About
(160 Words, 1 Minutes)
Hi! I’m Boris Bi. I’m a software engineer and a reformed engineering manager. I like making things with {code, clay, edible materials} and understanding how things work.
I’m currently thinking about:
- how to use storytelling and interactive visualizations to explain technical subjects (I’m inspired by Nicky Case and Chris Olah)
- optimal public transit maps
- how technology can be used in animal welfare
- the history of money and work
- perverse incentives and how people actually make ethical decisions
- (broadly) improving my understanding of distributed systems
I have hot takes about:
- low/no-code systems
- the way tech companies structure their teams and projects
- what is the best dark chocolate
Things I like:
- Flume (at Google, MapReduce outside Google). I think is one of the most beautiful things ever invented.
- Comic Mono font
- I enjoy lateral thinking puzzles and creating competitive programming problems. If you enjoy them too, here is one I’m workshopping:
You have a microwave that has button 0-9 in the same shape as a phone keypad. The microwave accepts inputs in both minute:seconds and seconds. For example, 2:30, 1:90, 150, will all microwave your food for two minutes and thirty seconds.
You are very tired from working and only have energy E. so moving your finger from button to button has a energy cost C_M. Pressing a button has an energy cost C_B. Note that pressing “:” does not count as a button press.
Food is also pretty flexbile, so it can accept a little more or less microwaving and still be edible. For example, if you need to microwave it for 60 seconds, maybe 66 is okay. The acceptable delta is given as D.
Given a list of n inputs, where each input is how long you need to microwave your food, C_M, C_B, E, and D, output if it’s possible to microwave your food to an edible state. The food could be very frozen, so the possible microwave time could range from 0 to 2**32 - 1.