I’d like.

2025

Design by Vibe Coding

1 minute read

Published:

I’ve managed to make a modicum of progress on Kitpicks. I’ve been doing some UI work, trying to get something that feels like a good app before I implement the algorithms and data layers. It’s really about shaking out my assumptions and making sure there aren’t hidden requirements.

Kitpicks Begins!

3 minute read

Published:

After 5 1/2 years of working at Google, I decided to take a buyout to pursue full-time graduate school.