How hard is it to convey a whole human in a few paragraphs. With time and with life I'll be able to box myself in better, but at this point it's tough. As with all things, that doesn't mean I won't try.
Originally I'm from Russia. I immigrated here with my mother and sister, and we moved around a lot in our time (shoutout Inland Empire). At the moment, I'm in Irvine.
Ever since I was little I've enjoyed technical things. I always considered myself a “math guy,” in the way elementary schoolers use the term. Other words people tend to use for people like me: analytical, pragmatic, methodical, empirical. Growing up, my conditions rewarded resilience over comfort, which made me someone who acts on life rather than reacts to it.
In recent life, or better said, just college, that technical streak pushed me toward computer science and everything orbiting it. That said, I never want my learning fenced in by the confines of my major. This sometimes hurts me since I've yet to find a niche, but until I do, I'm content being a jack of all trades.
Below is a list of hobbies. Maybe that'll help ya understand me better.
Hobbies
I had a WHOOP for a year and use MacroFactor (thank you Nippard). Currently running a 6-day Upper/Lower/Arms x2 split and will probably be running this for a long time.
On the cardio side, walking. 12-15k steps daily, mostly campus, casual sports, and being on my feet. Pairs naturally with podcasts and long phone calls.
Football, soccer, frisbee, hiking, basically anything someone throws at me (see what I did there).
Building with AI and its subsidiaries using the newest tooling (MCP servers, agentic workflows, stuff of that sort). Following safety research (thank you Helena and Harry for introducing me, still in the early stages of going deeper). Research for AI literacy curriculum through UCI's Digital Learning Lab. Experimenting with new models as they ship.
At this point I can build almost anything quickly. This bullet is a catch-all for “application of AI development.” It is where the ideas from the AI bucket get tested in real code, real users, and real deployments.
Building PCs, Linux, Neovim (early days), anything in that genre. I just love to tinker and see how to make things better.
I have played a lot of video games in my time, definitely could not name them all. Recent rotation is comfort-loop modded sandbox (Terraria + Calamity, Minecraft modpacks) with YouTube on the side, mostly because of limited time. The full list of what I want to play next is here .
I really want to get good at things so I spend my time learning from people smarter than me. A lot of this gets covered on my Media page. The mix: reading (recently picked it up again), podcasts (I walk a lot, so they fit naturally), long conversations with people unlike me, philosophy. Also: long-form YouTube essays and lectures, blogs and Substacks, Twitter/X for live discourse in AI and tech, online courses.
More functional than emotional most of the time.