The blog post discusses advancements in AI for robotic manipulation, particularly focusing on the SARM (Stage-Aware Reward Modeling) framework designed to improve the performance of VLAs like π₀ in complex, long-horizon tasks such...
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Justyna Ilczuk is a software engineer passionate about tech, adventures, and bouldering, with experience at Google and a love for building and learning.
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This blog post details the author's practical experiments in robotics, focusing on the cube-to-bin task using various reinforcement learning (RL) approaches, particularly Soft Actor-Critic (SAC). The author discusses the challenge...
The blog post discusses the author's journey in creating a flexible simulation environment for robotics experimentation, specifically focusing on robotic manipulation using the Standard Open Arm SO101. The author chose a 'sim-firs...
The post details the author's gym-so100-c project, a simulation environment for the Standard Open Arm (SO101) aimed at exploring various libraries and tools in robotics. The author, who prefers software development over physical r...
The post outlines the practical implementation of the SARM model for robot training using extensive video datasets, detailing architecture, data preparation, and training challenges.
The article discusses the challenges and techniques involved in building an automated illustration pipeline for storytelling applications, specifically for the platform storylearner.app. It highlights the importance of visual cons...
The author recounts their experience at a bimanual manipulation hackathon in Munich, which was organized in a short timeframe and featured high-end robotics equipment. The event attracted a diverse group of participants, including...
The author documents their journey into robotics, reflecting on their background and motivations for pursuing this field. They discuss the potential of robotics to address labor shortages and improve quality of life, particularly ...
The post discusses the re-engineering of a set of Python notebooks responsible for thousands of LLM calls into a robust content-adaptation studio. The author faced challenges with the old code base and the quality of the content, ...
The author discusses the pivot of storylearner.app from generative stories to adapted books due to market saturation and the difficulty of generating quality content. The new approach is more aligned with how people think and reso...
The author discusses their journey of building storylearner.app, a tool for language learners to read adapted books with interactive reading support and audio. They talk about their struggles with traditional language learning met...
The author reflects on their sabbatical after leaving Google, discussing their concerns about not working, their experiences with socializing, and their redefined definition of productivity.
The post provides code for transcribing long audios quickly using open source tools and Colab. The author discusses the motivation behind creating the solution, compares costs of existing services, and details the DIY solution's c...
0I killed my side projects - clean slate
2024-09-15 •
The author discusses shutting down their indie products, including a real estate investment calculator, investment tracking and bookkeeping tool, and a productivity extension. They lost motivation and didn't see financial potentia...
0Learning Deep Generative Modelling from Stanford
2024-08-30 •
The author shares their experience taking the Deep Generative Modeling course from Stanford online, discussing the course content, format, and their background. They also provide tips for those interested in taking the course and ...
0Postmortem of my 9 year journey at Google
2024-08-16 •
The text is a retrospective of the author's 9-year journey at Google, discussing the ups and downs, lessons learned, and what could have been done differently. The author reflects on the excitement of joining Google, the challenge...
0I quit my startup because of comic sans
2023-07-14 •
The author quit their startup after 3 months due to various reasons, including differences in vision, work style, skill set, and personal lifestyle. They felt that they would be better off on their own and are now taking a break t...
0Two worlds: idea people and developers
2023-04-29 •
The text discusses the benefits and drawbacks of idea people and developers joining forces as co-founders in a startup. It emphasizes the importance of a diverse set of skills and mutual commitment in a successful partnership.
0Fun indie projects
2023-02-27 •
The author is taking a break from serious business to focus on fun and learning through various indie projects. They are working on projects that are not meant to be monetized, with the main goals being creative fun and learning. ...
0I left my Site Reliability job
2022-11-27 •
The author left their Site Reliability Engineering job at Google after almost seven years, and changed to another role within Software Engineering in the Cloud Infrastructure. They were somewhat unhappy with their cushy role as a ...
0Abandoning the indie hacking dream for now
2022-11-11 •
The author is taking a break from indie-hacking to focus on personal and professional growth, health, relationships, and creative endeavors. They have saved enough for a secure retirement and are excited about their full-time job....
The author's micro-side project, Netflix Calculator, trended on Hacker News and received thousands of visits within the first day. The project also brought hundreds of visitors to the author's main project, watchlimits, and result...
The post is a retrospective of the author's technical learnings from the first 3 months of working on watchlimits.com, a chrome extension to limit excessive video watching. The author discusses their experience with chrome extensi...
0My release checklist for chrome extensions
2022-07-09 •
The author discusses the challenges of updating chrome extensions and shares a checklist for ensuring a solid release, including cleanups, testing, and considering unhappy paths. They emphasize the importance of manual testing, st...