Only one LLM is good at chess

Exploring how different LLMs perform at chess, with most failing except turbo-instruct. Discusses tuning and training influences.


Knowledge search improvements

Significant improvements to Ada's knowledge retrieval enhance customer support accuracy, thanks to innovative team collaboration and ML advances.


The Wood Frog

Exploring the miraculous adaptation of the wood frog, which survives winter by freezing like a stone but remains alive.


Asking Chat to Draw My Life

A humorous take on asking ChatGPT to illustrate a depiction of one's life, featuring mysterious 'Horchar Blend'.


Saturdays

Balancing work and family life, the author reflects on the joys and challenges of prioritizing weekends as family time.


Some recent updates

Site updates including improved AI description generation, updates to personal pages, and the shutdown of Stitch to focus on Ada.


halp.com

I just discovered that halp.com redirects to Atlassian Service Management—love that Atlassian has such a great sense of humor!


Small Phones

Sharing my thoughts on the greatness of small phones while typing on my iPhone 13 mini. Seriously, I’m holding out hope for an iPhone 16 mini pro!


Tom MacWright via Simon Wilison

Thoughts from my chat with Tom MacWright about finding the right balance with tech debt in startups. It's a tricky game between speed and sustainability!


I miss High Scalability

Reflecting on my 2016 days of binge-reading High Scalability while working on scaling Ada. I really miss the old vibe! The deep dive into Netflix's transcoding blew my mind—190,000 CPU hours just for one season of Stranger Things! Check out the post if you're curious.


Creating an LLM-as-a-Judge

Just found an incredible guide on building LLMs as a judge by Hamel Husain! Super insightful, especially since we’re using a similar system at Ada to evaluate transcript resolutions. Excited about how smartly it's avoiding blind spots in test coverage!


ChatGPT Search vs Perplexity Initial Thoughts

I just got access to the new ChatGPT search feature on macOS! Excited to compare how it stacks up against my go-to tool, Perplexity, for research. Gave it a spin with a few examples and shared my thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of both. Check it out!


Anthropic Computer Use

Just tried out Anthropic's Computer Use demo in a Docker setup! It can control a virtual machine and run tasks like adding a knowledge base for our bots. Super impressive, but it did trip up on some commands and interactions. Excited to see where this tech goes!


ChatGPT Easter Eggs

I stumbled upon a fun little experiment with ChatGPT tonight—someone mentioned it might have Easter eggs, so I asked for a random YouTube link. Turns out, it definitely trolled me! I love when tech has a sense of humor.


Perplexity for Mac

Just checked out the new Perplexity MacOS app and it’s a game changer! It's already my go-to research tool, especially for those tricky service-desk KPIs. The inline citations and easy-to-copy tables make my life so much easier!


Jasper

I’m officially a dad to my now four-month-old son, Jasper. It’s been a long journey to get here, but every moment is worth it. I plan to share more about our fertility journey someday, but right now, I'm just savoring these precious moments and looking forward to watching him grow.


ChatGPT Growth

Reflecting on the mind-boggling growth of #ChatGPT and how it shattered expectations.


ChatGPT The Theological Scholar

Exploring my dad's deep conversations with ChatGPT about the Bahá'í faith and the rich religious texts that may influence its knowledge.


Sunday Reads

Reflections on the beauty of finding stillness and clarity in the mind amidst life's chaos, inspired by a passage on the transformative power of attention.


Drew Houston on Latent Space

Insights from Drew Houston on the Latent Space podcast about his founder journey, the challenges of leadership, and the evolution of "Founder Mode."


Japan’s Decline

Reflections on Tyler Cowen's insights from a captivating interview with Rick Rubin, exploring Japan's economic evolution and my personal experiences that highlight the contrast between the country's past vibrancy and its current state.


Working Probabilistically

Exploring the importance of thinking probabilistically when working with LLMs, this post highlights insights on effective eval methodologies, the quirks of model behavior, and practical tips for building robust evaluation processes that go beyond traditional testing.


Faster, Better

Streamlined blogging: I'm sharing my thoughts faster than ever, with instant publishing to both my RSS feed and X account.


LLM Generated Descriptions

In this blog post, I share a recent enhancement to my website's intake endpoint that utilizes LLM technology to automatically generate short descriptions for my blog posts. By integrating OpenAI's API, I can now effortlessly create engaging summaries whenever I upload new content. I discuss the process behind this implementation, its effectiveness with past examples, and my plans to add features for generating tags based on existing ones. Dive in to learn how AI is transforming the way I present my ideas online!


Micropub

Exploring the Micropub spec and its integration with iA Writer, I’ve implemented a way to post directly to my blog from the app, embracing the #indieweb ethos along the way.


Pocket to RSS

I made a thing that converts your pocket saves into an rss feed


Hard Part Interview

Quick notes on my interview on the Hard Part Interview podcast.


Scaling Software

My answer to the question 'What is the most important yet often overlooked aspect of scaling software?'


Science

Science is writing it down


Duty

A reminder to myself that duty to ones nature is reason enough


Somebody doesn't work here

A great quote about creating a culture of ownership from the tale of Slack's first years


Jim Simons on beauty

Jim Simons' loved beauty


The Bauhaus of Software


Craft as Advantage


Friction to Publish

It's too hard to publish a blog post on this site.


Using LLMs in Production

A nod to Will Larson's post on using LLMs in production and some additional notes based on my own experience.


Announcing Rook

I've open sourced the code that powers this website


Tags!

I added tags to my blog posts. You can use them to browse my posts now.


Service Health

My list of qualities that resilient, highly availabile services should have.


Product Market Fit

My personal experience and framework for finding product market fit


Craft and Care

A reaction to Allen Pike's 'Giving a shit' which recently trended on HN.


Reflections on running this year

Reflections on finally feeling like I am finding the joy in running and the principles I have picked up along the way.


Did Code Win?

Some brief thoughts on the future of no-code in a world where code generation is ubiquitous.


YouTube Subscriptions via RSS

A quick guide on how to watch YouTube in your RSS reader


Getting Started with Flask in 2023

All you need to get started using Flask for your next web application project.


Site Performance

A quick update on this site's performance (it should be a lot faster from now on!)


Recently

Sharing reflections on a great summer so far in Toronto, embracing AI tools like ChatGPT, evolving in my role at Ada, exploring new coding practices and dabbling in music.


LLMs as a New Kind of Computer

Thoughts on Beren's post about LLMs as a new form of computer


2023 Chilly Half Marathon - Race Reflections

Reflections on running the 2023 Chilly Half-Marathon race in Burlington


We're Living Wrong

Analysis and thoughts on the relationship between BMI, GDP and being healthy.


Running All Wrong

How slowing down is helping me speed up in the long run


Athenian Taxes


My RSS Setup

My RSS setup. The reader clients and feeds I follow, including a link to all of them in OPML format.


My Dream Phone

Some thoughts on my dream phone and reactions to learning about the Punkt MC01 Legend


Salmon in the River

Reflections on the notion of truth in ML


The 4 AM Club

Reflections on working remotely from Sydney and the benefits of getting up before the sun.


Hard Times Create Strong Companies


Driver UI

A quick thought on car usability


SEAL Test

US Navy SEAL Competitive Physical Screening Test Score


Small

Looking back, I wish that as a founder I had been more aware about the


Pray for Pain


My Partner


Handmade


Announcing Your Time