Matt Chung

Author: Matt Chung

  • Guitar practice journal #1

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    Matt Chung
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    Today I practiced my guitar for 20 minutes, a generous amount of time these days (if you are parent you’ll understand). During this practice session, I worked ear training: I looped the song The Funeral (Band of Horses) on my iPhone and played along, plucking the individuals notes in chord progression on my Traveler’s acoustic…

  • Logical Writing & Steven Pinker’s Coherence Relations

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    Matt Chung
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    Have you ever read a passage that flows (i.e. has cohesion) but it just … doesn’t make any sense, no matter how many times you read it? You can lexically parse the passage (i.e. makes grammatically sense) but you cannot grasp the meaning? If so, the passage probably lacks coherence. What is coherence? According to…

  • A healthy (no oil), quick (15 minutes prep, 15 minutes cook), plant based instant pot dish

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    Matt Chung
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    If you are looking for a quick, delicious, healthy (no oil), plant based meal that takes only 30 minutes (15 of those minutes are waiting for the dish to cook in an instant pot) to whip up, look no further. Check out Jill McKeever’s video on “The Red Lentil Stew From Instant Pot”: I’ve taken…

  • A No-Excuses Guide to Blogging – Excuse #5 – “I don’t want to be wrong”

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    Matt Chung
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    Many people (including myself) fear that we will be perceived as a fool if we publish on a post blog that contains a mistake, a public mistake. Nobody wants to be humiliated publicly. This fear is encapsulated inside of a quote that Sacha shares: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to…

  • What vacation looks like with a 10 month year old

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    Matt Chung
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    Summary I never could’ve imagine what being a parent (to a 10 month year old) looks like while on a vacation at the Suncadia Hotel (in the midst of a pandemic). When our daughter sleeps sprawled out on the cloud like king size bed, us two parents are quietly scarfing down our cold dinner while…

  • Swapping values of two variables with XOR

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    Matt Chung
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    As programmers, we know that we can swap two variables by using a temporary variable. That’s fairly simple and intuitive: given two variables (x and y) that you want to swap, you store x in a temporary variable z, copy y to x, then finally copy z (the temporary) to y. But I learned recently…

  • Waiting for one day …

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    Matt Chung
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    “If you want to be successful, find out what the price is and then pay it.” Scott Adams I agree with that Scott Adams wholeheartedly. I also think this rule can be more broadly applied: “If you want something — anything — find out what the price is and then pay it.” This quote reminds…

  • Week 1 and Week 2 of compilers

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    Matt Chung
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    Last week, I couldn’t carve out enough time to write a post on my reflections for week 1 of my compiler’s course so I’ll do the next best thing: write a post that combines week 1 and week 2. The quarter kicked off on January 10th and since then, I’ve felt a range of emotions,…

  • Top 6 photos from first family photo shoot

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    Matt Chung
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    Below are my top 6 photos I cherry picked from our first family photo shoot that took place a couple weeks ago. As some of you my already know, my daughter Elliott was born recently, on October 3rd (2019). And shortly after, my wife had arranged for a professional photographer — Stephanie BC — to…

  • Almost half way through M.S. in Computer Science

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    Matt Chung
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    I’m almost half way through the OMSCS (online masters in computer science), last week marking the end Spring 2020, my third term in the program. And although I’m looking forward to taking compilers next semester, my mind often wanders into the distant future , my mind fast forwarding to the time in which I’ll be…

  • Masters in CS paying off

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    Matt Chung
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    Taking computer science courses are already paying off in my career. Nothing too significant (yet) but I am witnessing small wins. For example, this past summer I suffered through HPCA (high performance computing architecture), a course historically only offered in the longer semesters (e.g. fall, spring). In the course, I learned a lot of theory:…

  • Next up: Compilers (theory and practice) and reflecting on fatherhood

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    Matt Chung
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    For next semester, Spring 2020, I enrolled in what I expect to be one of the most difficult (yet rewarding) courses: compilers – theory and practice. I’m stoked and at the same time, feeling very nervous. I’m stoked for several reasons. First, according to the previous semester’s syllabus, I’ll be learning a ton of theory:…

  • Information Security – Project 4

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    Matt Chung
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    This afternoon, I started on project 4 for introduction to information security (IIS). This goal for this project is to have us students learn more about web security and consists of three objectives, manufacturing three web attacks: cross site scripting, cross site forgery and structure query language (SQL) injection attack. And although I’m very familiar…

  • My wolf pack

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    Matt Chung
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    At work, I’m subscribed to an e-mail distribution group called “dogs@amazon.com”, a list dedicated to anyone interested in dogs. And today, I read an e-mail that broke my heart. A fellow Amazonian just had their second child and they are now giving away their 3 year old Labrador because they can no longer give it…

  • Week 1 of master’s in computer science

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    Matt Chung
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    January 7th, 2019 marks the first day of my computer science master’s program through University of Georgia Tech. The week leading up to the first day was somewhat stressful since I was mid flight (returning to Seattle from London), my plane hovering over the massive blue sea, while I frantically typed away on my keyboard…

  • History of i,j,k variables ?

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    Matt Chung
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    Any time you read code (in production or from a textbook), you’ll often see the control variable, when employing for loops, being declared with the variables i,j,k. And for most of my programming career, I’ve never really questioned why we specifically choose those three letters. Why not m (a great letter), or c or d or…

  • No exercise (or tennis) this week

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    Matt Chung
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    I’ve been limping around for the past week, pulling a muscle in my left thigh. No fault other than my own, though.  One evening last week, Jess and I hit the gym together, exercising at the Northgate 24 hour fitness (which is apparently one of the more popular 24 hour fitnesses in Seattle, due to…

  • Linear algebra – exam 1

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    Matt Chung
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    Earlier this morning, before starting the work week, I took my first linear algebra exam at the nearby Northgate Testing center.  The proctored exam covered the first four modules in the course, topics including: Gaussian elimination (row echelon) Gaussian Jordan elimination (row reduced echelon) Adding, subtracting, multiplying matrices Calculating the inverse of matrices (using identity…

  • Assembly RA (return address)

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    Matt Chung
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    About a year has passed since I took computer organization and I’m a bit disappointed of how much of the material faded from my memory. I only realized this while reading about Exception Control Flow (ECF) in the book Computer Systems: A programmer’s perspective, when the authors mentioned: As with a procedure call, the processor pushes a…

  • Tennis serve in slow motion

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    Matt Chung
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    Last week, with just my iPhone and a camera tripod, I recorded myself hitting tennis balls launched by the ball machine and recording myself smacking a few serves.  The idea of recording myself was inspired from several articles that I had read from tennisplayer.net. To elaborate, I wanted to objectively analyze my tennis strokes —…

  • 3Blue1Brown – Linear Algebra videos

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    Matt Chung
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    Right out the gate, I want to express my gratitude for the 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel for publishing a wonderful video series titled Essentials of Linear Algebra. After watching, and rewatching, the first four beautifully animated videos, I can say that I’ve developed a much better understanding, much more intuitive, of what I’m been learning in my linear algebra…

  • Flexing C muscles

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    Matt Chung
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    I’ve been sharpening my C programming skills because I’m now working on a team (i.e. EC2 Networking) within Amazon Web Services that requires skills in lower level software development. And I must say, I’m truly rusty. A noob. On top of that, my only experience with C in the past has been fairly superficial, me…

  • Linear algebra check in

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    Matt Chung
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    I signed up for linear algebra online course through the University of North Iowa, where I’ll be taking my second university level math course, the first being discrete mathematics. I enrolled in this course because it’s a fundamental course that’s typically required of all aspiring computer science students. Moreover, linear algebra is essential (from what…

  • Admitted into Georgia Tech Master’s in Computer Science

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    Matt Chung
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    On Tuesday, I received an e-mail notification from Georgia Tech, informing me that after 5:00 PM EST, I would be able to check the status of my OMSCS (Online Masters of Science in Computer Science) application, whether I was accepted or rejected. So during dinner, with Jess sitting next to me in the cozy booth…