well, one day i will write about my love for lasercutters but for now

pi day party

held a party which surprised me in many ways, including the pie. this is possibly the most photogenic thing i’ve ever made ??? normally i make janky s*t since i usually don’t enjoy the process, just the result, so it is satisfying to have this result i’m unreservedly proud of

(slowly unlearning and learning that cooking and baking from scratch can be fun instead of stressful time eater)

recipe

I used this recipe https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/41719/apple-berry-pie/

but substitute berries with frozen berries: i microwaved for a minute or two, drained 80% of the excess juice.

(also left out the butter. also used store bought crust. very impressed by my roommate who made crust from scratch)

Basically it’s mixing sugar, starch, and some cinnamon in a bowl, then slicing apples and putting in some berries, stirring it, letting it sit for 20 minutes, and that’s some it for delicious pie filling (some baking required).

After that it’s just pour into a pie tin with crust and then put another crust on top. That’s where you can have fun! See 3d printed cookie cutters below

 

3d printed the cookie cutters

Source files

• https://makerworld.com/en/models/787165-alphabet-cookie-cutters#profileId-725035 -> Letters
• https://makerworld.com/en/models/79399-number-cookie-cutter#profileId-83881 -> Numbers
• https://makerworld.com/en/models/465683-pi-cookie-cutter#profileId-392279 -> pi the file has pi flipped so have to be careful to flip the crust again after cutting out

I scaled X-Y and not Z.

Rinsed and then used to cut into crust.

top

the satisfying thing about dough is you can just fix your mistakes by smushing the dough back together heh

bake

So tasty. Oh yea I made another one recently.

second π

This is second pie, I put butter in but it’s not noticeable in the taste tbh.

Crust

After baking

blergh part of blog

this blog is unapologetically my messy life and not a Ycombinator resume blog, sorry if you are looking for interesting technical details

[THOUGH. good reminder I should blog about stuff from work, like powershell aliases, excel macros, regex differences between languages, vs code’s interpreter vs jupyter, streamlit/stlite/pyodide, working with uv, python packaging, writing code architecture instead of scripts, working with copilot, etc.]

a general feeling of: focusing on what makes me happy for accomplishing rather than what others think. realizing that it is fleeting (even people in my daily life will fade in and out, let alone cred on the internet), but also that career success is not a zero-sum game. my only path to success is does not rest on going viral or citations or even solving world hunger. success is simply following my values while still having enough to achieve my goals and support those around me and finding the inner peace in that. a stillness in no longer thrashing around wanting to have what other people have

i mean i can say this now that i have had a steady income for half a year for basically the first time in my life now so no shade on past me lol very valid to want what other people had at the time

of course still recognizing all the fortune that led me to live where i do and be born where i was to the family i was in; as some youtube person once said, no matter how smart, resourceful, talented, and skilled someone is, if they are born in say rural Botswana, they will never become a billionaire.

we are made and unmade on the shoulders of not just giants but all the people around us

*gets off soapbox, creakily, since i’ve probably told the same story twice to everyone i know*

oh technically non technical topics, buying my own textbooks with my sweet sweet disposable income (which is another blergh in itself, wild to go between hanging out with student income / grad student equivalent income after subtracting out people you’re supporting, and the other half of my mit network lol. but remember! embrace being rich and all the advantages life has given me. “be who you are because everyone else is already taken” –i forget author. i’ve lived the, my life is a tool for greater cause, strategy and it ate me alive. time to shift strategies), decorating my cubicle / planning to with this delicious neon led rope stuff, mapping robots, and fancy electronic bikes

OH RIGHT FANCY EBIKES and how they break that’s a long story lol