Kognise

Hello! I usually go by the moniker Kognise /ˈkägˌnaɪz/ on the Internet, though my real name is Lexi. Many things capture my interest, and this site features some of them. You may enjoy reading one of the articles I’ve written.

Reach out: hi@kognise.dev or @kognise on Discord
Find me:   GitHub Twitter LinkedIn Resume

On this page:

I am currently an engineer at Neuralink. In the past, I’ve worked at Hack Club, Replit, and Redwood Research.

Computers!

I spend a significant portion of my time writing code and creating with technology. I believe in having passion for your craft and attention to detail. Since I just adore building things, I have a huge amount of side projects that I don’t really know what to do with! You can see an abridged list of stuff I’ve done if you’re interested.

I use TypeScript, Rust, and Next.js on a daily basis and love them. I used to daily drive NixOS with KDE Plasma (you can check out my dotfiles, they’re not half bad) but now just use macOS and reserve NixOS for my desktop at home. I design everything for myself and for others using Figma.

I’m often asked, “hey Lexi, what kind of programming do you do?”, and I never quite know how to answer. I do everything. Frontend! Backend! Embedded hardware! Mobile apps! Compilers! I find it immensely enjoyable to learn how shit works and go down rabbit holes, and I pick up whatever’s needed to build what I’m excited about.

In the summer of 2021 I rode across the country with a bunch of other cool programmers on a literal freaking superdome train, and that was pretty cool. Recently, I’ve been traveling a lot to meet developer friends in person. This has even taken me to Kalamazoo, which I didn’t previously realize was a real city in Michigan.

9-year-old me making friends with a cool robot I made:

A young girl holding hands with a robot made mostly out of cardboard and covered in tinfoil. The face of the robot has lit LEDs and some electronics can be seen inside. A desk with wires and a roll of tinfoil can be seen in the background.

Airplanes!

I think aviation is pretty cool. I soloed about a year ago and am planning on finishing my license soon!

I’m currently learning to fly the good ol’ Cessna 172 for my Private Pilot License. I also enjoy playing flight simulators; I use Microsoft Flight Simulator in VR as well as FlightGear, and occasionally pilot or control on VATSIM. I mentioned travelling earlier: when I have the chance, I love flying as a passenger.

Here are some neat pictures I took from the air:

The parking area of a small airport, with two visible small planes. In the background is the runway and air traffic conctrol. The photograph is taken from the perspective of standing at the door, and is partially obscured by a brown ceiling held up by columns.San Antonio, Texas as seen from above at night. A wing strut can be seen in the foreground.A small Cessna plane sitting in a parking area, taken from the front. A beautiful blue sky with spread out fluffy clouds is on top.The analog cockpit of a Cessna 172, with the plane rolling slightly to the left.

Music!

When I’m not programming, flying, or slacking off, I’m probably doing something music-related. I’ve been playing classical, jazz, and contemporary music on cello for almost 12 years. I compose music for acoustic instruments and create electronic bleep bloop sounds in a variety of styles using Ableton, REAPER, Pd, and Max. Perhaps I’ll release an album eventually.

The large portion of my time awake is spent listening to music. In fact, I’m probably listening to some music right now! My taste is very multifaceted, but I primarily listen to upbeat songs. I also used to play Beat Saber badly and loved it, although I haven’t had that much time recently.

Here are my favorite albums of all time, in no particular order:

I also recently discovered that some modern country is actually quite catchy. Here’s a Spotify playlist of country music I made, love it or hate it.

Other things!

I’ve been getting into rock climbing. While I suck, it’s the first physical activity that I’ve actually taken pleasure in. I learned how to solve a Rubik’s cube and got down to 40 seconds but have stopped practicing. I enjoy building mediocre furniture out of wood.

Almost as much as I like engulfing myself in books, I like watching beautiful movies. Many of my favorite films are anime-style, including almost everything by Studio Ghibli as well as CoMix Wave Films; my favorite Ghibli movie is probably Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Live-action movies that stuck out to me as really great are Dr. Strangelove, Memento, and Lady Bird. I’m also a die-hard fan of the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy.

Some of my favorite books that I can 100% recommend:

You mightor enjoy a piece of writing I synergized, or perhaps get a kick out of reading some brand guidelines.

And as always, feel free to shoot me an email or direct message anytime and for any reason :)

Projects!

Now that I am more so In The Industry, there are fewer projects I can publicize! It is kind of sad to me that I can’t share as much as I used to, but hey, I suppose it pays off for me.

Here’s a semi-complete and unordered list of tech projects I’ve worked on over the course of my life, with links provided for the ones that are more consumable:

A light-skinned person with wavy shoulder-length brown hair hugging a red plastic human-sized Jelly Belly mascot man.

^ Finally, here’s me in 2022 with a beautiful jelly bean man! Byeeeeeeeeeee.