Now_

Currently Working On

I shipped hybrid semantic and lexical retrieval at work. Now I’m on query understanding, which sounds simple until you realise a search box can mean fifty different things. Filtering? Category browsing? Pure keyword search? Recommendations? The retrieval is easy once I know what to retrieve.

Also shipping this site. It’s been in my head for a long time.

Training For

Ballarat Full Marathon in late April. I try to keep the weekly volume around 50 km, mostly easy aerobic running. The full is a different beast to a half. I want to arrive at the start line healthy and respect the distance.

After that: Hyrox Sydney in July, then Sydney Full Marathon in October.

Competing In

I’m in the Northside Boulders Summer Boulder Ladder 2026, a 5-week bouldering comp across their two gyms. Ten problems per gym each week; my top 3 weekly scores carry through to a finale at the end of week 5. I’m mostly using it as a structured excuse to climb more consistently.

Reading

Re-reading The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. First time I read it I was absorbing the laws. This time I’m more interested in the historical examples and what they say about how power actually moves between people.

Cooking

Done with heo quay. The marinade got there eventually: less sugar, more fragrance, closer to what I was after.

Next project is hủ tiếu. It’s a Teochew dish — the Triều Châu community in Phnom Penh made it their own, then brought it south to the Mekong Delta and Saigon sometime in the 1950s. Southern Vietnamese cooks adapted it again: the broth got sweeter, the garnish more generous.

What I find interesting is the layering. It is Chinese in origin, Cambodian in its development, and Southern Vietnamese in the version most people know. Each step changed something and kept something else. The bowl I grew up eating is already several versions removed from the original.

Haven’t decided which version to start with.