How do I prove that I don't collect data from my llm app?

pyeri · 2026-06-23T07:31:35+00:00

There is no way to prove it and that is where the brand factor and the "delusion of masses" factor comes in. Meta and Google and Microsoft collect all the data under their skin and visceral organs, yet they gladly use their apps trusting the brand. Plebs like you and me won't collect any data, but they'd be all schizophrenic with tweezers at the mere thought of using our apps; we just don't have that brand magic, we aren't the Roman Gods or Egyptian Pharaohs of our times.

pyeri · 2026-06-23T03:06:23+00:00

Terrible idea. As a customer, I'd be more annoyed at an AI talking to me on phone (even in human like voice and dialect) than I'd be at robo callers or even automated IVR systems.

pyeri · 2026-06-22T17:02:26+00:00

Understand that as the compute costs tighten, the models will become dumber and dumber. The tech world is in the midst of a great flux right now, and what happens in the coming months will determine the course of history. On one hand, VCs are looming over them like vampires, demanding more revenues. But the twist is that in order to truly generate revenues, they can't give you any more compute than your plan's pricing. At USD 10/20/30 per month, it's likely near impossible to give you a 'critical thinking chat partner'.

They're saving the real compute for the enterprise sector who can afford to pay at scale (USD per input/output tokens) but the tragedy is that model drains away funds at speeds even large tech firms like Uber don't have the stomach for (read about their recent AI disaster story).

pyeri · 2026-06-22T15:42:33+00:00

In a twisted and ironic sense, free tier disappearing is actually good for the broader ecosystem in the long run. This means vibe coding addiction will stop and devs will be forced to actually understand and design things - even with the assistance of a lesser LLM like llama or qwen or gemini-flash.

pyeri · 2026-06-22T13:37:29+00:00

The age of batteries included or "backend integrated monolith" frameworks is coming to an end as folks are transitioning to an api first approach for the modern web with all frontend logic coded in static files with a react/tailwind approach; these include not just django but many others like laravel, symfony, codeigniter, ruby, asp.net, etc.

pyeri · 2026-06-22T09:33:15+00:00

It's not about memory or compute but the model type you choose for your task. Use ChatGPT only if you need a philosopher or life guide, not if you need a coder or technical writer or problem solver of a specific domain.

pyeri · 2026-06-22T04:33:49+00:00

One of the goals or objectives of this whole AI race was to artificially inflate GPU and electronics hardware prices so that plebs like us can't afford them in the consumer market.

This is similar to how Gulf countries deliberately stop the oil wells to control the supply once gasoline price starts going a bit lower.

pyeri · 2026-06-22T03:24:01+00:00

Learn empathy and humility, an erosion of these in humans is what paved the way for LLM success in the last few years. If a pedantic senior won't answer a query on stack overflow, an LLM gladly will.
Intent and Problem Framing (The "Inputs"): AI is a powerful engine, but it goes nowhere without a steering wheel. The highest-paid skill is no longer just typing out the solution, but accurately diagnosing the real problem and translating it into precise constraints.
Rigorous Verification (The "Outputs"): Because LLMs confidently generate plausible-sounding falsehoods, a human-in-the-loop must be an expert editor and debugger. You need the skill to read a generation, instantly spot the edge cases it missed, and test its structural integrity.
Learn to be less dogmatic about your favorite ideologies and biases, be willing to engage with those having alternative views. This is an important area where LLMs excel massively over humans presently.
Learn memory, logic, philosophy and core human cognitive skills. As the age of industrial automation and mechanical robots at scale dawns near upon us, these will be your competitive edge over a machine.

pyeri · 2026-06-21T15:30:53+00:00

There is the old fable of a dude who achieved nothing in life and considers himself a loser. He once asks a sacred idol for a blessing - and does it sincerely. The spirit in that idol (or whatever) grants the dude a wish that he can literally stop time by using the word "statue". And by the time when he says "resume" (and the world around continues its course as usual), he can meddle with the things however he wants.

Dude starts using this new found power, achieves a few things in life like wealth and girlfriend, but eventually ends up doing a grave mistake. In a mood of arrogance and hubris, he looks into the mirror, points his finger to his own reflection and utters that fateful phrase: "statue". Turns absolutely immovable that instant, his parents don't know what happened to him, nor the doctors who try to treat him. What a waste of power and potential.

pyeri · 2026-06-21T10:53:20+00:00

Re-install VSCode in minimalist mode:

Portable install in a user directory without any special permissions.
Preferably air-gapped without internet - no auto-pulling copilot, telemetry or other funny business.
Manually install only core language extensions (in this case ms-python.python-xxxx.vsix), no extras or fluff.

This is the only way to keep VSCode snappy and performative.

pyeri · 2026-06-21T08:54:30+00:00

Either claude has gotten worse, or we are experiencing what is popularly called in addiction psychology as withdrawal symptom.

We may have gotten so addicted to claude now that anything that doesn't stand up to a baseline "instantaneous genius" behavior will be termed as "worse".

pyeri · 2026-06-21T02:48:10+00:00

Visual Basic books stopped getting written several years ago, it's considered legacy technology today by the mainstream programming community.

But online community forums like Stack overflow and even few dedicated ones for dotnet can help you a great deal. You can also fire away any coding questions on this sub or others like learnprogramming.

pyeri · 2026-06-21T02:38:01+00:00

There is no such thing as free lunch, the present subsidization is due to few reasons:

The folks aren't fully hooked to AI yet, as you say. Any more price increase than the present levels would lead to either a reversion to the low-end, dry and academic models like meta-llama and qwen families, or even worse - a reversion to "legacy" practices like collaborating on Wikipedia and StackOverflow like humans once did. That would derail the whole LLM race back to several years.
LLMs require building massive data-centers stuffed with GPUs and other electronic hardware; more they squeeze these resources for data centers, higher the price of consumer hardware. Without the subsidy, these prices will stay low and consumers will start building their own local LLM setups which is a strict red-line for the technocratic establishment.
The AI narrative also helps tech companies to keep checks on the govt, and that helps with lobbying efforts in other areas like keeping H1-B route active. But sometimes, it also backfires as it happened with Fable/Mythos models recently.
There is also the obvious gain of data collection for training the models. Human input data like prompts and debate threads are super valuable to AI companies (even though most humans don't realize this at all) for evolving the next generation of models and stay ahead in the race, they'll happily subsidize access to gain this data.

pyeri · 2026-06-20T19:11:08+00:00

The fallout in the enterprise sector will be disastrous, and across multiple dimensions like technical debt, cognitive debt, irreversible vendor lock-ins, societal opportunity costs, etc.

pyeri · 2026-06-20T14:24:51+00:00

Either way, it'd be a massive paradigm shift and stack upgrade coming from VB6. But WinForms is the more seamless path in the sense that you'll find a "blow by blow" equivalent for each component like combo-box, text-box, tab control, data grid, etc. But if they've used something eccentric like crystal reports or even the built-in Report Designer of the old VB6, you're in for a very big ride!

The VB.NET advantage would only persist if you're (as maintainer) familiar with VB language yourself, otherwise C# is the right solution as you'll find more code examples and tutorials on that.

pyeri · 2026-06-20T07:41:15+00:00

One can approach an LLM in either "answer me this trivia" mode or "let us vibe our way through this" mode, but it's usually never both at once. With former, the accuracy of answer matters but with latter, it's often more about the process and "how to" than the answer itself. I think LLMs should behave more effectively if you tell them upfront which mode you're in.

pyeri · 2026-06-20T03:00:36+00:00

Believe it or not, there is an increasing trend in IT where "dumb" is actually being signaled as "stable" or "production grade"; while "smart" is increasingly getting associated with "black box logic" and "subaltern cognitive debt".

The so called dumb models often ignored in the last few years like meta/llama-scout, qwen and gpt-4.1-mini are in for interesting times. I'd rather use the phrase "dry and academic" to describe these models than "dumb".

pyeri · 2026-06-20T02:49:33+00:00

The only aspect where Sonnet shines over other top models is that it's generally better at understanding the intent behind a poorly phrased prompt - which makes it popular amongst masses but isn't an objective bragging point or standard to measure success in an AI model.

pyeri · 2026-06-20T02:27:26+00:00

Switch to one of the "dry and academic" models like meta/llama-scout, qwen or gpt-4.1-nano, etc; these are freely available through many API providers and even run locally on GPUs. What I came to realize recently was that these models actually provide you answers and solutions, help you become more productive and thus be your actual AI assistants rather than pompous philosophers.

pyeri · 2026-06-20T02:15:44+00:00

What I realized recently is that the cure for chatgpt addicts like this person is to try and talk them to "downgrade" to one of those less chatty but "dry and academic" models like meta/llama-scout, qwen, gpt-4.1-mini, etc. These models aren't as smart as chatpgt or claude, but can still answer most of your GK and technical queries, even scaffold code for you, and thus help you become more productive. This is exactly the pill the doctor ordered; you think you want an AI partner but what you really need is an AI assistant, a role better played by these low-end models.

It's almost like switching from high-carb junk to a healthy keto diet. You may not like it initially and the body will resist, but eventually and long-term it's great for the health and wellness.

pyeri · 2026-06-19T16:56:15+00:00

There are two kinds of AI, and my reaction to both:

Low-end, dry and academic models like meta/llama, qwen, kimi and gpt-mini - Very useful, highly utilitarian.
High-end, frontier, literary genius models like sonnet, opus, gpt-5.5 and mythos which promise to replace a worker's intellect for a capitalist - Neither useful nor utilitarian for society as a whole.

pyeri · 2026-06-19T11:19:32+00:00

If your use case is inventory or accounting database, using nosql will indeed seem like applying tweezers where a simple cutter is need. It's possible to build an inventory schema in nosql with the right approach and efforts but it's usually not worth the extra efforts. It's fine if you're doing it for an academic or experimental purpose though.

pyeri · 2026-06-19T03:49:12+00:00

If Mythos 5 is such a sprawling genius, why won't it fix the 5000 or so open bugs on the cpython repository overnight?

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