LLMs

LLMs (large language models) are changing the world. Widely used LLMs were built by training algorithms to predict the next word based on the preceding word sequence. (Technically, LLMs operate on “tokens,” not words. Words and tokens are related but distinct. A typical LLM would probably represent the word “isn’t” with two ordered tokens, the first representing “is” and the second representing “not” because whether someone says “isn’t” or “is not” is basically irrelevant.) ...

UPDATE: After I received a $140 bill for half a day’s use of Gemini 2.5 Pro, I spent days going back-and-forth with Google Support, and they eventually kindly cut the bill to a fraction of the original charge. I don’t recall how much, but I think they charged me about $45. After watching videos to see how veteran programmers – and even non-programmers!!! – are using AI to code, I decided to grab the wheel and take AI for a spin. ...

For many years, I’ve been a programming machine, obsessively churning out code that powers my employers. I love coding and pour my heart into it, but I’m pretty wiped by the end of the day/week. I’ve seldom taken as much vacation as I’m entitled to. And even when I’ve changed jobs, I’ve seldom given myself any break… generally finishing on a Friday and starting my new job the following Monday. ...