Get obsessed with simple things.

The weirdest looking keyboard you've ever seen?

Dec 3, 2020

We all get told to “follow our passion.” But I think that’s false. Instead I like to think it must be built. Built up from scratch. Let me explain.

There are some things I’ve done this month that I’m proud of. Things that are important but that are not urgent. That don’t have a deadline, and that I’m not forced to do. But that I did anyways.

This month I got obsessed with simple things. Like my text editor. And my keyboard. And a from scratch fluid simulation.

Well OK that third thing might not be simple, but I was obsessed with it anyways.

I believe this is how you grow a passion. By spending time on yourself and putting your focus on things that are important instead of things that are urgent.

Does it look like a fluid? Nah it looks like air particles

Well that’s because I haven’t fine tuned the parameters of the simulation yet!

Here’s the three ways I could’ve make a fluid simulation:

Use a dedicated software that takes care of everything
Use a (game) engine that takes care of the rendering
Make it from SCRATCH

I used #3

The TLDR is that:

I setup a connection with my GPU
I sent over the initial position data of each particle
I calculate the position for each particle at the next time-step
I sent that over to the GPU
Rinse and repeat

Overall there are still some improvements like extending it to 3D, adding a ray tracer, and implementing some more accurate physics, but overall I’m proud of it.

I’m releasing a fluid simulation video later this month, and I thought implementing one from scratch first was important for the video to be legit. Not doing so would be like telling everybody about reading books even if you don’t read yourself.

The coolest analogy for the multiverse of mathematics

It’s like the Rosetta stone, but for everything!

In category theory, an object is similar to,
a system in physics,
a manifold in topology,
a proposition in logic,
a data type in CS

In category theory, a morphism is similar to,
a process in physics,
a cobordism in topology,
a proof in logic,
a program in CS

If you’re familiar with a pair of these fields.. try to think if this analogy is accurate! Category theory is so nice. This paper is truly been mind blowing. All these fields that I thought were separate can be thought of together.

Even without any background in the subject, the introduction is still very approachable. I recommended it for those interested in philosophy.

Who’s Houdini? Better Blender - GALLERY

This subtitle might not makes much sense, but now that I have your attention, look at these interesting animations I made.

Some abstract modern art and fluids with Houdini

My goal is to eventually work and do research on this stuff so why not get started early.

And now for the keyboard you’ve been waiting for…

I got obsessed with my my keyboard and text editor (Vim). Some might say that I made a mistake and Kinesis simply did a really good job marketing (which they did...), but I like to think that

I can now have sick conversations about Vim
I can now have sick conversations about keyboards

And while I agree as an outsider these two points might not seem valuable, the whole idea is that I’ve grown a passion for these things. And this is the key:

The same principle can be applied to grow passions elsewhere

And to wrap things up

Important news: I’m living in Waterloo! Officially moved out.

If you react enthusiastically with any of the following words, send me an email and let’s setup a chat about it because I’m going to be diving into them.

Julia programming
Intro to computational thinking MIT

Thanks for checking in! I’m Davide, a 19-year-old self-learner who runs The Feynman Mafia, exploring how learning by explaining can be used to teach yourself any topic.

To learn more about me, check out my website, and follow me on YouTube or Twitter.

That’s it. See you next month.

Davide Radaelli Updates