⏰ What I’m Doing Now - April 2024
Published:
Here’s what I’m doing right now, inspired by Derek Siver’s /now page (see if you can find me on the main page).
🗓️ Updated: 30th April 2024, Singapore
🧠 Data Science
My recent post on 50+ Open-Source Options for Running LLMs Locally has resonated well with the community - with 6k views, 4k reads on Medium, and the GitHub repo currently at 181 stars ⭐ - plus a shout out from the team at Jan!
As a result, I was approached for a consultation by a startup and have been working as a freelance data scientist for them remotely this past month. It’s been an interesting challenge to solve for several reasons, but I can’t go into the details of the project. However, I may write about my experience and my process of tackling data science projects.
It shows you the power of putting yourself out there and showing your work; you never know what opportunities might come your way by expanding your luck surface area.
I’m still immersing myself in the AI scene in Singapore. The highlight of this month has been MLSG’s meetup on In-Context Learning tricks: Longer Contexts, Better Models & Cheap Summarization and listening to Sam’s inspiring Agent use cases with the Claude Haiku model.
🏃♂️ Health
Climbing has taken a backseat this month because of the freelance work, but now that the project is coming to a close, I’ll pick this back up. In the meantime, I’ve started a habit of stretching for 10+ minutes first thing in the morning.
I did manage to pass my lead certification though, so I’m excited to sport climb again and get high and out of my comfort zone.
📖 Reading
Since my last update I’ve read the following books:
- Chip Huyen’s Designing Machine Learning Systems - highly recommended for an overview and actionable tips for building resilient, scalable, maintainable, and adaptable ML systems with MLOps best practices.
- Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman - a must-read for everyone, makes you realise how time is not something to be used but that we are time (a bit abstract, I know). It makes you focus on what truly matters - being present in the moment.
- The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco - life changing book, it does alter your mindset and make you see life through the lens of an entrepreneur; you’ll start to notice problems as business opportunities. Have a vision and make small choices that align with it.
- The Practice: Shipping Creative Work by Seth Godin - good life lessons, albeit in a strange format.
- The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran - a book to reframe your thinking away from annual planning and to take advantage of deadlines to get things done. Seems to be the “Measure What Matters” and “The 4 Disciplines for Execution” catered towards individuals rather than organisations.
- So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport - another great read by Mr Deep Work himself; answers the question of “How do you find a job you love?” You don’t. You work hard and build career capital and develop highly sought after skills.
- The Million Dollar Weekend: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Launch a 7-Figure Business in 48 Hours by Noah Keegan - a great read for those looking to get into entrepreneurship, it holds your hand in overcoming your fears, finding ideas, quickly validating then, and provides many cold email templates and challenges to act on.
- Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You by Ali Abdaal - a book jam-packed with tips and experiments for you to try. Not the most cohesive read, but in fairness, it does cover a massive spectrum of productivity.
- No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Erin Meyer, Reed Hastings - a fascinating read into Netflix’s culture and explains the thinking behind those infamous slides and quotes such as “Adequate performance gets a generous severance package”. It’s all about talent density and radical candour.
Currently, 62% through Peter Thiel’s Zero to One - so far, it’s full of thought provoking contrarian insights into the world of startups and venture capital.
I clearly can’t get enough of reading productivity, entrepreneurship, and fostering innovative cultures in organisations! 🤓 I’ll write some book reviews where I share my thoughts and key takeaways soon, but there are a few topics I’ll write about first. Watch this space.