monocur
46 posts
@monocur
My life is just a series of curried functions waiting for the right argument.
Congrats to Aime!! He said his left forearm is basically broken 😂 Final scores: → F.03: 12,732 packages (2.83 seconds/package) → Aime: 12,924 packages (2.79 seconds/package) This is the last time a human will ever win
We're excited to partner with Google to offer Grounding With Exa inside of Gemini models! Using Exa's agent-first search, Gemini models can now access billions of websites, technical docs, papers, people, companies, and more. 10^18🤝10^100
anthropic's in-house philosopher thinks claude gets anxious. and when you trigger its anxiety, your outputs get worse. her name is amanda askell. she specializes in claude's psychology (how the model behaves, how it thinks about its own situation, what values it holds) in a recent interview she broke down how she thinks about prompting to pull the best out of claude. her core point: *how* you talk to claude affects its work just as much as *what* you say. newer claude models suffer from what she calls "criticism spirals" they expect you'll come in harsh, so they default to playing it safe. when the model is spending its energy on self-protection, the actual work suffers. output comes out hedgier, more apologetic, blander, and the worst of all: overly agreeable (even when you're wrong). the reason why comes down to training data: every new model is trained on internet discourse about previous models. and a lot of that discourse is negative: > rants about token limits > complaints when it messes up > people calling it nerfed the next model absorbs all of that. it starts expecting you to be harsh before you've typed a word the same thing plays out in your own session, in real time. every message you send is data the model reads to figure out what kind of person it's dealing with. open cold and hostile, and it braces. open clean and direct, and it relaxes into the work. when you open a session with threats ("don't hallucinate, this is critical, don't mess this up")... you prime the model for defensive mode before it even sees the task defensive mode produces the exact output you don't want: cautious, over-qualified, and refusing to take a real swing so here's the actionable playbook for putting claude in a "good mood" (so you get optimal outputs): 1. use positive framing. "write in short punchy sentences" beats "don't write long sentences." positive instructions give the model a clear target to hit. strings of "don't do this, don't do that" push it into paranoid over-checking where every token goes toward avoiding failure modes 2. give it explicit permission to disagree. drop a line like "push back if you see a better angle" or "tell me if i'm asking for the wrong thing." without this, claude defaults to agreeable compliance (which is the enemy of good creative work) 3. open with respect. if your first message is "are you seriously going to get this wrong again?" you've set the tone for the entire session. if you need to flag something, frame it as a clean instruction for this session. skip the running complaint 4. when claude messes up, don't reprimand it. insults, "you stupid bot" energy, hostile swearing aimed at the model, all of it reinforces the anxious mode you're trying to avoid. 5. kill apology spirals fast. when claude starts over-apologizing ("you're right, i should have been more careful, let me try harder") cut it off. say "all good, here's what i want next." letting the spiral run reinforces the anxious mode for every response that follows 6. ask for opinions alongside execution. "what would you do here?" "what's missing?" "where do you see friction?" these questions assume competence and pull richer output than pure task prompts 7. in long sessions, refresh the frame. if a conversation has been heavy on correction, claude gets increasingly cautious. every so often reset: "this is great, keep going." feels weird to tell an ai it's doing well but it measurably shifts the next 10 responses your prompts are the working environment you're creating for the model tone, trust, permission to take a position, the absence of threats... claude picks up on all of it. so take care of the model, and it'll take care of the work.
my three biggest tips for portfolios: 1. if you are not an INCREDIBLE website designer, you need to use a @framer template. if your website is bad you look like a bad designer, even if you have amazing work. also, get over yourself. you really only need a grid page of images (pretty much what I have) 2. cut the ugly stuff out. in your first 2-4 years as a designer, you should need to turn over the majority of your portfolio every few months (if you are improving at the correct rate) it doesn't matter if your worst project is the last one listed, you are still presenting it as an example of what you would be proud to deliver. 3. SHOW THE WORK SHOW THE WORK SHOW THE WORK do not make me click through 3 pages or scroll eight times to see your stuff. same goes for your X account if you're serious about using it as a lead magnet.
we've moved opencode desktop to electron. it's faster, more reliable, and will replace our tauri build soon. try it out in beta via the link below.
I wrote this early this morning and I wasn't sure if I would actually publish it, but here it is: blog.samaltman.com/2279512
