Topic
Hardware
32 posts on hardware — guides and lab notes from real runs on hardware we own. New posts land here automatically. Start anywhere, or grab the copy-paste prompts that ship with them.
- 6 min read
Your AI, Your Rules: Engineering Agents for Digital Freedom
Recent events highlight the growing need for user control and autonomy in the digital world. Discover how engineering AI agents on your own hardware empowers true digital freedom, safeguarding your data and decisions against centralized forces.
- 8 min read
GGUF Quantization Explained: Q4 vs Q5 vs Q8 (2026)
Downloading a GGUF and unsure which quant? Q4_K_M, Q5_K_M, and Q8 trade quality for VRAM — and a smaller quant can beat a bigger one that spills to CPU. The full ladder, explained. (2026)
- 5 min read
GPU Prices Up 48% in Two Months. I Run LLMs in My Garage.
Blackwell rental hit $4.08/hr. CoreWeave raised prices 20%. Anthropic restricted their newest model to 40 orgs. Meanwhile, consumer GPUs are sitting idle.
- 7 min read
llama.cpp --n-gpu-layers: -1, 0, Partial
Set --n-gpu-layers in llama.cpp with clear -1, 0, and partial offload rules, VRAM headroom checks, examples, and CPU fallback fixes.
- 6 min read
Raspberry Pi 5 Offline Voice Assistant: Sub-2s, No Cloud (2026)
Want a private voice assistant with zero cloud and no subscription? A Raspberry Pi 5 runs it offline at sub-2s latency. We tested 6 local models on real hardware — here's the winner. (2026)
- 7 min read
Local LLM on Consumer GPUs: 50 req/s, $0/Call [Benchmarks 2026]
Cloud LLM bills hit $2K/month fast. An RTX 5070 Ti serves Llama 3.1 at 50 req/s for $0 per call — we benchmarked 4 consumer GPUs and built the exact production setup.
- 7 min read
OpenClaw vs Custom AI Agents: 3x Faster to Ship, 2x the Cost — Real Numbers Inside
We ran the same AI agent on OpenClaw and a custom build for 90 days. Shipping was faster — but the monthly bill, vendor lock-in, and control gaps tell a different story. Full breakdown with actual costs.
- 8 min read
How I Let an AI Agent Run 100 ML Experiments Overnight on a $500 GPU
I let an autonomous agent run 100 ML experiments while I slept. 7 succeeded. Net result: 25% model improvement. Here's the setup.
The AI agent build notes
Real costs, real tools, no fluff. M-F when I ship, publish, or learn something worth sending.