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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • This was a real bummer for anyone interested in running local LLMs. Memory bandwidth is the limiting factor for performance in inference, and the Mac unified memory architecture is one of the relatively cheaper ways to get a lot of memory rather than buying a specialist AI GPU for $5-10k. I was planning to upgrade the memory a bit further than normal on my next MBP upgrade in order to experiment with AI, but now I’m questioning whether the pro chip will be fast enough to be useful.




  • I am conflicted on this one. On one hand, yeah they’re just a platform, and realistically these kids would just go to another messaging service instead, but it also feels like they’re asleep at the wheel when it comes to investigating user reports of abuse.

    It’s sort of an all social media thing, because I’ve reported posts selling drugs on FB marketplace too and they ignored them after review.

    They quote one of the families in the article reporting a drug dealers account and Snapchat taking no action for months. I’d be willing to bet moderation is an afterthought and likely understaffed for the sheer volume of content on the app.





  • Makes sense. I think you’d be fine with pretty much any modern(post DDR4) motherboard/CPU combo these days. I feel Linux hardware support is only really shakey if you’re using a SoC without upstream patches or if you’re using brand new hardware/laptops. With that being said if you’re running a lot of containers on one host have you looked into docker compose or kubernetes(k8s)? Maybe k8s is overkill for home use, but both offer support to restart containers if a health check fails. With k8s you also can spread out containers across multiple physical node, so you could just add a second RPI and “double” your resources.


  • For $350-500 you could easily get a used desktop and processor with 16-32 gb ddr4. But it sort of depends on your home lab goals and workloads. Do you need a lot of storage? Are you CPU bound or memory bound? Some people will suggest used Dell/HP servers, and they’ll look affordable, but keep in mind enterprise gear will eat power and is usually loud. Personally I’d go for a used AMD 5800 or 5900 processor and mobo, install your favorite Linux, and call it a day. AMD processors don’t have quick sync which makes them slightly worse for plex hosting but better for everything else.








  • I think the general consensus is Sorc is one of the weakest classes. For example, look at the unique items added in the latest patch - only the Sorc item has a downside to its unique aspect. The highest tier build I’ve seen for sorc right now I believe is blizzard and that requires the glacial offensive aspect(which is a random drop only vs codex aspect) to work, plus a few other utility aspects to keep your mana up. I had to grind a bit to get a random drop with the blizzard aspect though. Once I changed to that from lightning I had a lot less trouble, and can now solo ancestral dungeons at around my level 75 without getting wrecked. I think at level 100 and high tiers it gets harder because of squishiness since apparently a lot of elites will be able to one shot you without a barrier, but I’m not worried about that yet.


  • Teslas have some serious issues and shortcomings. And I say that as an owner. FSD is a mess and I don’t trust it. The model 3 has some very opinionated design choices. I don’t like how it’s frameless. The interior is nowhere near as nice as cars in the same price range. There’s only 2 usb ports and you need to use one of them for dashcam storage. Maintenance is a pain in the ass to DIY. They remove key features over OTA updates(they took away radar sensors for parking in older model 3s).

    However, if you’re in the market for a used EV under 30k, you’ve only got basically 3 options: a rwd model 3, a leaf, or a bolt. The model 3 is the only one of those that has fast charging and can be taken on any sort of longer road trip. And they’re cheap to charge at home. And even if you’re shopping new, I’m fairly sure the base model 3 is the cheapest EV on the market if you qualify for the full tax credit.


  • Ah, ok, good point. In my install, I did not opt to have them wire and install electric auxiliary heating strips for my unit, and the boiler & aqua coil is I believe being controlled by a control system that makes the unit think the boiler is a heating strip. 17 F is about the coldest it got in my climate last winter, so I guess that’s a good starting point.
    So it seems my Heat pump alone would run at 4.2 kW for 31,800 Btu. at 17F. My blended electric rate is about $.12/kwH, so about $.5/hr to run.

    For my house, I believe the load calculation would be that I need about 48,000 Btu to effectively heat. Our boiler runs at 0.75 gal/hr max, and heating oil was $4.69/gallon last winter, so the boiler would still need to run at ~20-25% of capacity(assuming it’s a linear curve) at 17F to reach that btu number based on 138,500btu/gal x 0.75gal/hr x 0.8(not so sure on efficiency) x 20% capacity = 16,620 btu, which I believe at 0.75gal/hr x 0.2 = 0.15gal/hr would be ~$0.72/hr. So that would give me a total cost of ~$1.2/hr for 48,420 btu.

    Without a heat pump, I guess I would solely be burning oil, so that would need to be about 57-60% load, so 138,500btu/gal x 0.75gal/hr x 0.8 x .6=49,860btu, which I believe at 0.75gal/hr x 0.6 = 0.45gal/hr would be ~$2.1/hr.

    It seems like based on my electric rates and the values from that heat pump, it should offset roughly half of my heating oil usage at the 4.2 kW electric consumption assuming the boiler has some sort of ability to modulate oil in take.



  • So, good question, the previous owner did install a vapor barrier covering the basement and crawlspace, so there is some other mitigation in place. The current unit came with the house - HOMELABS HME020031. It keeps humidity down fine, but the pump is broken, so I’d like to replace it with something that should last for a while and hopefully run a little lighter on electric cost.
    It seems it has a rating of 1.9L/kwh, whereas the aprilaire is 2.3L/kwH, so I suppose about ~20% more efficient. My other thought was they seem to have a better warranty so if something fails then I don’t need to replace the whole unit.