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WHAT WE LEARNED FROM A YEAR OF BUILDING WITH LLMS (PART I)

This is a comprehensive collection of ideas that helps dev work with LLMs better in production. For example, RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) is great at improving LLM performance and is preferred over fine-tuning for adding new knowledge to a model's context. There are tips on prompting models better, such as using JSON or XML to structure inputs and outputs. There are also guidelines on evaluating and monitoring LLM I/O properly in areas where LLMs are in a production-level pipeline.

HOW LARGE IS A 160 BIT NUMBER?

Dolt, a version controlled database, uses cryptographic checksums to address data blocks. While this might lead to potential collisions where different data blocks have the same checksum, the chance of collision is extremely low due to the combo of SHA-512, a strong hash function, and a 20-byte key, which provides a collision resistance of 2^80. This means that even with billions of objects stored, the probability of a collision is small and negligible.

YOUR API SHOULDN'T REDIRECT HTTP TO HTTPS

Redirecting HTTP API calls to HTTPS can mask errors and expose sensitive data, so it's better to disable HTTP interfaces or return errors for unencrypted requests. Many well-known APIs still redirect HTTP to HTTPS, but some have adopted the fail-fast approach, returning errors for unencrypted calls. API credentials sent over unencrypted connections should be considered compromised and automatically revoked.

THE DISAPPOINTMENT FRONTIER

The disappointment frontier is the gap between a team's expectations and reality. This gap can grow when managers shield their teams from reality or overpromise on deliverables. Managing disappointment is a core leadership skill, so great managers acknowledge the disappointment frontier and actively work to shrink it.

OPENKODA

OpenKoda is a development platform that makes it easier to build business apps and internal tools. It comes with pre-built functionalities and out-of-the-box features. OpenKoda supports common technologies like Java, Spring Boot, JavaScript, Postgres, and HTML.

RAGAPP

RAGapp is a way to use RAG in your own apps. Its configuration is similar to OpenAI's custom GPTs, but it's deployable in your own cloud infrastructure using Docker and whatever LLM you prefer.

NESTJS BOILERPLATE

This is a NestJS boilerplate that supports social sign-in, any database, file uploads, admin and user roles, Docker, CI, and more.

HIRING (AND MANAGING) CRACKED ENGINEERS

PostHog prioritizes hiring and retaining "cracked" engineers who are self-motivated and optimistic. The key to motivating and managing cracked engineers properly is to create an environment where they can collaborate with like-minded individuals, not have to deal with unnecessary bureaucracy, and can just focus on the work and the vision.

LLAMA 3-V: MATCHING GPT4-V WITH A 100X SMALLER MODEL AND 500 DOLLARS

Llama3-V is an open-source multimodal model created by Stanford ML researchers that's able to keep up with GPT4-Vision. The researchers accomplished this by combining the language capabilities of Llama 3 with a vision encoder from SigLIP, using a projection block for alignment, and prepending image tokens to textual tokens.

7 TIPS TO CRUSH YOUR ONBOARDING FROM AN APPLE STAFF ENGINEER

When onboarding, create a clear 30/60/90-day plan to set expectations and goals, network a lot, and pair with an onboarding mentor if possible.

HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO BUILD AN APP LIKE SPOTIFY WITH 3 DEVS? (REDDIT THREAD)

A very basic Spotify clone would probably take a few months to build, but actually building “all of Spotify” would take decades.

EFFECTS SHOWROOM

A library of effects that can be installed into your terminal.

ASK HN: WHY DO GAMES COMPANIES NOT RELEASE SOURCE CODE FOR OLD GAMES? (HACKER NEWS THREAD)

Companies may not have old source code anymore or it may be unclear who actually owns the source code and not worth a company's time to figure it out.

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APPLE SIGNS DEAL WITH OPENAI FOR IOS, STILL WANTS GOOGLE AS AN 'OPTION'

Apple and OpenAI have signed a deal to provide chatbot functionality in iOS 18. The deal will be a component of Apple's WWDC event in June. It will allow Apple to continue working on its own chatbot, like how it previously offered Google Maps before launching Apple Maps. Apple is still working on a deal with Google to offer Gemini as an option.

ELON MUSK'S XAI RAISES $6 BILLION TO FUND ITS RACE AGAINST CHATGPT AND ALL THE REST

xAI has announced raising $6 billion in funding to help bring the startup's first products to market, build advanced infrastructure, and accelerate the research and development of future technologies. The funding comes from several sources, including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Saudi Arabian Prince Al Waleed bin Talal. Elon Musk plans to launch xAI's new data center by the fall of 2025. Musk has said he would prefer to build products outside of Tesla when it comes to AI and robotics unless he gets more control.

SCIENTISTS FOUND A PARADOX IN EVOLUTION — AND IT MAY BECOME THE NEXT RULE OF BIOLOGY

Scientists from the University of Southern California have proposed a new rule for biology called Selectively Advantageous Instability (SAI). SAI explores how instability can actually benefit a cell or organism. Instability allows for greater genetic diversity, which can make organisms more adaptable. A shorter cell component lifespan can actually help promote cell health. Understanding the process could aid in the exploration of the biological processes behind disease and aging.

LOOKING GLASS DEBUTS 16-INCH OLED AND 32-INCH ‘HOLOGRAPHIC' SPATIAL DISPLAYS

Looking Glass has introduced a 32-inch spatial display and a 16-inch OLED variant designed to enable group 3D visualization without the need for headsets. The displays can assist in the development and presentation of interactive 3D digital images, videos, and applications in real time. They support a range of software through plugins for Unity, Unreal, Blender, and WebXR. Looking Glass provides a 3D model importer and an SDK for developing custom 3D/holographic content. The new displays are thin and designed to be easily installed anywhere.

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SIG

sig enables interactive grep for streaming. It allows users to interactively search through streaming data, updating results in real time. sig has an Archived mode that saves the latest N entries of streaming data so that users can grep through those entries based on key inputs at any given moment. Archived mode also allows users to grep through static data such as files.

OLD DOGS, NEW CSS TRICKS

While a lot of new CSS features have shipped in the last few years, actual usage is still low. When learning new things, it's important not to get overwhelmed. Don't try to refactor an entire codebase all at once - pick achievable goals. While you don't have to use the latest and greatest new CSS features, it's worth knowing which specific problems these new techniques can solve so you can decide whether they're a good fit for your project.

WHAT ARE YOU GETTING PAID IN?

You can't always pay and motivate people with just money. You can pay people in lots of currencies: quality of life, prestige, status, impact, influence - just to name a few. People value different things and want to be paid in different ways. By thinking creatively, you can pay people in ways other than money. The best way to make sure you get paid the way you want to is to pick the right industry. It's easier to accumulate what you want through time and work than to try and convert between currencies.

ASK HN: WHAT IS YOUR CHATGPT CUSTOMIZATION PROMPT? (HACKER NEWS THREAD)

Coming up with a customization prompt for ChatGPT that you're happy with can be difficult. This Hacker News thread presents several examples of customization prompts that other developers have found useful. It contains a discussion on how prompts can be tweaked to provide different results.

THE NETFLIX CHIEF'S PLAN TO GET YOU TO BINGE EVEN MORE

A transcript of an interview with Ted Sarandos, co-chief executive at Netflix, where he talks about his background, Netflix's competition, the film industry, American culture, Netflix's strategy, AI, and more.

MY BDFL GUIDING PRINCIPLES

Being a Benevolent Dictator For Life means having the ability to push or veto just about anything in a project - but this may not be the ideal way to run an open source project.

EGYPT IS BUILDING A $1-BILLION MEGA-MUSEUM

The Grand Egyptian Museum will occupy 500,000 square meters and showcase more than 50,000 ancient Egyptian artifacts.

NEW MAGIC FOR ANIMATIONS IN CSS

CSS is adding two more features that will make it much easier to further avoid JavaScript when implementing animations.

NEURALINK COMPRESSION CHALLENGE

Neuralink is looking for new approaches to a compression problem and exceptional engineers to work on it.

FOUR SINGULARITIES FOR RESEARCH

AI will alter academic research in ways we can't fully imagine.

XAI SERIES B FUNDING ROUND

xAI has announced a $6 billion Series B funding round led by top investors to advance its AI systems, including the Grok-1 models with enhanced capabilities. The funding will fuel product go-to-market strategies, infrastructure, and R&D.

SOME MORE DETAILS INTO APPLE'S AI STRATEGY

Apple's AI strategy is focused on practical AI features to improve its products, such as Project Greymatter, a set of AI tools that will be integrated into key Apple apps.

MAPPING THE MIND OF A LARGE LANGUAGE MODEL

Anthropic researchers have unveiled a method to interpret the inner workings of its large language model, Claude Sonnet, by mapping out millions of features corresponding to a diverse array of concepts. This interpretability could lead to safer AI by allowing specific manipulations of these features to steer model behaviors. The study demonstrates a significant step in understanding and improving the safety mechanisms of AI language models.

OBJECT SEGMENTATION IN COMPLEX SCENARIOS

Researchers have introduced the Hierarchical Semantic Decoding with Counting Assistance (HDC) framework to improve the Generalized Referring Expression Segmentation (GRES). Unlike previous methods, HDC transfers complementary modality information across granularities and aggregates semantic correspondences for better multi-level decoding.

EFFICIENT 3D SCENE COMPLETION

Scribble2Scene is a new approach for semantic scene completion that reduces the need for extensive labeling.

SEMANTIC SEGMENTATION WITH SSA CLASSIFIER

A new Semantic and Spatial Adaptive (SSA) classifier has been introduced to tackle limitations in semantic segmentation. This innovative approach utilizes coarse masks to guide the adjustment of prototypes, enhancing fine-grained recognition and clarifying mask boundaries.

INFORMATION RETRIEVAL MEASURES (PYTHON PACKAGE)

Building a RAG system requires you to know how well the retrieval portion is working. This toolkit gives a wide variety of powerful measures of performance for information retrieval.

INTERPRETATION IN REMOTE SENSING IMAGES

RSBuilding introduces a new approach to interpreting buildings from remote sensing images, combining building extraction and change detection into one model.

ENHANCING VISUAL LANGUAGE MODELS

This project introduces a new efficient large language and vision model called Meteor that uses multifaceted rationales to improve understanding and answering capabilities.

BOOTLOADER STUDIO BRINGS EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE TO AI

Bootloader Studio, a Vietnam-based affective AI and spatial computing startup pioneering the role of emotional intelligence in AI, has emerged from stealth with $5M in seed funding led by Antler Elevate. The company's first consumer product is slated to launch on Apple Vision Pro this year, laying the foundation for a new type of AI model: personalized, user-owned emotional models that allow users to dictate how they interact with businesses, doctors, friends, and more.

HOW TO BUILD A CATEGORY-DEFINING AI STARTUP

As the AI landscape rapidly evolves, AI startups must embrace a marketing-led approach to differentiate themselves and become category-defining leaders. By embracing a marketing-led approach, AI startups can shape the industry narrative, drive market adoption, and establish themselves as visionary leaders in their space.

WAYS TO THINK ABOUT AGI

While some experts believe AGI may be within reach, the consensus is uncertain due to the lack of a coherent theoretical model of general intelligence and an understanding of why or how LLMs function so effectively. The discussion underlines the vast unknowns surrounding AGI, drawing parallels to theology and the empirical approach of the Apollo Program, acknowledging both the potential benefits and the risks associated with AGI.

GUIDE TO CREATING NEURAL CIRCUIT DIAGRAMS

A helpful guide for creating neural circuit diagrams to explain pieces of AI models.

HUMANE IS LOOKING FOR A BUYER AFTER THE AI PIN'S UNDERWHELMING DEBUT

The AI wearable startup Humane, founded by ex-Apple employees, is seeking a sale of its business for $750 million to $1 billion.

BRINGING EMOTIONS TO 2D TALKING AVATARS

InstructAvatar is a new model that creates emotionally expressive 2D avatars using text guidance.