Deep thoughts

🌌 Deep thoughts

(with apologies to Jack Handey)

Anyone who has attempted to gamify some experience knows that if you want to keep people hooked, make them feel like they’re always almost at the next level.

Vibe coding does this naturally.

The agent builds you something amazing in five minutes, then the 10% that’s wrong takes longer to fix than the 90% that was right took to build. But it never feels that way.

It always feels like you’re right on the precipice of completion.

help! my husband is addicted to Claude Code. — Hilary Gridley

Vibe coding extremely scratches the male itch to monitor the situation. You stand there with your arms crossed, watching your little agents work, feeling like Jeff Bezos in a headset overseeing a rocket launch. Very powerful. Very in control. The situation is being monitored.

help! my husband is addicted to Claude Code. — Hilary Gridley

Folks often assume what they lack are skills, when they often lack skills AND well-refined ideas.

The prototyping bottleneck — frank.computer

Terence Tao discussing a surprising math result with ChatGPT

It is remarkable that the jacobian is constant, that is an exceptional amount of cancellation. Does this polynomial map have any symmetry or other structure that makes this cancelation less miraculous?

What stands out is the shape of the interaction. Tao starts his inquiry by noting a single, precise detail that intrigues him.

Code is the byproduct — yagmin.com

Note what Tao is not doing.

He is not building a rich contextual background for the LLM to unpack. He does not list his credentials or say, “you are a mathematical genius, make no mistakes.”

Instead, he is terse and precise. He asks narrow questions and gets narrow responses.

Keep your requests narrow and specific. Let the output compound through repeated inquiries. Engage with the goal of improving your personal understanding.

Code is the byproduct — yagmin.com

How do you construct shared understanding? By narrowing the LLM’s focus through domain-specific wording and keeping requests specific and cumulative.

Tao pins ChatGPT to a “deep mathematics” headspace through terminology and the specificity of his question.

If you don’t understand something, set the stage for the LLM and it will capably fill in the missing 20%.

Code is the byproduct — yagmin.com

the relationship with the machine changes depending on the Job To Be Done

please argue with the insurance company for me, chase the refund, reschedule the meeting across six calendars, fill out the form, and do not invite me into a Delightful Collaborative Experience with the God Computer.

but if I sit down because I want to make music, handing me the finished song is a fairly spectacular misunderstanding…the process wasn’t “friction” on the way to the result.

sometimes I want “do this for me,” sometimes “do this with me” or “show me how.” sometimes I just need enough of a boost to do something I couldn’t do before.

The task isn’t the job — Sunil Pai

If it hurts, do it more often

Why?

  • Many tasks easier when tackled in small chunks
  • Feedback loops allow small course corrections
  • Practice makes you better at it

FrequencyReducesDifficulty — Martin Fowler