Yesterday, a group of MIT researchers released an article titled “Sparks of Weight-Space Programming: LLMs can natively read & write neural network weights”. The piece describes a set of experiments which convincingly show OpenAI’s latest Astra model is able to understand and successfully alter raw weight data. Wowzers! It’s a rough analogy, but an LLM’s weights are sort of like its brain. A set of weights is a large pile of numbers generated during training, and an LLM’s output is derived by running input through the weights using some matrix multiplication and a bit of randomization. While the steps to generate weights are well understood, the weights themselves are extremely opaque. There’s ongoing work to try and explain how weights work, but researchers currently have a limited understanding of what these numbers do. Based on this, I was quite surprised to learn that LLMs are able to act on raw weight data — even if it’s still just in limited cases. It’s unclear if OpenAI’s model was trained on weight data. Even if it was, I still find these results surprising. The article shows the model accurately predicting what a never-before-seen set of weights was built to do, fixing another model by updating its weights, and creating new sets of weights that performed simple tasks. I would not have guessed any of that would be possible a couple of days ago. This whole thing is slightly unnerving. The whole “weights as a black box” thing has always felt a bit sketchy to me, even when I was working with much simpler machine learning models. Now these experiments hint at a future where LLMs could be self-improving in ways that aren’t human-verifiable. Machines building machines, and we can only hope that they’re not doing anything weird. I don’t know if this strategy is scalable, but I’d guess that it’s something more people will be exploring very soon. More and more often these days, I wish we were living in less interesting times.

Harry threw me off course in episode 48 of Traction Heroes. At first, I thought was reading from a book about mind mapping. Soon, it became clear it was about something else: how to define a clear vision for a team or organization. Visions are notoriously hard to articulate. Drawing a picture — especially a picture of the whole forest, plus the trees — can help. The passage Harry read from Cameron Herold’s Vivid Vision explores this idea: So to visualize something a little more tangible, think about a tree trunk in the earth, inner core with its branches stretching out into the sky. Each of those branches contains twigs extend further out. The mind map works in a similar way, a core that branches out into smaller components. Now, apply this to the world of business. As the leader of an organization, you’re firmly planted at the center, and the various areas that contribute to the business branch out: marketing, sales, engineering, and so forth. With that in place, build off that by describing those branches in about three or four bullet points each. In other words, describe what your marketing looks like and sales and so on until you’ve captured every idea. Remember too that among the branches of your business, you want to consider every aspect of the organization: the vibe, informal codes of conduct, the fiscal environment, the scenery, all of that. Deliberately leave out numbers and data. Get a feel for the place. When you step out of your time machine three years from now and walk around the office, what’s happening? What can you say that is typical of the business three years from now? The mind map is an initial foray into the vivid vision and will act as an outline for the rough draft that you, the leader, will then write. I’ve sketched diagrams before when outlining articles, workshops, and presentations, never in service of aligning around a company’s vision. Harry’s done it several times and found it easier than trying to write it out. Seems useful — check out our conversation for more: Traction Heroes episode 48: Visions

Sharing a few data points because some people did not expect these drives to last that long.

I'm 100% for banning social media for children. I would even extend it to banning it all together in its current form. But I am also against the methods for enforcement. The problem with banning social media for one group and not another is that you have to differentiate the different groups somehow. And right now, in an age where information and personal data means everything, there are several entities that are salivating to get this data. I've written before about all the problems that come from uploading sensitive data online. It doesn't even matter if they delete the data afterward, as long as the data goes through the wire in the first place, there is a chance for a leak. What appears to be the same simple request "please verify your identity", becomes fundamentally different when mediated by technology. The question isn't whether these digital systems will be compromised, but when. And unlike that movie theater clerk who can't perfectly recall my birthdate minutes after seeing it, computers have perfect memory. They store, copy, backup, and transmit our most sensitive information through networks we don't control, to companies we've never heard of, under policies we'll never read. When kids are not allowed to use social media, it's the adult who pays the price. It's the adult who has to prove that they are not children. They have to risk uploading their government ID to a third party, or biometric data that may be saved and backed up forever. I reject this method. I also reject the method where I have to provide my age to the operating system. No system should compel me to provide personal data in order to use it. Especially if this feature is intended to provide the information to a third party. And what happens if I don't provide this information to my freebsd machine? Or worse, what if I provide false information? Am I going to get punished? How does that protect children in any way? Breaking news: Grown up arrested when OS reported forged identity in his laptop. One question I asked myself was what happens when a minor circumvents the ban. What are the consequences? At least in Australia, a country that has implemented a social media ban for those under 16, there are no consequences. The law places legal responsibility on platforms, not children or parents, and it currently applies to Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X and YouTube. This almost sounds reasonable. Why should you care, if it becomes facebook responsibility when you don't even own a facebook account? But there is always a caveat. When facebook becomes a tool your school uses to communicate with parents. When Google classroom is the service students use to do their homework. When you are required to login on a system to receive government service. You may not care about a particular social media, but they raise the bar for every other entrant in the game. Every website frequented by a large number of people inherently become social media, and demand data you didn't need to provide before. Technology is not a magical thing that can just solve every problem. It is especially weak when it comes to social problems. However, society can use technology to solve their problems. The responsibility of children falls onto their parents. And there are great tools for parents that their kids access on their devices.

This weekend I ran the marathon of The Hague. I gave everything, and the result was 3 hours and 40 minutes. I am satisfied, because I know there was really nothing more in it. Tired legs, maximum heart rate, and still no collapse. It is beautiful that you can look for the limit like that. But the most important part of this marathon did not happen on the road. It happened in the weeks before, at home, looking out of the window. Two marathons in four weeks Four weeks earlier I ran Köln. Two days before the start my body was fighting a virus. I slept extra, stopped working and switched the computers off. The next afternoon I wrote: "the body is winning, energy is flowing through the veins again". Köln became 3:48:27. The Hague went better in every way. The extra experience made it possible to operate longer at the maximum: eating, drinking and the mental side were better than ever. I understand very well now what makes the performance. And it is not only the training. The Hague, 1 November 2026, just before the start Work as a long run At the end of October I wrote something less cheerful in my notes. Not only sport, but work too had taken on the character of a long run. Steady, long, without an end in sight. More than ever before, the balance tipped to the negative: no sparkling fun, warmth or pleasure. "It really is a marathon. I am physically, and mentally, ready for rest." That is the trap of a pace you can hold: you can hold it so long that you forget you are running. The answer was not to stop. It was to stay pragmatic, limit the loss of energy, and focus on the things we want to influence. And nothing more. Room to breathe On 15 October I did something different. The phone on "do not disturb" and out of reach. Questions about the jam supply and the invoices came in, all very important, for later. Reachable for emergencies, but there was no emergency. I wrote: "The best in me comes up when there is room. This is not running away or hiding. It is a necessary pause to breathe." Three days later, on a Sunday, I tried a whole day with zero screen time. A small experiment to feel where we still depend on it. Physical things stood out more: clutter, dust. Conversations with the children were easier, because I had so much more bandwidth to ask good questions. And I simply looked out of the window. I thought about my body, about the fast food of the day before, and about how little I really need. A green, orange or red light would be enough. The Sunday without screen time: wood, a plant by the window, daylight on the table That light exists now. The home screen of Contact, the software I work with every day, is one dot. Green means: all is well, nothing is waiting for me. It took a Sunday without screens to see that one dot was enough. The home screen of Contact: one green dot, nothing is waiting Why a window works Looking out of the window is not doing nothing. In 1984 Roger Ulrich published a small study in Science. Patients recovering from the same operation, in the same hospital, were given a room with a view of trees or a view of a brick wall. The ones looking at trees went home sooner, 7.96 days against 8.70, and needed fewer strong painkillers. A view, nothing more. There is a name for designing with that in mind: biophilic design. Daylight, plants, wood, a view and a place to retreat to. I only learned the word properly this autumn, while building levendkantoor.nl for Martin Cuypers, a client in Venray, not far from home. Their page on what biophilic design is puts it in three layers: nature in the space, nature as a reference, nature as an experience. Reading it, I recognised my own Sunday. Wood under my hands, a plant by the window, daylight on the table. Nothing to buy. Just noticing. As is, not add-on The morning after The Hague I wrote down the conclusion. The gym is no longer "nice to have". We are making it an integral part again, on days that keep the impact on working hours small. The goal: a strong physical base, not as an add-on, but as is. Next year I want to break 3:30, and that can only happen if we make everything stronger, in all dimensions: strength training, sprints, and longer runs at low intensity, around 130 beats per minute. An hour on the treadmill, then a round on the machines Last week I ran an hour on a treadmill, followed by a round on the machines. I loved it. An hour on such a thing asks for a different mindset, and that is exactly the point. Like the window and the green dot, it is not something extra on top of the work. It is what my work stands on, the foundation for thinking. I wrote about running before, in Marathon and in Run Nicely. This time the lesson is not in the legs. Conclusion Two marathons in four weeks taught me more about work than about running. The pace you can hold is not enough. You also need room: a morning without a phone, a Sunday without screens, a view of something alive. The best in me comes up when there is room, and that room is not a reward for after the finish. It is part of the training. There is one more race on the calendar this year, purely to finish, at a slower and conscious pace. First recover. And look out of the window a bit more, ha! The best part of a finish: celebrating with friends!