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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: October 15th, 2023

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  • There’s a lot to cover here but I’ll try to touch on each point:

    The key requirement is fast memory that can be addressed by your GPU, and ideally a lot of it - hence the insane cost of this hardware right now.

    Remember that you need space for the model’s weights (think of this as its ‘knowledge base’) and the context window, which is basically the data needed for the LLM to keep track of your current conversation with it (effectively its short term memory).

    With smaller pools of VRAM (8-16gb) you will have to compromise and either have a more capable model that will lose context quickly and start hallucinating, or a less capable model that can maintain a session for a bit longer but overall less ‘smart’.

    For software - there are a couple of options for running the LLM itself, Llama.cpp is one of the more popular tools and is the one that I use. It has a web UI with the usual chat interface, and also exposes an API that you can plug other tools (e.g. opencode) into, depending on your use case.

    In terms of hardware recommendations, at 20GB+ of VRAM you do have a bit more headroom compared to more consumer grade GPUs, but to be honest the most cost effective way to get a shitload of VRAM is likely not with a dedicated GPU but actually using a system based around a recent APU.

    I got a Minisforum MS-S1 last year for exactly this purpose. It is based on AMD’s Strix Halo platform which it has in common with the Framework Desktop and a couple of other similar devices.

    It has 128gb of unified RAM which can be divided between the GPU and CPU however you like, so plenty of capacity for even fairly chunky models. It also uses a tiny amount of power compared to a more traditional system with a dedicated GPU, while also giving really reasonable performance for most AI workloads, more than enough for use in a homelab.

    For cloud rental - doable, but pricing is a factor, and of course this will not actually be running locally.

    Usability - manage your expectations, but overall for a lot of use cases and of course depending on the model that you are running and the resources you throw at it, it can be comparable with especially older iterations of ChatGPT, Gemini etc.

    But remember, you are not a Google or an Anthropic and do not have an infinite pool of compute to throw at your model, nor do you have access to the specific models they are using.







  • As others have said, 100% a leak.

    I would advise to stand on a chair or stepladder underneath the ceiling and check to see if it is still level. If you see an obvious deformation around the stain, this will be being caused by water pooling on top of the ceiling plasterboard. In which case, once the leak is sorted, you will likely need to drain the pooled water, cut out the damaged section, replace it, then replaster and repaint.

    We had exactly the same issue in our last house. It was in a difficult to see spot hidden behind our kitchen cabinets. We only realised the severity of the issue when the ceiling boards gave way and fell on my head.




  • I’ve switched both my laptop and desktop over to Linux (Bazzite and Fedora respectively) in the last 6 months.

    The last time I tried to daily Linux (over a decade ago) I ended up switching back eventually, but this time I really don’t think I’ll need to. All of the games I play most often work perfectly, the dev tooling is even better than it is on Windows, and the hardware compatibility side has been completely flawless.

    Gone are the days of having to hunt down obscure Linux drivers for your touchpad or webcam. Everything just works out of the box.



  • The main issue was a catastrophic failure of the VC_FRONT module which is one of the critical onboard computers that manages things like the 12v battery and low voltage power distribution (basically a “smart” fuse box). Without it the car is bricked and cannot be driven.

    That took several weeks and some back and forth around the extended warranty to resolve, and then even after that module was replaced, on my first drive after the repair it went straight into limp mode and then spent another week at the service centre having that diagnosed.

    During this time I decided it might be time to start looking for a new car, ended up selling it a few months later and took delivery of a new Polestar 2.


  • I’m not sure why anyone expected a new facelift would improve sales. It’s clear the overall decline is associated with Musk going full mask-off fascist, given this, driving around in a car that looks unlike any previous Model Y just makes it completely obvious that you knew this and decided to buy one anyway. If they want to bolster sales, maybe they should have kept producing the pre-facelifted versions for a while.

    Full disclosure, I used to own a Model 3. I had it for 5 years and was generally very happy with it - it was a great daily driver, cost very little to run and maintain, and (aside from a few issues later in my ownership, which was one of the reasons I decided to sell it) in general it was very easy to live with.

    There are clearly some very skilled engineers at Tesla who know how to build a great product. It is a shame their efforts are being undermined by a fascist lunatic with a narcissist complex.




  • Well, I’m currently writing a service and frontend, both in C# (Blazor for the UI), and using docker-compose to build and deploy them to a Raspberry Pi running Linux. So not only cross-platform, but cross-architecture as well.

    This is not a new thing either. Since .NET Core was released almost 10 years ago, it has supported cross platform development.