Kognise

Hello! I usually go by the moniker Kognise /ˈkäg-ˌnīz/ on the internet. Many things capture my interest, and this website features some of them.

You’re visiting the third or fourth iteration; this is significantly more stripped down, but feels more personable than the “marketing page” aesthetic of previous designs.

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I currently work at Hack Club. Right now, I’m busy [activity loading...]

Computers!

I spend a significant portion of my time writing code and creating with technology, and run a community of really awesome programmers which you should totally join. I love building things, and as a result 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 daily drive NixOS with KDE Plasma, you can check out my dotfiles. I design everything for myself, and sometimes for others, using Figma.

Last summer I rode across the country with a bunch of other cool programmers on a literal freaking superdome train, and that was pretty cool.

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 mean, who doesn’t?

I’m currently learning to fly a steam gauge Cessna 172 (N and P) 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. When I have the chance, I also love flying as a passenger.

Here are some neat pictures I took while out flying:

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. 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. San Antonio, Texas as seen from above. A wing strut can be seen, indicating that the picture was taken from a plane. 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 11 years. I compose music for acoustic instruments and create electronic bleep bloop sounds in a variety of styles using Ableton, REAPER, Pd, and Max.

The large portion of my time awake is spent listening to music. In fact, I'm probably listening to some music right now! I enjoy many genres, but especially like upbeat and catchy songs. I listen to a lot of hyperpop, various subgenres of electronic dance music, and some rock. I also play Beat Saber badly.

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

Read some words I wrote about electronic music: Familiarity in Electroacoustic Music: A Comparative Analysis of Two Approaches

Other things & where to find me!

I enjoy engulfing myself in books and watching 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 Lady Bird, Dr. Strangelove, and Inception. I’m also a die-hard fan of the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy.

Some of my top book recommendations:

Feel free to reach out anytime, even if it’s just to say hi! I love meeting new people. You can email me at hi@kognise.dev, or message me on Discord at Kognise#6356. I have presences on GitHub and Polywork.

Projects!

These are the main four projects I’m currently spending most of my time on:

And here’s a semi-complete list of the more minor things I created:

A person with long hair holding a phone, wearing a parka, mask, and jeans. She's sitting on a public bus travelling through New York City.

^ One last photo to sign off. Byeeeeeeeeeee!