the real payam

Welcome to my
curiosity club.

I’m Payam, a software engineer in Toronto. Chess tinkerer, book person. A little corner of the internet for the things I make and the things that make me, me.

Hello, in 64 bits.Every square is one bit. Flip your own

A chessboard is a number.

Flip a square and watch the value change. It shows the idea, not the running engine.

0x000000000000ffff16 bits on

Each lit square is a 1, and each hex digit holds four squares. Read right to left: a1 is bit 0, h8 is bit 63.

Meet Rook, my Python chess engine

Questions, models, and assumptions.

Oracle · Python

An experiment in life-expectancy modelling and API design.

What sits behind an answer?
All the things I make
Payam at the helm of a sailboat in Squamish, with misty mountains behind him.
Somewhere on the water. Squamish, BC.

There’s a world
outside the tabs.

I love building things. I also love getting lost in a book, finding a film that stays with me, and sailing when I get the chance.

This place has room for all of it.

My bookshelf Between the covers, on GoodreadsMy film diary After the credits, on Letterboxd

A few words.

All writing

How Software Engineers Should Manage Their Dotfiles

The Death of the “No”: Why Developers Need to Be Questioned

Demystifying SQL Joins