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Coming across “I transcribed hours of interviews offline using this open-source tool” in my news feeds, I can’t help but wish this approach to applied AI was more common in this era of ChatGPT.

There’s plenty of reason to run models in a cloud context, particularly if you want to have truly large or complex models. The more computationally invasive the task, the more a data center starts looking smart—ditto if handling many users. But that doesn’t mean it’s not possible to do useful things with LLMs on commodity hardware.

The catch of course, tends to be the need for a powerful computer by modern standards. PrivateLLM’s quantified models for example, range from models that probably fit on several year old iPhone (15/14 series) to a pimped out Mac Studio.

Considering that many Intel/AMD chipsets over the past decade max out in the 16-64 GB of RAM range, and that you basically need 16 GB in a modern laptop, I think people underestimate the possibilities for squeezing smaller models onto PCs for specialized tasks. Especially when given modern computer hardware. I mostly feel that the drive towards NPUs is marketing snake oil, but to be fair, it’s pretty unlikely that we’re going to start seeing beefier GPUs in the typical computer. As impressive as modern integrated graphics have been compared to when I was young, common designs still fall far short of even laptop dedicated graphics, never mind six pounds of RTX!

Here’s at least, hoping that those fancy ASICs see some useful value rather than being today’s equal of the Transistor Wars. If nothing else, I suppose it helps bring the base of installed RAM a little higher in-between price hikes and push faster CPUs and SoCs down people’s throats.

The backup strategy

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Since my file server adopted hardware RAID as part of its 2024 refit, and even the mdadm array that preceded it as part of the original 2023 design, one of my concerns has been the need for manual backups. It’s at least a process that’s been tested under fire during the Thinkpad to the face incident. But, I’m never been a great fan of manual for what should be automated.

The process remained largely the same, aside from the drive’s contents exceeding the capacity of one of my spare drives, leaving me with only one external drive sufficient for backing up. How often I actually managed to ensure both drives up to date aside, it’s generally been a bigger priority to take care of things that backup to the file server on a nightly basis.

Well, one of the upside of the transition from Rimuru to Ranga, is it’s effectively seen my Steam Deck decommissioned from /dev/tv to its storage case. As such, the external drive used for augmenting my deck’s internal drive and microSD card, became freshly available for repurposing. A drive that quite conveniently has the same storage capacity as my file server’s RAID array.

An upside of the Christmas break, I was able to find the time to setup the drive alongside the file server. It’s now a backup target, the entire RAID array being rsync’d daily via cron. My largest external SSD (only half the arrays size) remains an additional backup, and my frequency of go plug it in / run the backup script / unmount will still likely average a monthly or bimonthly ad-hoc affair.

The difference that makes me somewhat happier though? This solves one of the annoying problems: location. As an extra incentive, the external SSD has generally been kept nearby Zeta, so that it’s safe as the server. Since its smaller compadre graduated to being too small, no onsite backup has been stored in a separate location. Now that there’s a drive dedicated for daily backups of the array, my external gets promoted to ‘stored across the building’ status.

Because it’s always bugged me when the backups are right next to the machine being backed up. Like that never goes wrong? 😑. That’s exactly why a subset of the data deemed critical is deemed offsite required. But it’s still nice to have the full backup in a physically separate location, because ya never know when that is going to come in handy in a pinch. One of those days, it’ll probably get upgraded to being the offsite backup.

Ahh, here’s hoping I don’t end up buying hard drives next year….

Reminders that Apple hates iPad users

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So, for a while now I’ve been pretty pissed off with the iPadOS edition of Tahoe and how it handles files. At this point, I’m pretty sure that it’s just broken and I should hope for iPadOS 27.

The first indication of woe, the canary if you will, was VLC being a steaming pile of bantha poodoo. Now, admiringly, VLC on iPad is pretty crappy compared to how awesome it is on basically every desktop platform, and even a few TV centric ones. But its problems are in terms of usability and features. Also, sometimes getting shafted by the platform.

For a good while, I’ve noticed that VLC would lose access to files on USB. Initially, it would play content, but subsequently picking files would fail to playback when trying to access the files. At first, I actually considered the drive could be going bad, but this was ruled out by using other devices.

Simple solution to that of course is one of my network’s core resources: a file server, ya know, that thing that’s cut down on the amount of removable media that I’ve needed over the past fifteen years. VLC seems to work fine with that.

Then enter the “Why the fuck can’t I actually edit a text file” problem.

Trying to access files in the sense of Files -> app works fine. But the pipeline for saving them back seems to be broken. At first, I didn’t spot it, since the editor I was using falls back to saving to its application folder rather than throwing an error–yeah, that’s stupid. But it’s at least pretty obvious when you go open the file somewhere else (or even on the same iPad) and it’s missing your changes.

So, for sake of sanity, of course I tried a different editor and this was effectively the same. Except that one didn’t fallback to its application folder. At this point, I was pretty sure that it’s either the Files app or iPadOS’s APIs for brokering file access.

The part that removed all doubt, in what I’ve been suspecting since the issues with VLC started. The same thing happens when using my USB drive :).

There’s also the stupidity where attempting to paste another file over to the file server results in Files throwing a permissions error. While connected to a share with the exact same credentials my other systems use and successfully, ya know, edit and create damn files. I consider that double confirmation.

Ahh, sometimes I wish iPadOS was worth a damn. The only thing truly unique versus other tests is that it’s running iPadOS, where my other points of reference are running macOS, Linux, and NT–and just work fine.

Picard Season 2

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Catching up with my backlog of Blu-rays, I have to admit that season 2 panned out much better than I expected. If the first season serves as a view of why Jean-Luc is such an enlightened individual, season 2 paints a picture of what shaped him. One, that it’s hard not to here quotes of Kirk about pain, as it unfolds.

I do have to admit though, that I rather loved that Agnes ends up making a difference by being herself and the concept of a new direction for the Borg. Not to mention the finale and motivation of Q.

If there was ever going to be one last snap for Q, I’m glad that’s the one they went out on.

Plus the entire season is littered with things any fan of Star Trek would find notable, particularly those familiar with the 24th century. It’s quite a long list, if you pay attention during the whole season.

My first hackathon

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There’s a concept that I’ve held since I was a boy, maybe 12 or 13 years old. That you should aim for the moon and plan to fall flat on your face, because you’ll probably land somewhere in-between and hopefully it won’t hurt as much when you do fall flat. Decades later, I consider this thinking fairly integral to my nature, and it’s often how I approach things.

Today, I found myself in a somewhat odd position. Going into a small hackathon, my private view was that I should just be glad not to be thought a fool. Insert good quote often attributed to Abe Lincoln here. The project was something that I chose, largely because it combined a technology that I wanted to learn more about and figured that building something small in this context was a good way to both participate and knock that off my bucket list. Well, both off my bucket list, since it was my first hackathon.

While I didn’t win, I placed well enough to walk away with both a nice little prize and positive comments from several people that I respect. That’s actually a lot higher result than I expected. My little project was based on an idea that I’d typically plan for a 3-day effort when left to my own devices, and compacted into about a 4-5 hour event to deliver something demonstrable. Not great, not horrible, in my personal opinion. I really didn’t expect much more than a thanks for participating, or at best, being glad not to be taught an idiot. No thoughts of positive mention or reward really factored in my desire to participate. I was far more interested in building something to learn if the tech was worth poking further than succeeding at anything.

Part of me, I kind of have to wonder what that form of thinking might say about the environment that I grew up in. See, it wasn’t necessarily anything anyone did to me. My family was a bit harsh more than touchy-feely in such respects, but nothing all that bad happened. Like, I probably gave up expecting to ever make someone proud or happy at my achievements by the time I was 6 or 7. Just knew it wasn’t going to happen. That’s the most I can really say about that, in the sense of ‘bad’ on the subject. I’ve known people who had things thousands of times worse than I ever did. It was fine, really.

Sometimes as an adult, I also think about the distinction between what I grew up around and the kind of person that I am, that I choose to be. It makes me wonder how much is innate versus a side effect. That’s the contrast that tends to draw my attention. On the flip side, thanks to good friends, over the years I’ve come to believe in the need for positivity. Even if, to be honest, I tend to be more of a hope for and work towards positive things than expect positive things kind of person.

Unrelated to all of that, however–I must say that I did have fun. I would’ve been happy even if I didn’t end up with anything to show, but I was glad to land somewhere in-between. It’s one of those things, I always thought might be fun to try but never really had a lot of opportunity to focus on. So, I think that’s one item off my personal bucket list and another off the equivalent for my technical interests.

In the words of Hannibal

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Tonight, I managed to execute some delicious and well planned mischief meal planning. One of today’s primary objectives was to make a trip to Sprouts Farmer’s market in search of fresh produce. In my neck of the woods, it’s often the best place to get fresh vegetables at the lowest prices, but also an inconvenient trip compared to my usual supermarket. Not exactly the best deals on meat, especially when you’re not overly crazy about the details. But, not wanting to make two trips, I opted to splurge a bit.

This lead to the perfect plan: pork chops in the oven, along with sprouts and carrots to roast. Meanwhile, prepared an onion and tossed a ribeye on the cast iron. I rather figured, if I was going to make sprouts and sliced carrots, then I may as well go ahead and make the pork. This thinking in turn, lead me to consider that if I had the smarts to chop the onion ahead of cooking the steak, I’d have those perfecto by the time the meat was done cooling off. I mean, the skillet is already greased and hot, so why the hell not take advantage?

Well, for some folks this plan might seem trivial but for me it’s more of a special occasion meets planning. See, I rarely bother to make a steak at home anymore. It’s usually too narrow a margin to get it right and fairly wasteful when cooking for one. It’s the kind of thing I’d cook more often if I had a grill outside, or more mouths to feed.

Left to my own devices, I also like to get most of the cooking done over the weekend, so I’ll prefer meals that don’t require rapt attention and generate leftovers. Steaks, done right, fit in the spectrum of “Don’t bother me, I’m cooking.” Not something I’d combine with making food for a couple days.

Three points of success made me happy: fresh roasted sprouts, which are freaking delicious; not messing up the steak; and the combination of oil and onions leading to my cast iron skillet being trivially cleaned afterwords.

I love it when a plan comes together.

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Buying a jar of Mayo for the first time in about ten years, I almost feel like I’ve violated a personal rule of some sort. On the other hand, I’m going with Turkey Salad as a plan, or is it an escuse 🤔

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Today largely went according to plan. Bird in the oven by early afternoon, with potatoes and casserole going in about the time it came out to rest.

Thanksgiving Dinner

I actually can’t remember the last time that I made turkey for Thanksgiving. Since the dogs were the only ones left who really enjoyed turkey, the past couple of years I’ve made lasagna. Something that my mother would consider sacrilege, but my grandmother might have been fine with, lol.

For me, it was largely a quiet day spent on the couch. A good contrast from my typical days off, where I’m chiefly in front of a computer all day. Although, I’ll admit that I was more interested in catching the end of I’m Mita, Your Housekeeper than the premiere of Stanger Things 5. Still, it was refreshing to actually relax for a change.

On the flip side, my health is mostly stable on the cold front. In so much as I’m probably 80% or more back to normal, mostly plagued by the nasal dregs rather than the sore throat. So, yay for not being sick on the actual holiday!

Coffee

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One of life’s simple pleasures is grinding coffee and brewing a cup. At least for me it is, and one that I often find delegated to special occasions because of all of the clean up; my grinder, actually stays pretty clean when not in use.

This morning’s plan? COFFEE!!! I’ve ground enough to fill my coffee can sufficiently to last until Monday. It’s also the first time that I’ve had coffee all week, thanks to being sick. Guess it’s the cross point between feeling better and fuck it, I’m making coffee.

Being sick still sucks

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Being sick for the first time since before the pandemic, I should probably count myself lucky that it hasn’t totally knocked me on my arse yet.

The thing that’s generally worried me is the only coughing that I’ve had is courtesy of Post Nasal Drip. I haven’t had the usual experience of coughing up phlegm like a factory, nor coughing until my brain rattles against my skull. On the flip side, I’ve discovered cough drops work wonders for sore throats, even if they are worthless as cough suppressants IMHO.

I’m also considering whether getting tested for strep would be a good plan. Ironically, the first day, my thinking was wait because if it is the case, I’d want to ensure it’s not too soon for a rapid test to identify it. The second day? I was largely doing well enough throat-wise that I almost worried someone would just think I was crazy. Well, last night’s hot poker approach to waking up with a sore throat reminds me, I’m not exactly crazy. I suppose, it could also just be a sinus infection given how I’ve felt on that front.

In any case, I’m going with being sick still sucks. At least, I’ve actually gotten better at managing sore throats over the years.