Brian Ratliff
@brierrat.bsky.social
Mechanical Engineer who quit his job to build an AI startup. I have an idea to make generative CAD design truly generative. We'll see how it goes. Lots to do. Lots to learn.
Some thoughts on the usefulness of LLMs: We are used to very narrow domain computers being perfectly correct. We not at all used to very wide-domain computers which approximate correctness. It's the difference between looking up information in a textbook and asking your friend for help on homework
June 21, 2025 at 2:35 AM
Some thoughts on the usefulness of LLMs: We are used to very narrow domain computers being perfectly correct. We not at all used to very wide-domain computers which approximate correctness. It's the difference between looking up information in a textbook and asking your friend for help on homework
Everyone shout it out loud. We don't have Kings in America! "king" Trump is anti-American. Why do Republicans even support this?
Wouldn't it be hilarious if "king" Trump has his parade and nobody came?
Or better yet, how about a website to charge MAGA $30 each to attend for free?
Wouldn't it be hilarious if "king" Trump has his parade and nobody came?
Or better yet, how about a website to charge MAGA $30 each to attend for free?
Reminder for those who seem to have forgotten: We don’t have kings in America. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/george-washington-would-have-thrown
May 6, 2025 at 2:07 AM
Everyone shout it out loud. We don't have Kings in America! "king" Trump is anti-American. Why do Republicans even support this?
Wouldn't it be hilarious if "king" Trump has his parade and nobody came?
Or better yet, how about a website to charge MAGA $30 each to attend for free?
Wouldn't it be hilarious if "king" Trump has his parade and nobody came?
Or better yet, how about a website to charge MAGA $30 each to attend for free?
Trump as Pope really highlights the difference between modern conservative and progressive. Conservatives are interested primarily in the person involved. Progressives are interested primarily with the ideas involved. Trump as pope is the same as Trump with a muscular body. A form of idolatry.
May 3, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Trump as Pope really highlights the difference between modern conservative and progressive. Conservatives are interested primarily in the person involved. Progressives are interested primarily with the ideas involved. Trump as pope is the same as Trump with a muscular body. A form of idolatry.
Yes, this. The model isn't "reasoning" in any sense of the common use of the word. It's basically an internalized chain-of-thought to get a better quality response by dragging out inference.
Wish we had a different word to describe the class of LLMs that are currently pitched as "reasoning" models or LRMs, b/c I don't think "reasoning" is a good description. Something like iteratively re-prompting LLMs maybe.
April 21, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Yes, this. The model isn't "reasoning" in any sense of the common use of the word. It's basically an internalized chain-of-thought to get a better quality response by dragging out inference.
Trump has done something no other President has done in a very long time. He’s pushing the US towards a socialistic planned economy. Tariffs calculated based on trade imbalances are a super far left move.
April 3, 2025 at 10:53 PM
Trump has done something no other President has done in a very long time. He’s pushing the US towards a socialistic planned economy. Tariffs calculated based on trade imbalances are a super far left move.
Last time tariffs like this happened, WWII ended the economic doom by converting a lot of flesh/blood to the manufacture and use of weapons.
April 3, 2025 at 5:03 PM
Last time tariffs like this happened, WWII ended the economic doom by converting a lot of flesh/blood to the manufacture and use of weapons.
The opposite of bureaucracy is autonomy, not more central control.
But seriously, I think I'm just gonna file an extension and see where the IRS is in a few months.
But seriously, I think I'm just gonna file an extension and see where the IRS is in a few months.
March 22, 2025 at 10:58 PM
The opposite of bureaucracy is autonomy, not more central control.
But seriously, I think I'm just gonna file an extension and see where the IRS is in a few months.
But seriously, I think I'm just gonna file an extension and see where the IRS is in a few months.
thewalrus.ca/i-used-to-te...
From this, I think students are going to college for the wrong reasons. Or, that colleges are being used for the wrong purpose.
From this, I think students are going to college for the wrong reasons. Or, that colleges are being used for the wrong purpose.
I Used to Teach Students. Now I Catch ChatGPT Cheats | The Walrus
I once believed university was a shared intellectual pursuit. That faith has been obliterated
thewalrus.ca
March 9, 2025 at 11:44 PM
thewalrus.ca/i-used-to-te...
From this, I think students are going to college for the wrong reasons. Or, that colleges are being used for the wrong purpose.
From this, I think students are going to college for the wrong reasons. Or, that colleges are being used for the wrong purpose.
I dislike the spring leap. Just had the worst migraine in the last five years.
March 9, 2025 at 11:16 PM
I dislike the spring leap. Just had the worst migraine in the last five years.
I was dreading figuring out how to put a bunch of files in a .json alpaca format for training a homebrew LLM (I am not a programmer). Claude gives me python code with a prompt and half an hour later (including time for me to understand said code) and I have a function. Stupid simple.
December 8, 2024 at 2:59 AM
I was dreading figuring out how to put a bunch of files in a .json alpaca format for training a homebrew LLM (I am not a programmer). Claude gives me python code with a prompt and half an hour later (including time for me to understand said code) and I have a function. Stupid simple.
Reposted by Brian Ratliff
Glad to see synthetic data really coming to the fore in 3D Vision recently! Here's MegaSaM showing stunning results from synthetic data: mega-sam.github.io
December 6, 2024 at 6:47 PM
Glad to see synthetic data really coming to the fore in 3D Vision recently! Here's MegaSaM showing stunning results from synthetic data: mega-sam.github.io
Reposted by Brian Ratliff
Queried ChatGPT about the UHC CEO killing, the ethical implications of this, and the ethical implications of the NYTs devoting full coverage to the CEO killing vs (far) below the fold coverage of the kindergartners killed in CA.
December 6, 2024 at 1:07 AM
Queried ChatGPT about the UHC CEO killing, the ethical implications of this, and the ethical implications of the NYTs devoting full coverage to the CEO killing vs (far) below the fold coverage of the kindergartners killed in CA.
Here's a riddle:
I sell you a product. You like it and it's necessary for you, so you pay me a subscription fee to use this product when you need it.
I take your money each month, but I don't give you the product when you need it. You pay me anyway. Every month.
What am I?
I sell you a product. You like it and it's necessary for you, so you pay me a subscription fee to use this product when you need it.
I take your money each month, but I don't give you the product when you need it. You pay me anyway. Every month.
What am I?
December 5, 2024 at 10:11 PM
Here's a riddle:
I sell you a product. You like it and it's necessary for you, so you pay me a subscription fee to use this product when you need it.
I take your money each month, but I don't give you the product when you need it. You pay me anyway. Every month.
What am I?
I sell you a product. You like it and it's necessary for you, so you pay me a subscription fee to use this product when you need it.
I take your money each month, but I don't give you the product when you need it. You pay me anyway. Every month.
What am I?
Reposted by Brian Ratliff
People hate health insurance companies with a passion. They’re not laughing because someone died—they’re laughing because the system that crushed them finally took a hit.
Thou Shalt Not Deny People Health Insurance
Capitalism and healthcare do not mix.
www.thegodpodcast.com
December 5, 2024 at 7:07 PM
People hate health insurance companies with a passion. They’re not laughing because someone died—they’re laughing because the system that crushed them finally took a hit.
Reposted by Brian Ratliff
What can I say about #CannonBeach on the beautiful #OregonCoast that you don't already know? Let's talk about something else...
Unlike many photographers, I actually enjoy including people in a #landscape photo. I call this one "Humans in the mist" 😀
#photography #PNW #beach #sunset #Oregon
Unlike many photographers, I actually enjoy including people in a #landscape photo. I call this one "Humans in the mist" 😀
#photography #PNW #beach #sunset #Oregon
December 4, 2024 at 7:20 PM
What can I say about #CannonBeach on the beautiful #OregonCoast that you don't already know? Let's talk about something else...
Unlike many photographers, I actually enjoy including people in a #landscape photo. I call this one "Humans in the mist" 😀
#photography #PNW #beach #sunset #Oregon
Unlike many photographers, I actually enjoy including people in a #landscape photo. I call this one "Humans in the mist" 😀
#photography #PNW #beach #sunset #Oregon
Just wrote a simple python function to sort a STEP file into its essential bits. (Okay, so Claude did most of the work, but I helped.) Stripped out 90 lines and made the file human readable and it still loads into my CAD system.
December 4, 2024 at 4:06 AM
Just wrote a simple python function to sort a STEP file into its essential bits. (Okay, so Claude did most of the work, but I helped.) Stripped out 90 lines and made the file human readable and it still loads into my CAD system.
Reposted by Brian Ratliff
For anyone interested in fine-tuning or aligning LLMs, I’m running this free and open course called smol course. It’s not a big deal, it’s just smol.
🧵>>
🧵>>
December 3, 2024 at 9:21 AM
For anyone interested in fine-tuning or aligning LLMs, I’m running this free and open course called smol course. It’s not a big deal, it’s just smol.
🧵>>
🧵>>
Leaving the corporate engineering in my mid-40s means I am learning to learn again.
December 3, 2024 at 10:55 PM
Leaving the corporate engineering in my mid-40s means I am learning to learn again.
Coming from mechanical engineering into software AI/machine learning, the difference between how open these two fields are is amazing. ME is a super closed field. Unless you work for a company which does a thing, it's very difficult to know what they do. 1/x
November 27, 2024 at 6:14 PM
Coming from mechanical engineering into software AI/machine learning, the difference between how open these two fields are is amazing. ME is a super closed field. Unless you work for a company which does a thing, it's very difficult to know what they do. 1/x
Through the first 200 pages of "Build a Large Language Model" by Sebastian Raschka (@sebastianraschka.com).
Bomber of a book. Very complete explanations with just the right amount of detail, even for a mechanical engineer like myself.
Much recommend.
Bomber of a book. Very complete explanations with just the right amount of detail, even for a mechanical engineer like myself.
Much recommend.
November 26, 2024 at 10:48 PM
Through the first 200 pages of "Build a Large Language Model" by Sebastian Raschka (@sebastianraschka.com).
Bomber of a book. Very complete explanations with just the right amount of detail, even for a mechanical engineer like myself.
Much recommend.
Bomber of a book. Very complete explanations with just the right amount of detail, even for a mechanical engineer like myself.
Much recommend.
An introduction: I'm a mechanical engineer who's quit his job to build an AI startup. Stupid idea, I know. Currently learning all I can about deep learning architectures to be able to ask the right questions. I have an idea aimed at ME and CAD, but need to find a way to validate feasibility.
November 23, 2024 at 10:45 PM
An introduction: I'm a mechanical engineer who's quit his job to build an AI startup. Stupid idea, I know. Currently learning all I can about deep learning architectures to be able to ask the right questions. I have an idea aimed at ME and CAD, but need to find a way to validate feasibility.
Anyone else's feed on former-twitter basically a bunch of tweets of Musk talking to himself? My "following" feed is usually 80% ML content; currently just Musk. All the machine learning/AI people seem to be moving here.
November 23, 2024 at 10:01 PM
Anyone else's feed on former-twitter basically a bunch of tweets of Musk talking to himself? My "following" feed is usually 80% ML content; currently just Musk. All the machine learning/AI people seem to be moving here.