[{"content":"So\u0026hellip; I started listening to LitRPG Audiobooks recently due to stumbling upon them while following an audiobook voice actor around. Specifically, I was trying to see if Travis Baldree had any other books that he voiced.\nTravis Baldree is an author and voice actor whose most recent series (which he both wrote and voices) was a really enjoyable experience. I used my library\u0026rsquo;s digital accounts to listen to both \u0026ldquo;Legends \u0026amp; Lattes\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Bookshops \u0026amp; Bonedust\u0026rdquo; and couldn\u0026rsquo;t get enough. Then I saw that he also did voice acting for Will Wight\u0026rsquo;s Cradle series which is a SciFi/Fantasy series that I\u0026rsquo;ve thoroughly enjoyed so far. I couldn\u0026rsquo;t get the audiobook version because it\u0026rsquo;s exclusive to Audible (I hate this with the heat of a thousand suns) so I started looking if there are other series he voiced.\nSo, I continued looking through his catalog of audiobook work and stumbled upon the series \u0026ldquo;A Thousand Li\u0026rdquo; by Tao Wong. My library thankfully had the first 3 books in Audiobook format so I listened to them\u0026hellip;nearly non-stop. Tao Wong\u0026rsquo;s writing is superb when it comes to fight scenes and his concepts of character building and progression are some of the best I\u0026rsquo;ve read in a while. Since I couldn\u0026rsquo;t continue the series because the remaining audiobooks are Audible exclusive (aside: I implore authors to stop this. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t help the you in the long term as noted in \u0026ldquo;How to Resist Amazon and Why\u0026rdquo; and also \u0026ldquo;Chokepoint Capitalism\u0026rdquo;) I picked up one of the complete series that was available, \u0026ldquo;The Adventures on Brad\u0026rdquo;.\nThe Adventures on Brad is basically straight up LitRPG but it was one of Tao Wong\u0026rsquo;s first widely available series so the writing has a few problem but the story\u0026hellip; man! This was basically my real introduction into western LitRPG. I\u0026rsquo;m not counting the light novels I\u0026rsquo;ve read here because while they\u0026rsquo;re also litRPG they swing more heavily into anime than western litRPG. I nearly finished the 9 books in one listening session. I won\u0026rsquo;t say much about the ending but\u0026hellip; never mind. If I say anything else it would be spoiling.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t want the LitRPG addiction to stop so I saw they had Tao Wong\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;System Apocalypse\u0026rdquo; books 1-3 at my library in audiobook form. This series is more adult and leans heavily into Sci Fi post apocalyptic genre. I couldn\u0026rsquo;t get enough. While the main characters are similar to some degree across his series to some degree, I don\u0026rsquo;t hate it. They\u0026rsquo;re good characters and they each have their own problems and character development that they pursue.\nI just wish that the audiobooks weren\u0026rsquo;t always exclusive to Audible. I\u0026rsquo;ve added them to my amazon wishlist but recognize that even if you purchase them, you have to break the law by breaking the DRM just to have them in a portable format so that you\u0026rsquo;re not locked into Audible. I stopped pirating and breaking DRM a long time ago and my Christian sensibilities won\u0026rsquo;t allow me to do it again, so I\u0026rsquo;m basically stuck. I\u0026rsquo;m not about to buy into the Audible ecosystem so I\u0026rsquo;ll just leave them on my wishlist in the event that someone else buys them for me. It\u0026rsquo;s frustrating.\nAnyway, I\u0026rsquo;m thoroughly addicted to Tao Wong\u0026rsquo;s writing now and LitRPG as a genre. I\u0026rsquo;ll probably end up listening to the Solo Leveling light novels since it fits pretty squarely into the LitRPG genre. But before I do that, I\u0026rsquo;ve noticed that Tao Wong has a series called \u0026ldquo;Climbing the Ranks\u0026rdquo; that only has two books out but both are available with my library. So I\u0026rsquo;ll start that next.\nI am addicted but I can\u0026rsquo;t help it.\n","permalink":"https://timaeos.dev/posts/litrpg-addiction-begins/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eSo\u0026hellip; I started listening to LitRPG Audiobooks recently due to stumbling upon them while following an audiobook voice actor around. Specifically, I was trying to see if \u003ca href=\"https://www.travisbaldree.com/\"\u003eTravis Baldree\u003c/a\u003e had any other books that he voiced.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Litrpg Addiction Begins"},{"content":"Finance Programming is Challenging As some may know, I\u0026rsquo;ve been working with my brother for the last two years on financial algorithms to perform arbitrage trades using what little knowledge we had of stable assets and volatile assets. This was essentially a means to do foreign exchange without having to use traditional financial instruments that were prohibitively expensive.\nWe were able to succeed in proving the concept from a technical perspective but not from a scaling perspective. Ultimately, what we realized was that the algorithms and compute overhead to do the data processing was beyond our reach with our current software architecture. We started this year investigating ways to improve performance of our data processing without major capital investments in computing power.\nScaling We\u0026rsquo;re currently kicking a can down the road that we shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be. We need to switch the architecture to something that can be spread horizontally across small compute but also we need to change something that scales vertically to utilise all resources on a computer.\nCurrently, we have workers that are largely dictated arbitrarily by our settings file. We have multiple classes of workers but some workers are only useful for one thing and having multiple of them doesn\u0026rsquo;t split up the work in any meaningful way. This is a critical problem with our architecture.\nThe reason why it was setup this way was because of the memory sharing constraints of NodeJS meaning that there was excessive serialization and data syncing issues that results in a lot of overhead. Moving all of the data over to the database introduces extreme latency especially with so many workers talking. These are all solved problems but for various reasons we haven\u0026rsquo;t pursued them.\nThe main reason is laziness.\nTime Capital vs Motivation Capital Time capital is great but its useless without motivation capital. I think the mental blocks and barriers I\u0026rsquo;ve encountered in the last few months of largely working alone on the major parts of the project have taken a larger toll than I recognized. I\u0026rsquo;m tired of learning without actually making money. I\u0026rsquo;m tired of studying software concepts, applying them, only to realize it wasn\u0026rsquo;t enough. In the last 2 years, I\u0026rsquo;ve learned a lot about the computer programming world. I would love to be able to continue programming in some fashion but without stable income, I\u0026rsquo;ll likely have to return to the previous semiconductor world in largely the same capacity.\nI have weird feelings. I want to be competent enough to make this work but I also want actual progress along the way. I\u0026rsquo;ve done coding sprints and hackathons only to have none of them actually result in financial output. Actually, some of them resulted in negative results. Learning for the sake of learning is great but it\u0026rsquo;s impossible to do with a looming debt over your head. A debt that didn\u0026rsquo;t even need to happen.\nMotivation is what makes time capital work. I have a surplus of the latter without any of the former. This is the most frustrating place I\u0026rsquo;ve been in for a long time. Probably since I graduated university without employment.\nI could rant more\u0026hellip; but I won\u0026rsquo;t.\nSigning off until I have more to work through.\n","permalink":"https://timaeos.dev/posts/developing-finance/","summary":"\u003ch2 id=\"finance-programming-is-challenging\"\u003eFinance Programming is Challenging\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs some may know, I\u0026rsquo;ve been working with my brother for the last two years on financial algorithms to perform \u003ca href=\"https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/arbitrage.asp\"\u003earbitrage trades\u003c/a\u003e using what little knowledge we had of stable assets and volatile assets. This was essentially a means to do foreign exchange without having to use traditional financial instruments that were prohibitively expensive.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Finance Programming is Challenging"},{"content":"Introduction Hello, I\u0026rsquo;m Timothy Arnold (timaeos). I am an engineer based in Austin, Texas, working at the intersection of physical hardware engineering, quantitative distributed software systems, and community-centered technology.\nBackground \u0026amp; Engineering Journey I hold a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin (December 2009). Over the past twelve years, I worked extensively in the semiconductor equipment industry as a senior process and equipment engineer, specializing in advanced wet etch, chemical cleans, and 3D heterogeneous integration (3DHI) bridging silicon, gallium nitride (GaN), and photonics.\nParallel to my work in physical cleanroom semiconductor manufacturing, I have spent years architecting and maintaining decentralized systems, algorithmic quantitative finance engines, and self-hosted Linux server clusters.\nAreas of Focus Quantitative Systems \u0026amp; Algorithmic Trading Mathematical Invariants: Pure integer WadRayMath arithmetic, continuous volatility-based statistical corridors, and dynamic liquidity depth gating for automated market makers (AMMs). Decentralized Finance (DeFi): Smart contract integration across EVM networks (Base L2), micro-wallet capital governance, and tax asset hurdle accounting. Digital Commons \u0026amp; Public Infrastructure Nexaeos: Open, hyper-local community micro-data centers designed as 21st-century digital public libraries. Wellspring \u0026amp; Wire: Biophilic physical-digital third spaces designed to blend sustainable plant architecture, co-working, and community technology. Core Technical Proficiencies Systems \u0026amp; Languages: Node.js / TypeScript, Python, Golang, C++, Solidity, Bash. Infrastructure \u0026amp; Devops: Linux (AlmaLinux / Fedora / Debian), Podman / Docker Quadlets, Systemd, Caddy, Nginx, WireGuard, FreeIPA PKI, Btrfs disaster recovery. Observability: Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, SNMP / IPMI hardware monitoring. Database \u0026amp; Storage: MongoDB, PostgreSQL, SQLite, ZFS / Ceph. Links \u0026amp; Artifacts Resume: Download Curriculum Vitae (PDF) Matrix: @timaeos:matrix.nexaeos.io Email: timaeos (at) proton.me ","permalink":"https://timaeos.dev/about/","summary":"\u003ch2 id=\"introduction\"\u003eIntroduction\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHello, I\u0026rsquo;m \u003cstrong\u003eTimothy Arnold\u003c/strong\u003e (\u003ccode\u003etimaeos\u003c/code\u003e). I am an engineer based in Austin, Texas, working at the intersection of physical hardware engineering, quantitative distributed software systems, and community-centered technology.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"About"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;ve used a couple of places to track the books I\u0026rsquo;m reading but I haven\u0026rsquo;t really stuck with any of them for very long.\nBookwyrm\nRead Currently Reading To Read Stopped Reading Austin Public Library\nCompleted In Progress For Later The one that I currently do the best job of updating is the Austin Public Library service. I don\u0026rsquo;t like that it doesn\u0026rsquo;t offer an actual RSS feed for activity but since it\u0026rsquo;s tightly integrated with my library, it wins by default.\nI moved away from Goodreads to Bookwyrm but going the extra step of logging into the Bookwyrm instance and then the added burden of searching and fixing metadata that was incorrect was too cumbersome. I think a part of it was that the instance that I\u0026rsquo;m using is in Germany so much of the metadata isn\u0026rsquo;t there for US Book releases.\nI tend to track my notes on books in Logseq. If there is anything I actually want to publish abroad, then I\u0026rsquo;ll add them here.\nGenres My genre interests tend to vary substantially from fun to serious. I read both skill-up and entertainment areas\nSelf-Improvement Software Programming Business Management Knowledge Management Economics Christian Character Development Entertainment Manga Isekai Action / Adventure Anything with City / Base Building Elements Anything with Strategic Main Characters Fiction Novels Fantasy Science Fiction Speculative Fiction LitRPG ","permalink":"https://timaeos.dev/books/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eI\u0026rsquo;ve used a couple of places to track the books I\u0026rsquo;m reading but I haven\u0026rsquo;t really stuck with any of them for very long.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://tomes.tchncs.de/user/timaeos\"\u003eBookwyrm\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://tomes.tchncs.de/user/timaeos/books/read\"\u003eRead\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://tomes.tchncs.de/user/timaeos/books/reading\"\u003eCurrently Reading\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://tomes.tchncs.de/user/timaeos/books/to-read\"\u003eTo Read\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://tomes.tchncs.de/user/timaeos/books/stopped-reading\"\u003eStopped Reading\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://austin.bibliocommons.com/user_profile/1096265327/activity_feed\"\u003eAustin Public Library\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Book Notes"},{"content":"Connect If you would like to discuss engineering collaborations, semiconductor hardware, quantitative systems, or community commons initiatives, please reach out via:\nEmail: timaeos (at) proton.me Matrix: @timaeos:matrix.nexaeos.io GitHub / Forgejo: timaeos ","permalink":"https://timaeos.dev/contact/","summary":"\u003ch2 id=\"connect\"\u003eConnect\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you would like to discuss engineering collaborations, semiconductor hardware, quantitative systems, or community commons initiatives, please reach out via:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEmail:\u003c/strong\u003e \u003ccode\u003etimaeos (at) proton.me\u003c/code\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMatrix:\u003c/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"https://matrix.to/#/@timaeos:matrix.nexaeos.io\"\u003e@timaeos:matrix.nexaeos.io\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGitHub / Forgejo:\u003c/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/timaeos\"\u003etimaeos\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e","title":"Contact"}]