Luis de la Rosa

Week in Review: 2025-05-02

First post of a hopefully weekly series where I share what I learned, what I did, and what I found interesting this week.

🧠 What I Learned: Advanced RAG Techniques #

I'm working on upskilling my coworkers on AI, with a major focus on Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). While I previously taught basics back in September 2024, this time I'm diving into enhancing semantic search through metadata filtering.

Instead of just relying on vector embeddings and similarity, here's a powerful technique I discovered:

When searching through video content, you could:

This approach dramatically improves result relevance by narrowing the search space before applying semantic algorithms.

Implementation Varies by Database #

The implementation details vary significantly depending on your vector database:

Two Core RAG Motivations #

Reflecting on this, I realized RAG serves two distinct purposes:

  1. Document Chunking: Breaking large documents (like PDFs) that exceed LLM context windows into relevant chunks for processing

  2. Smart Document Retrieval: Finding the most relevant documents from a large collection, where metadata filtering shines by reducing the search space before semantic matching

đź’Ş What I Did: Rediscovering Fitness #

I've intensified my exercise routine this week, resulting in muscle soreness I haven't experienced since high school! Part of this was practical necessity—we needed to prepare our yard for a crane to remove a dying tree.

My Hybrid Workout Routine #

My current 30+ minute sessions include:

The Unexpected Reward #

While I had an Amazon cart full of potential "rewards" for myself, I've discovered something better: endorphins! The last time I experienced this natural high was pre-pandemic when boxing in BoxVR daily.

As a budding minimalist, I'm finding I need fewer material rewards—though I'll make an exception for quality shoes to protect my joints with all these increased steps.

🎵 Interesting Stuff: K-pop as Brain Exercise #

I've been strengthening my memory by learning members' names in K-pop groups. As a non-Korean speaker, it's challenging but rewarding. My Duolingo-acquired basics of Hangul help me read and pronounce their names in their native language.

My Learning Process: #

This week's focus: KiiiKiii, a group with a quirky, grounded, Y2K vibe who just released a video to their song "Groundwork".

Why This Matters #

In this age of AI and mobile phones, I think it's important for us to exercise our brains. In the 90s, I used to memorize everyone's phone numbers. (Hint: I used the visual of the classic dialpad or spelled words)

I used to listen to pop and rap music on the radio and on my Sony Walkman. And I used to watch dance shows. Now I can get all of that in one package with the latest gen kpop groups. Maybe that's why I also enjoy knowing the members faces, names, and their roles (hint: it's an enum containing [main|lead][rapper/vocalist/dancer], maknae, leader.) The choreo and synchronization and harmony is super satisfying to watch. And the music is catchy and fun.

The best part? I can enjoy this brain exercise while working out—combining mental and physical fitness in one entertaining package!

[Editor's Note: This post's first draft was writen by Louie. Then he asked Copilot Agent to suggested improvements. Then Louie did some more editing to finalize the post.]

What have you been learning or enjoying this week? I'd love to hear in the comments below.