Weeknotes #1 (November 09, 2024)
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Things I found, read, did, and produced this past week. (I may not have content for each of these categories every week, but just want to keep a consistent header for these)
- Ollama: I've been expirimenting with some local models and Ollama is definitely the easiest turnkey method for testing out models. I think of it like Docker for LLMs.
- Claude Token Counter: Simon wrote a small web app that now uses an API from Anthropic to see how many input tokens to Claude an input & documents would take up.
- SIGBOVIK: A fun parody conference for Software Engineering / CS professionals. It happened this past April but I was reminded about it this past week and had a good time reading through the various papers.
- Decoder: Return-to-office mandates are more than "backdoor layoffs" - fun listen that goes into the current debate of should work be all in office, all remote, hybrid, and the complexities of those.
- M4 Mac Mini Review: I currently have a M1 Mac Mini and it is not slowing down, but I am happy to see the small desktop form factor be this powerful and this cheap. Maybe by the M6 or M7 era I may do an upgrade for the mini.
- Alexa at 10: My parents purchased an original echo back in the mid 2010s and I've owned and use many versions of the echos over the years as well. Although what you can do with it didn't change much over the past 10 years, it will be interesting to see what the next 10 years hold for it and products in the same space as Google and Amazon are updating their personal assistants to be powered by LLMs.
- Sysadmin shock as Windows Server 2025 installs itself after update labeling error: when you push a patch update that is actually a major OS update and 7% of your install base is affected, that definitely is not a great look.