☃️ Signs of Snow (#11)

It finally snowed! Like, for real.

That’s sort of a minor detail in an otherwise extraordinarily busy month. But it was super exciting for me – I was promised snowmen and snow angels and snowball fights and then New England winter was like “oh it’ll definitely be really cold, but here, have some rain.”

So it was very fun to experience “real” winter the last couple days. Yale is a magical place with snow covering the towers and trees.

Besides the frost, February has been filled with a few other fun experiences. I hosted a post-Superbowl suite party, crashed the first-year formal (AKA 8th grade dance), and woke up at the crack of dawn to hike up a nearby mountain.

This month I also traveled to Stanford for the international hackathon Treehacks. From hearing from Andrej Karpathy, to meeting some (super cool) mutuals, to yoga and lightsaber dueling, it was an amazing experience.

I was particularly grateful for the opportunity to meet @leerob at the Vercel workshop – he’s one of the people who originally inspired me to get into programming.

Something I’ve been thinking about recently – how should someone make decisions that could change their life? What kinds of frameworks should they use? Is it possible to even apply regret minimization when they can’t know the entire worlds of opportunity that will appear or evaporate based on what they choose?

I’d have thought making hard choices (in theory, of course) would become easier after the college decisions process, but if anything it has made me more thoughtful. My experience at Yale thus far has been extraordinary, and yet that only emphasizes the impact of my prior decisions.

My current conclusion: sometimes you just need to flip a coin. Then choose the third side.

🚀 Updates

At Treehacks this month with @calixo888 I built Dewey, an AI PDF reader to make it easier to read textbooks.
The Yale pre-orientation program I’m helping start, LAUNCH, is finally getting off the ground over the last month. We’ve begun determining the schedule, recruiting student leaders, and confirming speakers.
I’m putting together a retreat for the Yale Entrepreneurial Society’s incubator following spring break.

💭 Thoughts

(3 things I've been thinking about this month)

Tress's "Shower Thoughts”: I talk about shower thoughts, the novel “Tress of the Emerald Sea”, and how we can use our time more wisely.
A Week in Silicon Valley: I recap insights from my January trip to the Bay Area for an entrepreneurial fellowship.
Social Media Will Bet Big on “Friendly”: Social apps are growing more specific. I discuss how the trend of "friendlier" social media may be the next big thing.

👍 Recs

(2 articles, 2 novels, 2 videos, 2 tv/movies)

🗞 How chatbots can change journalism. or not.
🗞 Our society is unprepared for this much awesome
📗 “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang
📘 “Klara and the Sun” by Kazuo Ishiguro
📺 Artificial Intelligence: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
📺 How airports make money
🎬 ”Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” by Joel Crawford
🎬 “Little Miss Sunshine” by Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris

Thanks for reading :)

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