Web Apps > Apps
I am anti 'apps' and pro web-apps. Why? Security of course - it's insane to give a program full control of your system and it's completely unnneccesary when a web-app can do 90% of what most people need.
Ah, but at the same time I HATE web-apps! I want to run the program on _my_ computer not something in the 'cloud'.
Okay. It depends on the type of app. If the owner of the data or service wants to keep it to themselves (a bank, a game-streaming service) _and_ I really want that thing (banking services, GPU power beyong my own hardware) then we're cool. Otherwise, I want to process and hold data on my own hardware. But banking apps need the extra security of having it's tendrils deep into my kernel....do they though? Just work with what the browser has...bitch.
Raspberry PI Based Assistant
I've been working on attempting to create an Alexa-like device mainly for voice activated control of music. Why did I do this? Well although I have been beaten-down by my family and we now have an Alexa, it bothers me that we do. As with all of these things over the years, I like to see if it's possible to create them using open-source tech and see if my family will adopt them over the costly (but working!) alternatives. Suffice to say, it's never happened, with the exception of the operating system of choice...mostly. Both my kids use linux, one because he understands and one because he has no choice :-) - if he wants Windows10 then he can buy it and install it. I want my kids to be computer-literate, so if they want something, it's either my way or learn!
Regardless, my pi-based device now responds to voice and will play any song from my music collection that is stored on my server. A few months ago, I attempted to parse the text (from speech) in order to determine the user's request and whilst this worked fairly well, it wasn't good enough. I need an LLM, so I opted to pay for OpenAI's API. I had it up and running very quickly and was and still am, amazed with the results! But I wanted it to be completely local...could it be possible? Well, it turns out that yes, it's perfectly possible! I have tried out a few methods of running a local LLM and have found that oobagooba's textgenerationwebui to be the best option. The great thing about it, is that they have implemented the OpenAI API, so it was mostly a drop-in replacement for the [paid for] OpenAI option. Of course, I cannot run the LLM on the PI itself (though Microsoft's recent LLM only uses 4GB) so I run on my NVidia GPU (1080, 8Gig vram). It's working well...and I'm temporarily happy/amused by it all.
Not much going on
So yeah, I might have to delete this site. Nobody looks at it, I never post anything and it's just a waste of time.
Three Paragraphs of Seemingly Nonsensical Words That Are Actually Very Meaningful"
Have you ever listened to a foreign language or a technical jargon and found it completely unintelligible? At first glance, the words may seem like a meaningless string of syllables and sounds. However, if you take the time to learn the context and the meaning behind these words, you'll find that they are rich in significance and purpose.
In the same way, some seemingly nonsensical words can hold a wealth of meaning and depth when examined in the right light. For instance, "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" may sound like a made-up term, but it embodies the idea of extraordinary wonder and excitement. Similarly, "jabberwocky" may seem like gibberish, but it represents the power of creativity and imagination.
The lesson to be learned here is that words are not always what they seem. Sometimes, the meaning behind them goes far beyond their surface level appearance. By exploring the nuances and complexities of language, we can gain a deeper understanding of the world around us and the people who inhabit it.
My Lad's webpage (from years ago!)
Several years when my lad was about 10 I tried to get him into programming. I guess many Dad's want their son's to follow in their footsteps. Maybe I did too, I'm not sure. I mean, I love programming as a career choice and it's a very rewarding job...or can be anyway. Maybe I just wanted him to do something other than watch videos and play Minecraft...though I played a lot with him to, so encouraged that! Anyway, I guess I thought that we would start with simple HTML, then javaScript and assuming he got the programming bug, we would move onto C# or Java or even C. This didn't happen but hr did manage to get some understanding of how HTML worked and made a few pages with links, images and stuff. I helped him with the first page and showed how links worked and apparently he went off and made a few pages.
Enjoy here
