I'm a cybersecurity subject-matter expert (SME) for a U.S. Space Force program office, spending two years and ~3,000 hours going from genuinely zero on the math to research-grade machine learning — aiming at safety & evaluations or alignment / research-engineering work at a frontier lab. I'm doing it in the open: the wins, the walls, and the papers and podcasts worth your time.
The start of Trigonometry, and it lands easier than Algebra 2 did. SOHCAHTOA is down, log rules are close to automatic, and guided learning with Gemini has been filling the gaps the Khan Academy videos left. A short one. … Read the full entry →
The end of month one: functions and polynomials stuck, exponents and logs finally click, and the biggest upgrade was going from zero recall to actually solving problems on my own. Also — the government lifted the export control on Claude Fable and Mythos, and I've been rebuilding all week. … Read the full entry →
This one's a detour from the math. I'm going to talk about Claude Mythos and Claude Fable — the "too dangerous" models Anthropic released the week I was doing Week 3, and the export controls that hit a few days later. I got about a day with Fable and have been having withdrawals ever since. … Read the full entry →
These synthesis essays seem to follow the same format each week: what I learned, what seemed easy, what was hard, etc. If you read my week one, you'll know I was already behind. I'm writing this after having just written the week one essay, three weeks behind. I'm catching up though. … Read the full entry →
Here I am, writing the week one synthesis essay at the beginning of week three's content, while it's actually the fourth week after I started this learning path. Confusing, isn't it? I tried my best to keep up with the curriculum doing the first few weeks. I pushed off the essays and told myself I would get to them once I got caught up with the work. Well, I never got caught up. … Read the full entry →
I've spent the last eight years in cybersecurity as an aerospace contractor, working for multiple companies but all within the realm of the Air Force / Space Force. I'm not sure how I stumbled across it but I began doing side-work for various AI training / RLHF companies and have been doing that for the last year as well. … Read the full entry →