Welcome to the first monthly learning roundup! This is a place to share random things I find interesting every month, write down what I found interesting, and general updates about the things I'm doing.
The month started on the beach with the girls. I spent the time reading on the beach, hiking, playing with the kids and eating lots of ice cream. I haven't taken any time off this year. Having a week to disconnect was energizing.
With the extra time to think I decided I really needed to redesign my personal website. While sitting on the beach I sketched out how I wanted to chang the site. By the time I got how I had a good idea what I wanted to build and spent the rest of the month executing on that plan. The result is what you see now!
What I've been building...
Redesigning the website! I wrote about the process and motivation for the redesign. I'm excited to have a new space to share more about the things I'm learning and building!
Garden Updates...
The first seed was planted! For a while I've been thinking about how to move beyond chat interfaces with LLMs. Sure they're great for some things, but there are negative tradeoffs from using those chat interfaces as well. For the first garden entry I summarized some of my thoughts and what I've found worth reading on the topic. Go check it out over at the garden!
What I've been thinking about...
Empirical LLM Evaluations
Part of building trust in LLM applications is performing robust empirical evaluations. LLMs are powerful tools, but they should also be subject to the same robust testing as would be used with any machine learning model. I've been reading a bit about the different strategies for evaluating LLM-based applications. I'm also making sure these are being embedded in my workflow. Here are a couple things I read. More to come on this!
Roman Workbenches
For the past few months I've been plotting to start getting back into woodworking. Since we moved last year I lost all my shop space including the old, sturdy, workbenches in the old garage. I don't have a dedicated place to set up shop in the new house.
On Instagram I saw a post about Roman workbenches that caught my attention. The post linked to a course from Christopher Schwarz (pictured with a Roman workbench) on building a Roman workbench. I loved the idea of making one and purchased the course.
Making the bench seems easy enough. I don't have a plane to make the tapered legs, so I'm going to make a modified design with different legs and maintaining the same general design.
- Chrisopher Schwarz's Roman Workbench Course
- Background about Roman Workbenches excerpted from Christopher Schwarz's book Ingenious Mechanicks (Book).
Peloton Stats
July was a pretty meh month for fitness activities. Being on vacation didn't help. There was also a week stretch in the middle of the month where I lost focus, but was able to get on track again. One achievement to celebrate is that I did two runs while on vacation. Since my diagnosis I've only run four times. Being able to run twice in a week was a confidence boost I needed, but still work to do!
Active Days: 22
Total Classes: 43
Workout Time: 756 minutes