My father was trained as an artist. I remember one of the first lessons that he taught me was to stop looking at the world as being full of things, and start thinking about what the eyes see as a combination of colours, shapes and shadows. His first assignment was
My recent personal project, Text Marv, is something I’ve built with security in mind. It's not just another tool—it's one that I use every single day as my own productivity and goal-achievement companion (and for fun stuff like image generation). From the start, I’
There is no known cause of growing pains, but there is certainly evidence that it is a real phenomenon. Discomfort and growth are intertwined. The last year has been a time of growth, learning, and some discomfort for me. It is scary to write this article reflecting on my journey
Applications leveraging LLMs are fundamentally software, and like any quality software, they should be rigorously tested. Of course, the type of testing you want to employ will depend on the type of job you are doing with LLMs. Working closely with models will require a different type of testing than
Arizona has a small town that is literally filled with magic. There’s something very weird going on in Sedona, and everyone seems to knows it. The local maps label “vortex” locations, and you can book a UFO tour with guaranteed sightings. It's a beautiful place and one
I have been creating interactive text message applications since 2015. The first one that I made was a magic eight ball. Text any question and it would reply with one of twenty answers that exactly mirrored the classic children's toy. I made it in a weekend and at
Artificial intelligence is no longer a futuristic concept—it’s here, reshaping industries and changing the way we work, communicate, and solve problems. But while AI’s potential is undeniable, its success hinges on how effectively it meets real user needs.
I increased my productivity and happiness using the power of small habits. It has led to powerful changes in my outlook and along the way I have picked up some techniques that helped. I'm sharing them here with the hope that they may be helpful for you.
Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World is a book that dives deep into the lives and work of key AI pioneers. It highlights the breakthroughs, rivalries, and ethical debates surrounding AI, providing a unique look inside the AI revolution. I couldn't
Systems that use large language models (LLMs) are everywhere these days, enabling interactions that would have seemed like science fiction just a few years ago. These models are great at generating human-like text, and they’re improving every day. However, understanding and mitigating the risks in these applications is more
Twelve years ago, I generated and printed slices of a "sinc" map and made something that was described on facebook as "fucking boss". I even got featured on a random greek blog. đź’Ş IIRC correctly, the typo I was talking about is that the LHS should be
AI has gone mainstream, and OpenAI's ChatGPT is ushering in a wave of new applications layered on top of one of the most exciting APIs that indie hackers have ever had to play with. Many of these apps are just shallow wrappers over OpenAI's technology, offering
The OpenAI Assistants API streamlines the management of conversational AI by abstracting message handling, making it easier for developers. The API revolves around three key concepts: Assistants (customized AI models with specific instructions and tools), Messages (conversation content with roles), and Threads (conversations with a unique ID for context). It
I have recently been developing something in the realm of automated text messaging (sometimes called A2P or application to person). I started building my MVP in Canada, and things were so simple. I use the largest programmable SMS provider and sending messages to Canadian numbers works with very little setup.
I picked this book up in Antigone Bookshop (a great little place on 4th avenue in Tucson, Arizona). It's a fictional tale about Martin Hench. He's 67, mostly retired, and at the end of what seems like an illustrious career as a "self employed forensic
🤯HTMX is a javascript library that lets you build dynamic web pages without using JavaScript (unless you want to). What this covers: * Introduction * Installation and Basic Usage with Examples * Community and Ecosystem * Security Considerations When I first learned HTML and started building simple websites it was liberating. It felt empowering
Saw: I travelled to the Grand Canyon and felt small while experiencing the Dark Sky™️. Seriously, the Grand Canyon is awesome. Peak Grandness: One Canyon’s StoryThis week, we drove to the Grand Canyon and toured the South Rim. I walked along the ridge and looked over the edge at
This week, we drove to the Grand Canyon and toured the South Rim. I walked along the ridge and looked over the edge at the endless depth. As your eyes descend, the stones grow more ancient, the deepest ones are billions of years old. It really is deep. Deep enough
GPT-4 with Vision, or gpt-4-vision-preview in the API, is a new(ish) model from OpenAI that can answer questions about images. I'll take a look at what it can do, show you how to the generated descriptions for easy full text search, and share the code for everything.
In this weeks episode, I tell the story of "Machete Mindset" - a bit of a lampoon of self help success books and an experiment with new AI, show you how to get professional with your ghost theme development setup and tour a massive outdoor art gallery known
Tucson has a LOT of murals. By some counts there are over 100, and many of them are very large. It seems like everywhere you walk downtown there is high quality giant artwork on the walls. To that end, these murals are a living piece of art - constantly being
Do you use Ghost đź‘» for your website / newsletter and want more control over the visual presentation of your content? If you ever want to customize the default themes offered in ghost or even build your own, I'll show you how to set up a local development environment with
I created the same book twice. Once using humans, and again using ChatGPT. Four years ago I commissioned 13 strangers to ghost write a book called Machete Mindset for me in under two weeks. This year, I asked ChatGPT to do the same thing. If you are interested in seeing
This is the fastest way I have found to create an eBook. I use a one-line script to generate an epub file (currently the most popular format and will work on any device that has an e-reader). It's very fast and is a big time saver if you
This week I travel to dusty Tombstone, Arizona where the ghosts of cowboys duel in the streets. I offer a a software developers perspective on a chapter from Rick Rubin's "The Creative Act - A Way of Being" which is as much a spiritual tome as
I have (again) been reading Rick Rubin's "The Creative Act - A Way of Being" which is a book about creativity and the wellspring from which it arrives. I read through it very quickly the first time. It's awesome. It's inspiring. The
Driving through small towns in the Arizona, you see a repeating a narrative of rise and fall. Whether you are checking out the neon lights frozen in time since the 1950s along Route 66, or an entire town living like it's 1881 and re-enacting old west shoot-outs daily,
For an entrepreneur, the first sale an acknowledgement from the world. Your first sale is solid ground underneath your feet to build upon. You should want to get there as quickly as possible. In this concise guide, I'm going to walk you through launching a sales page by
My journey at Neofinancial has been an exhilarating blend of late-night coding sessions, critical deadlines, and a relentless pursuit of innovation that catapulted us into the Canadian fintech spotlight.
I recently read The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. The book lays out a framework for startups that is based on quick iteration and constant learning. As a developer I have seen and worked with lean processes, but applying those same principals to management and innovation is very exciting and
This week I learn about organizational big data from the World Series winning Texas Rangers, look back at my first ever react component (with an AI that learns to play Pong!), share some first impressions of Tucson, and discuss manufacturing techniques in my review of The Lean Startup. How The
I attended "Big Data in the Fall Classic - How the Texas Rangers gained a competitive edge through big data" and I want to share with you what I learned. The conversation was with two members of the Texas Rangers R&D team: Alexander Booth, the Assistant
I was doing some local archaeology on my laptop, and I discovered a gem from five years ago (just before I started my last job). I wanted to give react a test run before I started using it professionally at work, and this is the first react code that I
Ghost allows you to inject arbitrary code / html into any post. You can do this by using the code injection feature, and enclosing your code in a <script> tag. We can use code injection to add interactivity to regular html elements. A particularly fun one to play with
I am in Arizona, and the sun is warm and there are saguaros (the green, tall, armed cactuses) everywhere. These giants keep watch over the nearby Sabino Canyon. There are lots of other types of cactuses as well and none are interested in being touched. Some look like inviting to
The following events happened in Hamilton, Ontario in 2015. This story is true. The names have been changed out of consideration for those involved.