Now
Building fast "toy" apps with Claude, OpenAI, and vLLM (2024-08-31)
I've been on a long exploration of building fast applications with minimal requirements of javascript. Some stuff that I've been creating includes:
- Visualizing embedding vectors with PNGs
- A transcription service that uses whisper on my GPU
- A Firefox extension to encrypt things on the web using gpg-agent as a native host extension
- Little tools like this QR code generator
- A website that reports package changes when upstream nixpkgs gets updated
- A front-end for vLLM that uses templates and allows backtracking on a conversation
Against Monocultural Techno-Authoritarianism (2024-07-21)
I'd like to prevent our societies from rushing towards Monocultural Techno-Authoritarianism. I feel like we're in danger of ending in a future in which:
- Governments ban cash, and through banks forbid any possibility of dissent, such as was the case of the Canadian Truck Drivers in February 2021 (where the government of a cashless society closed the accounts of citizens that disagreed with its measures).
- Bitcoin is co-opted by sheer capital expenditure in assets and miners, fork out of the 21M hard-limit on currency, and neutralize the last defense of free individuals to prevent debasement of their currency.
- Attention is our most limited resource, and we are letting the advertising industry to be used to manipulate our emotions to manufacture consent, win elections, and destroy our privacy.
So, I'm focusing on self-hostable software (including Bitcoin and the Lightning Network), and running alternative interfaces that don't track me.