You watching the Oscars on Sunday?

Hey folks, um I actually have nothing for you here. Okay, it's 4.55. You're gonna get a grab bag because um family gets home in 15 minutes.

I finished my day, so there's a handful of things that I thought maybe we should talk about. Um screencasting. I'm recording another s uh Laircast series and I'm in the fight of my life. Laracast videos are the hardest things to make for me. Uh r screencasting in general, but it's especially bad when you're doing it for somebody else who has who you like wanna live up to their standards and stuff, so you actually have to do a good job.

And uh that's a hard thing to do and it took me days and days and days to even get one video. Ah, and then I recorded five uh in like two days and then I scrapped them all and re-recorded them all yesterday. I finally hit a stride though, but man, this one is like the working on it has been chewing on glass. One of those real like uh man, handcuff myself to my desk things. It just sucks. Um the bo the war of art, although it's not art. So anyway, uh doing that.

And I have I thought like maybe I should record an episode on how to do screencasts, which I've done before, but it's like I'm hot on it right now, so I'm like very fresh on all the do's and don'ts. Uh like one nugget, um Is uh well but yeah. Well okay. Well one nugget that actually has nothing to do with recording them per se. It's designing them. Um an educator who I adore, Grant Sanderson, I believe.

He is the creator of three blue, one brown YouTube channel and like visual math education. It's really brilliant and beautiful. And I was just struggling to structure this series. So I had like ChatGPT give me like g like scour. I remember listening to a podcast by him and when I really realized he was interviewed by somebody and I realized like oh he is a master educator with a crystal clear brain.

And so I was like, Gimme everything on on Grant Sanderson and am I saying his name right? That's him, right? Grant? Sanderson? Yeah, yeah. Grant Sanderson. Like, give me everything on him, all his takes. Like what is what w how do we can we distill his philosophies? Give me all his quotes, you know, whatever. And it was gold. It was like

You know, basically his thing is like, I mean, story matters a ton. Like, there needs to be story, there needs to be characters, there needs to be drama, like conflict. or just a mystery. You have to set a mystery up. Um, you have to give your you know, learners you have to give them questions that they want to answer. You know, there's a lot, but that that's like a big one. And we've talked about that before, the value of questions I remember. Maybe it was him.

who like I heard from somebody somewhere like questions are like holes, you know, they're holes that that need to get filled. You can't just add information to like a smooth brain, you know. You need holes like a golf ball where the information goes sl So questions are spaces where knowledge goes. And if you don't have that space, then knowledge goes nowhere. And I love that because I think questions are an incredibly profound thing.

But anyway, um, so I I so I tried took my whole course outline and ran it with an AI through like Grant Sanderson stuff to try to like Grant Sandersonify it to make it like more compelling. And it's really funny how it just totally AI'd itself. It was like It reworded all my descriptions to like It it's like it codified the th the prompt into the description was just like

I don't know, it's hard to describe how bad it was, but it it was just not good. Anyway, um but then there's tons of stuff to talk about with LLMs, of course, is like what's going on in the news of LLMs lately, and it's like Um MCP is dead. Um no, it's actually not dead. Uh everybody's making a harness. Um And and cool looking ones. Like I really want to try out Marcel's polymarket. No, poly polyphia. Um polyphony. Uh polygamy? Polygamist? Poly

Sorry, Marcel. But whatever he's doing looks awesome. Um and I I the first time I heard about this concept of copy on right, I believe, that I'd never heard about before until his landing page, which is like an alternative to work trees for working on a project where like, you know, you want to work on two things at the same time in the same code base.

And instead of using git work trees to have like parallel projects, you use copy on write, I guess, which like creates like a almost like a simlink version of your entire project. in a separate folder, but then as soon as you write to one of the files, it then like uses the written one as a copy file and keeps the rest as mirror files. So you have what feels like two totally distinct projects, but The benefit of it is that you can create it instantly, which I think is so awesome.

So awesome. That to me needs to just happen. Like Whatever tool it is, it's like I want I want a tool that I can just hit bloop and it's not like I've ha I have all these work tree scripts that like set up work trees and they run all the setup stuff like NPM run, blah, blah, blah, composer install. It's like, no, no.

Just take your exact project and bloop copy the whole thing and then get moving. Even like the SQLite database, like that's cool. Okay, anyway, so that's a fun concept. But what else is going on in AI? There's tons of stuff, of course.

People saying, you know, so Ralph loops are dead. Um what else is dead and what's alive? Um yeah, MCP is dead, but apparently alive. And uh everybody's making their own runners. Uh, work trees versus get clones versus copy on write. I don't know. But I feel like we're all gonna converge around just like, you know, there's uh there's last mover advantage, that's something to talk about. It's like right now

To create anything in this space feels so insane, like because it's it's either gonna get like uh that's that the anthropic meme. So they just launched uh charts in in Claude. So in Claude chat you can be talking to it and it'll like create charts and diagrams and stuff for you, like interactive ones on the fly. Apparently it's really awesome. Like everything in the world. And then all the f like tweet replies is like, you know, honey, wake up, anthropic, just uh

you know, uh whatever, removed an entire sector or just whatever. Like of startups or whatever, just totally squashed like a handful of startups. And it's true there's a huge risk with that. Um and that's I'm still kinda like well then there's the Claude verse uh the opus versus codex thing, you know, there was a day It was like a day or two where everybody was saying Opus stunk and they had like metrics to prove it and then the the CEO of Anthropic, I'm pretty sure, was like

Yeah, so we did I forget where I saw this person say this there. I don't even know his name. Like yeah, we we we didn't we don't like nerf the models, but we did change the effort level default to medium. But it prompted you, so you should have it should have told you. It didn't prompt you. It just told you. So you should have seen it. And it tells you how to change it back to high or something. And I was like, I didn't see that crap.

So apparently it just like we didn't we don't mess with the models, we don't nerf the models, like the the conspiracy is that these this is what they do is these big companies is when they launch a new model, they overpower it, you know, like big time. And then it wins all the metrics. Everybody starts using it. Then everybody starts using it and their load gets really, really high. And so to save money or resources or whatever, they make the model dumber.

And it's kinda like Niagara Falls and like diverting the water into power generation, you know, as they need it and during high demand for water changing it, whatever. It's um on demand modeling and so they so everybody's like, Why is I just feel like Opus is stupid lately, but we can't prove it, you know?

So somebody kind of did with they have this metric thing online and it was showing that Opus was getting dumber this week and he said that we changed the effort on it. So but that didn't mess with their metric, so who knows? Who knows if they're messing with that behind the scenes.

or not. Um, but set your effort level to high. And apparently Codex is good for reviewing stuff, so I'm hearing that a lot that uh people are using codex to review stuff. I also I read something from uh Pablo Stanley, the a really, really good artist and one of the designers for V Zero by Vercell. Um, I didn't even know that until today actually, until I read his post. He was talking about AI rot, AI brain rot, and there's like a new term emerging called

something. I don't know. Being basically AI making you brain dead. um and percentages and studies about, you know, developers who rely on it heavily and use it heavily and how they're more error prone, they're more distracted, the stuff they do is worse, they feel worse. Just yeah. Which makes total sense. Like I and I'm more aware than ever. Ugh I mean I said this in the last episode, but it's like I really think freaking I think it's YouTube, man.

I think YouTube is going to be a like crippling addiction for people. Which is funny because I've never felt that way before. But I recognize myself wanting to get a prompt started. I have this. I have this flow where it's like I want to get a big suite of prompts going. It started as I'm trying to get something done. Oh, I really need AI to help me with this thing. Oh, it's taking too long. Oh I'm just okay, I'll open YouTube. Right. That's how it starts.

But how it ends is you're like, oh, I really want to get something prompted so that I can watch YouTube while something else works.

You know, it's just this knee-jerk reaction. It's like, oh, I just want the relief. I've never felt it more strongly than ever. Like, I just want the relief of typing in YouTube. That's what I want. And I just want to watch like a golf video or a comedy video or like a physics video or some guy make a magnetic hoverboard you know, skateboard or, you know, the future of like

electric vertical aviation plane things or w who knows? Oh pi primitive technology has a new video. What artist dropped some new album? Oh SNL, you know, was on la over the weekend. What shorts do they have? Like You know what I'm saying? This is it. This is like ah, it's this is a terrible thing. Um it's a terrible thing, I tell ya. Yeah. So I've been like restraining myself pretty hard and I've I've been doing this Laricast stuff, so pretty much every day I'm just

I'm not prompting anything. I'm in fact like I was really excited yesterday when I had to prompt something for the series and was like, Ooh, I get to like why I get to goof off while the AI's working, you know? So I think it's this is a good filter. It's like if you were depressed about AI taking your job, just like feel how much it's ruining you as a producer and a thinker and a worker.

and realize that it's doing that to everybody. So you just have to be stronger than everybody, you know? And I really do think I'm gonna have to institute some sort of ban of all forms of consumption during the workday or something because it's just too damn tempting when you have all these prompts going and you have nothing else to do. Yeah, I don't know. I tha this is a problem. I've expressed this for a while. I'm not sure it's gonna stop being a problem.

Um what else? I way over engineered so many AI related tools. Um, this is the cycle also is AI over engineering, back to AI simplicity, back to over engineering. This is the cycle. I see it out in the wild as well. peep a new technique comes along, Rag at one point, Ralph at one point, other, you know, whatever it is, making your own harness for this or that, making your own C L I tool.

Ma whatever it is. Now it's auto research is the latest thing. Open claw you don't even hear about as much. Like it was all you heard about and now auto research is all I hear about. So whatever. It's like there's some complicated something. Whether it's MCP, you know, I've I could just keep listing all the freaking things. Some complicated something. And And then everybody goes, Ooh, this is gonna unlock more and it gives us another level of whatever

And then everybody starts chasing it and talking about it and making content about it. And then Either two things one of two things happen. One of the big tools just offers it out of the box, like in some way, you know, or answers the same problem out of the box. Or everybody just goes, Oh, that was stupid. It's actually we just somebody just did a stud you know what always wor like some study happens. Who knows if these studies ever actually happen and who's running these experiments?

But oh an experiment got run where actually that complicated thing doesn't make you any better off, you know? And it just feels like it always comes back to that. Like whatever it is. Even Claude MD files, you thought that was like the simplest thing. I thought I was being a simple person by but just using Claude MD files and it's like

Uh no no no I actually just don't even use those. Like just have a project and talk to an LLM about what you want. You know? That seems to be the that is like, okay, you want an AI strategy? It's like just have a project and talk to an LLM about it. And just make sure you're using the latest stuff because they'll just make it all better for you as you go. And you could just save all the cycles of like reading and trying to understand, you know, methodologies and things like that. Um

Yeah, so I don't know, there's just new stuff all the time and you wonder if any of it's worth any of it. And then and then you end up back in like you go hard and you do these crazy parallel work things and you make all these harnesses and you make all these tools for yourself and all this stuff. And then You just work on one thing with an L L M by your side.

That's kind of what you fall back to, you know, and then you just do that and you go, Yeah, this ain't so bad. I'm just getting stuff done, except I'm using an L L M to do it with me. You know. Just single agent life. Single two, maybe three, probably just one. Agent life, you know. But uh, you know, I don't know. So there's the AI topic. What else is there to talk about? Um

I don't know. Uh habits is something that I'm always thinking about'cause I'm on this habit thing I've told you about before, this spreadsheet of Habits and I almost fell off the wagon. I started to see how it happens. Um but I'm back on the wagon and uh yeah. I have this big thing of things to abstain from and things to do. I've I've go to the gym every day. I'm actually, you know, I'm getting huge. I told you that. I'm still like

Trying to eat a lot? That's the hardest thing. Eating a lot is the hardest thing. The two hardest things on my habit tracker are eating a salad. I really I thought I liked salads. I don't like salads every day and now I don't even make them ever. I've just let this this uh checkbox just not be filled in. Um but eating enough like protein is really hard. Ever the proteinification of the world.

Talk about this. There's protein flying everywhere. It's the new hot thing, apparently. It's funny how these things happen. Like whey protein is not new. Fitness is You know, culture is not new, but for some reason now protein is all the rage. And I can confirm this because my dad has his finger on the pulse of the food industry. He's a food broker, so he goes to all these meetings and

You know, he like goes to manufacture, you know, things and seminars and whatever and they tell you what's coming and what to market and how to do all these things. And it's all protein all day right now, which is crazy. I bought some chips yesterday, protein chips. Uh At a Walmart order, we have that Walmart thing from COVID where you just order your groceries and they come to your door and we just never stop doing it because we realized how much time it saves us.

So I order on the little Walmart app yesterday and I'm looking through my normal stuff and then I'm like, I just I need more protein, you know, because I'm trying to get freaking ripped. And there's chips, there's protein chips. I'm like, protein chips. I look at the thing, nineteen grams of protein for a single serving bag of chips. That's insane.

And I'm thinking, oh, these things are made with chickpeas or something. Who knows? Like, oh, cool, sure. Why not? So I get those. I look at the bag, I look at the ingredients. Whey protein isolate or isolate or whatever. It's like what you freaking just dumped whey protein on chips? That seems so wrong to me. Don't do so this whole protein craze, really what it is, is the whey proteinification of all of our food, which I'm sure is not good for you.

Like I have three whole scoops of whey protein a day. Seventy-five milligrams like spread out like you know, well, two shakes a day. Because again, I'm trying to get ripped. I am ripped. I'm huge. Wait till you see this Laracas video. You're gonna be like, dude. Busting out of the frame. So I'm I'm doing three of these scoops, and let me tell you, it is not the easiest thing digestive.

In addition to all the other, like, you know, I eat mean cheese sticks'cause it's a good source of protein and I'm having yogurt at the end of the day. The amount of dairy going through my system and off gassing into my, you know, into into close proximity. is uh y it's it's more than uh eating uh some chicken, if you know what I'm saying. And the this stuff is just in everything. So Starbucks has protein creamer or something now.

So their protein drinks is just you get any drink at Starbucks and you proteinify it. You spend more money and they just dump whey protein in it. I'm pretty sure they're buying the same plastic giant pill like Mac Pro you know, tubs of of uh what's it called? Something nutrition um you know, whey protein powder from Walmart and they're just dumping a scoop in your in your coffee. So I don't know. I don't know what to think about protein. Think I think I need a lot of it, but uh

Okay, so that's the protein topic. Do we got anything else? The Oscars are coming up on Sunday, and I always forget that. And I used to really like the Oscars. Because every year I would torrent all the videos or all the movies for the Oscars and uh because the Oscar season would release all these pre screening things on on BitTorrent or on uh Pirate Bay or Demonoid, if you guys remember that.

And I would watch these movies'cause like this is the time you can get all early access to all these movies and that and on like the watermark is like this is for award screening only. So it was a great time of year because it was like, oh, we get all these award screening movies and I'd watch them and I'd go, and then I started realizing that if you watch the best picture list, this is actually something I think is a good thing to do as a person.

Well it doesn't make you a good person, but it's a fun thing to do. And I did this in high school and a little bit of college is like every Oscar season, look at the best picture list and watch every movie. Because there's gonna be movies that you would normally never watch. But if you watch that best picture list, you're gonna end up being a person who's seen a lot of freaking good movies.

And you're gonna get exposed to stuff you would have never been exposed to. I got exposed to a lot of like Cohen brother stuff that way. I didn't know I think that's what started me loving the Cohen brothers. Um I'm trying to think of other things that I just would not Have watched. Like, yeah, like a serious man. You ever seen that movie? I bet I bet you haven't, unless you pay attention to the Oscars, and I was I love that movie.

So anyway, there's so many things like that. So but I've been off of that for so long. Every year it's like, oh, the Oscars happened? Oh shoot. Uh would have been nice to catch it, I guess. So, uh, I just remembered that they're happening on Sunday yesterday, and I quick uh binged two movies. I've been staying up late. And so I'm going to try to like binge another one tonight with Hannah, another one tomorrow night so we can just get him in. But I watched Sinners.

It's a vampire movie. You should check this out. This is it's Between Sinners and One Battle After Another are the two movies that are gonna like compete at the Oscars. And they're both kinda wild movies, honestly. Like And Sinners is is really good. Like

It's it's a different kind of movie and you don't realize that it's a certain kind of movie until like halfway through it. But if nothing else, the music is fantastic and it's like a period thing and I love period things and you can just kind of immerse yourself in that.

era and it's just fun. So fun and it's called a horror and a thriller and a drama and something else, but it it doesn't feel like any of that. It's not particularly scary. It's it's like kind of goofy gory like I think I think anybody can watch this who wa if you've seen Stranger Things, this is less scary than stranger.

So anyway, um Sinners is fun and then yeah, the one battle after another is just I don't know. I don't know. It's good, but it it definitely gave me vibes like that you know that Adam Sandler movie, Uncut Gems? It gave me vibes like uncut gems. It's hectic. It's chaotic. It's free form. It's n feels new and like cutting edge a little bit. Um and Leonardo DiCaprio's in it, so is Sean Penn.

And I also learned Sean Penn's a douche and everybody hates him because the internet knows that I watched it yesterday and fed me Reddit threads about Sean Penn. But families home, uh this has been another episode of Notes on Work. I will be seeing you Yeah.