Ben Backx 🇬🇧🇹🇭

Passed the 1,000 upvote mark on the latest Reddit post 💪 #buildinpublic www.reddit.com/r/SideProjec...

Most TV is just this now.

BEAR HUNT, the new geopolitical thriller from the creators of Sherlock & Co.,  is the No. 1 Drama podcast in 12+ countries!! I am so lucky to be part of such another awesome project by these folks! Search for BEAR HUNT wherever you listen to your podcasts.

DataIsBeautiful #Mimoto

Can we make email addresses fun again?

Been really enjoying playing around with some more graphics heavy visuals for Mimoto, starting with this one to capture “chat energy” change over time.

Nothing moves. Yet everything is changing.

Underrated aspect of having kids. When they use your YouTube profile to watch some vids, your subsequent recommendations for the next week are epic… worlds biggest container ships ✅, triceratops vs 3 tyrannosaurus ✅, paper aeroplane tutorials ✅. Yes please!!

If [design] = [art] + [constraint], then [strategy] = [business design] = [inspiration] + [constraint]. The decisions you make, both the + and - consequences of that, are the constraints. These are often called enabling constraints. Articulate, and embrace them. Here is how:

If you are planning to release in Europe a big #AI model any time soon, today is an important day…

Just published a new article! 👇🏾 Your company will stop growing sooner than you think. The "Max MRR" metric predicts revenue plateaus based on churn and new revenue. Many thanks for spreading the love with ❤️ and 🔁!

Cool to see Mimoto featured in the Observer this week. Just a few scrolls down from the guy using ChatGPT for, er… size advice. Not quite the context I imagined, but hey - all publicity, right? 😅 observer.co.uk/style/featur...

2018: “Our token will revolutionize food distribution in post-conflict regions. Here’s our white paper.” 2025: “It’s a dog. On fire. With sunglasses.” Send ETH.

You're so close dude. You are nearly there

I think "context engineering" is going to stick - unlike "prompt engineering" it has an inferred definition that's much closer to the intended meaning, which is to carefully and skillfully construct the right context to get great results from LLMs simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/27/...

There’s a lot of discussion around energy usage and general inefficiency of LLMs, but I haven’t seen much commentary yet around model routing/prompt re-writing using local models in order to direct a more concise request to an appropriately sized model. Anyone working on this?

Is there a way to filter out AI generated/tagged content on platforms? I used to enjoy finding music/DJs on YouTube but now all the recommendations seem to be AI-generated slop 🤦‍♂️

Great example of generate -> validate loop + error analysis > "the most effective route to improve outcomes was brute force: retry steps until they passed or reached a limit. We give the validation errors ... to the LLM and built a loop runner"

Just published a new article! 👇🏾 How to discern which models of companies, strategy, markets, and organizations are wise, and which just look good on a PowerPoint slide. Many thanks for spreading the love with ❤️ and 🔁!

Hoping the Severance finale ties up some loose ends. And middles. And beginnings.

When planning the next few sprints, what strategic objectives you’re addressing, even while also addressing current obstacles? And don’t say “growth” because that’s an outcome. Need help? Here’s a framework:

Search & recsys have historically drawn inspiration from language modeling, such as Word2vec for item embeddings, and GRUs and BERT for sequential models. LLMs are no different and have led to updates in model architecture, training data & paradigms, etc. eugeneyan.com/writing/recs...

Recommended watching for anyone working in the space. www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAEq...

When we compare ourselves to outliers, we're setting ourselves up for misery. Your company has specific challenges and benefits that are uniquely yours. Focus on the best thing 𝘺𝘰𝘶 can do with what's in front of 𝘺𝘰𝘶.

Thoroughly recommended www.imdb.com/title/tt2809...

U.K. firm cracks the code to convert harmful methane emissions into useful hydrogen and graphene www.cbsnews.com/news/methane...

Just republished a classic article! 👇🏾 Competing against big firms? Their revenue streams are their Achilles heel. Learn how smaller startups have a shot. Many thanks for spreading the love with ❤️ and 🔁!

Proud to have Mimoto app featured 💪 thanks @wabetainfo.com

Project reveals a feature to generate advanced analytics for WhatsApp chats and groups! 🔗 https://wabetainfo.com/project-reveals-a-feature-to-generate-advanced-analytics-for-whatsapp-chats-and-groups/

The fall of a tyrant must be celebrated. And while Syria faces great uncertainty, a nation exhausted by war could yet choose the long road towards peace. Here is how econ.st/4feXK1w

Animated #dataviz 📊 we recently created this fun Sankey for ONE and it made it to the UN General Assembly 😱 Check it out at data.one.org

The aftermath of authoritarian leaders often leads to complex outcomes. The situation in Syria highlights how unpredictable such scenarios can be. @missiongrey.bsky.social provides the tools to analyze these impacts. #MissionGrey #Geopolitics #Geoeconomics #Syria #RiskManagement #BusinessScenarios

"In the cozy era, our screens and the related accoutrements of digital life fulfill all of our emotional and sensory needs." Rereading my column on cozy technology; I'll be on CBC at 8:30 AM ET discussing it www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...

Appreciate that they’re not exactly going to invest in any marketing of this for obvious reason, but there’s so much untapped potential (and value!!) within these new data portability APIs… prototype time 😁 👨‍💻 developers.google.com/data-portabi...

I wish I had the time to write long essays on things like the UX of LEGO interface panels... 😀 interactionmagic.com/UX-LEGO-Inte...

Really cool website that showcases references on how to use swift's various formatting tools for numbers, dates etc. to achieve very specific localized string formats 🔗 fuckingformatstyle.com

Still one of my all time most recommended books, in case anyone needs some Xmas ideas. www.goodreads.com/book/show/28...

#adtech

The video edition of this week’s #ProfGMarkets…

25 of the funniest posts we've seen on Bluesky this week www.thepoke.com/2024/11/27/2...

Interesting conclusions, and they match onto personal experiences - how earlier experiences impact on financial decisions and risk taking neurosciencenews.com/memory-decis... #memories #risktaking #finance #saving

Who remembers running away from the ref on FIFA? 😂

Someone Made a Dataset of One Million Bluesky Posts for 'Machine Learning Research' A Hugging Face employee made a huge dataset of Bluesky posts, and it’s already very popular. Each post contains text content, metadata, and information about media attachments and reply relationships.

Productivity hack 1. Turn on your computer 2. Log in 3. Build something

10+ years of messaging my wife on WhatsApp #personaldata #dataanalysis #mimotoapp