Idea for tuning LLMs for translation & code / RLAIF

Give one instance of a LLM some rich context and produce a description of the code it would like

Pass it to a second instance and then have it generate the code

Pass the code back and have it iterate until the code fits the context.

You now have (long context, short description, code pairs) which can be used to enrich the training

LLMs are contextual meaning they can behave significantly better or worse depending on the context. This provides opportunity for self-improvement within the same model

something about LLM apis costing money (even though it's just a little bit) gets stuck in my craw when using them in tools. I think we will get over this.

For instance, I want to select titles of my thoughts from the contents (since a deterministic approach like taking the first few words doesn't always work). I feel hesitant to put an llm to work even though it would cost me pennies.

we thinking strangely when it comes to money!

When designing an improvement for a system, you typically don’t want it to get worse. Good strategy:

• figure out an error rate for the old system
• compute the agreement between the new system + the old system
• if the agreement is significantly less than the error rate of the old approach you have a problem

"He had no idea of its cause, still less of its cure; but discontent had  come into his soul, and he had taken one small step toward humanity" (from 2001: A Space Odyssey)

"There are a few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money"

• Samuel Johnson (found via the Money Stuff Podcast ep on Jan 2, 2026)

Cool software details in the Apple Music app

• Apple Music radio shows change the cover art & artist as you listen
• the playlists you save to your library update, including the ones that change weakly (I’m not sure if this is positive)
• Apple animated album covers

Corollary: pushing yourself is as kind of selective activity, you shouldn't really make everything super stressful

Listening to “Human Resources” by Dan Carlin, about slavery.

One is struck how much people were able to shape their opinions to their monetary incentives (eg, revolutionary France controlling Saint-Domingue, now Haiti)

It’s worth listening too because we are under informed about slavery, since it is avoided in media besides to make a current political point

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dan-carlins-hardcore-history/id173001861?i=1000553133741

Relax for the same results - https://sive.rs/relax

The idea is that you can the same results by not being super intense about everything.

I think part of the idea is that you don't bind up your ego with thing thing you do when you don't treat it as do or die

Small affordance in the alarms section on iOS. When you modify an alarm it is also turned on. My engineer brain would say those are 2 separate things, but you only edit an alarm to set it. Good design doesn’t fall prey to my engineer brain.

It's possible to do things slowly and still yield results, given they are the right things. Speed has become kind of an aesthetic thing in twitter technology culture

Maybe the underlying assumption is that you wish to gain wealth as fast as possible, but there are definitely some things that take longer than a few months

Small accordance in the alarms section on iOS. When you modify an alarm it is also turned on. My engineer brain would say those are 2 separate things, but you only edit an alarm to set it. Good design doesn’t fall prey to my engineer brain.

We are always like fish - the water we are in imposes optimization criteria and constraints we can't detect.

For instance, in startups, maybe one implicit criteria is getting wealth or revenue as fast as possible. This is good signal, but it may not actually be algined the goal we set for ourself (e.g., to build a particular kind of thing we wish to see in the world etc)

"You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is."

Part of this means our incentives shape our constraints. (there is more too it - Twain also says all opinions originate in this way. See: https://paulgraham.com/cornpone.html for a more complete excerpt)