I started to put my writing on this website early in my PhD. I've found it very useful, and it serves a few purposes: it's a repository of research ideas and intuitions not quite baked enough for a paper; it's a way of sharing thoughts and updates about other parts of my life; it's a place to put fun writing; it's a reason to write at all, and writing teaches one how to think clearly.
Recommended or favorite blogposts are marked with a ⭐. You can also explore my blog visually through a t-SNE embedding.
I recently enabled comments on all posts, so go nuts. I'd love to hear what you think.
- Feb 2026 Goo Music
- Jan 2026 📊 Predicting kernel spectra powerlaw exponents from raw data statistics Kernels and linear regression
- Jan 2026 🖼️ Why I am not an experimentalist; or, making faces with photolithography Physics
- Jan 2026 🦢 The Ballad of the Crane Breeder Music
- Jan 2026 🎶 Reharmonizing Ode to Joy Music
- Jan 2026 👰🏼♀️ The Wedding March (Muppets version) Music
- Nov 2025 🎨 On novelty Poetry
- Jul 2025 ⚗️ On the scientific method and its application to the science of deep learning Essays
- Apr 2025 ⬅️ Backsolving classical generalization bounds from the modern kernel regression eigenframework Kernels and linear regression
- Apr 2025 🔀 One kernel, many eigensystems Kernels and linear regression
- Apr 2025 🧮 A complete characterization of the expressivity of shallow, bias-free ReLU networks Science of deep learning
- Mar 2025 🔔 The eigensystem of the Gaussian kernel w.r.t. a Gaussian measure Kernels and linear regression
- Nov 2024 👌 The optimal low-rank solution for multivariate linear regression Kernels and linear regression
- Oct 2024 👺 Infinite-width autoencoders are cursed Science of deep learning
- Oct 2024 📉 It's hard to turn a low-rank matrix into a high-rank matrix Mathematics
- Aug 2024 🤖 Insights into GPT-2's positional encodings Science of deep learning
- Jul 2024 🌀 Understanding fractals from iterated maps Mathematics
- Jul 2024 🥚 The time I caught an egg in my mouth Other tomfoolery
- Jul 2024 🧩 Experiments in self-assembly Physics
- Jun 2024 🌲 Gravitrees 2: electric boogaloo Art
- Jun 2024 🔬 Household microscopy Biology and chemistry
- Jun 2024 🏔️ The sixth lake Adventures
- Jun 2024 ∇ Using the Laplacian to take a local average of a function Mathematics
- Jun 2024 📊 An eigenframework for the generalization of 1NN on the torus Science of deep learning
- Jun 2024 📐 Let's solve more learning rules Science of deep learning
- Jun 2024 💊 Ibuprofen vs. aspirin vs naproxen vs acetaminophen Biology and chemistry
- Apr 2024 🌾 Number theory, fractals, and crystallography in rows of crops Mathematics
- Apr 2024 📖 Favorite quotes from Letters to a Young Poet Books
- Apr 2024 🌝 How many babies were born during the 2024 eclipse? Mathematics
- Apr 2024 🗺️ Reflections upon visiting all 50 states Adventures
- Mar 2024 💬 Why I talk to strangers Poetry
- Mar 2024 🔏 Creating and erasing AI watermarks Science of deep learning
- Mar 2024 🧠 Reflections on introductory neuroscience reading Essays
- Oct 2022 🧪 Can a chemical reaction measure the size of its container? Biology and chemistry
- Sep 2022 ⚔️ Simulating cells fighting to the death Biology and chemistry
- Sep 2022 ⏪ Modeling time-reversed random walks Physics
- Aug 2022 🔄 Reverse engineering the NTK Kernels and linear regression
- Jan 2022 🎤 Einstein vs. Bohr rap battle Music
- Jan 2022 🎤 Newton vs. Leibniz rap battle Music
- Oct 2021 🔨 A theory of generalization for wide neural nets Kernels and linear regression
- Oct 2021 🌳 The gravitree Art
- Nov 2020 🚀 Could you propel a spacecraft using sports projectiles? Hypotheticals
- Sep 2020 ⚡ The principle of least power dissipation Physics
- Aug 2020 ✖️ Multiplicative neural networks Science of deep learning
- Aug 2020 🕯️ How would an upside-down candle burn? Hypotheticals
- Jul 2020 📮 Messing with the postal service Other tomfoolery
- Jul 2020 🤝 Common ground Society
- Jun 2020 🐟 What would happen if you made a planet out of fish? Hypotheticals
- Jun 2020 🐔 How hard do you have to hit a chicken to cook it? Hypotheticals
- May 2020 🦠 The expected cost of breaking quarantine Biology and chemistry