Hello, I am Nico!

Welcome to my website. The content here is centered around programming, statistics, psychology, philosophy, and history.

My technical interest spans big data systems, distributed computing, and statistical analysis, with proficiency in Python, Rust, Go, TypeScript, and SQL. I'm particularly drawn to solving the hard systems questions that enable data science at scale, and the hidden systems beneath what users experience.

In my free time, I enjoy reading fantasy novels and historical texts, playing piano, drawing and cartography, playing tabletop RPGs and strategy videogames (Paradox, Total War, ArmA), and long-distance running around Madison.

Studies

I am a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, double majoring in Computer Science and Data Science. I spend most of my time hanging out in the Undergraduate Projects Lab on campus with my friends.

Here is a list of some of my favorite classes:

• Game Theory, Learning and Optimization* (Manolis Vlatakis)
• Theory of Multi-agent Machine Learning* (Manolis Vlatakis)
• Data Exploration, Cleaning, and Integration for Data Science* (AnHai Doan)
• Statistical Data Visualization (Kris Sankaran)
• Introduction to Operating Systems (Michael Swift)
• Introduction to Big Data Systems (Tyler Caraza-Harter)

Writing

I try to stay away from being prescriptive and instead prefer to frame my experiences and how I've learned or grown from them. I want to remain casual while staying away from making sweeping or unsubstantiated claims about these complex topics. I focus on my interests in programming, statistics, psychology, philosophy, and history, and that's what I write about.

I am forever learning, and formulating my interests in essays forces me to refine my beliefs or understanding. I aim to put out a piece once per month. I am always open to critiques, fact checking, or revising to cover angles I did not anticipate.

Colophon

A colophon is a brief statement that appears at the end of a book, providing information about its production. I got the idea from Andrew, and while I don't believe I will do as great a job as he did with his, here is my best shot:

There's a running joke among my friends that I go through many websites. This one will hopefully stand the test of time. I've had a lot of fun writing this using only HTML/CSS with a build.sh script, Pandoc, and post templates for the blog. I have enjoyed that I have to figure things out rather than getting features out of the box, as it forces me to really consider what I actually want.

The site is intentionally minimal, with no JavaScript except for conditional loading of MathJax on blog posts that require LaTeX rendering. Content is processed from Markdown files using Pandoc, creating a static site that's lightweight and fast. CSS is inlined to eliminate render-blocking resources, and I subset all fonts using pyftsubset to include only the characters actually used on each page. The simplicity of the system makes maintenance straightforward.

For those interested, the website source is available here.

If you'd like to link back to my site, feel free to use my 88x31 button—a nod to the early web:

<a href="https://salm.dev"><img src="https://salm.dev/88x31.gif" target="_blank" alt="salm.dev"></a>