Michael Smale

Cultivating mindsight

[Michael Smale @MichaelSmale]

'Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana' from, the Language Instinct pp389

[Michael Smale @MichaelSmale]

Wordle 1,918 6/6

🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛🟨⬛🟨
⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛
⬛🟩⬛🟩⬛
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

[Robert Graham @robertgraham]

I've been obsessing over trivial technical details of LLMs, spending way too much time 'groking' trivial issues.

One of them is how 'tokens' are extracted from text and sent through the neural-nets. It's done by creating a random vector for each token, such as converting the letter 'x' into coordinates [1.37, 2.98]. During "training", these "parameters" are "adjusted". What that means is that when plotted, they'll move.

So I created a webpage that animates this, watching what happens to this randomized parameters during training.

We see:
* vowels and punctuation create their own clusters away from others
* The letter 'v' moves away by itself
* The '-' character stays at the center, moving toward the unpopulated quadrant.

You can see the code here.
https://t.co/twJ910LAz1

A brief (AI generated) description of the code is here:
https://t.co/tl7jMIP1kq

[Michael Smale @MichaelSmale]

Space junk = space opportunity. Collect it before it deorbits & recycle it

[claire vo 🖤 @clairevo]

Kids are the best! People that find them annoying and compare them to dogs are unserious.

[Jack Kevorkian @kevorkian82]

Did you know you can take Polystyrene to Mitre10 for FREE and Expol take it away and turn it into insulation panels? How good is that!?!?

Meanwhile at my local transfer station...

[Michael Smale @MichaelSmale]

@pinkstephness Well done! Congratulations

[Michael Smale @MichaelSmale]

@codepo8 Great post, especially enjoyed the robber story. Hadn't heard that before

[Michael Smale @MichaelSmale]

Electrify parcel delivery

[Nate Berkopec @nateberkopec]

This is never gonna happen in a million years in the USA but really the government should be providing some kind of cryptographic key to every citizen.

[Michael Smale @MichaelSmale]

@GBruhaug Can you link to your He3 analysis please? Am interested to know why you think it's crap

[Michael Smale @MichaelSmale]

@sudo_overflow MAMP myphpadmin export

[Michael Smale @MichaelSmale]

@nico_jeannen I prefer B

[AmysMangoStand @AmysMangoStand]

Professional Yak Shaver. Bc someone has to do it 🫡

🥭https://t.co/NYf4j44ore

[Historic Vids @historyinmemes]

January 2025 brings a rare sight: six planets aligning, with Mercury joining for seven. Visible starting January 21 after sunset, you can see Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn without gear. Telescope needed for Neptune, Uranus.

[Michael Smale @MichaelSmale]

@charlottecooknz Neither heard nor seen it

[Rod Emmerson @rodemmerson]

https://t.co/zpzmQZCszX

[Rod Emmerson @rodemmerson]

https://t.co/zpzmQZCszX Rod Emmerson’s cartoons: Week of August 12 - 18

[Joanne Hollings 💫 @Joannehollings]

I come from a small lil country of 5 million but wow do we have incredible nature down here.
This is New Zealand 💫

[Epic Maps 🗺️ @theepicmap]

Nobody lives here

[Chris Keall @ChrisKeall]

Looks like we're screwed