iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Brian Ratliff @brierrat.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

Some thoughts on the usefulness of LLMs: We are used to very narrow domain computers being perfectly correct. We not at all used to very wide-domain computers which approximate correctness. It's the difference between looking up information in a textbook and asking your friend for help on homework

000

Brian Ratliff @brierrat.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Everyone shout it out loud. We don't have Kings in America! "king" Trump is anti-American. Why do Republicans even support this? Wouldn't it be hilarious if "king" Trump has his parade and nobody came? Or better yet, how about a website to charge MAGA $30 each to attend for free?

030

Brian Ratliff @brierrat.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

Trump as Pope really highlights the difference between modern conservative and progressive. Conservatives are interested primarily in the person involved. Progressives are interested primarily with the ideas involved. Trump as pope is the same as Trump with a muscular body. A form of idolatry.

010

Brian Ratliff @brierrat.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

Yes, this. The model isn't "reasoning" in any sense of the common use of the word. It's basically an internalized chain-of-thought to get a better quality response by dragging out inference.

020

Brian Ratliff @brierrat.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

Trump has done something no other President has done in a very long time. He’s pushing the US towards a socialistic planned economy. Tariffs calculated based on trade imbalances are a super far left move.

000

Brian Ratliff @brierrat.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

Last time tariffs like this happened, WWII ended the economic doom by converting a lot of flesh/blood to the manufacture and use of weapons.

000

Brian Ratliff @brierrat.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

The opposite of bureaucracy is autonomy, not more central control. But seriously, I think I'm just gonna file an extension and see where the IRS is in a few months.

120

Brian Ratliff @brierrat.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

thewalrus.ca/i-used-to-te... From this, I think students are going to college for the wrong reasons. Or, that colleges are being used for the wrong purpose.

thewalrus.ca

I Used to Teach Students. Now I Catch ChatGPT Cheats | The Walrus

I once believed university was a shared intellectual pursuit. That faith has been obliterated

020

Brian Ratliff @brierrat.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

I dislike the spring leap. Just had the worst migraine in the last five years.

000

Brian Ratliff @brierrat.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

I was dreading figuring out how to put a bunch of files in a .json alpaca format for training a homebrew LLM (I am not a programmer). Claude gives me python code with a prompt and half an hour later (including time for me to understand said code) and I have a function. Stupid simple.

010

Reposted by Brian Ratliff

Chris Offner @chrisoffner3d.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

Glad to see synthetic data really coming to the fore in 3D Vision recently! Here's MegaSaM showing stunning results from synthetic data: mega-sam.github.io

1446

Brian Ratliff @brierrat.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

Queried ChatGPT about the UHC CEO killing, the ethical implications of this, and the ethical implications of the NYTs devoting full coverage to the CEO killing vs (far) below the fold coverage of the kindergartners killed in CA.

100

Brian Ratliff @brierrat.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Here's a riddle: I sell you a product. You like it and it's necessary for you, so you pay me a subscription fee to use this product when you need it. I take your money each month, but I don't give you the product when you need it. You pay me anyway. Every month. What am I?

100

Reposted by Brian Ratliff

God @thegodshow.com · 05/12/2024

People hate health insurance companies with a passion. They’re not laughing because someone died—they’re laughing because the system that crushed them finally took a hit.

thegodpodcast.com

Thou Shalt Not Deny People Health Insurance

Capitalism and healthcare do not mix.

26069811146

Reposted by Brian Ratliff

Keith Boone Photography 🇨🇦 @keithboone.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

What can I say about #CannonBeach on the beautiful #OregonCoast that you don't already know? Let's talk about something else... Unlike many photographers, I actually enjoy including people in a #landscape photo. I call this one "Humans in the mist" 😀 #photography #PNW #beach #sunset #Oregon

2015407262

Brian Ratliff @brierrat.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

Just wrote a simple python function to sort a STEP file into its essential bits. (Okay, so Claude did most of the work, but I helped.) Stripped out 90 lines and made the file human readable and it still loads into my CAD system.

020

Reposted by Brian Ratliff

Ben Burtenshaw @benburtenshaw.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

For anyone interested in fine-tuning or aligning LLMs, I’m running this free and open course called smol course. It’s not a big deal, it’s just smol. 🧵>>

932363

Brian Ratliff @brierrat.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Leaving the corporate engineering in my mid-40s means I am learning to learn again.

120

Brian Ratliff @brierrat.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Coming from mechanical engineering into software AI/machine learning, the difference between how open these two fields are is amazing. ME is a super closed field. Unless you work for a company which does a thing, it's very difficult to know what they do. 1/x

120

Brian Ratliff @brierrat.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Through the first 200 pages of "Build a Large Language Model" by Sebastian Raschka (@sebastianraschka.com). Bomber of a book. Very complete explanations with just the right amount of detail, even for a mechanical engineer like myself. Much recommend.

1191

Brian Ratliff @brierrat.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

An introduction: I'm a mechanical engineer who's quit his job to build an AI startup. Stupid idea, I know. Currently learning all I can about deep learning architectures to be able to ask the right questions. I have an idea aimed at ME and CAD, but need to find a way to validate feasibility.

010

Brian Ratliff @brierrat.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Anyone else's feed on former-twitter basically a bunch of tweets of Musk talking to himself? My "following" feed is usually 80% ML content; currently just Musk. All the machine learning/AI people seem to be moving here.

010