Infinite Ascent.

The blog of CJ Quines.

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What value is expertise?

(my areas of expertise, specifically)

Life after contest math

on losing parts of yourself you loved

Finding reasons-for

more writing about not-writing

Reasons to wake up

and not go back to sleep

Video game August

against the storm, exocolonist, heaven’s vault, gemcraft

Reunion in Vegas

to see the city’s myriad faces

Echoes

i return to the day to change its reflection

i would not love me if i was a worm

and i know you wouldn’t either

On Baldur’s Gate 3

what’s occupied much of my past three weeks

Armor-piercing questions

that i’ve been asked recently

Analogical reasoning

more not-actually-writing

at arm’s length

on emotional distance

Video game March

find matt’s cats, diceomancer, rhythm doctor, cobalt core

In and of itself

a curious idiom

Minimum force

chunithm-posting!

Professional vision

domain-specific perspectives

Notes on senses

they’re more similar than you’d think

On the MIT Mystery Hunt 2026

i ran out of titles

the cruelty of air

breathing and bleeding

Some stories from developing puzlink.js

i spent two weeks coding and all i got was—

Things I enjoyed reading in 2025

imagine reading for pleasure

Actual lines from tech recruiter emails

you’re probably happy at your current job, but—

components of anger

more emotionposting

Don’t burn out on me

on resignation and surrender

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Git

with apologies to wallace stevens

No one warned me about RimWorld

and i have now sunk 87 hours

The days are short but the decades are long

to be a kid forever

Not my best self

i know what i think you think of me

Conjunction is adjoint to implication

posets, limits, adjoints

some stray september sentiments

too busy playing silksong to write much else

more subjective restaurant reviews

vibes-based valuations

When did you get the concept for your job?

i want to hear your stories

Calls I wish had well-defined parts

another square dancing post

above the noise

on quality and popularity

taste and vibecoding

now let me tell you, i’m the biggest hater

i like me better depressed

i don’t want to be in love

Video game May

until then, monster train 2, aotenjo, ftl

Python built-ins in Google Sheets

for when you want to filter with a lambda

Redefining Recycle

with apologies to lee kopman

Some recent interests

filler blog post

it’s been nine years and i still want out

(but i won’t do anything about it so it’s fine)

a boring person goes to new york

on a relationship to place

The phenomenology of puzzlehunting

on the MIT Mystery Hunt 2025

elsewhere on the internet

linkposting

it’s easy to do the hard things

and it’s hard to do the easy things

Things I enjoyed reading in 2024

i’ve been a good reader this year

The (real) systematic name of titin

it’s longer than everyone else thinks

On writing square dance material

am i a caller now?

If I ever come back

on being away from mit

minimum posting cadence

all signs point to identity

you don’t find time, you create it

on being busy due to a lack of priorities

Give yourself a speed limit

go too fast and you’ll burn out

etymologies

new jobs and old ambitions

actual conversations i definitely had at sparc

entirely verbatim, trust me

IAGSDC 2024

my first square dance convention

othering the self

and treating myself with kindness

Referential distinctions

some dichotomies in the philosophy of language

already home

basta’t makasama ka / ako’y nakauwi na

thoughts on sparc

summarizing an unsummarizable summer camp

Emails I’ve received

i reply to people

change can’t save you

notes to self

Clouds over Rochester

total (lack of a) solar eclipse

Indirect pursuits

a list of vaguely related things

Personal holidays

why i celebrate them

i can’t be cool if

i want to be cool

Puzzlehunts and institutions

on the MIT Mystery Hunt 2024

cromulence: a small word frequency library

fitting a dictionary in the browser

Blending life together

and watching what’s coming out

contemplating envy

and the complexities of being appreciated

a covid christmas

in case you’re wondering why i’m posting so much

Things I enjoyed reading in 2023

year 5 of pretending i read

A type-checking square dance puzzle

parsers! types! combinatorics!

Non-compositionality of square dance calls

of course there’s math in square dancing

Crying in the subway

why are you crying?

the day-to-day

on (lack of) job satisfaction

chasing dragons

are things getting better?

Declarative programming as mindset

hint: it’s not about map/filter/reduce

day jobs

the long answer to “how’s work?”

overly subjective restaurant reviews

imagine reviewing restaurants based on food lol

motivated to write

questions to answer about writing