Essays

My research direction is sequential decision making under uncertainty. I write about when models should act or ask for help. Then I examine how those choices affect what follows.

Field guides and personal notes

Longer pieces on decisions, relationships, and the habits I keep testing in my own life.

Taufiq Lessons from a mentor on fundamental research, depth before breadth, research taste, and leadership. Includes visual notes, working questions, and related research lives. Open the field note → Metacognition Check what you understand when you use AI. Then practise judging your confidence, checking answers, and choosing which tasks to do yourself. Open the field guide → High Agency A visual reading of George Mack’s essay, with exercises for examining agency in your own decisions. Open the note → The Life Operating Principle A personal manual for decisions under pressure, including a test of whether the choice can be reversed. Open the note → Stay Curious Notice what does not fit, test the explanation, and update when the evidence earns it. Keep one live question without turning research into avoidance. Open the field guide → Stoic Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus as a working manual. Sort what is actually up to you, and search the passages by the state you are in. Open the note → Game Theory of Life Most decisions are not solo problems. Solve eight payoff matrices, watch cooperation become rational as the horizon lengthens, and run a ruin simulation. Open the note → How to Read People Observe change, build three plausible explanations, and test what each one predicts. Read behaviour without pretending you can read minds. Open the field manual → Success & Failure How to diagnose a result, scale what repeats, recover without escalating, and choose the next move without turning the outcome into identity. Open the manual → The Uncertainty Operating System How to spot the certainty trap, manage an intense state, decide under doubt, and keep moving while an answer remains unavailable. Open the manual → The Silver Lining of a Difficult Life An examination of when difficulty develops capacity, when it only causes harm, and how to tell the difference. Enter the field guide → Small Talk as Calibration A practical guide to beginning conversations, reading the room, and moving toward depth without forcing it. Open the manual → Communication 101 Nine visual exercises on making an explanation clear and noticing where a conversation has gone astray. Open the manual → Self-Love as Risk Control On the costs of being capable, and the choices that protect a life beyond achievement. Open the visual essay →

Press coverage

AI rules in SEA: the risks, the fines, what you need to know
Tech in Asia · The Business Times Jun 2026

AI rules in SEA: the risks, the fines, what you need to know

Featured coverage of new AI rules, enforcement risks, and compliance duties across Southeast Asia.

Medium articles Medium @feliren

Published pieces on research, engineering, and personal experience.

Engineering Jan 2026

Your model just killed someone's grandmother: Why every production ML needs conformal prediction

How conformal prediction can support model decisions, and which assumptions its guarantees require in production.

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Research May 2026

We all think our map is the territory

How ethnocentrism turns our own culture into an invisible default, and how global teams can work across several cultural views at once.

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Research Nov 2025

My initial exploration on Trustworthy AI

My first work in trustworthy AI, connecting information theory with responsible machine learning.

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Engineering May 2026

Quality and Reliability for AI Engineers

A practical guide to reliable AI systems, covering evaluation, failure modes, and engineering methods for production use.

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Personal May 2026

The cost of becoming

A poem for the people who are tired of waiting for themselves.

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Engineering May 2026

Four hours, one vendor, one airline

What a four-hour American Airlines booking outage shows about the growing cost of vendor dependence.

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Personal May 2026

If everyone forgets, why be good

Why moral action still matters when no one remembers, through Mother Teresa, Aristotle, and what we owe the universe.

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Personal Jan 2026

The art of letting go while still caring

What I learned from trying to control everything and ending up with nothing.

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Personal Dec 2025

Meditation. 7 days. No phone. Noble silence.

A researcher's account of seven days of silent meditation at Taman Brahma Bali Usada.

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Personal May 2025

Phoenix Protocol: Rising from the ashes of adversity

On resilience, reinvention, and learning to rise again after failure and loss.

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Engineering Oct 2024

Privacy Matters: Navigating the Digital Age with Confidence

An introduction to data synthesis, privacy-preserving analysis, and responsible data stewardship.

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Personal Jul 2024

Mental Health Matters: Please Take Care

A personal reflection on mental health awareness, self-care, and breaking the silence.

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Personal May 2024

A Stranger's Guide to the IU Concert

Reflections on fandom, culture, and music after attending an IU concert.

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Personal Mar 2024

Gone from social media for 4 years. Now I am back

What changed after four years away from social media, and why I returned.

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