unicolet.org

Awesome video from Stanford CS which goes into the details of building LLMs and how they work. Really interesting explanation on the impact of tokenizers on LLM ability to "interpret" code, such as Python which relies on whitespace for its structure. Highly recommended to understand the details how LLMs work and what the tricky parts are.

Well written and balanced article on the impact of Working From Home on productivity, and the general economy (i.e. downtown stores) in both fully-remote and hybrid setups:  https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2024/09/working-from-home-is-powering-productivity-bloom

Excellent advice from Thorsten Bal l: When debugging or testing your program, do not use data that looks like a variable or type name.  Do not use data that looks like a label or a column name or something your operating system has tons of. Do not use data that looks like it’s part of the program. I would also add that using real-istic data has the advantage of testing our system under conditions that are closer to those that might be in the field.

Insightful article from Google Testing blog on visualizing the tradeoffs, strengths and weaknesses of the different test types: E2E, unit, integration:  https://testing.googleblog.com/2024/10/smurf-beyond-test-pyramid.html They called the resulting radar chart "SMURF" after the initials of these 5 properties: speed, maintainability, utilization, reliability, fidelity .

From tech, to leadership, through people, architecture, design and music. A curated collection of my personal favourites.

Following up on my previous post On Fear , I was reflecting on the possibility that: bad reports will ignore your fears and only focus on the goals. As a result your satisfaction will be low good reports will only pick up on the fears that are explicitly stated as a goal. As a result your satisfaction will be OK-ish, but at great expense great reports will understand your fears before you even state them or without needing to go into the details. As a result your satisfaction will be at its greatest potential, allowing full delegation and growth for both

Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash This week I joined a Risk Storming workshop led by Beren Van Daele . Disclaimer: my attendance was spotty due to overlapping events, but I think I got a passing understanding.   One aspect of the workshop stirred my attention, and it was the mention of fears in the context of goals vs fears. Obviously anyone wants to achieve certain goals, so it makes sense to set goals and to mention them in a workshop like this. However when setting goals there are certain second-order effects or side-effects that we want to avoid, minimise or eliminate entirely. Here are a few reasons why I found intriguing (and valuable!) the explicit mention of fear. Acknowledge fears when planning Acknowledging fears and taking them into account into planning is a desirable trait in any wise person who seeks to