retool have a big poker and mahjong community and today it's poker tournament night. it was as real as it can get. $20 buy in with professional dealers dealing ~20 players across 2 tables. blinds doubles every 15 minutes till the last hand. i was no poker or statistic expert but I joined in to figure out how the game was played. it was at a point where i vaguely remember which hand is bigger.

on my first hand, I got an A, K suited cards. I didn't know this was a really good starting pair and threw it in early (found out about it later). the game goes very aggresive quickly with multiple all ins during the games. R got really lucky with multiple AK hands. L got really lucky when she got all 4 Queens in the river! I busted out when I went all in in 1 hand but lost to an ace hight. in restospect it wasn't a great move haha! when i bought in again, i got more cautious and only playing on hands with at least a pair. in the final round, i got AK again and decided to bet on it, but unfortunately lost.

it's fun overally though - figuring out whether to make that bet depends on luck, thinking if another person is bluffing or not, thinking how good your hands are. $40 dollars down but had tons of fun!

August 29th, 2025

i really liked this website - https://startups.gallery. simple yet aesthetic

August 27th, 2025

i want to do this -> do it

i want to do this -> i'm scared -> hi scared just do it

August 25th, 2025

went out and eat harajuku sushi today with J from the startup that I worked with in the past. the environment is cozy, warm and quiet. they were only a few people in restaurant so it's a nice play to eat. the owner was very nice and we ate a bunch of different sushi (might be 1 of each if i remember correctly). in ayce, i don't normally get full very quickly but it's different when it comes to raw food like sashimis. i tapped out after the 3rd round and J did as well

on the way back, J and I talked about exhaustion when working on a startup. sometimes he feels guilty about not working on the startup or iterating on it to make it better. but also it makes him tired very easily - so is it a passion problem, an age problem or .... I see this as everyone have their own pace and told him he don't need to rush it, going for the marathon is better than a short sprint.

p.s J is someone I admired and learned from a lot from

August 25th, 2025

during the spring in Japan, there's 4 tree that blooms: Cherry, Plum, Peach, and Apricot. but they bloom at their own time and not together. the Japanese philosophy of Oubaitori is a manifestation of this natural way: humans grow at their own pace. their growth and journey are unique and can't be replicated. comparison is therefore a waste of energy. comparison is the thief of joy

i think sometimes i fall to this - thinking why i had not acheive this when other had? why can they....but i can't? it's difficult but i will try to be more concious of it now and keep everything as just trying my best.

August 24th, 2025

random thought of the day: isn't it cool if you could relive a dream or experience a dream a.k.a lucid dreaming. often time than not, people dream about the things/events that they miss or really want, so if there's a way for people to be awake during those times without being tired, that will be a game changer

August 23rd, 2025

spent the day listening to music on spotify and lying on the bed. im glad that i bought my speaker and it gives all the music an extra oomph.

August 22nd, 2025

felt extremely tired today. the sickness that occured to me when I was 11/12 comes and goes and when it comes, it makes me very tired.

sometimes it prevent me from doing things, sometimes it annoys me. just coping through this

August 21st, 2025

azul

played a new game today called Azul. if i were to describe it, it's like a variation of bingo but super fun!

you start with a blank piece of board and in the middle, you draw random tiles from the bag and fill up the colored circle in the middle. each turn, you draw from the middle (choosing 1 circle) and only pick 1 of the color, the rest are the put in the middle (this now become a bunch you can draw from). you use the same colored tiles to fill up the left side of your board. at the end of each round, the filled up row goes to the right. the goal is to collect most point ie from having a row/column or just filling up the same color on the board.

it lasted about 40 minutes and i like that the pieces are very pretty. it's old school vibe but pretty.

August 20th, 2025

talked to someone on the team who is leaving soon. he will be working on QA for robotics and I think that's such a cool idea.

there's a big pulling factor compared to software when you are able to interact with the things you are working with in real life. imagine tinkering with parts and connecting new hardware to make sure the computing is faster. that's the wonder of working with hardware.

working behind the scene in infrastructure might be boring for some poeple because you don't really touch the product often. you build system that power another person that actually build the product. so more burn out tends to happen here.

August 19th, 2025