About

Hey. I'm Marco (he/they). I'm finishing my Mechatronics & Biomedical Engineering degree at McMaster University and I'm also the chief technology officer at crewd. I hope to use this place to share things I found interesting, ramble about a litany of topics, and share my sentiments as I continue playing this game they call "life".

Below, you'll find miscellaneous facts about me, potentially (not) informational.

Music

I have a Spotify playlist of a handful of songs that truly represents my disorganized taste in music. I would embed it if it wasn't for the fact that it necessitates DRM on this website which I extensively object to. Here's the list in plain text instead:

Hozier - Take Me to Church
Joji - PIXELATED KISSES
Ryo Fukui - Early Summer
Dvořák - Lullaby in G Major, B. 188
Loathe - Heavy Is the Head That Falls with the Weight of a Thousand Thoughts
Haley Heynderickx - The Bug Collector
Elton John - Rocket Man
Outkast - Hey Ya!
Katy Perry - California Gurls (ft. Snoop Dogg)
HOME - Before the Night
Dios - Runaway
underscores - The Peace

Video Games

Here's a question: would you rather have unlimited bacon but no games, or games, unlimited games, but no games?

Anyway, here are some games I like:

DELTARUNE - I may suck at bullet hells, but I'll brute-force it if it means a great story and incredible music.
Slay the Princess - The story, the art, the music, the everything, I love it all.
Cyberpunk 2077 - (after the launch fiasco, specifically) Being a cyber-samurai or super-netrunner is fun and all, but consider blowing up everyone with the O'Five-
Barotrauma - Especially love the circuitry mechanics in the game; my friends call me insane and I'm not sure why.
Hades & Hades II - something something squidward "oh no he's hot" meme something something.
OpenTTD - I get to build giant rail highways that would never exist in real life, at least until my money runs out.

Reads

Shamefully, there isn't much here, but I'd hope to expand this section in the future.

The Way of Kings (still reading) - First story I've read in a while, recommended by a good friend. I must say, I love the way Sanderson builds his worlds and I thoroughly enjoy the non-linear storytelling in this.
Homestuck - This is the only webcomic I've read thus far. My memory fails me and I've forgotten a fair bit but I still recommend this, though I felt some of Act 6 became a bit of a slog. Maybe I should re-read it, though.

Software

For those that care.

OS: Arch Linux (btw).
WM: niri + Dank Linux (I should try my own Quickshell config some day).
Shell & Terminal: zsh + oh-my-zsh + kitty.
Editor: VS Code (I'm basic, I know).
Browser: Firefox.
Hotel? Trivago.

Daily Drivers

For those that really care.

`ia-workstation`

Main desktop. A pre-built from Memory Express that gets the job done. Kind of wish in hindsight that I just built it myself but I didn't have much time then.

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X.
GPU: GIGABYTE RTX 4070 SUPER.
RAM: Kingston FURY Beast DDR4-3200, 32GB.
Storage: Kingston KC3000 1TB + some random 1TB WD Blue 2.5" SATA drive I had lying around.
Cooling: Some kind of Cooler Master AIO?
Motherboard: ASUS PRIME B550-PLUS AC-HES.
PSU: I don't even know, lmao.

`ia-nomad`

My laptop. It works but it's genuinely falling apart (I think I've lost 5 of 8 bottom panel retaining screws?). I'd hope to replace this in the future with something like a Framework 13 Pro.

(As a side note, Dell genuinely sucks hot doo doo garbage. I've had to replace the fans 9 times over 8 years, and set clock limits and undervolting so the keyboard doesn't become a hotplate. Even then, it still dies after 2 hours on battery while on power-saving mode. Should've figured for a gaming laptop but that's still atrocious.)

Model: Dell G3 15 3579 (2018).
CPU: Intel Core i7 8750H.
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti Mobile.
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws DDR4-3200, 32GB (aftermarket, but the motherboard caps the speed to 2666 MHz 😂😂😂).
Storage: WD Black SN770 512GB (aftermarket) + some SK Hynix 256GB SSD (original) that I stuffed into an M.2 to 2.5" SATA converter.

Funny Buttons

Hey, look at that, 88x31 buttons. And this time, they're on a static webpage with no JavaScript!