About Alexander J. Yee

(Last updated: October 11, 2012)

 

 

 

After running this site for some years, I've been asked a lot of questions about myself. So I thought I'd finally add an "about me" page here.

 

 

As of June 2011, I am a 23-year-old first year graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I did my undergraduate at Northwestern Universiy (2006 - 2010) and graduated with a double major in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

My areas of focus are in High Performance Computing, Signal Processing, and VLSI.

 

I was born and raised in the Bay Area (California). I attended and graduated from Bowditch Middle School and Palo Alto High School.

 

I am a second generation immigrant of Chinese descent. My Chinese name is 余智恒 (pronounced "yu-jee-hung" in Cantonese and "yu-zhi-heng" in Mandarin) My mother is from Hong Kong and my father is from Taishan (台山), a region in the Guangdong province of China. I can speak English, Cantonese, and a bit of Mandarin.

 

 

Thoughout my Middle and High School years, I've always been ahead in Math. I finished Calculus in 9th grade and Advanced Linear Algebra in 12th. I also did decently well in competitions like the AMC/AIME, and Science Olympiad. I've always qualified for the AIME, but never for the USAMO.

In various Science Olympiad events, I've placed 1st at states 3 times and placed top 5 countless times.

 

However, ever since grade school, I've always sucked in terms of grades and standardized tests. I graduated from Palo Alto High School in the bottom quartile among all the college-bound students. My GPA was barely a 3.0 at graduation, so it was somewhat miraculous that I got accepted into Northwestern University at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hobbies:

 

Stackoverflow:

I discovered Stack Overflow in August 2011... And now I find myself spending bit a more time there than I should... It's become a hobby to seek out and answer interesting questions.

 

 

You will see me trawling around the C and C++ tags. And especially in questions involving performance and optimization.

 

The best questions I've answered on Stack Overflow are:

• Why is processing a sorted array faster than an unsorted array?
  • Introduction to Branch Prediction
  • Highest-voted question and answer on Stack Overflow of all time. (October 2012)
    
    
• Why does changing 0.1f to 0 slow down performance by 10x?
  • How denormalized floating-point can destroy performance.
    
    
• Why is one loop so much slower than two loops?
  • Some very subtle performance anomalies that arise from memory alignment.
    
    
• How to achieve 4 flops per cycle.
  • A hard core example of what it takes to fully-utilize a modern processor.
    
    
• Why does GCC generate such radically different assembly for nearly the same C code?
  • Some of the weirdest compiler optimization behavior I've seen.

 

Bowling:

I started bowling in 10th grade with a bunch of friends from school. Since then I've taught myself all the basics as well as how to hook a bowling ball.

 

Currently, I use a 16 pound ball with a heavy to extreme crank. For spares, I use a 14 pound ball with no hook. However, overall I'm not particularly skilled.

 

My best game is only 241 - set with a (very lucky) 7-bagger.

 

 

Piano/Music:

I have played the piano since 2nd grade. I started not because of pressure from my parents, but because I actually wanted to. (surprising isn't it?)

 

The stuff I play is entirely classical - mostly works of Beethoven and Chopin. For the most part, if I like a piece, I will play it. I really don't care if it's easy or hard.

 

Some of the things I've played include:

The Easy: Beethoven's Moonlight (1st mov.) and Pathetique (2nd mov.) Sonatas.

The Not-so-Easy: Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata (1st mov.) and Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu.

 

There have been a handful of pieces that were to difficult for me to handle (either because my hands were too small or because of its pure speed insanity...): Chopin's Scherzo #1 and Beethoven's Hammerklavier... :(

 

However, due to my lack of time and inability to access a piano of decent quality over my college years, my piano skills have mostly fallen down to a beginner's...

 

 

Japanese Anime:

Okay... I'm not gonna go out and start calling myself an Otaku yet. But I'm afraid I'm getting there... lolz

Anyway, I'm not gonna get too detailed here since I can easily go on forever about Anime. However, bashing (or liking) the wrong Anime is like asking for a duel from someone avid in the other direction... :)

 

Currently, my favorite Anime of all time is a tie between Valkyria Chronicles (戦場のヴァルキュリア) and Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica (魔法少女まどか☆マギカ).

 

 

Games:

Of course... I game... Computers, Xbox, Nintendo DS... Some of the games I've played in the past are, Starcraft, Warcraft DOTA, Red Alert, Age of Empires, Sim City, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress, Halo, Pokemon, Neopets, etc...

 

I don't play too many games now. It's mostly Anime now. The only notable game I play on computer now is Left 4 Dead and Crysis (the latter mainly to test my framerates)...

 

As far as handhelds go, I still play pokemon - even after all these years...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Workspace:

And this is my current dormroom and workspace...

 

Being a CS and EE major with an enthusiasm for computers, I need my elaborate setup of 4 monitor setup. :) (3 x 23in. 1080p + 22 in. 1680 x 1050)

It's surprisingly productive... Code on one monitor. Compile/email/stackoverflow on a 2nd monitor. Remote desktop a 3rd. Watch anime on the 4th...

 

Questions or Comments?

Contact me via e-mail. I'm pretty good with responding unless it gets caught in my school's junk mail filter.