commit 84b14a72d931c5164622209e2e1c6898d3f96d44
parent eebf34c57607061759c8d25b28e4f4aa03481149
Author: Eamon Caddigan <eamon.caddigan@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2025 20:46:55 -0800
Add weeknote for 2025-W09
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diff --git a/content/posts/weeknotes/2025-w09/index.md b/content/posts/weeknotes/2025-w09/index.md
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+---
+title: "Weeknote for 2025-W09"
+description: "Parallel purrr, ethics of LLMs, and fed news"
+date: 2025-02-24T07:59:00-08:00
+draft: false
+categories:
+- Weeknotes
+---
+
+## Purrr goes parallel
+
+Literally the only thing I miss from my days of programming MATLAB is
+[parfor](https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/parfor.html), which made it
+dead simple to massively hasten slow but parallelizable algorithms. I've
+written parallel code in other languages, but nothing has been as easy as
+replacing `for` with `parfor`. The new `.parallel` option in purrr's `map`
+functions looks to change that. This feature is only available in the
+development version of the package---I wouldn't depend on this until it's in
+CRAN, personally---but it's an exciting development.
+
+[Parallelization in
+purrr](https://purrr.tidyverse.org/dev/reference/parallelization.html)
+
+## The ethics of using LLMs
+
+I appreciate this essay on the ethical use of LLMs. I think it covers the main
+points that [LLM critics]({{< ref "/posts/coding-assistants" >}}) have with the
+current crop of models: their damage to the environment, use of training data
+gathered without consent, inaccuracy and bias, and impact of the balance of
+power between the working class and the wealthy. I don't agree with the
+author's conclusion---I believe the use of the foundation models that exist
+today is unambiguously unethical[^future]---but this post is a good treatment
+on the topic, and worth sharing with folks who haven't even _considered_ the
+ethics of the new technology.
+
+[Can I ethically use LLMs?](https://ntietz.com/blog/can-i-ethically-use-llms/)
+
+## What's new in the federal government
+
+Apparently a new inflammatory email was sent out by Musk's
+[OPM](https://www.opm.gov/) on Saturday (02-22), but I have yet to see it since
+I don't work on weekends. Maybe I'll have something to say about it next week.
+In the meantime, I actually had a regular week with one noteworthy and
+wholesome experience: one of my junior colleagues walked me through setting up
+VS Code so that I could become familiar with the tooling that most people are
+using these days. I'm not a big fan of Microsoft and I [love my editor]({{< ref
+"/posts/vim" >}}), so I've always used the first point of friction I
+encountered as an excuse to abandon VS Code the previous times I've looked at
+it. But it's good to learn new things and this was a great chance for my
+colleague to flex their skills. We'll soon be involved in an effort to help
+retrain SAS programmers in Python, so choosing the most popular editor seems
+like the safe and boring choice---in a domain where safe and boring is the way
+to go.
+
+[AP: Key federal agencies refuse to comply with Musk’s latest demand in his
+cost-cutting
+crusade](https://apnews.com/article/musk-federal-workers-trump-demand-firings-06553df358086db05917d3c50f3699d6)
+
+[^future]: I won't reject the possibility that an "ethical" large language
+ model might exist someday.
