Creating clarity from complexity.
I'm Steven Baumann, a software engineer based in the greater NYC area. Since December 2020 I've been designing and tuning complex, multi-tier systems to stay reliable under load.
Currently at Tempus AI; previously Flashpoint Intelligence. Reach me at stevenfbaumann@gmail.com.
Reliable systems, immersive tooling, and clean interfaces.
Featured work
asmqdm: Python Progress Bars Created in x86-64 Assembly
A tqdm-compatible progress bar with rendering and update logic implemented in x86-64 assembly via ctypes.
- ~5ns per update in async mode via LOCK XADD
- Render thread on a separate core via clone() and sched_setaffinity
MNIST Classifier in Pure x86-64 Assembly
A neural network that trains and infers on handwritten digits using only Linux syscalls and SSE2.
- 96.5% test accuracy on MNIST (9,652/10,000)
- 27 KB training binary with sub-millisecond inference
Wardrobe-Aware Color Picker
Qwik + Canvas color wheel with cached rendering and outfit-ready palettes that include proportions.
- Indicator-only redraw keeps drag at 60 FPS while brightness changes redraw the wheel
- Wardrobe presets ship with per-piece proportions for faster outfit planning
Latest writing
Lock-Free Counters and When They're Enough
How x86-64 atomic instructions can replace mutexes for simple shared counters, and where the pattern breaks down. · 5 min read
Floating-Point Numbers Are Already Logarithms
IEEE 754 doubles store numbers as exponent plus mantissa, a decomposition that makes building math functions from scratch surprisingly tractable. · 6 min read
Backpressure: What It Is and How to Tame It
Where backpressure shows up, how to spot it, and practical relief valves for real systems. · 5 min read
Lab
Experiments in particles, lensing shaders, controls, and performance. Motion/resolution toggles respected; fullscreen supported.
Want to work together?
I'm always open to interesting projects and collaborations.