Daily Note: 6 November 2026

I’d planned to be more on top of my blogging, but I’ve been caught in a frenzy of life and due dates. So to make amends, I’ve decided to attempt a daily-note blog stream habit. Both as a way to keep some accountability and to gather my (increasingly scattered) thoughts.

These notes will likely incorporate some more personal ruminations and will almost certainly be significantly less polished than the norm. Feel free to skip them! When I get some time, I’ll probably siphon them away into a separate section of my blog and RSS feed to not clutter up the main feed.

It’s almost the half-way mark in Michaemas term and the weather’s starting to turn grim. Sunset is frighteningly early and the nights are dark and full of terrors study. At least the leaves are in free-fall, making for quite the beautiful sight here in Leckhampton. I bought a second-hand DSLR lens from MPB for my partner’s camera and we’ve managed to get some good shots of the squirrels here. I know nothing about photography, but I might start attaching some images to my CDN and linking them here.

Last month we watched the Secrets of Squirrels and learned that, despite being adorable, the grey squirrels in the UK are an invasive species that are displacing their smaller cousin, the red squirrel.

Study remains, as ever, an absolute joy. But the work has turned into a series of back-to-back assignments and it’s harder to find patches to sit down and take notes, read textbooks, and cogitate.

I’m currently reading through Large Language Diffusion Models by Nie et al. (2025) for an assignment for L173 Probabilistic Machine Learning. Diffusion models are pretty interesting generative models, and I actually had the good fortune to attend NeurIPS 2025 last year where I watched the poster session by the LLaDA folks.

Yesterday I had a bit of an existential crisis about the role of AI in academia and what forging a career in a “post-agentic” world looks like. It’s been a bit harder than I anticipated adjusting to study in the AI-era: something that I want to shape up into a more detailed personal reflection when I get a chance. I also haven’t talked about this here before, but it’s a constant battle against impostor syndrome: especially after having taken a break from study since 2022.

I’m still trying to work out what my MPhil thesis will be focusing on. I’ve got some ideas that I’m excited about, but I don’t know how feasible they are yet. In the meantime, as a moment of gratitude, thank you to: Tobias Grosser, Alexander Viand, Ceren Kocaoğullar, Martin Kleppmann, Daniel Hugenroth, Jeremy Kun and Jon Sterling for their time, patience, and advice.

Until tomorrow.