Large Language Model Optimization (LLMO) - SEO -> LLMO

Many of us know about search engine optimization (SEO). These techniques and methods "game" the major search engines to place results higher so that the authors or vendors get more visits, attention, ads, or purchases.  Now that generative "AI" (genAI) is taking over, publishers, advertisers, and vendors are, of course, creating LLMO.  But the phenomenon is much worse than useless search results, too many annoying and useless ads, or scammy vendors.  It's the end of the Web as we know it and incorporates our trusted source for advice.and recommendations.  Judith Donath and Bruce Schneier have published this thought provoking piece in the Atlantic.  It's worth a read.

Revisiting the wisdom of W. Edwards Deming as it applies to Cybersecurity

 

Here is another link to an article I read over the weekend.  Although I disagree with about a third of Willis' recommendations about how we should approach cybersecurity, the (long) monograph is an interesting read.  Deming's principles are frequently applicable to new situations.

 

DevSecOps to "Platform Engineering" WTH?

 

It seems as if every few years, the Software Engineering Communities start hyping the next "Great! New! Thing"^TM We had Agile in 2001, DevOps in 2007, DevSecOps (almost), and now the hype cycle for "Platform Engineering" has become the popular mantra for faster, better, cheaper software development and maintenance.  I am grateful to Dan Bryant for writing this explanation; it's cogent and succinct.  Check it out.

 

 

 

 

 

Terminus by Peter Clines (2020)

Not nearly as terrible as the third book, but not quite as good as the first two books, 3/5 Stars.  I don't really recommend the last two books in the series.  The Lovecraft homages are not worth the bad story-telling.

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson (2006)

Fantastic!  I really enjoyed this story.  I didn't care about the terrible celestial mechanics or the inconsistencies in the magic system.  5/5 Stars.  I need to hunt down the sequels now.

Permutation City by Greg Egan (2014)

Greg Egan is  among the hard sci-fi authors I have been meaning to read for several decades (since the 1980s).  But I never got around to reading a single one of his books.  I really enjoyed this book, despite the overwhelming barrage of mind-blowing ideas per second.  I love the author's science and math.  I love the Australian slice-of-life personal relationships, values, and dialogue. The story is also amazing. 5/5 Stars.  I shall definitely read more of his books this year. I am also satisfied that I am now reading some good books after a string of bad ones.

Mehr als nur Atome von Sabine Hossenfelder (2023

Ich habe dieses Buch wirklich genossen. Der Autor macht einige absichtlich kontroverse und bissige Behauptungen. Sie kritisiert Physiker und ihre Finanzierungsquellen. Sie geht tief in die Metaphysik und die Philosophie dessen ein, was wir glauben sollten. 5/5 Sterne.

Fool me once by Harlan Coben (2016)

Fun, entertaining, interesting story with a big heart. 4/5 Stars.

The Forever World by Ethan Rhodes (2024)

This book is terrible.  I stopped reading about 1/3 of the way through. Bad physics, bad economics, cardboard characters, terrible cliché tropes, yuck, blech. 0/5 Stars.

Hacking the Hacker by Roger A Grimes (2017)

I know much too little about cybersecurity and this dense, simple, approachable book is a good overview with some useful information.  It's not really technical enough for me and there is too much attention to the older material of interviews the author had conducted previously. I am disappointed. 3/5 Stars.

New Earth by Ben Bova (2013)

In the last millenium, I used to read magazines that published Ben Bova's stories and I would sometimes read one of his books.  I am not a big fan of his characters, style, or world building because there are frequently too many pivotal moments that change everything too suddenly and I can't sustain my disbelief. I don't know why this one appeared in my stack; it is the 21st novel in a series, very few of which I read.  It's not that bad, but still not great. 3/5 Stars.  I shall not read the others.

The Bezzle by Cory Doctorow (2024)

Another rant and adventure in the life of "forensic accountant" Martin Hench. This time Martin takes on a few of the evil people behind the catastrophe of the private equity roll-up of the California prison system (department of corrections).  Cory's books are almost alway interesting and fun. 5/5 Stars.

A Conspiracy in Belgravia by Sherry Thomas (2017)

This second book in the "Lady Sherlock" series is slightly better than the first one and continues to develop the author's alternative Holmes universe with the emergences of the mysterious "Moriarity" super-villain. 3/5 Stars.

Zwischen Welten von Juli Zeh & Simon Urban (2023)

„Wir glauben stets einer Meinung sein zu müssen, um einander nicht zu verlieren."

Das Buch ist eine fesselnde Geschichte über die Milchbäuerin Theresa und den Journalisten Stefan. Es wird in Form von WhatsApp-Nachrichten und E-Mails geschrieben.

Es ist ein fantastisches Buch: zynisch, polemisch und aktuell. Aber es ist auch voller Plattitüden, Stereotypen und deprimierenden Ereignissen. Keiner der Protagonisten ist sympathisch und dieses Stilmittel der Geschichte ist beabsichtigt. Wie alle Bücher von Juli Zeh regt diese Geschichte dazu an, lange und intensiv über die eigenen Werte und das Verhältnis zur Gesellschaft nachzudenken. 5/5 Sterne.

The Parasitic Mind by Gad Saad (2020)

I had some relatively high expectations for the cogency, science, and rigor when I started reading the book but  am now disappointed.  The author spends too much time in righteous indignation and goes into great detail about how irrational, primitive, and unenlightened academic institutions have become as they teach odd religious indoctrination instead of science, objective reality, or humanist enlightenment. I did learn a few things that are interesting, though. 3/5 Stars.

Darkest Fear by Harlan Coben (2013)

Another tight Harlan Coben thriller with fun characters, plot twists and wheels within wheels of an overly complex mystery.  The characters in the Myron Bolitar saga are becoming a little too cliche.  I did enjoy it when the narrator broke the fourth wall sometimes. 4/5 Stars.

Progression to the Mean

I can no longer find the reference, but I read somewhere that we regress to the mean performance of the five people with whom we spend the most time professionally.  There is a lot of sociological evidence that would lend some evidence to this theory but I can't find academic papers that have measured the hypothesis.

In my case, at my current "day job," I am getting much better every day as I try to keep up with the fantastic people with whom I work.  I am energized, engaged, passionate about the work, and having a great time with awesome people.

Governor by David Weber and Richard Fox (2021

Fun military space opera with great politics. The story is much like the books in the Honor Harrington universe, but the  celestial mechanics are better. 4/5 Stars.

Das Glasperlenspiel von Hermann Hesse (1943)

Die Sprache, der Takt und die künstlerische Darstellung der Geschichten im Buch sind wunderschön und sehr angenehm zu lesen. Allerdings sind die antifaschistischen Gefühle und der Sarkasmus veraltet und die Geschichten langweilig. Ich hatte für keinen der Charaktere Verständnis. 2/5 Sterne.

Libraries

Where I live in King County, Washington, USA, the libraries and all of their services are completely free.  The buildings provide great meeting rooms, free WiFi, computers, printing , research, and dozens of other community services, in addition to books, media, and online services.  

I am also a member of the Association of Berlin's public libraries aka Verbund der Öffentlichen Bibliotheken Berlins (VÖBB).  They charge $12 per year for their services. It's a great deal for access to all their online media.  But it's interesting how differently our cultures and societies perceive taxes and fairness.

A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas (2016)

For those of us who love Laurie King's Mary Russel books, here is another great author who embraces the Victorian era and the famous Sherlock Holmes tropes. Especially well-presented in this series is Holmes's near-psychic ability to divine information from subtle clues.  Although the feminism and outrage is a little bit exaggerated, the plot, characters, mystery, and story-telling are fantastic. I enjoyed it enormously. 4/5 Stars.

Mein Leben als Suchmaschine von Horst Evers

Witzig, geistreich und manchmal sehr lustig. Aber es gibt immer noch zu viele übertriebene peinliche Momente und Schadenfreude für mich. 3/5 Sterne.

The Cunning by Jason Anspach & Nick Cole (2023)

Better than the first book. Fun D&D adventure with less magic and gratuitous bronze age close quarters combat. 4/5 Stars.

Machine Vendetta by Alastair Reynolds (2024)

It's wonderful that the author has returned to his Revelation Space universe to write thriller cop stories again.  I enjoyed this one, despite the inconsistent magic system. 5/5 Stars.

Measure What Matters by John Doerr (2018)

When I read books written by successful venture capitalists or megalomaniacal leaders, I am uncomfortably reminded of Peter Thiel's power law concept in Zero to One, and the modern business reality that success means complete, ruthless domination, including out-competing all rivals.  John Doerr is a fiery-eyed "true believer" zealot of his OKR process.  The book is over the top with superlatives and examples. The book is a "hard sell" campaign to convince the reader to adhere to this goal setting methodology, and an homage to Doerr's mentors who forged the ideas. The methodology makes a lot of sense and includes nuances and details about balance, alignment, and communication.  I am using the methodology and hope it is more broadly adopted at work. 4/5 Stars.

Für Eile fehlt mir die Zeit (2011)

Einige der Geschichten sind sehr lustig und bringen einen zum Lachen. Andere sind peinlich und voller Berliner Schadenfreude, die mir keinen Spaß machen. Alles in allem ist der Stil unterhaltsam und die Geschichten haben ein großes Herz. 3/5 Sterne.

Biedermann und die Brandstifter von Max Frisch (1953)

Einige Arbeitskollegen haben mir deutsche Bücher empfohlen, die mir gefallen könnten. Dürrenmatt und Frisch führten die Liste an. Ich habe einige Filme und Hörspiele auf YouTube gefunden. Die Geschichte ist ein wenig melodramatisch und oberflächlich, aber die Dialoge sind gut. 3/5 Sterne.

Die Physiker von Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1961)

Dieses kurze Stück ist interessant und macht Spaß. Die Geschichte erinnert mich aufgrund der dystopischen Täuschung Ebenen aller Charaktere an Stanislaw Lems Novelle „Memoiren, gefunden in der Badewanne". Ich liebte das Ende. Auch der Schreibstil ist sehr fesselnd und unterhaltsam. 4/5 Sterne.

AI 2041 by Kai-Fu Lee & Chen Qiufan (2021)

This book is a good, thought-provoking collection of 10 stories covering an optimistic prediction of applications of AI in many areas of human commerce, entertainment, politics, and daily endeavors. Each story's introductions and analysis by Kai-Fu Lee is well formulated and explains the AI technology behind the plot points in the story. Recommended 5/5 Stars.

Legionnaire Eternal by Doc Spears (2024)

I did not like the writing style and won't read the earlier books Spears wrote in this universe. 2/5 Stars.

soft phone services from 2001

I started using "soft phone" software in 2001. At Microsoft, where I worked, we had the "Communications Server," which became Lync and then Skype.  We used "soft phone" software instead of desktop phones. VOIP was great. We also had the free internet cellular fax "remote printing" service at tpc.int.

Meanwhile in 2005, GrandCentral  provided a free service whose tagline was "one number for life!" The single phone number provided free fax (send, receive), free voicemail (send & receive), free SMS, and free voice (dial-out & receive calls).  The software ran on PCs, laptops, tablets, & mobile phones. Google acquired GrandCentral and put it to sleep for a while but eventually resurrected it as "Google Voice."  Google removed the fax services but added gateways of SMS to / from email and voicemail transcription to email.

For a while, Google merged Google Voice with Google Hangouts, which was cool at the time because the merger added video conferencing and video messages on any device to all of the telephony features.  However Google killed Hangouts, so Voice became the only free consumer VOIP service the evil search giant (ESG) supported.  Google Meet for enterprise now has dial-out and dial-in to "meetings," but it's not the same as on-demand VOIP. I still use my GrandCentral phone number as the only number I give out to everyone and I use that phone  number on about a dozen devices in which I come in contact relatively frequently, including my mobile phones and home computers.  I do not give out the cellular carrier phone number.

It's interesting how these consumer services have "enshitified" over the decades.

Dead Moon by Peter Clines (2019)

I am very disappointed.  The first two books were good, with clever weaving of Lovecraft's magic and history.  This one is a poorly conceived zombie apocalypse melee with bad space science. 1/5 Stars. 

The Bold by Jason Anspach and Nick Cole (2023)

I did not like this book because there was too much magic and too many D&D plot contrivances.  It was neither high fantasy nor close quarters combat military adventure. 2/5.  I am considering not reading the others in this series.

To err is human. To devastate, use computers

Simon Thorne wrote this interesting and thought-provoking piece about catastrophic consequences of human errors associated with spreadsheets. Some of my earliest research and  publications were in this area of ergonomics, and I am still interested in software quality. Here are some thoughts:

First of all, it is possible we can apply the ideas of large language models and generative AI to assuring quality in a few areas.  We can train, fine-tune, and task the models to search for the most-common issues that violate implicit and explicit requirements and expectations of the document, spreadsheet data, or software output.  Writing software tests is difficult and time consuming.  Generative AI models already write manu of my unit tests.  We can expand their use for negative tests in software, spreadsheet checkers, and document scanners.

Secondly, the engineering quality assurance (building quality in) and quality control (measuring quality) that has moved from older engineering disciplines such as civil engineering, construction, manufacturing, and software engineering can be applied to clerical knowledge work.  The magical "second pair of eyes" that checks work from accounting through code reviews should be applied to spreadsheets, documents, and knowledge work artifacts.

It is possible my cognitive bias to find patterns where none exist is suggesting an idea that is infeasible.  Or perhaps these concepts can be valuable.  What are your thoughts?

Little Sister by Jason Anspach, audiobook (2023)

Although not nearly as much fun as the Galaxy's Edge series Anspach writes together with Nick Cole, the D&D universe of the Forgotten Ruin is also fun.  3/5 Stars.

The Fold by Peter Clines (2016)

This second volume of the "Threshold" series is just as good as the first book. 5/5 Stars.  I need to grab and read the last two books.

Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood by Anthony Kaldellis (2017)

I don't usually enjoy history textbooks that are too dense with names, dates, events, facts, and numbers.  This book is an exception.  The author is very careful to explain why most records of the events depicted are so unreliable and offers evidence and careful speculation.  There are many fascinating revelations. 4/5 Stars.

Kämpf um Deine Daten von Max Schrems (2014)

Dieses Buch ist viel besser als ich erwartet hatte. Der Autor erläutert sorgfältig schwierige, nuancierte Themen im Zusammenhang mit dem Datenschutz. Er geht durch das Spektrum kultureller Sensibilitäten, Werte und Bräuche, die mit persönlichen Informationen verbunden sind. Schrems verbringt den größten Teil des Buches damit, die enorme Macht der Billionen-Dollar-Technologieriesen sowie die Ökosysteme kleiner Unternehmen zu beschreiben, die von der Nutzung und dem Missbrauch unserer privaten Informationen profitieren. Die scharfe Kritik und der Zorn lenken ein wenig ab, verleihen einem großartigen Buch aber etwas Würze. 5/5 Sterne.