Retrieval augmented generation (RAG) is a technique that grants generative artificial intelligence models information retrieval capabilities. It modifies interactions with a large language model (LLM) so that the model responds to user queries with reference to a specified set of documents, using this information to augment information drawn from its own vast, static training data. This allows LLMs to use domain-specific and/or updated information.[1] Use cases include providing chatbot access to internal company data, or giving factual information only from an authoritative source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrieval-augmented_generation

An epistemic community is a network of professionals with recognized knowledge and skill in a particular issue-area. They share a set of beliefs, which provide a value-based foundation for the actions of members. Members of an also share causal beliefs, which result from their analysis of practices that contribute to set of problems in their issue-area that then allow them to see the multiple links between policy and outcomes (doctrine?). Third, they share notions of validity, or internationally defined criteria for validating knowledge in their area of know-how. However, the members are from all different professions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_community (cf Shared Understanding, Scenes, Collaborations, Inventions, And Progress; different from Community of Practice) (more)

Joe Procopio: The Slow, Painful Death Of Agile and Jira. Agile has stopped being agile, so it’s time for Agile to go and take Jira with it. (more)

Joe Procopio: Dear Startup Investors: It's Not Us, It's You. There are essentially two questions that infuriate most serious entrepreneurs. (more)

Joe Procopio: The Untimely Death of Product Management. I’ve known her since she founded her startup while still in college in the late 2000s (more)

Simon Willison: Zero-latency SQLite storage in every Durable Object. Zero-latency SQLite storage in every Durable Object (via) Kenton Varda introduces the next iteration of Cloudflare's Durable Object platform, which recently upgraded from a key/value store to a full relational system based on SQLite. (more)

Robin Sloan book; also a bread-dough

Dorian Taylor: Agile as Trauma. The Agile Manifesto is an immune response on the part of programmers to bad management. The document is an expression of trauma, and its intellectual descendants continue to carry this baggage (more)

Product Management Theater - the equivalent of Dark Agile - process that pretends to support Agile Product Development but is just more control/waterfall bullshit. (more)

play dat funky music, white boys (more)

see Global Warming (more)

What Is A Civilization? In elementary school I was taught it was any social organization meeting 3 criteria: (more)

series of TimeLine-s from Big Bang to the present. (more)

Rebecca Wirfs-Brock: Rebecca’s Web – Live your patterns! Life after PLoP 2024. The 31st Pattern Languages of Programs, People, and Practice (PLoP) conference is a wrap! PLoP brings together practitioners and researchers who share an interest in exploring the power of patterns. (more)

Cedric Chin is providing a beta access for case study library related to the Idea Maze. If the case library really works as intended, you should feel marginally more comfortable the next time you go out to build a new product or initiative. (more)

Cedric Chin: The Idea Maze is a Useless Idea. In 2022, I launched an experimental series of cases on the ‘Idea Maze’. The term ‘Idea Maze’ is a Silicon Valley (or tech industry)-ism ; it was originally coined by former Coinbase exec Balaji Srinivasan and then expanded on in a subsequent essay by venture capitalist Chris Dixon. ((2022-08-23) Chin The Idea Maze Cases) (more)

Drew Breunig: The 3 AI Use Cases: Gods, Interns, and Cogs. We talk about so many things when we talk about AI. The conversation can roam from self-driving cars to dynamic video generation, from conversational chatbots to satellite imagery object detection, and from better search engines to dreamlike imagery generation. You get the point. (more)

ex-Governor of Massachusetts (more)

Contra Jeff Bezos' dream of returning to the Glorious Bundle of the Newspaper, I think we need to unbundle Journalism itself. (more)

Jason Benn: Neighborhood Update #11: the Village Retreat, Treehouse, and Cohousing. ...a one-square mile community of communities in SF that aims to recapture the vibes of a university campus, but for all generations. We’re part of a movement composed of coliving (one big rented house), cohousing (multiple adjacent owned houses), third spaces (community centers), and good vibes (I bump into friends once every 40 minutes around Alamo Square and Hayes Valley) (more)