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Why You Need a Thinking Partner (like this Genius)
You may not have heard of him, but James Clerk Maxwell wrote down what we now think of as four equations that define ALL of electromagnetics. You can get a T-Shirt with them emblazoned on it. If you want to know how radio waves propagate, or how a radio functions, or how anything running on electricity…
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A change of perspective is worth 80 IQ points
We’ve all done it–struggled over some problem until a frustrating end of the day. But after “sleeping on it” and stepping into a hot shower, a breakthrough idea pops up, as if out of nowhere. This often comes from getting too close to the problem. A little distance can make a decisive difference. The quotation…
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John Carmack on the so-called end of programming
“Coding” was never the source of value, and people shouldn’t get overly attached to it. Problem solving is the core skill. The discipline and precision demanded by traditional programming will remain valuable transferable attributes, but they won’t be a barrier to entry. (No link since it’s on Twitter, which requires a login. But here’s some…
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Free Webinar: Career advice in the age of AI
Join M.Joel Dubinko for a FREE webinar on Career Advice in the Age of AI. Layoffs are on the rise again, especially in the tech sector. This destructive form of social contagion is likely to get even more common in the future. M.Joel Dubinko has been mentoring software engineers for decades. This is your opportunity…
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AI interviews ME about my AI LinkedIn Learning course
By M.Joel Dubinko I’ve been interviewed by AI about my LinkedIn Learning course on AI. Scroll to the end to interact with a live instance of this AI interview host, called “Compelling Conversations,” for yourself. And to find out about a FREE webinar. On with the interview… Compelling Conversations: Welcome to today’s episode! We’re thrilled…
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Google Gemini is really bad at compsci math
Be careful out there, folks. Me> show an example of a GUID in ascii85 encoding Gemini> Unfortunately, a standard GUID cannot be directly encoded using Ascii85 due to limitations in how both formats work. Here’s why: Ascii85: This encoding scheme takes 4 bytes of input and produces 5 bytes of output. A standard GUID is…
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Master Systems Thinking: Levels and Inversion
A meditation on a simple electronic circuit: There’s a direct current (DC) source, a switch, and a light bulb. Not that different from a lot of grade school experiments. Close the switch, and the light turns on, right? Even if you’ve never studied electronics, you probably have a mental model of how this circuit would…
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Why ‘Preview’ may become the most important MacOS AI app
Preview is one of those apps that people use all the time without really thinking about it. “Hey, what’s that file?” Click. “Ah, OK.” MacOS already handles this better than Linux or Windows. So the ability to summarize a document would be a huge force-multiplier for Preview. Some of the biggest uses of Generative AI…
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What follows Llamas?
Everybody is talking about LLMs, aka Large Language Models, sometimes via the cutesy word Llama, which means the same thing except smoothed over and rounded off by the linguistic optimization of getting used in actual speech. I don’t know this for sure, but I suspect that the falsely-modest adjective “Large” came about because a more…
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How to Solve Any Problem the McKinsey Way (AI edition)
‘Anyone can use the problem-solving and management techniques described in this book; you don’t have to be in (or even from) the Firm.’ So says the introduction to The McKinsey Mind by Ethan M. Rasiel and Paul N. Friga. I powered through this book with an eye toward any techniques that might have new life…
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Start Generating: Is AI right for brainstorming?
When I needed a super simple “hello world” introduction to AI apps, I went for a simple brainstorming app. Start with a word or phrase describing a topic, and the app comes up with a number of title suggestions for a blog post. (And they’re pretty decent.) Is this a good introduction? For purposes of…
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Seeking feedback on official course for building AI apps
Work is proceeding on a LinkedIn Learning course on building AI apps. Even before all of the OpenAI drama, I had decided to focus on the ability to work locally, without relying on cloud or external APIs for embeddings or the LLM itself. Some of the things I’m showing off end up being rather obscure–in…