Now_

Currently Working On

I shipped hybrid semantic and lexical retrieval at work. Now I’m on query understanding: a search box can mean fifty different things, and the retrieval is easy once I know what to retrieve.

Outside work, I’m playing around with being a content creator. The Instagram is @hybrid.uncle. Still figuring out what that means in practice.

Training For

Next up is Run Melbourne Half on 19 July for Running for Premature Babies. Then Sydney Marathon on 30 August. Sydney is the main experiment; Melbourne is the charity checkpoint on this block.

After that, Melbourne Marathon on 11 October. Rebuilding the base gently, then structured work: long runs at target effort, time on feet, and fuelling practice so the second half isn’t a survival shuffle.

Fundraising

I’m fundraising through my Grassrootz page. Donations go toward neonatal equipment for hospitals in Australia.

I’m at AUD 1,216 and aiming for $1,500. A colleague donated and challenged a sub-2:00 half at Run Melbourne. Doable on a good day, but a subplot, not the north star.

If you want to chip in, the link above is the one. Thanks to everyone who already has.

Reading

Mary-Frances O’Connor, The Grieving Brain. Trying to understand my own bereavement, and my partner’s, after our younger cat passed away suddenly. Also what it means for the cat who is still here. Grief is not only for people, and the book treats that as a brain problem as much as a heart one.

Cooking

Done with heo quay. The marinade got there eventually: less sugar, more fragrance.

Next is hủ tiếu. Teochew origin, developed in Phnom Penh by the Triều Châu community, brought south to the Mekong Delta and Saigon in the 1950s. Southern cooks adapted it again: sweeter broth, more generous garnish.

The bowl I grew up eating is already several versions removed from the original. Haven’t decided which version to start with.