Author: J

Not every AI is created equal

At least, it doesn’t seem that way.

For a while now, I have been playing around with AI generated mock-ups. Mock-ups are a great way to communicate functionality to a development team, and with AI, I can do it fast and easy.

When I started I loaded my AI with the thoughts I had about the design; just your good old fashion prompting. I wanted the apps to look like they belong on Windows 11, and since Fluent design, much like Material You, is very well defined, I fed the design principles into the AI.

I want a suite of apps, much like Windows Live Essentials of old, so I did most of the design in the the chat. I figured it would keep the design principles consistent across the various apps. It did, which is something, but lately it seems like my AI is mixing things up more and more. For instance, when it rendered the blogging app, it add the Gmail icon, for some odd reason.

Now, I just used the standard Copilot app that we happy Microsoft365 subscribers get to enjoy. Because, why not. However, I must say that it takes quite a bit of work to make it behave the way I want, and I sometimes wonder if I am too lazy when prompting it.

Github Copilot does not seem to have this issue, however, it is a very different use case, and I usually use the Claude models in VS Code anyway. Could this have something to do with the quality of the model? Could a better model have better hallucination detection? The Internet says yes. Not surprising at all. In a way, it seems to resemble the same issues we see in search engines. Google is just better than Bing, due to better superior search accuracy, larger index of the web, and vastly higher data volume, which powers more precise, personalized, and relevant results. And the same seems to be true with AI models.

Does this mean we should not use them? Hardly. But I think it is important that we look at AI as any other system. That means we need to define what problem it solves, how it solves that problem, and which problems it doesn’t solve.

At the end of the day, AI is a system, not like any other system, but a system nonetheless.

Cleaning up the blog

I finally got around to cleaning up the blog. Turns out it was pretty straight forward.

I started this many years ago during the early Web 2.0 days, so most of the posts were uncritical regurgitation of already known stuff. So, in one fell swoop I deleted all that stuff leaving the blog woefully small, which is the point.

Going forward I won’t be writing a lot, I will use it more as a place to store the ideas I get when I mess around with the various AI solutions.

Citadel Writer. A spiritual successor to Windows Live Writer

I have been thinking about making a desktop blog editor like Windows Live Writer, and now that AI can do it for me, I think, I have been tinkering with some mock ups.

The idea is that it should be a Windows 11 native app, that looks like something belonging on that OS. There’s no doubt that Microsoft has been ignoring Windows for years, and that is the reason I wil end up switching to mac eventually, but until that day, I can play around with the idea of making cool Windows apps.

My design is a bit over the top at the moment, but I am going to publish it anyway. Chances are I will never get around to acutally doing anything.

If I go forward, I will probably tone down the effects to make the UI a little more subdued.

This is getting out of hand

I have been using AI to code for about two weeks now, and I cannot seem to stop. Perhaps it’s more it’s like I could keep going forever, or as long as I have tokens.

So far I have been adding to my Citadel project. I can now get VIX data and I have made upgrades to the UI. The more I use Material You, the more I like it.

The next module I will be puting into dashboard will be a simple RSS reader that shows articles from various financial news sources. I am reviewing the OPML file at the moment, but I may allow the user to add feeds instead of me providing them.

For the time being my old laptop can handle the workloads, but pretty soon I will have to upgrade. As usual I cannot decide in which direction to Mac or Windows, but I guess time will tell. I do want a 4K monitor though. Maybe even a curved one. I use one at work and the curved design is surprisingly good

AI based dev project

Oh my. I never thought I would revive this blog in a million years. Essentially the posts were crappy as hell, and did not reflect any real knowledge based value on my part, so why even leave it up?

Anyway, with the arrival of AI, and inspired by a brilliant co-worker, I have decided to start my own development project.

It is nothing fancy at all. Just a dashboard that can be used for personal finances. The logic is fragmented at best and the use case could stand to be polished substantially, but that’s not the real point here. I want to build something by myself, and for myself.

So far I have a working frontend and a working backend. Right now I am trying to pull data into the Market Metrics module, but I seem to have issues with my environments.

For now I just want to share the first iteration of my dashboard.

It’s a React frontend using Material 3, which I really like. I have serious Mac envy, but since I am still on a Windows/Android product cycle, I decided to use Google’s design language. People tend to go for the Apple look, which makes sense, but I wanted to go in a different direct. Plus, it looks really awesome in my humble opinion.

Getting ready to leave

So, who knew? I got a new job, which means I will be leaving my employer through the last five years. Actually, it’s five years to the date.

For the most part, the last five years have been pretty good. I have had my share of big exciting projects, and I have been part of transforming a financial institution into a lean agile software machine. Well, we tried anyway.

Now that my last day looms ever closer, I find myself being oddly at ease yet reflective. I suppose that is a good thing though. It suggests that the previous five years meant something on some level.

Leaving the familiar and venturing out into something new can be a bit unnerving, but this time around I feel much better prepared compared to earlier. I guess with age comes experience. Be that as it may, switching jobs will provide me with the space to do some of the things I want to do outside of work, but it also keeps me receptible to change. As a Scrum master I think it is important seek out new input and inspiration. In other words: staying lean and hungry. Over the course of the last 12 months or so, I have felt more fat and lazy than I’d like, and that is all the reason I need to make a move.

I will continue to be a Scrum master, however, in a more scaled environment. I will also stay in finance, which I still find interesting.

Anyway, enough rambling, I have some packing to do.

Trying out wearables

I got Garmin Forerunner 630 for Christmas and this little bad boy actually supports Android notifications. Who knew how much fun you could have with a phone OS that is actually being actively developed. So anyway, when my Fitbit started coming apart I started using the Garmin full time just to try out the whole wearable thing for a little while.

So far it works pretty smoothly. The Bluetooth connection seems to be rock solid, and I get most of my notifications on the watch now.

However, I am not sure what to use these notifications for at the moment. Now it’s my watch that vibrates instead of my phone (not really, they both vibrate). I guess the benefit is that I can quickly see if it’s a notification I have to react to or not.

For now I don’t really see the point, but at the same time I am oddly interested in this, so I will keep the experiment going a little while longer.