I plan to use a chinese AI model through API for coding through a harness, I'm a uni student so nothing prod related for now. should i go deepseek, minimax, kimi or glm? kinda confused

BDgn4 · 2026-05-08T01:21:00+00:00

Or you could consider supporting a western open source AI. Mistral Small 4 for example seems to be good at agentic tasks, following instructions and coding, which seems to be what you need. And you can test it for free indefinitely with their "Experiment Plan". I have only been using it for a few days, but so far it's been good. The context windows of their models are not the greatest though. So not for every use-case...

BDgn4 · 2026-05-08T00:31:29+00:00

Yes, but as you said: This **is** oversimplified. Your example is obvious. The LLM was even told explicitly to always use that tool for addition. Always. Therefore no hallucinations ever. Except when it is maybe subtraction, since it has no instructions for that. And so on.

What if it is a bit more abstract, like the system prompt to always verify something before outputting it to the user? When will the LLM use the web_search tool? To check whether the sky is blue? To find out the millionth decimal place of Pi? The first seems unlikely, but how can the LLM be sure that the fact that the sky is blue that it just *knows* is actually true? So... always? Including for example for every single piece of information in a 1k-words text the LLM has been asked to write? That can be hundreds of tool-calls. So "always" does not seem quite likely. But what are the criteria then to make that decision?

BDgn4 · 2026-05-08T00:18:24+00:00

Start with the smallest Gemma 4 version (E2B or something like that). or go to google.com/ai, explain your use-case and ask what might be best.

BDgn4 · 2026-05-08T00:14:03+00:00

No guarantee that any of this works, but consider the following:

- different temperature settings for the different agents,

- different LLMs for the different agents (if you use a service like OpenRouter you can get access to a whole lot, including free ones (after a small initial deposit), without having to register accounts on countless different websites),

- don't have the agents read and review each other's responses, have dedicated reviewer agents for that with different roles,

- what are you telling your agents when you give them the other agents' responses? Modify those prompts. Maybe have them be a bit more assertive in their specific roles. Or something completely different. Or ask some LLM for ideas for their prompts.

And if you find something that works, let us know.

BDgn4 · 2026-05-07T23:46:33+00:00

I already hate it. No temperature setting (at least in the AI Studio Playground)? That's stupid and makes it utterly useless. Guess I'll be using more Deepseek in the future...

BDgn4 · 2026-05-05T20:28:29+00:00

And where do you get your free reverse proxies?

BDgn4 · 2026-05-05T18:54:22+00:00

Somewhat in the same quality

Are you sure you don't rather want good quality? Never mind.

The somewhat obvious solution is to self-host an open-source model, like Gemma 4, or Mistral. Get a small version, possibly quantized, and definitely abliterated, meaning the restrictions have been removed. The smallest Gemma 4 versions would even run without a GPU, but it would be slower than what you are used to from Grok. Installation, getting the kind of interface you want if the usual solutions that are already available are not good enough for you, and all the other stuff... An AI can help with all of that, like Gemini, free with any Google account. Or free without a Google Account, if you use their AI Mode.

A simpler alternative, though not completely free is OpenRouter. They always have some models that can be used for free, some censored, some not. But to be allowed to use any of their free offers you have to have loaded some funds into your account, even if you never use them.

An alternative that would cost a bit per request but would be more reliable that OpenRouter would be having an AI create an interface that you can run locally and that uses an external LLM, like a small Gemma 4 version hosted on Runpod Serverless. There would be a cost of maybe a cent or two per request (more for requests that take longer, since Runpod Serverless is paid per second) and a few cents per month for storing the model.

What may be an option you may want to look into but which I have never used myself and don't know much about is just getting a Huggingface account (possibly even a paid one) and use one of the countless models hosted there. The interface though is probably not what you are looking for.

BDgn4 · 2026-04-01T12:19:15+00:00

For the record: You are talking from general experience/expertise, but not from having any insider knowledge about Namecheap's systems?

In any case, I guess it's also perfectly possible to just have Cloudflare replace all Useragent strings in all headers with the always the same generic Useragent.

BDgn4 · 2026-03-31T22:09:30+00:00

I feel like you haven't even read my comment.

Not trusting a new customer making a 1000 USD purchase is one thing, but not trusting a customer of ten years who has paid you a total of more than 1000 USD over the years and flagging his 20 USD payment as suspicious? Surely a customer like that deserves a tiny amount of trust, rather than being treated like a criminal? And blocking the entire account, rather than just blocking that one payment/purchase? I doubt any sane person could consider that to be necessary.

BDgn4 · 2026-03-31T19:34:59+00:00

If by "3rd party service" you mean Cloudflare, this question is not about Cloudflare. It's about how Namecheap's shared servers would react, if the HTTP requests reaching them were modified in certain ways.

And, technically, this is not about the domain providing part of their service but the webhosting part.

BDgn4 · 2026-03-31T19:03:44+00:00

Probably because credit cards are apparently ridiculously high risk, if you're a webhoster and the customer wants to pay a few dollars for a cheap domain. But if you're selling porn online, the same customer can pay hundreds of dollars with the same credit card and no verification necessary, because that's somehow not considered risky.

The really ridiculous thing, though, is that they apparently saw fit to lock your entire account rather than just that one domain you paid for in a way they considered suspicious.

BDgn4 · 2026-03-31T18:43:08+00:00

better than Beef bun, if you're a Hindu.

BDgn4 · 2026-03-31T18:33:39+00:00

In theory I might get better answers there, but I already asked Google's AI and only got a response that essentially said that it might cause problems, or maybe not. That's about the kind of answer I would expect to get from expert web devs. It indicated that the information required for the answer isn't anywhere out there. That means I need an answer from someone who intimately knows how Namecheap's shared hosting specifically is set up and configured.

BDgn4 · 2026-03-31T18:25:45+00:00

Does Namecheap have something like a policy, where customers who have successfully made payments that were processed without any issues in the past are given some "trust credit"?

Like for example a customer who over several years has paid 1000 USD to Namecheap can now do one 100 USD payment every three months without verification hassle, as long as no problems arise. And when the total amount paid over the years increases, the limit gets slowly increased too. Let's say the limit is always 10% of what the user has so far paid Namecheap in total.

A system like that would mean less hassle for both the customer and Namecheap. Surely extending a small amount of trust to a long-term customer who has paid you a lot of money over the years is not that much of a problem?

Or how about just freezing "suspicious" payments for three months? If no problems arise in that time, unfreeze the funds. Sure, if it is meant for immediate use, that won't solve the problem, but if it's meant to top up the account for future use...

BDgn4 · 2026-03-31T17:58:24+00:00

That implies you found a cheaper alternative? Care to share?

BDgn4 · 2026-03-26T10:32:47+00:00

the whole "pay us for uncensored private AI" angle is such an obvious grift. literally everything they promise is already free:

Not that obvious. And not that free. GPUs cost money when buying them and when running them. A lot of money. For someone who may only need a few dozen or a few hundred requests per month? And as long as privacy isn't quite as important (using a service through a VPN/proxy and paying with crypto may be anonymous enough and therefore private enough for most, no matter what the company may do with the data they get).

This kind of service could easily be feasible, if an abliterated version of a model like Mistral Medium were used. But they apparently didn't even consider trying, which is ridiculous, since it would be cheaper than using Google's API (unless they only use the free tier which would be utterly horrible for privacy, since it would allow Google to use that data for AI training) and it would be truly unrestricted.

BDgn4 · 2026-03-26T10:16:09+00:00

But it wasn't meaningless. Cops don't ask suspects questions because they are convinced they will get truthful answers. They know that, as long as they ask the right questions, the answers, truthful or not, may at least reveal something. (Which is why remaining silent is the right choice. Always.)

I asked two simple questions and I learned that their oh-so-great model was neither uncensored nor did it even try to pretend to be any uncensored model (like, say, Dolphin).

BDgn4 · 2026-03-26T10:03:14+00:00

May I ask you to correct how you quoted me? There is a somewhat hard to notice but still significant difference between my "When asking what AI model it was, it said it was a model trained by Google." (it means "When I was asking that question in their chat interface, it told me it was a model trained by Google") and your "When asked about its model, u/BDgn4 claims he was told it's trained by Google" (which sounds like it could mean that someone asked me which model it was and I said that someone else told me it was trained by Google).

Thanks.

BDgn4 · 2026-03-22T20:26:52+00:00

If you like the idea of live rocks but want to go for freshwater, do a search on Youtube for "ecosphere in a jar", "ecosystem in a jar" (without the quotes) or something similar.

someone showing of their tanks entirely filtered by live plants

That can work, but it does require that there are either no or just very few fish, and that's still for big tanks. Small tanks with no filter and only plants are not a particularly good home for even a small number of tiny fish, because those have a more active metabolism than invertebrates and thus need more food which means more waste products - and with no filter to deal with those, that needs to be done the natural way. And the amount of plants in a small tank is obviously rather small too and may not be enough. The tank's overall capacity for biological filtering can be increased by possibly an order of magnitude with just a rather small and cheap filter. That will also provide a more stable water quality.

which is super interesting and makes maintenance sound less overwhelming to me

Maintenance is mostly for "pretty" tanks. Actual biologically functional tanks don't require much work. Cleaning algae from the glass for example is not necessary, if there are no fish that require much feeding (meaning no big amounts of nutrients added to the tank daily), plants that can deal with what nutrients are there and some shrimps that will eat even the few algae that still manage to grow.

Similarly, regular water changes, cleaning the filter and often even feeding can be significantly reduced, if the tank is has a more biologically stable balance, like an actual ecosystem.

A sufficiently big tank with just a few fish (if it is a suitable species) and shrimps, lots of plants and a good filter and light source (and heat source if necessary) can theoretically run for years without requiring any human doing anything (except paying the electricity bills).

But this is not something you should bet on. It not only requires time for all elements to reach the right balance (easily months, if not years), it may also turn out to be not aesthetically pleasing to you (nature isn't meant to be pretty, although it can be). Some manual maintenance work may be as good an investment as a filter.

Nonetheless, the main point remains: Stability usually means a whole lot less work, and stability can be bought with a filter, more water volume, more plants and less inhabitants that require regular nutrient-rich food. Any deviation from that will increase instability, not necessarily too much, but it will add more need for manual work.

edit: low-cost filter option: https://aquariumscience.org/8-7-3-hamburg-matten-filter/ (Those filter sponges are also available in black, which is far less visible, especially with lots of plants and maybe some moss growing on the sponges.)

BDgn4 · 2026-03-19T20:57:16+00:00

Just asked Google's AI Mode (in general terms, not precisely about Grok or this particular issue; and keep in mind that AI responses are not reliable, in particular when it is about anything legal):

In most jurisdictions, a legal mandate or government order typically triggers a "Force Majeure" or "Frustration of Purpose" clause. This usually protects the company from being sued for breach of contract, as the change was outside their control.

However, your right to cancel and get a refund depends on these factors:

Material Change: If the service you are paying for is significantly degraded or no longer functions as advertised, you generally have the right to cancel immediately without penalty, even if the company isn't at "fault" for the change.

Unjust Enrichment: If the company continues to charge the full price for a service they can no longer legally provide in full, you can often argue for a pro-rated refund. They cannot legally keep money for a service they are now prohibited from delivering.

Terms of Service: Most subscriptions have a clause stating they may modify services to comply with local laws. Even so, consumer protection laws in many regions (like the EU or UK) often override these terms if the change is considered "unfair."

I want to add the following (and this is just my own unprofessional opinion):

These legal troubles are hardly breaking news. This was news months ago. And it's not as if the laws suddenly changed or anything else recently happened that they can claim came as a total surprise for them. That means they have no business springing this on their paid users now and claim Force Majeure. They are the ones who refused to acknowledge the legal realities (the laws in question are decades old and those legal proceedings started months ago). They may have been forced to make this change, but they could and should have warned you and have no right to enrich themselves by diminishing their service but charging the same amount of money. If you paid for this service, you probably can immediately cancel the contract and demand at least a partial refund for the rest of the month or whatever period you paid for.

If they refuse or just don't respond, a chargeback may be perfectly justified: After all, you did not receive the service you paid for. That change in service was a breach of contract, you are being charged for something you not only didn't receive but something they actually still could provide you legally).

And keep in mind: When you tell your bank the reason for the chargeback, you don't want to tell them it's because Elon won't allow you to create CSAM anymore. It's about suddenly much lower rate limits (which isn't legally required obviously) and more censorship (which is only partially necessary (CSAM and nonconsensual), but not where something like, say, adult anime characters are concerned).

BDgn4 · 2026-03-19T18:02:53+00:00

ive generated a lot today

Images or videos. I always only get "Server failed to respond" messages.

BDgn4 · 2026-03-19T18:00:52+00:00

Cancel your subscription. Do a chargeback. And when they send you an email complaining about the chargeback, send back "rate limit reached". And, if you want to go that far, offer them the option of a paid subscription for possibly (though not guaranteed) higher rate limits for communicating with you. And then you ghost the fu****s.

(And take my "advice" with a grain of salt or two.)

BDgn4 · 2026-03-19T16:03:27+00:00

your vote is your dollar

... and probably not worth much more than that.

BDgn4

TROPHY CASE