Michael Y. Zuo
email – StackExchange – semiWiki – Hacker News

About me:
Mechanical/Electrical Engineer and Software Engineer
In my spare time I write about interesting topics by focusing on the essentials, usually those derivable from first principles.
My goal is to maximize the potential of civilization. as everyone is competent at something so sharing what I’ve learned, and learning from others, is my contribution to the progress of society.
My background is from mechanical, electrical, and computer engineering, and broadly, the physical sciences. With some hobbyist interest and idle musings in fields such as product design, architecture, astrophysics, mathematics, and philosophy.
I do some freelance consulting as well on certain topics.
Graduated with BASc from Queen’s University. BA and MEng on hold (perhaps indefinitely!)
Audited courses at a well known university in California along with other minor academic activities.
I go by M. Y. Zuo, or some other variant of my name, on sites such as Twitter, Substack, LessWrong, etc.
About this site:
The header image rotates through a selection of art at random, notably of O’Neill cylinders in several forms.
Minimal & Maximal has multiple meanings, notably that of minimax theory, which is of primary importance in escaping suboptimal Nash equilibriums.
This site does not use any tracking or other data collection systems, other than the mandatory statistical information that wordpress requires to function. There is no infinite scrolling either.
Cool facts about my background:
Founded queenshyperloop.ca
Served the Toronto public as the NPI administrator (effectively as the coordinator for all proposals, not joking!) for the electrical grid at torontohydro.com
Hobbies
Reading history and biographies, particularly autobiographies of influential figures of the past. I also had a fascination with WW2 era armored vehicles during my high school years, you can literally ask me anything about those.
Favourites
show: Yes, Minister
book: Poor Charlie’s Almanack
ballet: The Merry Widow
composition: The Four Seasons
opera: Turandot at the Forbidden City
popular song: Party in the CIA
film: The Matrix
architect: Zaha Hadid
astronomical object: Neutron Stars
Heard are the voices,
Heard are the sages,
The worlds and the ages;
“Choose well; your choice is
Brief and yet endless,
Here eyes do regard you,
In Eternity’s stillness,
Here is all fullness,
Ye Brave to reward you;
Work and despair not,”
Goethe