As you can see, the word [judgment] is in brackets, meaning it isn’t part of the original quote. From what I remember (please note my memory is faulty and not subject to the same journalistic standards as the WaPo), this is how the conversation actually went.

Me: “A good rule of thumb [in choosing jobs that will not become easily automated by AI] is looking for jobs and skills that require taste or research in some way.”

Danielle, the journalist: “What do you mean by taste?”

Me: “Like, having good judgment and discernment. It’s one thing to design a web app and another to build it, which can be very formulaic.”

I’m not sure if the quote that ended up in the article quite captures the same meaning as the one I intended—to me, judgment feels more mechanical, less human than taste—but of course this often happens in journalism and I appreciate the opportunity to get to speak on this topic anyway. (I was also trying to convey that I want to study performance optimization and low-level programming languages during my master’s degree, which ended up as “programming that’s closer to the hardware”…)

Recently, I read Sophia Amoruso’s autobiography, #GIRLBOSS, which details how she went from being a broke twenty-two-year-old with no college degree to a multimillionaire entrepreneur running her own clothing e-commerce website, Nasty Gal. The book itself is not outstanding—as you may guess from the title, it drips with a cishet white feminism that was all the rage in 2014, and the prose is unrefined—but reading it made me realize why Nasty Gal became such a success, rising above so many other fashion e-commerce websites of the late aughts. Amoruso worked extremely hard, yes, but the magical, unattainable factor that made Nasty Gal famous was Amoruso’s taste.

How does one develop good taste? The following rules seem to hold true:

1. Having great taste in one domain does not indicate much about your taste in any other domain. You can have terrible taste in music but good taste in friends, or vice versa.
2. As a corollary to #1, it’s fine to have bad taste in many domains, but it seems important to have good taste in the people you surround yourself with, and good taste within your career.
3. Taste can be developed through experience and exposure.
4. When you’re young (and I’m still young, too), you may not have had the experience and exposure to develop your own taste, so you may mimic the taste of those around you or those you look up to. This is fine to some extent, but I’ve seen many people “wake up” during or after college and realize that they never really wanted the life they’re now living.
5. If you’re not certain if your taste is good or not, observe the reception to what you do. More on this later.

Does AI have good taste? Well, it is trained on the corpus of human society, and presumably since society has deemed certain artifacts “better” than others, AI can learn what is “good” and what is “bad”. But it relies on what it has seen before; I’ve never been pleasantly surprised by some clever phrase churned out by ChatGPT. AI can produce many options lightning-fast, but does it know which option is the best?

Recently, I received a discount code to try an AI portrait generator. I uploaded fifteen pictures of myself, and after an hour, the website spat out two hundred options. None of them were usable, and some looked pretty weird.

something doesn’t seem right…

Anyway, I don’t doubt that, in the near-future, advances in computer vision or machine learning would allow a program to sort through all these pictures and toss out the ones that are obviously anatomically incorrect, such as the one above. But figuring out what is a fantastic photo vs. a merely good one—that still seems out of reach.

As mentioned earlier, sometimes your taste is bad in a way that matters, and it’s better to realize that sooner rather than later. I’ve known startup founders that worked on the same idea for years, even though they were never able to garner an audience, and while there are many reasons why this could happen, from my understanding of the situation, a major factor was that they couldn’t figure out what others actually wanted. That’s what taste is—discerning what others actually want, whether that’s sorting through two hundred AI-generated photos to find the one that will look nicest on social media, or choosing a business idea and plan that will appeal to customers, or blending the right melody and lyrics and hook to produce a pop hit.

Seems hollow to base your taste in what others want, but does taste really matter if you aren’t making decisions that rely on others’ opinions? If you’re making a song for yourself, it’s perfectly fine if it’s bad. And yes, there are many visionaries who are “ahead of their time”—their resolve in pursuing their craft despite the lack of outside validation is incredibly admirable. If I were them, I would have no idea if my taste was bad or simply too revolutionary for the era. And in this late-stage-capitalism society, it feels pretty much impossible to cling to unrecognized genius unless you’re already independently wealthy.

This is not a coincidence because nothing is ever a coincidence.⁠02 Catchphrase from <a href="https://unsongbook.com/">Unsong</a>, sometimes shortened to TINACBNIEAC by fans. Okay, it’s kind of a coincidence; if you’ve read my course catalog history you’d know that MIT had more than 21 numbered courses as recently as the 1990s. Anyway, I noticed this a few months ago, made a Twitter thread about some correspondences, and got the idea that I should commission art for this!

It was my first time commissioning art from people, and I had the following principles:

• I wanted to compensate artists for their time. I had no idea what a fair price was, so I offered $20 per card, and it seemed that people were fine with that? This money came out-of-pocket; I’m not making any money off this, I just wanted to see this happen.
• I didn’t want to use generative AI or whatever. Even more strongly, I wanted each card to be by an MIT student, and as much as possible get a different artist for each card. That means coordinating between 22 people, which wouldn’t be too hard, right?
• Not only did I want a different artist for each card, I wanted the cards to be as different from each other as possible too. That meant not having a consistent style between cards, and embracing the many different art styles that artists had. That meant I didn’t have tight specifications for each card either. I constrained the size and borders, and that’s it.

Some lessons I learned:

• I wrote a spec doc with some details that I gave to artists. This turned out to be a great idea, though I could’ve made some details clearer, like payment methods, or that I wanted artist’s notes for each card.
• Different artists take different amounts of time to make art. Some artists finish overnight, others take a few weeks of incremental progress. I forgot to account for this when scheduling things.
• Sometimes things happen to people, and they can’t finish what they signed up to do. It’s not that that person is bad, it’s just life. This is also something I forgot to account for when scheduling things.
• That adage about multiplying time estimates by π is true. Even when you think you’ve accounted for the buffer time, you haven’t, and you always need to have more buffer. Always. Hence why I’m making this post several months after I graduated…

Anyway, here’s the cards!

0: The Fool / 0: Undeclared

The Fool represents beginnings and spontaneity, and is set apart from the Major Arcana by being unnumbered. A first-year student begins MIT undeclared, ready to embrace the unfamiliar.

Artist: Song K. ’25, major in Computer Science and Engineering.

The Fool traditionally stands precariously at the edge of a cliff. We don’t really have cliffs on campus, but this frosh is standing on top of the Great Dome. (don’t try this at home) They are also in approximately the same pose as the person in Wanderer above the Sea of Fog.

I: The Magician / 3: Materials Science and Engineering

The Magician taps the forces of the universe to create things, a conduit between the spiritual and the physical. In MIT’s Glass Lab and Metal Lab, people bend material objects according to their will, shaping reality to match their thoughts.

Artist: Rihn ’23, major in Mechanical Engineering, major in Humanities and Science, @rihnscape on Instagram.

The magician; blowing a witch’s ball out of glass. Using tweezers, they manipulate glowing molten glass at the end of a blowpipe into a delicate ornament. The scene is framed with ornate wrought iron swirls. This card’s content is based off the MIT glass lab and the forge and foundry in the basement of the infinite. The likeness of the magician is loosely inspired by several of the glass lab’s wicked cool instructors.

II: The High Priestess / 24: Linguistics and Philosophy

The High Priestess guards the inner structures of our thoughts, the objects that philosophers study. The card also represents the mystery of infinite potential. How can a finite language contain infinite utterances?

Artist: Shuli J. ’22, major in Computer Science and Engineering.

The High Priestess sits at a desk, contemplating a complex syntax tree. To her left and right are alternate universes where similar but different versions of herself do the same thing. Each of them hangs in the space of infinite possibility and branching. In the physical space below them, galaxies form; in the abstract space above them, linguistics symbols tumble around.

III: The Empress / 7: Biology

The Empress is seated in the realm of nature, the setting for the life sciences. Through molecular biology and genetics, researchers seek ways to treat diseases and promote health. Nurturing and sustaining, two key characteristics of The Empress.

Artist: Michaela P. ’24, major in Biology.

I don’t really have much of an artist’s statement. I just liked drawing this.

IV: The Emperor / 8: Physics

The Emperor is about rules and structure. Things like dark matter, ultracold gases, or high-temperature superconductors all show that complex structure can arise from simple physical rules.

Artist: Andrea J. ’26, major in Computation and Cognition, @hydreajia on Instagram.

With physics as a graduation requirement, all undergraduates have some sort of interaction with the MIT physics department. Most students take 8.01 and 8.02 to fulfill the physics requirement. These subjects are taught in a unique flipped classroom format using lightboard videos. 8.01 and 8.02 are shown on the pillars of the emperor’s throne to represent their foundational nature, and the lightboard is incorporated with glowy writing all across the card. The emperor levitates a marker using the power of the right-hand rule. The emperor is dressed in robes that resemble Roman attire to give a scholarly look, and his features take inspiration from Peter Dourmashkin, one of the beloved staff of 8.01 and 8.02 who is a prominent lightboard video instructor. Finally, I’d like to credit my friend Lucas Ospina ’26 on the card as he helped me come up with many of the ideas that make the card what it is :)

V: The Hierophant / 18: Mathematics

The Hierophant represents formal systems and the pursuit of knowledge. The rigor and axioms that form the basis of modern mathematics form the dogma of mathematical belief, and many mathematicians find math intrinsically worthy of pursuit.

Artist: Tara S. ’24, major in Computation and Cognition.

I basically tried to convert all of the typical elements of the hierophant card into math concepts. The two pillars are now knotted strings meant to be a nod to knot theory in topology. The hierophant’s crown in the Mandelbrot set fractal. Their robe are is meant to look like an undirected graph. Their right hand is showing the right hand rule used for cross products, and their left hand holds a golden integral sign. The two devotees are made of various numerical notations from different time periods and cultures. I tried to generally have a chronological ordering to it, starting from a copy of tallies from Ishango bone, one of the earliest known numerical-related inscriptions, and continuing outwards.

VI: The Lovers / 21: Humanities

The Lovers is about relationships, values, and chocies. These are explored under the many departments of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, ranging from anthropology to music to history to gender studies.

Artist: Dora H. ’25, major in Computer Science and Engineering.

The Lovers represents relationships and choices; Course 21 covers a broad range of fields that intersect with each other and fall under the umbrella of MIT’s HASS requirement. The lovers are discussing their differing opinions on the person in the middle’s newest artistic creation while studying/working on individual projects in various humanities fields. I put references to Course 21- and HASS-related classes and activities in the lovers’ assignments, as well as the bulletin board behind them (i.e. the orange textbook on the table is Genki, the textbook used by MIT’s Japanese classes). I included three people to reference the abbreviation “HASS” (H, A, S). Here’s a game: count the hearts in the drawing!

VII: The Chariot / 2: Mechanical Engineering

The Chariot represents the willpower necessary for an undergrad to study mechanical engineering in MIT, like the willpower required to take a class and present your work to thousands of people.

Artist: Anika H. ’26, major in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

(anika didn’t write an author’s note, so this is cj pretending to be anika writing one) rollercoaster go brrr

VIII: Strength / 15: Management

Strength encompasses patience, tolerance, and compassion, person-oriented skills that go a long way in the world of business. The management major doesn’t need force or coercion to tame their problems.

Artist: Teresa J. ’26, major in Business Management and Design, @pianofinqers on Instagram.

The overall layout of the card is heavily based on other Strength tarot card designs, which traditionally feature a woman taming a lion with an infinity symbol on/above her head. I replaced the white robes you’d typically see with a business suit, and kept with the white, gray, and red color palette I normally associate with MIT. I gave her the infamous course 15 backpack, as well as a brass rat as little nods to everyday MIT apparel. As for the symbols in the back, I just put some that are commonly linked with business majors: email, briefcases, bar charts, even a playing card inspired by 15.0251, a game theory class I took on listener. I especially made sure to add a nametag with the name Sloan on it, as name placards are required in most business classes, as well as a little calender with 15 as the date as an homage to business being course 15.

IX: The Hermit / 10: Chemical Engineering

The Hermit gives up outside distractions to focus on their work. Chemical engineering undergrads have nicknamed their course lounge “The Bunker”, symbolic of their dedication to comprehensive major requirements.

Artist: Via T. ’26, major in Computer Science and Engineering.

MIT is hard. Often times, we find ourselves holed up in labs or libraries, trying to meet deadlines for thesis, projects, and psets. It’s hard not to feel alone during these times, as we miss calls and texts from those we care about because we just don’t have time. For this tarot card, I attempted to recreate these times, depicting a student asleep in lab, trying to make deadlines while their friends try to reach them. The equally scribbled papers on the other work stations remind us that despite the fact we are struggling alone at the moment, others are also in the same boat.

X: Wheel of Fortune / 14: Economics

The Wheel of Fortune, on the surface, is about luck, but it’s also a vision of the world’s systems working in harmony. Economists cut through seemingly random data, looking to create policy and programming that’ll make the world better.

Artist: Elizabeth W. ’26, major in Mathematical Economics.

Most of the card is based on the Stonks internet meme, with the Alchemist as the guy in the meme. The wheel and the moons surrounding the wheel are representations of the actual wheel of fortune, as well as the money sticking out of parts of the wheel. The firehose was just included to reference MIT, and the numbers of the stocks in the background are course 14 class numbers, such as 14.01, 14.02, etc.

XI: Justice / 11: Urban Studies and Planning

Justice and fairness across services like housing and transportation is a key urban planning goal. Crucial to achieving this is a deep understanding of cause and effect, another aspect of Justice.

Artist: Caroline C. ’25, major in Urban Science and Planning with Computer Science.

The scales of justice are unbalanced. The central figure Justice represents the honorable late Mel King who, along with many hands from the community, is poised to add more housing to rebalance the scales (thanks to anon for suggesting this). The map of the Cambridge/Boston area emphasizes a sense of place.

XII: The Hanged Man / 1: Civil and Environmental Engineering

The Hanged Man looks defeated or lost, but finds success by acknowledging his situation. The climate crisis can be discouraging, but civil and environmental engineers are committed to respond.

Artist: Jinhee W. ’26, major in Management.

i based it around ecobrutalism (the meaning behind the hanged man, as a symbol of rebirth and renewal in a sense), as well as incorporating small elements such as a bridge in the water and small windmills in the windows. for references to the hanged man, it was mainly just having her hang from a tree

XIII: Death / 5: Chemistry

Death is about inexorable change and shedding the superficial, much like the difference between the chemical and the merely physical. Death represents transformation, and from chemistry we get a key example: chemical reactions.Artist: Madison W. ’25, major in Chemistry.

In order to design the card, I drew upon ideas of Eastern spirituality, where life and death are deeply intertwined. The lotuses represent rebirth and enlightenment, but the number four, which is the amount that are blooming, represents death. I also opted to tranform the periodic table, an emblemic symbol of chemistry, from its traditional form to a circular format, attempting to conjure the image of the samsara and alchemy circles. The imagery hopefully evokes a more gentle and empathetic interpretation of the card.

XIV: Temperance / 20: Biological Engineering

Temperance is about balance and health, factors that come into play when engineering biology to benefit humanity. Patience and purpose are key to both Temperance and wet lab work.

Artist: Marissa A. ’23, major in Biological Engineering.

I kind of wanted the vibe of a less-is-more tarot card deck. The angel of temperance has been replaced by a bioengineer and her chalices are now a pipette and microcentrifuge tube. The background, though some of it obscured by the scientist, contains references to all course 20 core classes. And, as a small easter egg, representing the depicted polypeptide as its one letter codes spells out TEMPERANCE on repeat.

XV: The Devil / 6: Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

The Devil represents material wealth, addiction, and ignorance. Do any of us fully understand the consequences of the technologies we wrought upon the world?

Artist: Michelle M. ’26, major in Computer Science and Engineering

the card is from the pov of a course 6 student reaching towards the alluring glow of their laptop, a portal to infinite power and knowledge but also deep danger. we see the figure of a student whose shadow morphs into a demonic figure (the bezos head shape was not intentional but we can pretend it was) with a twisted devils horn crown (it’s the citadel logo.) there are eyes in the background as well as the webcam as a symbol of the perpetually watchful eyes of the internet and judgement as a whole. i also made the eyes kinda distorted and the ai-generated-esque hands very distorted as a symbol of recent advances in ai and the ethical questions that arise with them, esp in the realm of art. (to be honest idk why i chose to draw eyes and hands. the bane of my existence smh </33). oh also the webcam eye is red as a portrait of the average eecs student (coming into mit i saw that one compilation of student sleep times by major and saw eecs averaged around 3 am, and thought “??? no way that’s me”,,, oops lmao) also the background is red bc i thought it looked cool. no blue curtains there

XVI: The Tower / 4: Architecture

The Tower is hit by fire and lightning, and yet it stands. An architect designs a building with physical disasters and other challenges in mind.

Artist: Jenny B. ’25, major in Artificial Intelligence and Decision Making.

I had fun squeezing in references to real-world architecture in and around campus. The obvious references are the Great Dome and the little roller coaster-esque rendition of the MBTA Red Line. But if you look closely to the sides of the Great Dome, I stuffed in Simmons Hall (left) and Stata Center (right), since they’re pretty recognizable on-campus. I also added the Wiesner Building (MIT Media Lab, List Visual Arts Center) which was designed by I.M. Pei. At the very top of the tower, I stuck some vague renditions of brutalist architecture, kind of to poke fun at the Student Center and also Boston’s City Hall and Government Service Center. Everything else is made up.

XVII: The Star / 22: Nuclear Science and Engineering

The Star shines with hope for the future, representing faith in response to difficulties. Nuclear science shines with the promise of clean energy, undaunted by the grand challenge of fusion.

Arist: Emily L. ’24, major in Computer Science and Engineering.

Didn’t really have an artist’s note to add, just combined the star arcana traits with elements of course 22 and also puffin

XVIII: The Moon / 16: Aeronautics and Astronautics

The Moon is the triumph of imagination over fear and uncertainty. Boundless imagination flew us to the moon despite fears of falling, despite imperfect tools and instruments.

Artist: Steven L. ’23, major in Aerospace Engineering.

Most of the layout and design is just what i think looks nice, but the wolf and the space shuttle name Divination are references, respectively, to typical designs for the Moon arcana in tarot decks and tarot’s perhaps most notorious use. The wolf tail becoming the Milky Way is an arbitrary choice; similarities to some Native American myths are purely coincidental.

XIX: The Sun / 12: Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences

The Sun drives the Earth’s weather and climate. The undergrad EAPS motto encourages students to go beyond, and bring discovery energy into their fieldwork, attributes The Sun reminds us to hold.

Artist: Gloria Z. ’26, major in Mechanical Engineering, @orangebead_ on Instagram.

For my card, I incorporated imagery corresponding to the fields of study in EAPS: the ocean for earth, wind and clouds for atmosphere, and the sun for planetary bodies! I tried to imitate traditional tarot styles when drawing the sun, human figure, and telescope. The waves and seafoam at the bottom are inspired by Hokusai’s famous print “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” :).

XX: Judgement / 9: Brain and Cognitive Sciences

Judgement is about discernment and reckoning, examples of cognition. BCS seeks to understand our mind, which all judgement ultimately comes from.

Artist: Kristine Z. ’24, major in Computation and Cognition.

Like the various directions of BCS, this scene includes perception through the senses, understanding in the mind, neurons to neuron connections, and corresponding neural network models. The neural network shape literally and visually represents the trumpet call in the Judgement card which brings everything hiding under the mask into the open like how the models strive to uncover mysteries of the brain.

XXI: The World / 17: Political Science

The World represents completion, integration, and involvement in society at large. Political science focuses on global understanding, and seeks to empower individuals to participate in governance.

Artist: Rachel P. ’24, major in Management.

Political science represents the study of governments and political behavior, even at an international level. The red pins and string on the earth represents the interconnectedness of the different states of the world.

Final thoughts

I don’t have plans to organize a print run, though I do want a physical copy. If you’re interested in printing these, hit me up and we can talk about it.

For me, this project was a reminder that things happen because people make them happen. I thought getting people to make art would be cool, so I wrote a spec doc, asked friends for feedback, wrote an email, and set up a spreadsheet. I’m super happy with how the project went, and it’s satisfying to see this finished after several months of coordinating between people.

x = cos(t) + 3/4 cos(-3t)

y = sin(t) + 3/4 sin(-3t)

From “Parametric Equations at the Circus: Trochoids and Poi Flowers” by Eleanor Farrington

The oblong “petals” are created by spinning the poi head in the opposite direction to that of the circle traced out by your arm, hence the term “antispin.” In other words, if your arm is moving clockwise, your wrist would be rotating counterclockwise. By modifying the number of petals, direction, timing, plane of movement, geometry, and other parameters, variations on the basic flower pattern encompasses a whole family of poi tricks. It’s fun to nerd out about the mathematical intricacies of poi spinning, but that’s a whole another topic that deserves its own blog.

fire flowers! i think i was doing split time, same direction, side plane flowers here. Photo by Waly the blogger, who has photographed many of our fire shows :)

these are wall plane CAP flowers, where each hand is only completing half of a flower but it kind of creates the illusion of a full flower. photo by Shruti '24

long exposure shot of Jason and I's partner poi performance, where we stood in a line and did flower-extension (large circle) hybrids. photo by Waly

the back of our t shirt features the 4 petal antispin flower!

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I love the way the flower imagery bridges rigid geometry with the living and organic, inspiring me to recreate this pattern as LEDs on a printed circuit board (PCB). This would be a relatively straightforward project that would allow me to make all the mistakes that a beginner PCB designer would and to learn how to fix them.

Laying out the PCB

Having learned how to use Kicad from 2.679⁠03 Electronics for Mechanical Systems II last semester, I use it here to design the PCB. The first step is to lay out all of the components in a schematic. My main components include a USB-C port to supply power, an ATtiny microcontroller to control the LEDs, and of course a bunch of LEDs. For this project, Kicad’s built in library already included all of the symbols for the components that I’m using.

Here we also specify how each component is connected to each other. Pins labeled with the same name indicate that they will be connected by a trace (copper wiring) later on.

The symbols on the schematic can represent a family of similar components, but how these components attach to the board can vary across manufacturers and variations of the same part. For example, through hole resistors and surface mount resistors can have the same resistance and therefore serve the same purpose. The former would require two holes, whereas the latter would require two solid copper pads.

The exact pattern of the exposed copper on the board is called a footprint, which needs to be specified for each component. I’m hoping that Kicad would already have all the footprints for the components that I was planning to use, but alas no. I can’t find a suitable footprint for my USB-C port anywhere on the Internet, so I figure out how to make my own by referencing the part’s datasheet:

footprint of the usb c port

notice how some key dimensions, like the height of the smaller holes, aren't actually defined... so just make your best guess and hope it works out

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Once the footprints are specified, Kicad can “translate” the schematic into a board layout. The actual shape of the board, the location of the components, and how the traces are routed remain an exercise to the reader (or in this case, the maker?). Properly labeled schematics mean that at this step, Kicad only lets you connect two pins with a trace if you’re supposed to.

the board is supposed to resemble the diamond mode flower, but here it resembles the box mode flower because rotating the board actually makes it cheaper to fabricate

Ideally, your traces should be routed “correctly” at this point of the process, BEFORE you send it to the PCB manufacturer. Double check that everything is connected to what it’s supposed to. Triple check it.

Or not, and suffer later. :’)

Rerouting traces on the physical board

Three weeks after I place my PCB order, I finally receive it in the mail! Because I want to get these boards completed as quickly as possible to give them out as gifts, I’ve opted for the manufacturer to solder many of the components for me. Five copies of my board, getting some of the components soldered, and shipping total to about $40.

The joy of finally holding my physical boards turn into horror when I realize that I connected the LEDs to the RESET pin of the microcontroller. I could have chosen literally any other pin (except for ground and power, which are more obvious to avoid), and it wouldn’t have been a problem.

noooooo (D25 is the label that corresponds to the input of the first LED)

Luckily, Winnie, the amazing LA⁠04 lab assistant who reviewed everyone’s PCBs in 2.679, reassures me that it won’t be necessary to pay another $40 and wait three weeks for revised boards. She shows that by severing the misrouted trace with an Xacto knife and soldering a thin magnet wire from LED end of exposed trace to the correct microcontroller pin, you can reroute the board by hand.

the trace lives under the red solder mask, which can be scratched off.

a thin wire connects the LED to the correct microcontroller pin

multimeters have a continuity check mode that can show that my LED is now connected to the pin I want it to be, and no longer connected to the RESET pin

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Rerouting traces in software

When I turn on the board for the first time, I realize I messed up the LED routing too. Five LEDs are placed out of order, which would disrupt the flow of the flower pattern. My first instinct is to dig up and rewire two traces per misplaced LED, for a total of 50 traces across all of the boards, but there’s a much faster solution here.

Unlike the microcontroller pin mishap, this one can be fixed with code! The ATtiny microcontroller is basically a more lightweight Arduino and can be programmed in a very similar way.

This array tells us the order that each LED is “actually” supposed to be in. Basically, what the microcontroller sees as LED #26 should actually be the 21st to light up.

based on my limited knowledge of electrical engineering, it’s kind of a joke to “fix [hardware problems] in software” because it’s often a bandaid solution to a bigger problem.

once again fixing things in software!

The ATtiny is able to store 512 bytes of EEPROM, which is memory that doesn’t get erased when it’s turned off. Here, the first byte of EEPROM stores the last pattern that was displayed. When the board is turned on again, it simply displays the other pattern.

Sometimes it’s not your fault, but you gotta fix it anyways

The lights flash in the right order. The flower flows. I’m done!

…until I notice that some of the LEDs are acting kind of weird. At least one or two LEDs from each of the five boards aren’t displaying the right color. Poking around with an oscilloscope confirms that my microcontroller is sending the right signals. I dealt with the signal timings for this kind of LED extensively for my 6.115 final project, so I’m pretty confident that I’m not the one at fault here.

it’s kind of hard to tell here because the camera’s frame rate isn’t lined up with the LED update rate, but the circled LED’s red component is broken :(

The PCB manufacturer must have given me faulty LEDs. Aaaaaaaaaa

Winnie shows me two ways to replace the faulty LEDs. One way is to use a hot plate and melt the solder joint holding the LED to the board into a puddle of quicksilver. Using tweezers, replace the faulty LED with a new one. Then add a drop of flux to facilitate the new electrical connection and watch the feathery wisps of flux smoke dissipate into the air like ghostly birds.

The other way involves taking a soldering iron and literally melting off the LED. The more burnt plastic particles you release into the atmosphere, the better.⁠05 /s It’s quick and literally dirty.

Because I’m not a big fan of inhaling carcinogens, I eventually get the hot plate method to work even for the inconveniently located LEDs. If I place the board on the hot plate for long enough, the heat eventually reaches said inconvenient location to release the faulty LED. I just have to be careful to not accidentally knock off the nearby non-faulty components. The hot plate doesn’t discriminate: it melts all of the solder joints in its vicinity whether or not you want it to.

If I don’t heat up the solder joints long enough before trying to tweeze out the faulty LEDs, I delaminate the trace. Fortunately, a bit of tape and more caution with resoldering the replacement LED goes a long way.

noooo

Finishing touches

Diffusing the light with a lasercut piece of acrylic scatters and softens the LEDs:

diffused lighting!

not diffused lighting

the ~liminal space~ between the diffuser and the PCB

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A flower that lights up is cool, but a flower that lights up and stands on its own is even cooler. I lasercut another piece of acrylic to make a screw on stand.

it's always a bit of a hit or miss when trying to laser cut precisely sized pieces, as the width of the laser adds uncertainty. in this case though, i got really lucky with how well the nut and the bolt fit into the T slot! as a result, the PCB can be attached to the acrylic stand without any glue, which looks hella slick. Unfortunately I wasn't as precise about how the two pieces of stand attached together and needed glue for that.

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TADA!!!!!!!!

fire mode!!

part of rainbow mode! unfortunately including the full rainbow cycle would make the gif too large to upload here

There’s something meditatively calming to watching the lights cycle through the petals, around and around and around. It reminds me of the horror manga Uzumaki by Junji Ito, where a cursed town becomes increasingly obsessed with spirals,⁠06 think eddies in a river, the cochlea (spiral shaped part of the inner ear), a mosquito's proboscis, etc until the townspeople and soon the physical town itself literally become one with the spiral. I don’t blame them; spirally patterns really are mesmerizing.

went to The Eras Tour and over-thought, over-analyzed, over-felt every moment of it // dyed my hair purple // watched Qala a little too late and cried a little too much // cut my hair way too short // didn’t regret it // caught up with old friends // dressed in pink to watch Barbie! with my sister // screamed to Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) // talked about the Vault tracks, the lyric change, the production, the music video for ‘I Can See You,’ everything // screamed to BLACKPINK with my other sister // clowned for, anticipated and saw the 1989 (Taylor’s Version) announcement on a livestream in my bed // made Spotify blends and endlessly scrolled through travel reels // cried and cried // 

happiness of celebrating girlhood // celebrating art and uniqueness and strangeness // acknowledging the complexities of motherhood // lifting the curtain off an artist’s life // being brave enough to face the ugliness // finding complete love and trust // moments of deep reflection // recollections // connections // pure excitement // shallow happiness that takes over you // completely // talk to me now // make me believe in beauty now // cry and cry // 

i love being a girl // let me be // 

Nine-fold Pinwheel

Designer: I forgot (and can’t find the model online)

I started folding origami in high school because of a book I’d found in the school library. It contained a variety of fun models, from the traditional orizuru (paper crane) to Christmas ornaments. I was amazed by how the satisfyingly geometric creases gave rise to complex 3D shapes, and I immediately fell in love with the art.

Despite only having nine folds, I found this model the most challenging in the entire book (mostly because the instructions were rather vague), but it’s super satisfying to fold once you figure out how it works.

Five Intersecting Tetrahedra

Designer: Thomas Hull

The origami I folded in high school is what most people would associate with the art – following step-by-step folding instructions on a single sheet of paper. But when I came to MIT, I discovered that origami encompasses so much more than that. During my first winter break at MIT, I started folding modular origami – origami composed of many simple “modules” linked together to form a larger, more intricate structure.

The Five Intersecting Tetrahedra (FIT) is one of my favourite examples of modular origami because it’s both fun to assemble and visually striking. I made this one out of sticky notes at work!

Excavated Icosahedron

Designer: Unknown

Here’s another piece of modular origami I made out of sticky notes. Although not as visually striking or fun to assemble as its cousin (the FIT), this model is actually two models in one – it’s possible to the spikes to stick outward!

(I had a few sticky notes left over from this one, so I also made a tiny crane and a lotus.)

Unicorn

Designer: Tetsuya Gotani

After folding more spiky origami balls in my freshman year than I’m willing to admit, I decided to start learning how to design my own origami. Luckily, MIT was the perfect place for that. Not only is there a class about algorithmic origami design here, but there’s also an origami club (OrigaMIT) led by world-class origami designers. (You should check out their creations here and here; they’re truly incredible.)

Andy D. from OrigaMIT was nice enough to lend me a book of more advanced origami models, which I slowly worked through in my sophomore year. This unicorn is one of my favourites from that book because the end product looks so cool.

Cardinal

Designer: Robert Lang

I folded this cardinal from a crease pattern – a single image showing a model’s creases when unfolded but without specific steps for getting to the final product. Learning to interpret and work from them was a big step for me in my origami design journey, and this cardinal was one of the first origami models I folded purely from a crease pattern. A big upgrade from the only other bird I knew how to fold (the crane), if you ask me.

Dragon

Designer: Jo Nakashima

Sixteen Intersecting Triangles

Designer: Byriah Loper

I just can’t seem to resist folding modular origami. Something about the precise geometry and intricate weaving just really appeals to me as an engineer. I learned to fold this specific model from a book owned by one of my previous professors at MIT.

Flower Motif B

Designer: Tetsuya Gotani

This is another model from the book lent to me. Despite being a relatively simple 2D shape, it was surprisingly complex and required 38 folding steps!

Hydrangea

Designer: Shuzo Fujimoto

I originally planned to release this blog post way earlier this summer, but it’s now the last day of my internship, and I’m preparing to fly home tomorrow. Thankfully, I don’t need to abandon my origami creations at my desk this summer. On Monday, I put all these pieces up for “adoption” in my company’s Slack. And I’m pleased to say they’ve all found new, loving homes!

things that are golden, part 1 (digital, 2021)

things that are golden, part 2 (blockprinted ink, 2023):

specifically from the tree in front of Walker Memorial

the commuter rail has caused me so much anguish this summer, but i’ll defend her until my last breath

imagery borrowed from Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

the new-ish Fall Out Boy album. tbh I feel so-so about the album as a whole, but I do like the eponymous song, So Much (for) Stardust

this summer i’ve been biking to some naturey places in the area, like Middlesex Fells and Walden Pond!

text for accessibility:

yellow aspen leaves

the liminality of public transportation

tomatoes ripening on the vine

hot poi summer

telephone wires fracturing a setting sky

so much for stardust

warm street lamps

long bike rides

This iteration of “things that are golden” was inspired by @cactuscloudart‘s pink eraser carvings! I already had printmaking tools from a virtual printmaking session I ran (with the support of the Council for the Arts at MIT) in Fall 2020, but I didn’t have any more blocks to carve. Linoleum blocks, which are typically used for printmaking, can get pricey and would make me feel bad if I messed up. At my level of block cutting experience, messing up is pretty much guaranteed. On the other hand, a 24-pack of pink erasers lets me carve without fear. It’s really therapeutic, the feeling of the blade slicing through soft rubber. Slicing through soft flesh is less fun though, so always carve away from yourself!

I will pay $15 for an H2GO 20.9oz asi51197. If you attended the Green Hills Software x WiEECS tech talk in September of last year, you might’ve gotten this exact water bottle.

Story behind this is that I dropped my H2GO 20.9oz asi51197 from a great height of three feet and the lid broke. I could just use one of my countless other swag water bottles, but I’ve accumulated a year’s worth of stickers on this one that I refuse to throw out. Apparently H2GO is a brand that exclusively does corporate swag, so if I wanted to buy one, I’d have to buy 500. I’ve also asked several hallmates to let me see if their hydroflask/other branded lids work on mine. Unfortunately they did not, so i am resorting to dormspam.

Best,
Audrey

bcc’d to dorms
green hills software green for bc-talk

my dearest waterbottle

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Someone actually responded! We met up at Maseeh and exchanged $15 for a water bottle that the other party probably got for free. But a second chance at life for my dear water bottle, one covered in stickers bearing grand stories and cherished memories, was priceless.

I broke my water bottle cap AGAIN in the exact same place last week. It was on the ledge of my lofted bed. I must’ve kicked it off in my sleep. Not only did the thin plastic shatter, so did my heart. For I knew that to be the end of my water bottle.

Luck had it that my laptop screen recently started flickering, to the point where looking at it instantly made my head hurt. My laptop also had barely one working usb port left and a broken internal mic, so it was also time for my laptop and her beloved case to go.

my dearest laptop case

But my water bottle and laptop case’s legacy will live on through this blog. I admit that I wrote this blog for selfish reasons; like yes I want to share what each sticker means to me but I really just want to immortalize them somewhere on the Internet. Material possessions may come and go, but digital footprints are forever.

A. Stickers that I designed

MIT Spinning Arts

sorry it’s partially cut off

I wasn’t born a firebender, so I settled for joining Spinning Arts. While waving around fire is certainly fun, it’s the spinning community that I love and care about more than anything. It’s one of the few performing arts clubs with basically no barrier to entry: beginners are given the same opportunity to perform as people who’ve been spinning for years, because of just how empowering it is to dance with fire in front of a supportive crowd.

I love making these opportunities happen and watching individuals grow over time as both performance artists and leaders responsible for keeping the club safe. As a result, I’m serving on the exec team for my third year now (I’m president this year)! I designed this sticker for the club two years ago, heavily inspired by the phoenix imagery from  the old (aka pre-pandemic) club branding. The phoenix imagery is quite fitting for our club at this point of time. The pandemic gouged huge gaps in club knowledge that we’re still rebuilding to this day, but each cycle of new members and emerging leaders makes our community that much stronger, more vibrant, and alive.

All this time, I thought firebending was destruction. But now I know what it really is. It’s energy and life.

~ Aang in Avatar the Last Airbender

East Campus REX 2022

Every REX, bushy tailed prefrosh run around campus to find their home on campus, and East Campus goes all out in hopes of luring prefrosh into its asbestos filled, fire code violating corridors. Last year East Campus built a roller coaster and a pirate themed fort. To go with the pirate theme, I designed this sticker with the (mostly tongue in cheek) phrase that’s featured on many EC REX shirts in years past.

EC is undergoing renovations for the next two years to address the asbestos and fire code violations, but still has huge plans for this upcoming REX to lure prefrosh who may be interested in living there in 2025 and beyond!

Stickman

Stickman was my first home at MIT. Stickman is symbolized by a *gasp* stickman and an octagon, because there’s a giant cement octagon that other halls hatch elaborate plans to steal. I lived there during my freshman spring, along with most of my podmates.⁠07 during this covid semester, you got up to five other people who you could interact with normally. you had to remain socially distanced from everyone else While the pandemic took away so much from my freshman year, I have so many fond memories from living on Stickman and wrecking havoc having fun with my podmates.

Class of 2024 sticker (freshman year)

:')

original comic "Oh Fire" by KC Green

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Fun fact: this sticker design has already seen the light of the blogs, in this is fine by Gosha. I drew this sticker for a sticker pack, which the 2024 Class Council later distributed to the entire class.

If the Stickman sticker was a positive representation of my freshman spring, this one is its negative corollary. Our class lost so much to the pandemic: we did our first semester completely virtually, and we were allowed on campus for our second semester, but with heavy restrictions and still mostly virtual classes. The world was metaphorically on fire (and literally if you were in California at that time), yet somehow we were expected to do our classes, figure out how to MIT, and otherwise proceed as if everything was fine. I think the idea behind my sticker resonated with many of my classmates, as I’ve seen it on so many laptops across campus.

Apparently it also made its way into a Caltech discord server:

I don’t get how it’s an insult?? Y’all are the clowns for having to plagiarize use another school’s graphics but I digress.

Class of 2024 sticker (junior year)

original meme first created in 2014 by an anonymous internet user

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Sad cat was distributed to our class by the 2024 Class Council last year. IHTFP!

Refraction meme cat

i couldn't find the origin of this fine boi :(

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Refraction cat wasn’t intended to be a sticker, but Winnie was testing out the sticker printer at the IDC and refraction cat got to hitchhike on her print job.

Big Dijkstra Energy

let me find the shortest path to your heart ;)

Gloria ’22, Margaret ’23, Penny ’24 and I run an instagram account of wonderfully awful math/CS pickup lines, @big_dijkstra_energy! We started this account during the pandemic as a way to cope with the …pandemic. Here’s what I wrote about Big Dijkstra Energy in my blogger app (which is now open), trying to convince the Blogger Overlords that meme content creation would translate into blogging skillz:

BDE began as a way to continue my longtime hobby of drawing and to become closer with friends I met virtually. 

I think BDE has since blossomed into an online community, one that’s brought people together during quarantine and hopefully will continue to post-covid. Our followers have told us that they love sharing and enjoying our comics with their fellow nerd friends/family/partners. And Instagram insights corroborate with the fact that our comics are being shared. Sometimes people tag their friends in the comment section too. It’s so heartwarming to hear that we add a bit of laughter to people’s days. 

We also think about how we can build community beyond just drawing comics. That has led to two successful Nerdy Pickup Line Tournaments, distributing physical Valentine’s Day cards to all students living on campus last spring, and emailing a couple hundred virtual cards as well.

We’ve slowed down our posting, but bad puns are still going up once in a while!

Taking advantage of Stickermule’s 10 for $1 sale

Stickermule runs a 10 stickers for $1 (with free shipping) promotion for new customers. Naturally I couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to stickerify some of my art.

Unfortunately, Stickermule must’ve caught on that people were creating new accounts for the sake of getting this deal. At some point, they started requiring a unique phone number for  creating a new account. I’ve long exhausted⁠08 and all the fake phone numbers on Google have already been used by people with the same idea as me my list of friends who are willing to let me use their number and didn’t want to use this deal themselves. But I also learned that Stickermule’s owners monetarily support causes that I don’t agree with, so I haven’t used Stickermule since anyways. If you’re looking for a high quality sticker supplier, Vinyldisorder runs sick deals every two months or so.

B. Stickers that Margaret ’23 designed

Wide Tim

IG: @wide_tim, Redbubble: @Marge-Z-Art

Wide Tim is not just a perpetually happy go lucky, wide eyed, wide smiling beaver. Wide Tim is an icon of our time. Wide Tim is a movement. Wide Tim is everything.

For real though, Margaret’s brain child Wide Tim has most definitely cemented his spot in the MIT zeitgeist. Thanks to Margaret, Wide Tim has an entire line of merch ranging from T-shirts to keychains to physical stickers to a WeChat sticker pack, participated in nearly every club on campus (all documented on his Instagram page), and welcomed prefrosh with wide arms during CPW.

It is without a doubt that Wide Tim’s popularity has surpassed that of the official Tim mascot. Now all we need is a Wide Tim fursuit.

Glow in the dark Widened Timothy

He glows green in the night. His unblinking eyes watch me sleep.

Big Dijkstra Energy pickup line tournament winner

During IAP 2021, CPW 2021 & 2022, the BDE crew organized Nerdy Pickup Line Tournaments, where participants submitted lines and viewers voted on them. “Just the 2 of us is <3 [less than three],” which was actually submitted by Andi ’25 when he was but a wee prefrosh, won second place during the CPW 2021 tournament! Margaret drew out his submission into the cute imagery above, which she then printed as stickers.

C. Stickers with other MIT origins

Tetazoo Squanch

I’ve lived on Tetazoo during my sophomore and junior years. It’s a hall with a long vivid history, so as SwagComm (committee that handles swag), Rihn ’23 and I ordered a ton of merch with designs that go way back. This particular holographic sticker features the squanch, Tetazoo’s coat hanger boi mascot. Apparently the squanch has its own Urban Dictionary entry that provides a bit more detail on its origin, but I’ll leave that for you to google.

update: tetazoo glounge

CJ’s blog on mailing list culture thoroughly explains the history behind the infamous “update: tetazoo glounge.” The tl;dr is that Tetazoo loved and continues to love starting flame wars on dormspam, a group of mailing lists that reach nearly every undergraduate. Perhaps the most infamous dormspam thread was one where someone would respond with “update: tetazoo glounge” (and consequently push that thread to the top of the entire undergraduate population’s inboxes) each day for many many years.

Resistor color codes

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I got this resistor color code sticker from Steve Banzaert, who teaches 2.678 Electronics for Mechanical Systems. Apparently, you can read the resistance of a resistor by looking at the four colored bands. Each band corresponds to a number determined by the color code, and the resistance can be calculated as ([first band]*10 + [second band]) * 10^[third band]. The fourth band is the resistance tolerance, which tells you how precise the actual resistance is in comparison to the labeled resistance.

CPW Beaver stickers designed by Maxwell ’24

buildy boi

sleepy boi

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IG: @happy_meex

Maxwell made the cutest series of beaver bois doing busy beaver things for CPW 2022! They’re some of my favorite stickers ever.

Spicy sticker from Bianca ’24

SPICY

SPICY

Clubs that I’m sort of or not in (but their stickers are cool!)

The Borderline manages the 200 ft long augmented reality mural tunnel under Building 66, as well as a few other augmented reality installations on campus. Learning that there are art communities like Borderline at MIT was huge for my prefrosh self. Since then, I’ve animated a few augmented reality overlays for murals painted by other artists!

I’ve long admired the Asian American Initiative’s work in advocacy and engagement surrounding Asian American issues. Their annual zines are always gorgeous and hit deep in my soul. Every semester I tell myself that this is the semester I’ll get involved, but alas time is scarce. Maybe next semester.

I’ve also never really interacted with the Chinese Student Association, but their Panda Express sticker was cute and therefore ended up on my laptop case.

iHQ

The Innovation Headquarters is housed in the same building as the Admissions office and supports many entrepreneurship and venture programs. I’m not very familiar with the entrepreneurship scene at MIT, but it seems like if you have an idea, it’s not hard to get money for it.

WARNING

It simply appeared on my water bottle one day. No idea how.

D. Stickers from small businesses/organizations

Cat stickers by Radhia Rahman

IG: @knives_meow, YT: Radhia Rahman, website/shop

I’ve been watching Radhia’s Youtube vlogs of being a freelance artist since basically when she first started posting. Radhia prides herself in being a queer Bengali American from New York City, so people who share any of those identities might especially enjoy her art and content. Either way, Radhia’s vlogs are so well edited and relaxing to play in the background. Behinds the stickers on my laptop, I’ve also bought some of her risograph prints that currently adorn my walls!

Another cat sticker by Yat Cat Print Co.

IG: @yatcatnola, website/shop

I bought two mystery screenprinted shirts from Yat Cat Print Co. and they also came with this sticker! (One of the shirts ended up having the same lineart cat and the other had mushrooms. I was very happy with the mystery pack).

Yet another cat sticker by an artist who I don’t remember :(

bombastic side eye

I picked up this audacious boi from an art market in Manhattan Seaport. Unfortunately I didn’t take note of the artist I bought audacious boi from :(

Smol birb

IG: @therevolutionarymushroom, website/shop

I got this smol birb from Revolutionary Mushroom at the same art market!

Even more “cat” stickers

I got these stickers sometime during high school at a boutique somewhere in California. In other words, it’s been too long for me to remember how these came to be.

Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo (MICE)

Last October, I went to MICE and marveled at the rows and rows of independent comic artists, from published graphic novelists to printer paper zinemakers. Unfortunately I had to leave shortly after I got there, but I’m looking forward to the next time MICE rolls around.

Boston Dyke March

Winnie got me these adorable possums from the Boston Dyke March last year.

Dark Monk

Dark Monk, based in Salem MA, is where MIT Spinning Arts gets all of our fire prop making supplies and premade props. Last year I ordered some kevlar wicking and assorted hardware to mess around with, and my order came with this sticker.

Flowtoys

Flowtoys is to LED spinning props like Dark Monk is to fire spinning props. While we usually emphasize the fire aspect of Spinning Arts because fire is hot and sexy, spinning LED props is a discipline of its own right. LED props allow for theatrics that fire wouldn’t allow, like wearing a costume that isn’t firesafe (pretty much anything that’s not 100% cotton or denim), coordinating LED patterns to the performance, and touching the lit up part of the prop.

I bought a pair of Podpoi from Flowtoys last year to explore these artistic possibilities. They were quite the investment, but they’ve been so worth it. Podpoi in particular have a lifetime warranty, can be programmed and synced up with other pairs of Podpoi too.

My new water bottle and laptop are currently devoid of stickers. While Victorian era widows were expected to mourn for two years, I’m sure my old water bottle and laptop case would want us to move on, to live life to fullest. I see many more stickers in my future, but I’ll never forget the ones that came before us.

My high school friend Deelia is an art and human factors⁠09 my understanding is that this program covers user centric design from both artistic and engineering lenses major at Tufts and invites me to a life drawing session the other day in a Cambridge based studio called Gallery 263. I’ve been to one structured life drawing session before,⁠10 if you don't count creepily drawing classmates during boring high school classes or strangers at a cafe a year ago in NYC at an “underground” cafe, which was sadly the last time I’ve drawn in this sketchbook. During life drawing sessions, a (usually) nude model poses in the middle of a room in a series of timed poses for a circle of artists to sketch. Life drawing is essential to a traditional art education, for many good reasons that I’ve come to realize during the session. I often think about what my life would be like if I went to an art college. She’d probably be just as tired and her posture just as bad. But attending this life drawing session with Deelia feels like momentarily crossing paths with this parallel universe self, one who dirties herself with charcoal dust instead of machine grease.

1 minute poses

The session hits the ground running with 1 minute poses. Every mark I leave on the paper, I make with intention because I only have time for so many. Humans are a living, breathing sack of flesh with so many different planes and contours. It’s fun to choose which ones to emphasize with such a limited set of lines.

Learning how to distill the complicated human form into marks on a paper is why most models are nude and why these sessions are done live! Drawing from a photographic reference removes the process of translating a 3D form into 2D, while live drawing makes you do just that. Of course, I’m acutely aware that model is real person whose body is being scrutinized from every angle, and I try my best to approach the session with respect and sensitivity.

As the poses fly by, my markmaking feels increasingly fluid — “looseness” is the dynamic, expressive quality that many strive for in their sketches. My high school art teacher’s biggest piece of feedback for me was to loosen up, and I’ve never quite understand what that means until recently. Upon peeking at other artists’ sketches, the ones that stand out to me don’t necessarily copy the model’s exact form, but rather take artistic liberty to exaggerate certain contours. By protruding an arm or pushing out a hip, they create fluid motion in an otherwise static drawing.

2 minute poses

The two minute poses feel similar to the one minute poses, except now I have a bit of extra time to add just a smudge of shading. It’s feeling looser, but it’s not exactly where I want it to be. I peek at Deelia’s sketchbook and notice how much depth and motion she’s able to get in such little time with charcoal.

5 minute poses

5 minute poses pt. 1!

5 minute poses pt. 2!

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So for the 5 minute poses, I try charcoal for the first time. Deelia explains to me that using charcoal is one of the first things they teach you to use at a college art program. Because charcoal is a blunt stick, as opposed to a pencil sharpened to a fine point, it’s difficult to control. And when something is hard to control, you simply don’t. Instead of trying to capture outlines and details, you use charcoal to capture the broad shapes of light and shadow.

I find a process that seems to work for me: first I rub charcoal in a vaguely human shaped blob and smudge it out with my finger. With a kneaded eraser, I remove patches of charcoal to carve out areas of highlight. Then I go back in with the charcoal to deepen shadows, rub away highlights with the eraser, and repeat this process of give and take until the five minutes are up.

I’m really proud of the sketch of the model’s back! I did my first strict pullup last year and shaping the subtle contours of the model’s back reminds me of all the exercises I did to build up my upper back strength.

10 minute poses

For the the 10 minute poses, I switch to a gouache palette that I brought with me. It’s such a shame that I’ve hardly touched it since high school, but gouache is my absolute favorite medium. Gouache is commonly described as, if acrylic and watercolor had a finicky child. It’s opaque like acrylic, but water soluble like watercolor so you can reactivate dried layers of paint. As a result you can sort of layer gouache, but light colors tend to dry darker and dark colors tend to dry lighter. You can see this effect on the grayish patch on the model’s shoulder on the left. I add light blue, almost white paint to that section in attempt to capture a highlight, but it mixes with the existing brown underlayer to create that unsavory gray.

But I love gouache with all my heart for it’s ability make bold strokes. In the movie The Half of It⁠11 literally my favorite movie , painting a bold stroke is a metaphor for living life and loving boldly:

“I had a painting teacher once tell me that the difference between a good painting and a great painting is typically five strokes.  And they’re usually the five boldest strokes in the painting.  The question, of course, is which five strokes?”

~ Aster to Ellie

I’m not necessarily striving for a “great” painting here. I just want to have fun with art again. But it’s a good reminder to paint fearlessly. Even if humans aren’t exactly purple, purple is great for creating bold shadows in human skin. I apply cool purples liberally to create contrast against the warm yellows, reds, and browns that color living flesh.

20 minute pose

The 20 minute pose feels like eternity. I take my sweet time to carefully build up layers of color. I avoid muddying up the areas where the studio lights directly hit the model, like the face and left shoulder. But I notice that the muddied area in my 10 minute painting would look great in areas softly illuminated by reflected backlighting. So I add the blue-white paint to the model’s back and right shoulder to represent that softer backlighting. I’m happy with that choice!

“Love is being willing to ruin your good painting for the chance at a great one.”

~ Ellie to Aster

Even if a bold stroke doesn’t work out in one painting, it can still work in another.

I’ve been drawing for most of my life. I have the privilege of having taken studio art classes in elementary and middle school, which have been instrumental in teaching me the foundations of observation, sketching, and color. In high school, I had the opportunity to give back and teach younger kids at the same art studio, which has given me a lot of time to think about explaining something as subjective as art in definite terms. Even though I’ve been art-ing for a while, art is a lifelong learning process. I’ve learned so much in the two hour long life drawing session just by carefully observing both the model and sketches from the people around me. That’s another benefit of life drawing sessions: getting to observe and be inspired by other people’s processes.

Art brings back the joy that I’ve sometimes lost sight of when work piles up and I get hosed. I know how to make bold strokes; I just need to pick up my sketchbook more.

I’ve been a part of Infinite since I came to MIT, and I highly recommend it. There’s a role for everyone. During my first semester, I met someone who joined solely because he was obsessed with typeface. Like obsessed with fonts…

If you’re interested, there are already some well-written MIT blogs about Infinite and Infinite’s new little sister MIT Gala.

This year, the theme of the magazine was Rebirth. At first, I had no idea what I wanted to do with that. But I did know that inside me there are two demons.

Demon #1 – Any opportunity I have to pitch an idea to an organization is an opportunity for me to host a comedy special.

Demon #2 – These people are giving me money for materials, and I want to know what it is like to buy nice yarn.

And my spread, Somatic, was born. It initially didn’t have that name. I think someone on the board called it Mortal Shell, which I thought was ridiculous, but I stuck with that name until a few weeks before release, when I asked Chat-GPT to name it for me.

The inspiration for Somatic was that I wanted to crochet organs and then affix them to humans. I thought it would be funny.

Also, without getting too 6-9, I’ve always been fascinated with the levels of abstraction that exist within the physical form. For most people, you don’t have to learn anything about your body for your body to work. And yet, it does. And you can just walk around with the understanding that the body is a sack of liquid and flesh. And trillions of cells will conduct incredibly complex processes regardless. And even the people who have dedicated their entire lives to studying the body and the mind will die with some of these complex processes left undiscovered.

Less philosophically, I also thought about these:

Anyways, here is the spread! I will include the names of the models below, but I would also like to give a special thanks to my photographer Marina T. ’25, and editor Angelica Z. ’26. And if the quality is bad it is because I screenshotted it from a PDF, which you can find in better resolution at the website I linked above!

Nate W. ’25 (Left) and Kidus Y. ’25 (Right)

Sangita V. ’23 (Left) and Kyna M. ’25 (Right)

Franklin N. ’25

Nate W. ’25

why is ai so bad at making hands?

Recently, I read something by a fiction writer that went something like, it’s so upsetting how people can just enter these trivial prompts and then pass this work off on their own! I’ve spent so much time learning how to write well and then this random guy in his mom’s basement will generate a Pulitzer-Prize novel with a few keystrokes.

As somebody who has spent many years learning about the craft of writing, I certainly understand the frustration—if my goal was to produce well-written sentences, then perhaps the advent of ChatGPT would mean that all my efforts had been wasted. But AI-generated writing doesn’t bother me, and if somebody were to create a story generated by AI “written in Rona’s style” or trained on my publicly available work, I wouldn’t mind—I’d be amused, more than anything else. Of course, this is only my reaction, and certainly other creatives might not feel the same (and a quick glimpse at Twitter would prove that they don’t feel the same).

Artists’ ire is two-pronged. One, artificial intelligence poses a professional threat. I’m privileged in that I never expected to rely on writing as a steady source of income, and if everything goes as planned, by June, I will hold bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and computer science from MIT. I’m uncertain how I would feel if this weren’t the case, so it’s possible that, under the stress of economic insecurity, my opinion would be vastly different, but my current belief on this topic is: AI is absolutely a professional hazard to artists, as it is a hazard to software engineers, data analysts, executive assistants, and a menagerie of other professions. It is a hazard in the same sense ride-sharing was a hazard to taxi drivers and photography was a hazard to painters. All this is to say, technological innovation reshapes our processes and systems, and it inevitably threatens current jobs. This does not mean we shouldn’t move forward.

But even if you can agree with that notion on an intellectual, abstract level, that doesn’t mean it isn’t incredibly stressful to see your career prospects shrivel up. One of my friends predicts that AI will lead to widespread unemployment, which will bring about civil unrest—and while I hope this won’t be the case, I can certainly understand the underlying rage that comes with losing a future you worked so hard to achieve.

Two, artificial intelligence is creatively humiliating. It can hurt to see a machine churn out a derivative of your work, to know that a soulless language model trained on snippets of your soul to produce said derivative work.

I have limited knowledge of copyright law and how data is used within these models, so I can’t comment on the legal ramifications here (and I suspect that the government will move to enact new legislature in this direction). I also don’t want to undermine other people’s emotional responses, so I only speak for myself here. I don’t quite see my work as an extension of myself, or as a deep excavation of my inner life, or perhaps the more accurate statement here is that I view the process of writing as distinctly different from the product of writing. Translating the confusing, limitless galaxies within me—that process is intimate, a conversation between the page and me, and that journey won’t disappear simply because a computer can generate pretty paragraphs. The joy of reaching for an apt metaphor, of conjuring a visceral image, of understanding myself more fully—that remains regardless. Once those words are written, once they exist as separate entities beyond myself, they are for the reader. And if the reader is a robot that wants to feed upon my dangling participles only to spit out an imitation, that’s okay too.

Cross-posted on Substack here.