Prior to this trip to Singapore I had never been to Asia before so I really wasn't sure what to expect. While the heat and humidity was no joke, I had an amazing time and will definitely be back. I did not spend too much time taking photos, but I want to share my favorites.

Our hotel was just a 10 minute walk from the Marina Bay Sands so we spent a lot of time around there.

![Marina Bay Sands Hotel](https://media.graphassets.com/GOxUnc7Rl67NBtJ3FfUg)

The shopping center, appropriately named "The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands", was a beautiful example of the overall aesthetic present in many of the malls throughout Singapore.

```__x-col2
#side-by-side-a
```

Inside and out, The Apple Store was also one of the newest flagship retail stores. You enter from inside the shopping center's bottom floor and then take a long escalator into the Orb standing above the water.

![The Apple Store Orb](https://media.graphassets.com/oKE0ziOTQB6KyziUaB3G)
![Inside on the ground floor of The Apple store](https://media.graphassets.com/SchYPsOLR6sZAaq1AokG)

The hotel itself is also quite a speculator sight, there are restaurants and bars at the top as well as a long infinity edge pool.

![The Marina Bay Sands Hotel](https://media.graphassets.com/uYyZ3OlUS5aTCX3mp4n0)

On one of the hottest days of our trip, we decided to go explore the famous botanical gardens Singapore is famous for...it did not disappoint.

![Purple orchids with water droplets](https://media.graphassets.com/0eEKfeyScGuIaP88KsQ9)

![Beautiful pink, yellow, and white flowers](https://media.graphassets.com/uk8ZdJ6mTICKtjZujxaX)

![Layers of green and white leaves](https://media.graphassets.com/FAcIxwwxQNK6i0MquYTN)

![Pink and white flowers](https://media.graphassets.com/TP040esxT024K1xkUn3B)

![Orange orchids with water droplets](https://media.graphassets.com/Yi38DD98QAiFkDKgd8ul)

![Purple and white flowers with a green background](https://media.graphassets.com/sblVujQpyXvhfVoIYFAQ)

We spent hours walking around in the blazing sun and in the Orchid Garden. If you are in Singapore I would highly recommend going, hopefully not on the hottest day you are there.

Overall Singapore was one of my favorite places I have ever travelled to and definitely worth the almost 19 hour non-stop flight.

```__x-col2
#side-by-side-b
```

My first time in Asia set a very high bar for what a city can be.

Singapore

TikTok is one of the most popular apps in the world right now. It currently sits at #2 on the App Store charts in the US. The app is primarily a place where you can go to watch short and looping videos of people doing anything and everything, from dancing to sharing tip and tricks on how to cook the best fried rice.

The main screen in TikTok is called the “For You” page (FYP) which algorithmically surfaces videos the app thinks you will enjoy most. You can swipe up to go to the next video, or swipe down to see the previous again. If you watched a typical user on TikTok, you would see them staring at their phone while swiping up every 10-30 seconds for a hours at a time. There is such a variety of content on TikTok that any user can find videos and creators they like…but it is the best-in-class algorithm that surfaces these videos that really gives TikTok its edge over the competition.

Both Instagram and Snapchat have tried to clone the exact feature-set of TikTok, however, they have had limited success with their versions. I think the biggest reason for their failures so far is they do not have the creator talent that TikTok has. While both Instagram and Snapchat have larger and more accurate networks of your friends and family, the popularity of TikTok is not driven by that. TikTok’s content comes from celebrities in the same way that movies and shows on Netflix or HBO are driven by the leading actor or actress. The best people in a position to create TikTok-like content *are creating that content on TikTok*. Additionally, a lot of the content on Instagram Reels is actually just re-posted videos from TikTok. It is as if Netflix was only filled with low quality reposts of tv shows from HBO.

On Instagram and Snapchat you are primarily seeing content from your own network of friends. However, there is no reason to assume that group of people is the most entertaining group of people in the world. Or that they would be the best dancers, or the best chefs. On TikTok, because the content is driven by an engagement algorithm and not your friend circle, *you can watch content from the most entertaining creators in the world*.

Lastly, this fact has allowed “regular people” who are not usually considered celebrities to create large followings on TikTok, because they are actually one of the best people in the world at creating entertaining content about a certain topic. TikTok has created a middle-class of creators who can make a sizable amount of money by posting videos that millions across the world consume. The other feature that has powered the growth of these creators is remixes. One example of a remix is when a user creates a dance to a song, and then thousands of other users will post their own video doing the same dance to the song. This creates attribution to the original post and helps spread the influence of that user. There are many dancers on TikTok who have created dances to songs that were “remixed” by millions. This also works as a method to drive up the popularity of songs. There are now so-called “TikTok songs” which are songs that gained awareness through users posting dance videos with that song in the background. TikTok even [published a list](https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/year-on-tiktok-music-2020) of the most popular songs in 2020:

![This is a list of the songs that were quickest to reach 1 billion views on TikTok.](https://media.graphcms.com/vrPCsOujSq6drf75f1e0)

As the TikTok blog post states:
> The below list of the ten fastest songs to reach 1 billion video views reflects the community's enthusiasm for new songs by stars like Drake and Billie Eilish, but some of the year's most viral hits came from unexpected sources. The list includes rap hits from regional stars like Detroit's Sada Baby and Houston's BeatKing, and songs by artists like Popp Hunna and WhoHeem who were virtually unknown before their viral moment. Songs didn't have to be new, or even recently released to cross the billion view threshold: "Say I Yi Yi" (2002) and "Where Is The Love?" (2003) demonstrated how the TikTok community can turn catalog cuts into viral hits.

We can see that TikTok is not only expanding the influence of their most popular creators, but it also acts as a new platform for up and coming artists to post their music in hopes of it blowing up to a catchy dance. If you don’t know any other TikTok users personally, your experience isn’t any worse. **This could never happen on a typical social network because you are limited to only seeing what your friends post.**

Netflix and YouTube were the first platforms to surface entertainment content from users around the world based off of algorithmically driven engagement, however, TikTok has taken it to a whole new level. Netflix shows are typically 20-60 minutes and movies are usually closer to 2 hours, while YouTube has an average video length of around 12 minutes. However, TikTok videos are always less than a minute. This means that TikTok is getting an order of magnitude more signals to use in their algorithm. More signals mean a better algorithm that can more precisely show you the exact content you will enjoy the most.

TikTok is a new mobile-first hybrid of streaming service and social network. In a sense, TikTok is everything Quibi wasn’t: a mobile-first entertainment network. Instead of taking the Quibi path of hand-selecting Hollywood content like a typical production studio, TikTok outsourced content creation and used algorithmic curation. Instagram was the original mobile-first social network, and TikTok has now become the first mobile-only entertainment network.

If you have not tried TikTok because you don’t think there will be any content you enjoy, I encourage you to give it a try. Additionally, if you enjoyed reading this, Ben Thompson of Stratechery has a great piece on [Social Networking 2.0](https://stratechery.com/2020/social-networking-2-0/).

TikTok has pioneered a new way to combine entertainment and social into a mobile-first application

TikTok is not a social network

During my two day freshman orientation at The University of Southern California in 2018, I added about 40 people on Snapchat, while only adding 2 people’s numbers to my contacts. I have asked some of my friends at others schools, and they all tell me that they had very similar experiences.

The primary reason for this, is that it is extremely easy to add new friends on Snapchat. Using a branded QR code that contains a user’s profile information, called a Snapcode, a user can quickly add another just by opening the app.

![An example of a Snapcode](https://media.graphcms.com/ENor8n5SOuzsoNDXIa7g)

The use of these Snapcodes allow users to quickly share their profile so other users can add them to their friends. This is much faster than adding somebody’s phone number to your contacts (1 second scanning a Snapcode vs. 1 minute manually typing out their name and phone number). This comes in especially handy during an event like orientation; where groups of people who have never met all want to exchange information to stay in contact. Additionally, since adding someone on Snapchat is a two-way action (just like Facebook friend requests), only one person has to scan the Snapcode to become friends, and now both people can stay connected.

The other aspect that makes Snapchat ideal for first time connections is people often have a lower barrier of entry into their Snapchat friends than they do into their phone contacts. This means, that there are lower stakes in asking for someone’s “snap” as opposed to asking for their phone number. This is much more of a cultural phenomenon as opposed to a feature within Snapchat, but this drives a lot of people to reach for Snapchat as the first place they connect. Whether at a party, or on a dating app, adding each other on Snapchat is often the default way to move the conversation forward.

With Snapchat being the first place many people in college are adding each other, it now means that they can use all of additional features of Snapchat to help manage their newly formed connections. Salesforce (a leading CRM provider) defines a CRM as such:

> Customer relationship management (CRM) is a technology for managing all your company's relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. The goal is simple: Improve business relationships to grow your business.

For college kids, we can think of using CRM software as a way to improve your *personal relationships*, instead of your professional relationships. Through this view, we see how Snapchat provides a range of features targeted at improving users’ personal relationships:

**Location:** Snapchat allows a user to see where their friends are throughout the world on an easy to use map. This means I can easily see if I have any friends in the city I’m currently staying in, or I can look to see where a specific friend is. If I am visiting a new city that I may not know particularly well, I can go on Snapchat and message any friends who may be in the same area. You can also choose to only share your location with specific friends, or disable the feature entirely.

**Streaks + Charms:** For friends that you communicate with frequently, Snapchat has a system of “streaks” where you get a badge next to their name with a number to signify how many days in a row you have stayed in touch (both users must send the other a message every 24 hours). This has no doubt helped with retention and engagement for the app itself, but it also provides a nice push to continue to stay in touch (every day!) with your friends. It is not uncommon for people to have many streaks that are in the high hundreds or even thousands of days, meaning that these people have snapped each other every day for 3 or 4 years. My personal longest streak is 1,455. In addition to streaks, Snapchat also a number of trinkets, which it calls “Charms”, that describe your friendship with another user. Here is an example of what that looks like:

![An example of Snapchat’s Charms inside their iOS app.](https://media.graphcms.com/kvSpiwxtTnRr81qNF1QA)

**Birthdays + Signs:** Similar to Facebook, Snapchat also shows you when it is one of your friend’s birthday. This makes it easy to send them a happy birthday message to reignite a relationship that may have dwindled out. Additionally, based off of a user’s birthday, Snapchat now displays astrological signs. You can read about your own astrological chart, or explore a friend’s chart. This is not something that I use, but it is another way to keep in touch with your friends.

With all of these features encouraging engagement, the final piece of the puzzle that makes Snapchat ideal for maintaining a large number of personal relationships is its primary messaging format: selfies. The idea of sending selfies back and forth (often without any context or other text) may seem strange to someone who did not grow up using Snapchat. However, it has become commonplace now with young adults and teenagers. Since sending a selfie is very quick and low pressure, while also intimate, it provides a quick and efficient manner to continue your relationships with little effort. While it may seem trivial, seeing a friend’s face every day does bring a certain type of closeness to that relationship. In a time where our faces are often hidden behind masks, a selfie of your best friend can be just what you need to brighten your day.

Snapchat not just encourages you, but makes it easy, to stay in touch with your friends over long distances and long periods of time. So, it’s no surprise that Snapchat is the place where college kids choose to maintain and grow their personal relationships.


a look into why snapchat is such a popular app for young adults and teenagers

snapchat is a CRM for college kids

When I set out to build this website, I already knew a few things about what technologies and frameworks I was going to use. I knew I was going to use [Next.js](https://nextjs.org), and I also knew that I wanted to use a CMS-as-a-service to power the content and backend for this website. I just did not know which one I wanted to use yet.

Additionally, I decided that I wanted to use [Typescript](https://www.typescriptlang.org). Using Typescript for this website is probably overkill, however, I had only used it on Node based tools but never on a frontend website. I think that personal websites are a great playground for trying out different and new technologies, and I have now used some tools in work projects that I first tried out here.

Here is an example of a Next.js page using Typescript :

```ts
import s from "styled-components";
import { PostsResponse } from "lib/types";
import PostList from "components/PostList";

interface IndexPageProps {
  posts: PostsResponse;
  greeting: text;
}

export default function IndexPage(props: IndexPageProps) {
  return (
    <Content>
      <Text>{props.greeting}</Text>
      <PostList posts={props.post} />
    <Content>
  );
};

const Content = s.main`
  width: var(--content-box-width);
`;

const Text = s.p`
  color: var(--text-color-base);
`;
```

Each root level page also uses `getStaticProps` to statically fetch data at build time. Using [Incremental Static Regeneration](https://vercel.com/docs/next.js/incremental-static-regeneration) built into Next.js, I'm also able to periodically check for new changes and statically regenerate just that specific page.

As I started playing around with building out the structure of my site, I also tried out and tested a number of different CMS options. There were a couple of key features that I was specifically looking for:
1. An easy to use API for fetching posts
2. Support for hosting images (the ability to process images would be nice)
3. Native support for Markdown
4. Something that was free or relatively cheap

Some options I looked at were [DatoCMS](https://www.datocms.com), [Prismic](https://prismic.io), [Sanity](https://www.sanity.io), and the one I went with: [GraphCMS](https://graphcms.com). While each of these CMS options had their own set of benefits and drawbacks, GraphCMS was the best fit for what I was looking for.

I do currently use the GraphQL API that the CMS provides, however, I am not using any third party GraphQL libraries; I am simply using `fetch` to get the data directly from the API as JSON. I have found this to be a very suitable method for my use case since I do not need anything complex.

Since I am using Typescript, I did manually create matching type definitions to match the schema I created in GraphCMS. I suppose I could have used a type-generation tool for this, but I only have a few types that in total are less than 100 lines of code.

Another place I spent a lot of time was in handling the Markdown that I get from the CMS. There are a number of Markdown renderers built for React, but I chose to go with [react-markdown](https://github.com/remarkjs/react-markdown). I did however build a number of custom components that the renderer reaches out to in order to render some custom blocks like the 2-column photo layout in my photo pages. I was always inspired by [Paul Stamatiou's Photo Pages](https://paulstamatiou.com/photos/), but I still wanted my photo galleries to be primarily driven by Markdown.

I have always had fun looking at and exploring personal websites and portfolios, so I wanted to create my own. I am sure that over the years this place will change and evolve, but for now, I am happy with it.

Take a behind the scenes look at the technology powering this website.

The Technology Behind This Website

As COVID-19 arrived in the United States in January, our leaders were woefully unprepared. In lieu of creating a national public health strategy, the White House abdicated its responsibility to keep us safe and left fifty states to create plans on their own, as if a virus cares about state borders. Last month, the number of infections at the White House alone were greater than those of entire nations. While most of my generation did not expect this administration to rise to the occasion, we expected much more from higher education leaders.

Higher education administrators now offer Zoom classrooms, partial in-person learning, inadequate quarantine processes, and harsh penalties that only apply to students. Before the start of the current semester and new academic year, amidst rising COVID-19 case numbers, university leaders throughout the country faced a crisis to adapt higher education in a global pandemic. Could they reopen in the fall without risking inevitable outbreaks? Could they justify charging full-tuition without in-person learning? Could they prepare professors to deliver quality educational experiences remotely?

As a student at the University of Southern California, I was not surprised to learn that absolutely every single one of my classmates ardently disliked learning from professors through a webcam. Students from colleges across the country reported lack of satisfaction with remote learning on [university2021.com](https://university2021.com), a website I created to gather information about how students were navigating this academic year. I attend one of the most expensive universities in the country, and some of my friends are suffering immensely from crushing student debt and food insecurity. In a normal academic year, many students have campus jobs and work-study programs that pay for food and books. Now, they are left without adequate options. Our provost will make almost a million dollars this year, while our Pell grant classmates are left to figure it out on their own. They cannot easily go to the campus libraries to get access to computers when many of these buildings are closed and they have no resources to pay for expensive textbooks. They cannot borrow from and share resources with classmates down the hall, since students are banished from the dormitories.

Our professors are ill-prepared to offer a fraction of the quality of education that is advertised in our brochures. If they expect the same level of output from students during non-pandemic periods, then they themselves should offer the same level of instruction as they provided the year before. Administrators and professors should have worked together over the summer to understand how to effectively deliver their teaching through Zoom. They should not have required students to install malware to monitor student behavior during remote examinations. Instead they could have adapted their curricula to make remote assessments fair and reasonable. They should have understood the difficulty for students to manage their work across multiple American and international time zones. They should have expected that some students, while at home, would have to support their younger siblings or elderly parents as caregivers. Offering university counseling as the primary response to potential student complaints and increased mental health issues underscores that they believe that we, the students, are the problem, but this is not the case. Administrators are ignoring that the underlying system itself is broken and needs fixing.

In lieu of taking responsibility as leaders of some of the best universities in the world, they chose to “open school” for the fall, rake in the tuition and student housing money, and then manage a pandemic with a patchwork approach. Last month, Southern Methodist University kicked out a large group of students from the football game for not following safety guidelines. Students at the University of Colorado Boulder were suspended for gathering in groups larger than two people. While punishing students who break rules may appear to make sense, they do not seem to consider administrators’ decisions to open schools or promote football games in the midst of this national emergency. Socializing was inevitable–anyone who was once a teenager could predict this outcome. Students are being penalized for expected behaviors that administrators themselves do not follow. The President of the University of Notre Dame, John Jenkins, for example, could not bring himself to wear a mask at a nationally recognized “superspreader” event at the White House. It shouldn’t matter that he believed that everyone was tested; he knew this was going to be a highly publicized event. He should have worn a mask to set a good, moral example–one that his constituents would feel compelled to follow. This was a catastrophic failure in leadership. It is astounding to my peers how a major university President could demonstrate such carelessness and reckless disregard of the rules. Why should college students be held to a different standard when the adults are not following their own rules?

Amidst expected difficulties from a once-in-a-century pandemic, higher education administrators had an opportunity to lead, to set an example, and to invent new standards for 21st century education. They could have made plans to ensure that every single professor was prepared to teach remotely. They could have reduced tuition by 10% and spend down a small fraction of their endowments. They could have offered cash grants to our most vulnerable classmates. They could have instituted reasonable penalties, rather than harsh disciplinary actions, to reduce the irresponsible behaviors of a small number of students when schools reopened. If they were concerned about the budget, they could lower their own salaries. They could have created policies that would ease the burden on hardworking students who are already being asked to meet the future challenges of the twenty-first century saddled with student debt. Rather than adopting creative measures in response to this pandemic, they seemingly panicked and added to the chaos and instability.

Students have such little say in how our current higher education system operates. We have more voice in our local and national elections than in our own school systems. Private companies around the world adapted much more quickly to our new reality. Instead of embracing new opportunities for growth, schools have been unable to adapt. Stuffing the normal curriculum through Zoom is not how to adjust to this disruption. With million-dollar salaries, tenure, and billions and multi-millions of dollars in endowments, schools are passing the hardship onto students.

Twenty-something students in America today confront the substantial challenges of a dysfunctional and inequitable world that our parents and their parents have left for us. We are left to address climate change as fires burn down the west and hurricanes drown the south. We have the task of redressing the societal harms of persistent, generational and systemic racial inequality. We are left to recover from a damaged democracy led by a president who refuses to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. We face a future in which globalization and automation have eliminated higher paying jobs for high school graduates as we enter a shrunken economy for college graduates.

As we approach 2021, university leaders have another opportunity to institute meaningful changes in higher education. They have a chance to improve the capstone educational experience for the next generation. If they want our system to produce the greatest scientists, the most creative artists, and the most conscientious entrepreneurs, in a world of racial equality, they must themselves construct an improved system that can help students achieve the future greatness they demand of us now. Teach us how to lead by modeling moral and ethical actions. Establish new paradigms for success, and if you are unable to do so, it is time to make way for bold and courageous leaders who are genuinely committed to our future!

The coronavirus response underscores the lack of leadership among higher education leaders.

Higher Education Has Failed to Adapt

Right before the 2018 Midterm Elections, I launched [Campaign Director](https://campaigndirector.org) in collaboration with [Midwest Design Lab](https://midwestdesignlab.com). We wanted to create a mobile app that allows users to encourage and hold their friends accountable to vote. We had started working on this project just a few months before, in late July of 2018. **I strongly believe that increasing voter participation and engagement will have a profoundly positive effect on our current political system and process.** Campaign Director has been built from first principles to tackle this goal.

![Campaign Director for iOS](https://media.graphcms.com/mkrN0ToHSPCghLXU5QjA)

Earlier this week, we finally released version `2.0` of Campaign Director. While I am extremely proud of the first version of Campaign Director, it was designed and created back in 2018, and we wanted to redesign significant parts of the application. With this new version, every single screen has been touched up or completely re-done from the ground up (like the invite screen). We wanted to bring Campaign Director into the iOS 13 and 14 design aesthetic, and at the same time put a priority on the features which we thought were most important.

One of my favorite new features is the map view, which allows you to see the impact of your actions inside the Campaign Director app. By showing the approximate location of the citizens you add to the app, we also preserve the privacy of all our users. **Privacy is one of the core principles of Campaign Director.**

From the very beginning of our work on Campaign Director, we wanted to make sure that we took our users' privacy seriously. We did this by collecting as little information as possible from the beginning, as well as making it clear what data we collect and how we plan to use that data.

Looking back on the journey that has been Campaign Director, I am really proud of the work that we have put in, and the final product that we have released. I truly hope that you enjoy using the app as much as we enjoyed building it.

Please [download](https://nov3.co/download) the app and add your your friends, so that we can increase voter participation in this year's elections.

We have redesigned Campaign Director from the ground up with the goal of having a profound impact on voter participation.

Campaign Director 2.0

On March 25th, 2020 I created a folder on my computer called `publit`. Only a few months of quarantine later, I am proud to announce [Publit](https://publitdesign.com) in collaboration with [Midwest Design Lab](https://midwestdesignlab.com).

Publit is a website builder meant for professionals, students, writers, academics, and journalists. It is a form-to-website application. This means all you do is fill out a couple of forms with your name, bio, and your works, and then boom...you have a website.

![Publit Editor](https://media.graphcms.com/EfwLK4AyRlCgpsu9nQYt)

Publit websites are secure by default, super fast, and look beautiful. You don't need to mess with blocks, styles, scripts, or themes. All you need to know how to do is write down information about yourself.

Especially in the current environment, it is vital that everyone have their own online presence and Publit is the perfect way to get started. We want every user of Publit to have their own special place on the internet. That's why we are offering a **concierge website address service** free of charge. We will navigate and handle all of the complexities of purchasing and configuring a domain so our users don't have to.

Additionally, since we are offering the most simple process for creating websites, we wanted our pricing plan to match. We offer a single plan at a single price, and any user can create their own Publit site for just **$6.50** a month on the Pro plan. We also offer a discounted rate for students. Check out our [pricing page](https://publitdesign.com/pricing) to learn more about just how good of a deal this is.

Publit is a website creation tool designed for professionals, students, writers, academics, and journalists.

Announcing Publit

I grew up near San Francisco and so once I got a camera, the Golden Gate Bridge was one of my favorite spots to shoot. I would drag my friends out at night into the cold and windy mountains of the Marin Headlands for hours while I shot long exposure photos.

I have shot photos in San Francisco countless times, sometimes during the day and sometimes at night.

![Coit Tower](https://media.graphcms.com/V7bf3NIkRKWhCEo0znIp)

![Golden Gate Bridge](https://media.graphcms.com/DSIf0O2zQWaWyNdVm5xt)

My favorite types of photography are nighttime long-exposure photographs.

![Twin Peaks 1](https://media.graphcms.com/kPekY5GQHOvi8g9stdwQ)

![Twin Peaks 2](https://media.graphcms.com/9s9GxglPRvKHc2ydT5ke)

I love long-exposure because it captures images that a human can never see by bending both time and light into a single frame.

![Bay Bridge](https://media.graphcms.com/0DeBrYFxRtmDo8y2xiHm)

```__x-col2
#side-by-side-a
```

The fog also never fails to make an appearance almost every time I go and try to take photos in the city.

I have taken photos in San Francisco many times, these are some of my favorites.

San Francisco

I have wanted to create a website for myself for a **very** long time...and now I am proud to say that I have done just that. There are a number of reasons I have wanted to create a personal website for myself:

1. To have my own place on the internet
2. To showcase what I am currently working on (and past projects)
3. To display my photography
4. And to occasionally blog

The second one is why I am launching the website right now (July 2020). I am about to embark on the journey that is software engineering internship recruiting for my junior year, and I believe that having this website will help me illuminate my skills and work experience.

Additionally, I think almost everybody wants to have a personal website and almost everybody spends **way** too much time over-thinking and over-engineering it. This website is by no means a deviation of that. I am going to write another blog post about the behind the scenes and tech powering this website, but let's just say that it took much longer than I was initially expecting.

I have made many attempts to make a website for myself, but I finally did it this time.

Why I Built This Website

Ever since I have lived in Los Angeles I have wanted to go to DTLA and take photos of the city at night. It took me almost two years, but I am happy to say that I can finally share some of the photos I took.

I plan to add more photos to this set as time goes on and I take more photos.

```__x-col2
#side-by-side-a
```

![DTLA Skyline](https://media.graphcms.com/I2MAWVLgRj6TUvgyE1aQ)

Some new photos from downtown Los Angeles.

DTLA Landscapes

First off, I just want to thank my team for the amazing project, encouragement, and support that I experienced this past summer. My manager, PM, and all of the engineers on my team were great. I've heard a lot that the people you work with is the most important factor in the success of a team or project, and this past summer really hit that home for me.

I loved the experience so much that I am going to be returning back to Salesforce to intern during summer 2020 on the same team, I am excited!

The project I was working on was called [Best.js](https://bestjs.dev). It is a framework to create and run performance benchmarks of your Javascript or Typescript projects. Best allows you to run your benchmarks remotely in a stable environment with dedicated hardware to provide consistent and accurate results.

Someone on my team had previously created a `v1` of this tool, but I was asked to help re-factor the code in Typescript and improve its robustness and stability. I helped in a number of areas, but the biggest was to create a new frontend dashboard that allows developers to see the performance of their code over time.

![Best Dashboard](https://media.graphcms.com/LsiSoaRfSAqzd2IApwNy)

This was a web app built using [Lightning Web Components](https://lwc.dev) and powered by a server using [Express.js](https://expressjs.com). The frontend can be deployed so a team can see their own performance metrics and it supports a number of different database adapters. Additionally, I added the ability to see metrics from Chrome Dev Tools like paint and layout times through Best's integration with Puppeteer. The frontend also captures the state of the metrics and timeline that a user is viewing, so sharing to other teammates is just a click away.

Besides the frontend, I also was responsible for re-writing the GitHub integration to use the Checks feature to enable easy integration into any team's pull request workflow. The app will leave a comment whenever there is a significant improvement or regression in the code's performance.

![Best GitHub Check](https://media.graphcms.com/vsjtYCkRS52su9ziUCjR)

The other large feature I worked on was creating a marketing and documentation site for Best, available at [https://bestjs.dev](bestjs.dev). This was a great opportunity to learn about doc-writing and creating a website specifically targeted at fellow software engineers.

![Best.js Documentation Site](https://media.graphcms.com/Z1N0O04IQBerCXsIJ4QU)

Recounting my experience interning at Salesforce on the Lightning Web Components team.

Jason Silberman

Software Engineer, UI Designer, Photographer.

About Me

Recent Posts