Who am I?

:big(M):y name is Jay. I am a Zillennial male, and according to 23andMe, I am roughly 70% English and French, 15% Ukrainian Ashkenazi Jew, 5% Scandinavian, and the rest, a smattering of European countries, both Eastern and Western. I have lived in New England for about a decade, but I grew up in a New York City suburb. I have degrees in both Mathematics and Computer Science, and I studied Mandarin Chinese for about eight years (my father has been a believer in the Chinese Century my entire life, and required that I learn as a child). I currently work as a senior engineer at a medical technology company.

Over the past fifteen years, I have used many usernames and handles online, including but not limited to: “jehlp” (an etymological degradation of Jay combined with let’s play (LP)), “JW” (my initials), or “KNT”. Use whichever suits you best, I do not care.

Puzzles

:big(I): have competed in International Puzzle Competitions and authored hundreds of logic puzzles under the alias “KNT”. On the offical Logic Masters Site, I am the user who has authored the largest number of perfectly rated puzzles. I am also the user who has authored the largest number of maximum difficulty puzzles. The most subscribed puzzle-related YouTube channel, Cracking The Cryptic, solved a puzzle of mine which at the time resulted in their longest video ever. This record has since been beaten.

I have solved over one thousand New York Times crosswords, and have been a competitive participant in many lengthy puzzlehunts. I solo completed Galactic Puzzlehunt 2023, which typically was done in teams of six. I also am consistently one of the first few solvers for every Jane Street monthly puzzle that I attempt. I do not attempt many, however, as I think their quality is on average somewhat poor.

Writing

:big(M):y favorite author is Gene Wolfe and I have spent many days poring over his dedicated email list, the Urth List. I am also fond of Ted Chiang, Vladimir Nabokov, Herman Melville, Michel Houllebecq, Naoki Urasawa, and Jorge Luis Borges. My favorite Gene Wolfe short story is “Forlesen”, and it can be found in his Book of Days.

Despite being a practicing white christian, I have a deep appreciation and fascination with the Mahabharata (I do not care much for the Ramayana). The most difficult book I have read is Ulysses, and while I think it is dreadfully boring, it makes for a nice decoration on my ottoman.

I am a Wikipedian, and I have written over a dozen original pages. Most of my contributions and edits have been related to either logic puzzles, Hindu mythology, science-fiction, or otaku culture.

I used to write anime reviews on MyAnimeList, but it is best those are lost to time.

I am an avid reader of Japanese visual novels (VNs), and have recorded most of them on my VNDB profile. My very favorite is the Utwarerumono trilogy, but I also quite like the Baldr Sky duology as well as the Muv-Luv trilogy. I am a script editor for an upcoming 2026 English visual novel, however this title is still officially unannounced. Despite committing so much time to VNs, I think most are actually not that good.

Video Games

:big(I): am a lifelong gamer.

Miscellaneous Projects

:big(F):or a while, I entertained writing my own visual novel, and frustrated with the limitations of the Ren’Py engine, I vibecoded my own in the Rust programming language. This project ultimately did not go anywhere, but this engine is fully functional and sitting idly in a private GitHub repository of mine.

I have had a longstanding interest in programmatic language translation, specifically neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and optical character recognition (OCR). This is neither NLP or OCR, in fact it is orders of magnitude simpler, but soon after the GPT-5 launch, I experimented with translating visual novels using image interpretation. The tool was ultimately a success, but each line’s translation took far too long and consumed tens of thousands of tokens, even after intelligently reducing the size of each request. By my calculations, translating the average visual novel from start to finish with this technique would cost over one thousand U.S. dollars.

Somewhat related, but I am a believer in the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and find Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life” a wonderful exploration of linguistic relativity.

In early 2023, just after the ChatGPT launch, I worked on the development of an LLM-powered VTuber. I obtained a cheap model from Nizima and connected it to the VTubeStudio API. The model would read messages from a twitch chat and generate cutesy and relevant responses. I spent far too much time simulating realistic movement with intense Bézier curve algebra, but that was the most fun part of the project for me. We’ve since seen massive success of other LLM-powered VTubers, most notably Neuro-sama.

Politics

:big(I): believe in capitalism, but as we undergo this current A.I. revolution, I see no meaningful long term solution that is not some form of universal basic income. I am pro LGBTQ+ rights, but I am skeptical of current immigration in much of the Western world. I am against elected officials having dual citizenship. I believe that prisons exist for the safety of the public and not for the rehabilitation of the incarcerated, and I think that sentence lengths should be adjusted accordingly. I am a vocal advocate for increased funding for K-12 education, and every American should familiarize themselves with the Mississppi Miracle.

My peers have joked over the years that my views are like those of the Chad Centrist meme. I am always trying to update my opinions based off new information I receive, so many of my viewpoints can and have changed over time.

Adoration

:big(I): believe it is important that everyone has their own personal heroes. The following is a list of people who have inspired me in one way or another.

Gene Wolfe, for teaching me what is truly possible with the English language. I deeply regret not sending you a letter while you were still alive.

Gwern Branwen and Scott Alexander, for their incredible essays.

Isaac Newton, for, as John Maynard Keynes puts it in his speech “Newton, the Man”, being the last of the magicians.

Hernán Cortés, for leading the most impressive expedition in human history.

Erhard “tuace” Notz, for being the most talented logic puzzle constructor.

Bobby Fischer, for being a true intellectual titan. As his sister once said, “It was as if an Eskimo had cleared a tennis court in the snow and gone on to win the world championship”.

Toby Fox, for being the most talented Western solo game developer. One of the great 21st century artists.

Steven Pruitt, for contributing more knowledge to the public domain than anyone who has ever lived.