About me
This section is for people who want to know more about me rather than about my technical or professional skills. Here you will find things about me, my hobbies, my tastes, my preferences, and so on. Keep in mind that this section is fairly personal, and you don't have to read it, but if you do, I hope you enjoy it.
Who am I?
My name is Alfredo Medina Klapp. I was born in Santiago, Chile, on 19 July 2000. I have one older sister and a brother my own age (we are twins, though not identical ones). Everyone in my family is an engineer: my father in electrical engineering, my mother in industrial engineering, my sister in civil engineering, my brother in business engineering, and me in computing.
🐶 Lilo
I have a little dog called Lilo. We adopted her, and the name was my dad's idea, after Lilo from Lilo & Stitch.
She is a bit shy, especially with people she doesn't know, but there are two things she never says no to: going for a walk and eating. I love her very much.
She is also the main character of the 3D world, the one you start with when you walk in.
🧩 Rubik's cubes
At 14 I got into the world of Rubik's cubes. I never went pro, but I practised enough to solve them in under 20 seconds, to solve them one-handed and/or blindfolded, and to solve other cube variants (4x4x4, Megaminx, Pyraminx, among others). In the video below you can watch me solve a 3x3x3 in 13.21 seconds at an official competition in 2017 (when I was 17).
Even though I was pretty good at it, this hobby was replaced by chess, and I rarely pick up a cube for fun these days.
You can visit my WCA profile here. You won't find much, because I only competed once.
♟️ Chess
Like a lot of people, I learned to play chess early on (before I turned 10). My passion for the game, though, didn't start until I was 17, the year I realised chess was much more than a game, and it became a passion that has stayed with me ever since. At university I joined the PUC chess team and played tournaments for a few years. These days I have retired from over-the-board play and only play online now and then.
My classical rating is 1913 FIDE Elo. My lichess profile is mikuhatsune01.
This hobby is why I built web apps like Chess Knight Exercises.
🇩🇪 German
I'm learning German, with Duolingo and courses on Udemy. It's still early days: I keep wrestling with whether a word is der, die or das.
As with chess, I built a web app to practise: Deutsch Lernen.
🎮 Video games
I have played video games for as long as I can remember. As a kid I played a lot of Wii, and later PS3 and PS4. These days I have a PS5, and that's the only place I play.
For many years I played Call of Duty, buying whichever one came out that year. That series is what shaped my taste for FPS games and shooters.
Right now I mainly play Fortnite with my friends, and a good chunk of my skill there comes from my Call of Duty background.
📺 Series and films
I like watching films, and I enjoy every genre except horror. Not because it scares me, but because it bores me, probably down to how sceptical I am.
As for series, the truth is I don't watch many. Even so, there are a few I have really enjoyed, in no particular order:- Breaking Bad
- Better Call Saul
- House MD
- The Office
- Modern Family
The Office deserves a special mention: besides the US original, I have watched the UK, Australian, Mexican and Chilean versions.
For a few years I also watched anime, but I have left it behind.
This hobby is why I built WatchWhere.
🎵 Music
I have spent a large part of my life listening to music. For as long as I can remember I have had something playing, and I can't imagine life without it. I use it to study, to work, to relax, to exercise, to get around, for everything.
Funnily enough, I don't play any instrument, and although I have been curious about learning piano, I have never quite found the motivation.
There are many genres I like, but the one I listen to most is Nightcore.
For years I also listened to a lot of Vocaloid (anyone who knows me will tell you I'm a Hatsune Miku fan), but these days I hardly play it.