Retrospectiva #11

We've gone from suffering from the heatwave in the south of Europe to complaining about rain in Copenhagen. I don't think I've seen the sun in at least 48 hours. And you know what? I don't miss it (yet).

We're back to routines. Children love routines (I do too). 'Legra started vuggestue. It's funny seeing her interact with other kids. The flatter terrain has helped my running, and we're back to respectable volumes (whatever that means). No races in the calendar yet - but I'm on the lookout.

It's cold and rainy - but it's hygge.

Using

Cargo bike: Vittoria and I have a goal. Try not to own a car for as long as possible. With a child, our cargo bike has transformed how we experience the city. I never enjoyed pushing a stroller. Our cargo bike fits Allegra, a stroller, and Vittoria all at once. We use it every day. I don't think this would be possible in any other city. Maybe Amsterdam.

BOOX Go 10.3 Gen II Lumi: Some time ago I reviewed the Boox Palma on this blog. I still love it. But I'm increasingly reading academic papers or long technical reports from big labs. I needed something slightly larger but still easy on the eyes. Full review coming soon? Perhaps.

Berkeley Mono: I spent money on a font. I never thought I would. But spending so much time in the terminal deserves a better font. Berkeley Mono is great. And I'm nitpicky about my fonts.

Don't be a Meat Proxy + Don't paste the AI, please.: We are all using AI at work. Some more than others. And that's fine. Some don't want to be in the loop - others want to be in the loop and drive the decisions. One thing we can agree on is that there is ZERO value in pasting AI-generated text. ZERO!

Reading

Build a Reasoning Model (From Scratch): I'm almost done with this one. Sebastian has a great way of articulating complicated ideas in the simplest of ways. I've implemented GRPO from scratch but his walkthrough of the algorithm is unbeatable.

No Bad Kids - Janet Lansbury: Parenting is one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. When you become a parent, you stop judging your own parents so hard, and just wish you could do as good a job as they did. That involves studying the craft.

Pangram paper: Classifying AI-generated text is a cool problem. It's a hard problem! Pangram appears to have cracked the nut. The paper does not give you every single detail - but the adversarial approach is a super interesting one! There are more recent papers in their blog I need to go through.

Kimi K3 technical report: One of the biggest model releases of the year. Lots of details about how they got this beast done. If only GLM produced reports that were as juicy. Or reports at all.

How to turn your AI into a world-class designer (Lenny's Newsletter): All AI-generated websites look the same. I can even tell if it was an OpenAI or Anthropic model. This post describes a super interesting technique called "seed strings" to inject variety into designs generated by LLMs. Part gimmick, part useful, bookmarked.

Being ambitious and being a dad - Nicholas Charriere: This post resonated with me. Once you become a parent, things change. For me, it has just made me sharper and clearer on what I want to do. Less time for bullshit. Less time dedicated to things I'm not interested in. I've always thought of myself as productive. But with kids, there is no choice - you need to cut things.

Listening

Stealing Reasoning Traces from Proprietary LLM APIs (Machine Learning Street Talk): This paper made the rounds. It shows how they managed to steal reasoning traces from proprietary APIs like Anthropic's. A nice interview with the authors.

Stop being skeptical about AI for development, with Charity Majors (The Pragmatic Engineer): I didn't know about Charity, but quickly became a fan. Loved the segment about how to use AI at the workplace and what "rules" we need to put in place.

The Future Beats Show by Complexion: When one of your favourite DJs releases a mix (which he hadn't done in a year or so), you plug it.

Watching

We cancelled all streaming subscriptions before summer. We don't have a TV in the house. We still love our YouTube, sports, and movies every now and then (I have a self-deployed Jellyfin server we can connect to a small portable projector).

OpenAI Astra and Recurrent Depth / Looped Transformers - Sebastian Raschka: The first recommendation is from (again) Sebastian Raschka, who has a great video explaining the recurrent transformer. It's a rumored architecture from the recently released Astra model from OpenAI.

The Invite - official trailer, with Seth Rogen: We took a chance on this movie. It's hilarious. Recommend for a weekend stay-at-home night.

Until then, stay hygge.