zweizeiler

Learning LLMs in 2025

So you know how the transformer works, and you know basic ML/DL, and you want to learn more about LLMs. One way to go is looking into the various "algorithmic" stuff (optimization algorithms, RL, DPO, etc). Lot's of materials on that. But the interesting stuff is (in my opinion at least) not there.

This is an attempt to collect a list of academic (or academic-like) materials that explore LLMs from other directions, and focus on the non-ML-algorithmic aspects.

Courses

David Chiang's Theory of Neural Networks course.
This is not primarily LLMs, but does have substantial section on Transformers. Formal/Theory. More of a book than a course.

2022

Daily Journaling

const dayInMonth = moment().format("D");
const currentMonth = moment().format("M");
var i = 1;
while (currentMonth > i) {
    var entries = entriesSum(i);
    var max = daysInMonth(i);
    var perc = entries + "/" + max;

short url: caseywatts.com/selfpublish

my book is out! an applied psychology / self-help book targeted at developers: Debugging Your Brain

Markdown --> PDF (as a booklet!)

Markdown --> EPUB and MOBI

How To Use GitHub Gists For Publishing Articles

GitHub Gists may be used not only for code snippets sharing but as a publishing platform for your articles.

Features And Restrictions Of GitHub Gists

Each gist is a git repo with restrictions and features:

You can't create folders in any branch of the repo.
Each file in the master branch larger than 1MB risks to be truncated so you can't add zip archive to master. But you may keep additional large files at another branches which can't be viewed on the gist page.
If you want to use images in your article but wish non-embedded images to be hidden on the gist page then you may keep them in non-master branch and reference by .//raw//foobar.jpg.

Swift Concurrency Manifesto

Author: Chris Lattner

Chinese Translation by Jason Yu

Engines and libraries ⚙️

Name	Stars	Last Commit	Description
three.js	![GitHub

Step 1 - Make a Discord Webhook

Find the Discord channel in which you would like to send commits and other updates
In the settings for that channel, find the Webhooks option and create a new webhook. Note: Do NOT give this URL out to the public. Anyone or service can post messages to this channel, without even needing to be in the server. Keep it safe!

Step 2 - Set up the webhook on Github

Navigate to your repository on Github, and open the Settings

	const std = @import("std");
	const cc = std.ascii.control_code;
	const startsWith = std.mem.startsWith;

	fn isDigitNotZero(c: u8) bool {
	return switch (c) {
	'1'...'9' => true,
	else => false,
	};
	}

	#!/usr/local/bin/python3
	"""
	This script should idempotently grab the stuff that's newly added to Pocket to pocket.md

	You'll need to install https://airtable-python-wrapper.readthedocs.io, i.e. via:

	$ pip3 install airtable-python-wrapper

	and, of course, sign up for an Airtable account (free seems to work fine).
	"""