ron kiehn dot dev

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about me cs & philosophy @ uchicago. i do frontend, fullstack, and machine learning. in june, i'll be joining λ.
contact me ronki@uchicago.edu or find me on github, linkedin, and twitter.
tech stack i'm best at c, python, and javascript/typescript but i'm learning go, rust, and haskell.
about this site this site is built with astro, jquery, react, tailwind, and a little threejs. to see the previous version of this site, visit /old. or view the source code here
Gandalf Gandalf - open project
Gandalf

Realtime multiplayer AI hand-tracking whiteboard.

cmd+e cmd+e - open project
cmd+e

Natural language event creation for gcal.

Leetle Leetle - open project
Leetle

LeetCode meets Wordle - daily coding challenges. 1,000+ weekly active players.

twitter-aura2 twitter-aura2 - open project
twitter-aura2

The viral twitter color palette analyzer. Over 500,000 profiles analyzed.

gptriver gptriver - open project
gptriver

a flowing river of text generated by gpt-2. a testament to how far we've come.

DAWand Blender DAWand Blender - open project
DAWand Blender

Add-on that runs 3DL's DAWand in Blender. Awaiting approval.

cube dot c cube dot c - open project
cube dot c

The ASCII spinning cube is now in your browser with the power of WASM.

Review Consensus Review Consensus - open project
Review Consensus

Chrome extension that writes an AI-generated review consensus on Goodreads.

other projects
UChicago Course Feedback UChicago Course Feedback - open project UChicago Course Feedback - view source
Chrome extension that shows course feedback on UChicago's course catalog.
Sky Alerts (WIP)
An app that sends alerts for astronomical events. Releasing later this year.
Billion-Visualizer Billion-Visualizer - view source
A more concrete visualizer for @bddicken's language comparison project
Nootunez (WIP) Nootunez (WIP) - view source
Generate unique Spotify recommendations. Awaiting API extension for release.
Daily Aurelius Daily Aurelius - open project Daily Aurelius - view source
Chrome extension that shows a new quote from Meditations every day.
Sexy Screen (WIP)
An open source alternative to screen recording tools like ScreenStudio.
Haskell-Cube (WIP)
Recreating my Cube project in Haskell. Hoping to make a web version.
Cube Cube - view source
Takes a simple ASCII cube and adds a ton of features.
Dune2Risk Dune2Risk - open project Dune2Risk - view source
Uncommon Hacks 2024 Best Game Winner. It's like Risk but Dune, made in Pygame.
PopPriceGuide Scraper PopPriceGuide Scraper - view source
A small web scraper for PopPriceGuide to find the price of a Funko Pop.

Git Commits

what i've been up to

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Tech Stack

stuff i've been using/learning

Python
experience: 4 years
notable project: DA Wand Blender
C
experience: 3 years
notable project: cube-web
JavaScript
experience: 1.5 years
notable project: nootunez
HTML/CSS
experience: 1.5 years
notable project: gptriver
Rust
experience: <1 year
Go
experience: <1 year
notable project: leetle
Haskell
experience: <1 year
notable project: haskell-cube
Tailwind
experience: 1.5 years
notable project: this website!
React
experience: 1.5 years
notable project: gandalf
React Native
experience: <1 year
notable project: sky app
Svelte
experience: 1.5 years
notable project: leetle
Astro
experience: 1.5 years
notable project: this website!
HTMX
experience: <1 year
Flask
experience: <1 year
notable project: gptriver
Node/Express
experience: 1.5 years
notable project: gandalf
Bun/Hono
experience: <1 year

Dev Setup

what more could I need

### Macbook Air M1 (2020) it's a good laptop. ### Cursor solarized light theme ### Arc pls open source it

Media

all the media I've consumed recently, updated automatically

Movies

see all
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Books

see all
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Anime

see all
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Songs

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Backlog

[Letterboxd watchlist](https://letterboxd.com/ronthekiehn/watchlist/) #### Series i'm reading - Children of Time (1/3) - Way of Kings (2/5) #### Books i've bought but haven't read - Thrawn - War of the Worlds - Snow Crash - I, Robot - Hyperion

Project Logs

logs / notes / updates for projects i'm currently working on

### bonsai *may 2025* - figma commit tracker - uses bun/hono/supabase #### TODO - [x] figma auth - [x] db setup - [x] track files - [x] show recently updated files - [ ] polish track files modal - [ ] add 'see all files' button - [ ] deploy to vm - [ ] make logo - [ ] google analytics - [ ] favicon and images ### gandalf **released! [gandalf.design](https://gandalf.design)** *april 2025* - magic whiteboard - whiteboard that you control with your hand - Def best idea but not a chatgpt wrapper - Multiplayer - Save it to the cloud (or not) #### TODO #### Combine the frontend code - [x] Url for rooms - [x] Then add Ethan button - [x] Can do Ron/Alex first #### Host the backend - [x] 90% done, just need to test #### Host the frontend - [x] Etc - [x] Google analytics - [x] Favicon - [x] Meta tags - [x] Vercel probably, maybe we do gh pages #### UI - [x] Make like figma - [x] Mobile version? - [x] Change the colors to be sexier - [x] Get rid of the replace: true in app.jsx #### Top level refactoring - [ ] Potentially create a 'tool' interface to make it easier to add more tools - [x] Separate UI state and Drawing state (within zustand) - [x] Move state to REDUX/ZUSTAND - [x] Parse out "advanced features" #### Bugs - [x] Go forward / back in browser MOSTLY works but sometimes only works once (back from room, forward from launch, then back from room doesn't work) - [x] No idea if rooms persist or how long - [x] Dark mode sucks ass - [x] GEMINI SAVING TO SERVER DISK - [x] Resize handler - [x] Changing rapidly concurrent users - [x] Similarly, the quality of the drawing is not very good - [x] Mouse tracking (and presumably hand tracking) is not accurate over the vertical #### Necessary features before launch - [x] Some kind of tutorial - [x] Mobile site?? - [x] Fix all above bugs - [x] Toggles for different features more clear - [x] Shape recognition - [x] Adjust the pixel threshold and history - [x] Smoothing aggressiveness - [x] Make eraser bigger and show big cursor - [x] Change/tune hand recognition options - [x] Decide about finger tap controls, or prefer a more natural 'pen' style writing - [x] Something to trigger eraser - [x] AT LEAST add a UI reaction, maybe allow the user to toggle off - [x] I think the fist is bad for clear, too easy to accidentally activate - [x] Env variable for CORS domains - [x] Add XSS protection to the backend - [x] Hover on all buttons shows tooltip - [x] Concurrent users show full name on hover - [x] Switch join and create - [x] REMOVE or IMPROVE text boxes (removed for now) - [x] REMOVE or IMPROVE images and "improve image" (improved!) - [x] Error handling - [x] Web socket share AS DRAWING (not just when line completed) - [x] Undo/redo - [x] Cursor visibility for mouse mode - [x] On web socket #### Improvements - [ ] ZOOM IN / ZOOM OUT / DRAG - [ ] Need to figure out what hand gestures would be usable - [ ] Some kind of chat/log (user100 cleared the board) - [ ] Text boxes come back - [ ] Webcam on mode - [ ] Different line types? - [ ] Straight lines - [ ] Arrows - [ ] Maybe boxes? - [ ] Working / nicer text boxes - [ ] Match whiteboard aesthetic - [ ] Share over websocket - [ ] IMAGES - [ ] Improve image should drop into scene - [ ] Should be able to copy/paste in images - [ ] limited editing ability (resize) - [ ] Long term could imagine more - [ ] Images MUST be able to move over web socket - [ ] How tho… - [ ] Public rooms!? - [ ] GANDALF PRO (~$10 one time?) - [ ] Lock improve image feature behind this - [ ] If images end up requiring ME to store them, lock images behind this too - [ ] Whiteboards saved into the cloud - [ ] Share across devices - [ ] Requires auth, payment, persistent db, etc. - [ ] OR - pivot to games - [ ] Skribblio style - [ ] But multiple people can draw live! - [ ] Or you're forced to use your hands ### cmd+e **Released! [cmd+e](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/cmd-+-e-ai-event-creation/ccgokmpngmiglfceeleekbjhfeioplap?authuser=0&hl=en)** *march 2025* - add events with ai - recurring events too!! #### TODO - [ ] British mode (aka date flipped) - [ ] Specify calendars - [ ] notion support? ### leetle **Released! [leetle.app](https://leetle.app)** *jan 2025* - daily coding challenge #### TODO - [x] javascript - [ ] update all challenges to work with javascript - [ ] other languages... - [x] challeng counts / completion rates - [ ] user / auth / share across devices

Project Soup

ideas, dead projects, etc.

### AI Art Tutor - Uses new chatgpt / gemini model to review your art - Take a photo on your phone and live sync ### Zig War - Wasm zig last war - Retro style - Add 1 million things - would be good to learn zig and webgpu ### UI Lint - Cli + website for making sure your UI is good - React-scan UX ### Sky App in all honesty, this project got pretty far along, but probably needs a complete rework (social features) lol #### NOTES - Notify when celestial phenomena is happening - Here's how it's gonna work - Home Screen displays major sky events in the next year - Super moons and Lunar eclipses basically - I can scrape for this, calculate manually, or literally enter all of - Filters to allow for - Planets visible - Meteor showers - Comets - Calendar screen displays all possible events - Moon phase, etc. - Event screen will give more information about each event - These can be simple canned responses - Notifications - We want a bereal esque notification system that gives a time sensitive notification to everyone who has the app downloaded when a sky event is happening - BUT let's make sure to get local weather data so we can set fair expectations for if it's really cloudy!! - Also, allow tailoring of notification settings - Think 'I have a telescope mode' - Will give you notifications for events like planets and comets - Things that normal people won't be able to see anyway and don't want to notified about - Minimum app - Just get lunar eclipse and supermoon data - In-the-sky.org has really good data - Three types of data - Static - Super moons, eclipses, meteor showers - All the data is online and easily downloadable - Likely can be packaged with app, but might be easier to manage if it's stored on the server - Dynamic - Information about each of the static events (harvest moon, etc.) - Will be easiest to write editorial later, rather than planning in advance - Must be stored on server - Location-specific - Weather data, for determining visibility - Some events will only be able to be seen from certain locations - At the very least BROAD location will be necessary even for things like lunar eclipses - Remember - Move api keys to eas when building for production - Next steps - Filters - Make notification preferences work - Build it - Database stuff - Cleanse data to only US for now - Think about start and end times? Or calculate them in app - Solar eclipses? - Supermoon - Notify fixed local time in evening - Lunar eclipse - Notify at start (or just after) if eclipse falls not in the middle of the night in the users local time - Meteor shower - Need more data - Find the days/times they are most visible - TODO - Add meteor shower animations - Fix scrollbar - Test notification FINAL TODO - Splash screen - Update descriptions - Notification messages - Offline mode/server down - Push to App Store - Test notification times - Customize notification messages - EAS BUILD AND TEST ### Sexy Screen this project is dead because i don't want to pay for adobe... - Screen recorder - I hate that screen studio costs money - Should be able to remake in 5s with pynput and davinci keyframes - open source!! ### Spotify sample - Spotify API take your current song and find the sample, give you the Spotify link - Scrape who sampled ### Nootunez spotify DJ but good. this project is mostly complete, but spotify rejected my api extension, and I don't want to go back to it because it's vanilla js... #### TODO - Features - Generate a full playlist of new songs, and send it to spotify - Taste breakers? Not based off of your seeds!! - Maybe should blacklist playlists (tanvi) - Change where your recs come from - Top songs - Top artists - Genres - Playlists - UI - General - Think of a name - nootunez.com - Get Spotify extension - Requested ### Search book chrome extension - Chrome extension that lets me more easily get quotes in google docs - books api or scraping #### TODO - Look into books api ### AGARIO/SURVIO SMASH BROS - Like 100 player persistent smash bros - Online - Easy to sign up - With private servers for you and your friends TODO - Look in to how these games run ### Spinning dice - upgrade spinning cube into a dice TODO - try to project numbers on the cube - Decide about physics or not