Hello, I’m Justin Thein.
I was born in the early 21st century by the Gregorian Calendar. It was a time of unprecedented human access to information; a time of daring, of dizzying progress, of change.
My hopes and dreams parallel that of many other humans around me, some of whom I am lucky enough to call my friends.
My friends allege that I have a joyous personality; that I am animated and caring. I love cooking for them. Like many other humans, I correspond with familiar persons with repetitive mutually-known symbolic strings; it never fails to fill me with joy.
I believe in a physical and logical universe, and that my personal perception of the universe (as well as yours) arises from the mechanistic and consequentialist tug and pull of actions and objects. Some may find this lacking; I personally find it beautiful.
Beauty
In beauty there is truth, and in truth there is beauty.
I love what is true, i.e. what is logically consistent with itself and with the universe that it exists in.
I love discovering truth; I love learning new things. I am an information seeker!
Interests
This is obviously a non-exhaustive list, but I will try to capture some subjects that animate my noggin in particular:
Programming
I partake.
I am fascinated by Programming Language Theory.
Learning the Rust programming language was a particularly joyful experience when I was a programming beginner. Alas, it makes other languages less appealing. Oh well.
History
The grand arc of history is the story of capability and incentive.
Over time, thanks to the use of highly efficient computers, we have managed to accumulate forms of shared cultural knowledge, and we have institutionalized it into ever more capable forms as we align this knowledge with the logical structure of the world around us.
Unsurprisingly, many chapters of history that I am most fascinated by have to do with particularly productive periods of knowledge accumulation: the early industrial revolution in England, or the invention of paper money in Song China.
Cartography
I can freehand draw maps. A party trick that I deploy from time to time is drawing a political map depicting Europe in the Napoleonic era circa ~1810.
Poetry
Many of my other interests have to do with rich symbolic manipulation, so naturally a personal interest in poetry follows.
One poem that I enjoy is hist whist by E.E. Cummings.
Tempestology
As an eight year old, I memorized naming lists used for hurricanes in the North Atlantic. Yes, I am well aware that most would not spend their little years learning about 2008’s Tropical Storm Cristobal.
What fascinates me in particular about tropical cyclones is their dynamism; they simultaneously demonstrate chaos and order. They are a perfect example of simple, logical rules creating ridiculously complex emergent phenomena.
Fractals
Julia set
Julia set for
