Categories
GNU/Linux Hardware

Binary vs Text: What Makes a File Executable?

Not all files are created equal. At the most fundamental level, every file on your computer is just bytes – but what those bytes mean is what separates a program from a photo. Text Files vs Binary Files Text files like JSON, Python scripts, and HTML are human-readable. Every byte maps to a printable character. […]

Categories
AI

LM Studio vs Ollama: How They Load Models

Local AI tools like Ollama and LM studio both let you run large language models on your own hardware. However, they differ significantly in how they load models into memory, which directly affects RAM usage, performance, and how many models you can run at once. Understanding this difference is essential if you’re working with multiple […]

Categories
Agentic Coding AI

From Forms to Autonomous Agents: My Journey Building a Financial Prediction Platform with LLMs

When I started building a platform to track financial predictions, I thought I had a straightforward path ahead. What unfolded instead transformed my understanding of what’s possible when you move from simple AI assistance to fully autonomous systems. The Starting Point: Manual Everything The initial concept was humble: users log in, submit financial predictions through […]

Categories
Finance

The Cost of Withdrawing Cash in Rands from a Thailand ATM

Using a South African bank debit card – one can withdraw money from a Thailand ATM. This example using Thailand’s SCB bank. The amount requested was: 5000 Baht The access fee (for any amount) is: 250 Baht The quoted exchange rate includes a spread / markup of 5.50%. At the given rate of 1.8345 Baht […]

Categories
AI

The rise and fall of StackOverflow

The rise and fall of stackoverflow can be seen in the following charts. First the number of questions over time: Rising to a peak in early 2014 the trend has been downward and since the proliferation of LLMs in 2022 has seen a sharper drop. Here is the chart of anwers over time: Stackoverflow was […]