December 2024

I read 51 new books in 2024 (about the same as in 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020.) But slightly differently. I only read Manga this year. Fullmetal Alchemist (Vol 12 - 27). What started off as a childishly illustrated children’s book evolved into a complex, gripping plot. Attack on Titan (Vol 1 - 34). I read it while I watched the TV Series (reading first, then watching). It started explosively and the pace never let up. I had to take breaks just to breathe and calm my nerves. The sheer imagination and subtlety is brilliant. It’s hard to decide which is better—the manga (book) or the anime (TV). The TV series translates the book faithfully in plot and in spirit. It helped that I read each chapter first, allowing me to imagine it, and then watch it, which told me what all I missed in the book. I absolutely would not have understood the manga without watching the anime. ...

Here's the report card for my 2024 resolutions: Compound long-term goals, daily. PASS. I managed to work continuously build on 6 areas in 2024: Blogging about 50 posts on my blog and on LinkedIn Weekly notes of things I learned Teaching Tools in Data Science (repo) Reading only Manga Experimenting with LLM applications LLM Evangelization through LLM Foundry, Straive's LLM portal. Hit 80 heart points, daily. FAIL. I stopped exercise in the second half and gained 7 kgs. Be a better husband. PASS. My wife confirmed that I was "definitely worse in 2023 than 2024." My most memorable events in 2024 were: ...

The second project in course asked students to submit code. Copying and collaborating were allowed, but originality gets bonus marks. Bonus Marks 8 marks: Code diversity. You're welcome to copy code and learn from each other. But we encourage diversity too. We will use code embedding similarity (via text-embedding-3-small, dropping comments and docstrings) and give bonus marks for most unique responses. (That is, if your response is similar to a lot of others, you lose these marks.) In setting this rule, I applied two principles. ...

One of my goals for 2024 is to “Compound long-term goals, daily.” Learning is one of those. Some people publish their learnings as weekly notes, like Simon Willison, Thejesh GN, Anil Radhakrishna, and Julia Evans. I follow their notes. I started doing the same, quietly, to see if I could sustain it. It’s been a year and it has sustained. I’m finally publishing them. My week notes are at til.s-anand.net. Here’s the source code. ...

Windows PowerToys is one of the first tools I install on a new machine. I use it so much every day that I need to share how I use it. I’ve been using it for a long time now, but the pace at which good features have been added, it’s edged out most other tools and is #4 in terms of most used tools on my machine, with only the browser (Brave, currently), the editor (Cursor, currently), and Everything are ahead.) ...

In my Tools in Data Science course, I launched a Project: Automated Analysis. This is automatically evaluated by a Python script and LLMs. I gently encouraged students to hack this - to teach how to persuade LLMs. I did not expect that they’d hack the evaluation system itself. One student exfiltrated the API Keys for evaluation by setting up a Firebase account and sending the API keys from anyone who runs the script. ...

If students can use ChatGPT for their work, why not teachers? For curriculum development, this is an easy choice. But for evaluation, it needs more thought. Gaining acceptance among students matters. Soon, LLM evaluation will be a norm. But until then, you need to spin this right. How to evaluate? That needs to be VERY clear. Humans can wing it, have implicit criteria, and change approach mid-way. LLMs can’t (quite). Hacking LLMs is a risk. Students will hack. In a few years, LLMs will be smarter. Until then, you need to safeguard them. This article is about my experience with the above, especially the last. ...

I got access to SORA today. My first attempts was typical. An animated cartoon featuring Calvin, a young boy with spiky hair, standing in a playful boxing stance with oversized boxing gloves. He looks determined as he says ‘Bring it on!’ in a speech bubble. Facing him is Hobbes, a tall and slightly bemused tiger, also in a mock boxing pose with a gentle smile, as if humoring Calvin. The scene is set in Calvin’s backyard, typical of a Calvin and Hobbes comic, with a simple and uncluttered backdrop. ...