2023: A Year of Unexpected Adventures and Rich Insights. Here’s a glimpse into my journey and the accomplishments, lessons I’ve gathered along the way. Well this blog doesn’t feature lot of stuff, but I’m trying to keep it simple.
Trimming Down: Weight Loss Journey 🏋️
“Psychology for Money shapes your wealth; Noom shapes your health.”
It’s been an inspiring weight loss journey with Noom, shedding 11 lbs since October 2023. My employer’s Step Challenge played a significant role. I appreciate Noom’s rewarding content and insights into eating psychology. The subscription and personal accountability guidance are truly valuable.
Embracing Bilingual Canada: My French Learning Adventure 🇨🇦
Discovering the joy of learning French has been a delightful surprise. Living in bilingual Canada, where French appears everywhere from application forms to signboards, has turned everyday encounters into exciting learning opportunities. Recognizing words in flight announcements and on street signs adds an extra layer of engagement to my daily life. Moreover, mastering French sets me apart in Canada’s diverse population - it’s an advantage that speaks for itself.
Exploring Android API Security: Insights from My Tech Blog
On my blog, I shared an in-depth look at Android content provider APIs, focusing on their security aspects. This post, appreciated for its informative approach, was even shared by Clint Gibler of Semgrep on Twitter & Appsec.guide.
Additionally, my blog features a series on exploit.education lessons, where I discuss various security vulnerabilities, including use-after-free, buffer overflows and stack exploits. These posts aim to offer helpful insights to those interested in Android security and software vulnerabilities.
Books I’ve Read: 2023’s Reading Challenge 🗒️
- Poor Charlie’s Almanack: Charles T. Munger [Reading]
- The Software Engineer’s Guidebook: Gergely Orosz [Reading] - Wish I had read this sooner!
- Writing An Interpreter In Go: Thorsten Ball [Reading & Implementing]
- Same as Ever: Morgan Housel
- Not With A Bug, But With A Sticker: Attacks on Machine Learning Systems: Ram Shankar
- Secrets of Sand Hill: Scott Kupor
- The Tangled Web - A Guide to Securing Modern Web Applications: Michal Zalewski
- JavaScript for hackers: Gareth Heyes
Year of AI Breakthroughs: My Adventures with LLM and Beyond
This year has been a thrilling ride in the world of machine learning, particularly with large language models and the OpenAI API. My blog has captured this journey, featuring posts like “From ArcGIS to Mapbox: How Cody AI Brightened My Web App” and “Building an OpenAI-Powered Personal Assistant” These pieces illustrate the innovative ways I’ve harnessed LLMs and Langchain.
One of my key projects was automating financial tracking and management using Moonshine Money Tools in conjunction with Langchain and OpenAI APIs, enhancing the functionality of these existing privacy-conscious tools.
The learning curve steepened with insights from Andrej Karpathy’s introduction to Large Language Models and building GPT from scratch. Platforms like Ollama.ai further deepened my understanding, allowing local customization and interaction with models.
Meanwhile, my partner’s code exploration with Sourcegraph Cody and the development of a GPT-driven Smart Meal Planner highlight the practical, everyday applications of these technologies. One of the common usecase we found was to write, reply & customize tone in email, phone calls (Yes, Truecaller now has Assistant!) & writing tons of bullshit paperwork for Canadian Immigration office (Though we’re thankful for their service)
Overall, 2023 has been a groundbreaking year, expanding my knowledge and application of AI and large language models in unprecedented ways.
As we bid farewell to 2023, I reflect on a year rich with growth and learning. Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.
