About

My name is Dylan Green, and I am currently an Astrophysics graduate student at the University of California, Irvine. You can email me at dylanag [at] uci [dot] edu. This page will be mostly about my hobbies and extracurricular activities. For details on my research check the research tab.

In my free time I engage in a variety of hobbies, most of which suspiciously seem to start with the letter 'p'. One of my primary hobbies is programming. The largest and most expansive project I've written or worked on is by far my chess engine, Chrysaora. Chrysaora is written in a programming language called Nim, and uses a neural network composed of fully connected layers that are trained using reinforcement learning. This means that in theory it should get better at playing chess after every game, although it doesn't do so very well owing to the patchwork nature of the project. I have not updated the project as of late, and would prefer to go back and rewrite it in a more flexible language in the future.

I formerly used to co-host a variety of podcasts, all of which can be found at decorativevegetable.com. My cohost and I used to release weekly episodes about Doctor Who as well as classic Science Fiction television. At one point we would write blog posts on a weekly basis, alternating authorship. Go and check out my posts; my current favourite post that I've written discusses the third season of Torchwood from the perspective of First Contact. It's great fun and both of us take pride in the shows. All of the shows are currently on hiatus, as my co-host has taken other responsibilities with his time and my time is currently dedicated to my research.

If time permits I also engage in some analog photography, which means I shoot photos on 35mm film. I use a Canon FtB, and generally shoot whatever film I have available. The photo at the top of the page of the Mayall 4-meter was taken on Ultramax 400 during my observing shift in December of 2019. On occasion I will upload some photos to my flickr account.

Hobbies that do not necessarily have a web home but that I enjoy, and would love to discuss with anyone interested include philately (the study and collection of stamps) and watching an inordinate amount of movies ( for more on this check out my letterboxd account). Recently I've also started to dabble in using fountain pens. And that's about it!