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Learning systems & AI in public

Figuring outhow Raft agrees.

Notes from learning system design, distributed systems and AI — what I got wrong, and what finally made it click.

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Explainer · Distributed Systems · how Raft agrees.LatestRaft: Consensus Explained by Getting It Wrong First →
01 · Latest

Latest writing

Essays argue one point. Explainers walk through one paper. Both are written after I got it wrong at least once.

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Cover story · Explainer · Distributed SystemsRaft: Consensus Explained by Getting It Wrong FirstGetting several computers to agree on one ordered list of events, when any of them might crash at any moment, is the hardest easy-sounding problem in computing. Raft's contribution was making the answer explainable.Read · 8 min →19 Oct
02Essay · Databases · 15 OctB-Trees or LSM-Trees: Your Database Already ChoseEvery database picks a side in the same trade — quick to write, or quick to read. Almost every performance surprise you have had follows from which side it picked.6 min readRead →
03Explainer · Research Papers · 12 OctMamba: What If Attention Isn't the Answer?One approach keeps a perfect transcript and pays dearly for it. The other keeps running notes and forgets things. Mamba is a set of notes that finally learned to choose what to write down.8 min readRead →
04Essay · Distributed Systems · 8 OctMobile Apps Are Distributed Systems With Terrible NetworksA phone is a copy of your data that vanishes without warning, holds changes for hours, and comes back disagreeing with everyone else. Most mobile bugs are really that problem, unlabelled.5 min readRead →
02 · Notes

Notebooks I'm working through

Study notes in order, one topic per notebook. Each part builds on the last.

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3 parts · 3 notesFinetuning an LLMA practical, production-first course on SFT, LoRA, DPO, data curation, evaluation, and safe rollout.Strategy & RoadmapData CurationTraining & LaunchOpen syllabus →9 parts · 68 notesLangChain MasteryMaster building LLM applications with LangChain, from basics to advanced agents and RAG.Intro & SetupLLM FoundationsLCEL & Prompt ArchitectureData Ingestion & PreparationEmbeddings & Vector Stores+4 moreOpen syllabus →5 parts · 17 notesPython OverviewA high-level overview of the Python programming language.FoundationsControl FlowData StructuresAdvanced ToolsData WorkOpen syllabus →
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