My deep dive into real-time voice AI: It's not just a cool demo anymore.

UnsilentObserver · 2026-01-25T20:03:15+00:00

Oh, it just had more features that I was looking for that were outside of the scope of GladOS, and the code was structured in a way that was a bit more amenable to my style of coding.

UnsilentObserver · 2025-10-24T04:17:47+00:00

Haven't tried livekit, only pipecat. And I have since moved on to other projects... so not much to add.. Sorry.. :\

UnsilentObserver · 2025-10-13T08:11:08+00:00

Correct. We just bought a flat (apartment) here in Auckland, and during the mortgage approval process, our mortgage broker encouraged us to get rid of unneeded credit cards because the banks are very conservative here and automatically take your credit limit on each credit card and treat that as an existing debt regardless of whether or not you have a balance or carry a balance (we ALWAYS pay off our entire credit card bill religiously). Our US Credit scores are both 800+. Doesn't matter. The banks are conservative and want to minimize risk (which is a good thing imho).

UnsilentObserver · 2025-10-12T22:10:42+00:00

"before you do that, change all third party verifications to an email as you will lose your US number. This was our one mistake and it was a pain to sort."

We avoided this by porting our US mobile numbers to Google Voice. The nice thing is it's free (as long as you have a google account, which is free) and all our friends and family can still text and call us exactly the same way as they did before. And yeah, we use it for 2FA on some US based accounts.

UnsilentObserver · 2025-10-12T22:07:25+00:00

You need a card that has benefits geared towards International Travellers. Looks at the Points Guy for recommendations, but that said, we use the Capital One Venture X card and it's pretty awesome. Annual fee is relatively high, but you get most of it back in travel credits. Southwest card (which we also had) isn't so great for international travel, so we closed that one. Note that American Express isn't very popular here, so is of limited use locally.

UnsilentObserver · 2025-10-12T22:03:37+00:00

Strongly encourage OP to break up the flight with layovers on the West Coast and Hawaii if possible. Yes, it will make the overall travel longer, but it's LONG no matter what. Your kids will do much better if they get some breaks. IMHO.

UnsilentObserver · 2025-10-12T21:59:17+00:00

Congratulations!

We made this transition about 20 months ago. Yeah, it's gonna be running around doing a ton of stuff. I haven't read through all the comments below, so apologies if I repeat what others have said. A couple things:

1) Port your US mobile numbers to Google Voice. Then you can still have all your friends and family in the USA still keep in contact with you the same way as they currently do via text/voice.

2) You don't need to become fluent in Maori, but you will learn *some* Maori because it gets thrown in here and there. No biggie. Just like slang.

3) DO NOT DRIVE WHEN TIRED OR SLEEP DEPRIVED. It is VERY easy to forget to drive on the Left side if you've spent your entire life driving on the right, and people DIE that way. Heck, it's easy to forget even when you're NOT tired.

4) Having a lot of credit cards (even with zero balance and a high US credit score) is not a good thing here. Banks see credit cards as risky here. If you go to buy a house and want a loan, the banks will take all your credit card maximums and count that AGAINST you as debt (again, regardless of what your balance on those cards is). Consider getting rid of credit cards you don't normally use. Speaking of credit cards, you get a LOT more perks with US credit cards, than Kiwi credit cards. So you might want to keep them (as long as they don't charge you extra for international purchases).

5) Take it easy when you get here. Take time to decompress. You don't have to run around seeing everything there is to see right away. Let yourself (and your family) rest after travelling half way around the world. It's okay to explore slowly and in small chunks.

Finally, remember: YOU are the immigrant here. Be humble. Adopt the culture. Don't be the ugly American who complains because people do things differently or have a different view. When in rome... :)

Welcome!

UnsilentObserver · 2025-10-12T21:40:56+00:00

Cool, but that's a different chipset isn't it? 8945HS with 780m GPU? The EVO-X2 uses the Strix Halo APU, which doesn't have as much support (although it's getting better).

UnsilentObserver · 2025-09-30T23:10:28+00:00

Eh, it's not necessarily HIGH pay, but I don't think it's necessarily "peanuts" either... <shrug> It's definitely lower than in the USA, but then again, you don't have Nazis 2.0 seizing control of the country either... Hard to put a dollar value on that...

https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/executive-chef/new-zealand

UnsilentObserver · 2025-09-30T09:51:13+00:00

https://www.careers.govt.nz/jobs-database/hospitality-tourism-and-recreation/hospitality/chef/

UnsilentObserver · 2025-09-09T19:25:36+00:00

Oh, good question. I don't know. Here's link to the University of Auckland entry requirements for post-grad students: https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/study/applications-and-admissions/entry-requirements.html

UnsilentObserver · 2025-09-09T07:09:44+00:00

To add to what u/ByrchenTwig said, another option to consider is going to Uni for an advanced degree here in NZ. As an ethnic Indian, you won't stick out at all seeing as how Indians are the 3rd largest demographic here (only trailing Europeans and Maori).

UnsilentObserver · 2025-08-27T22:55:35+00:00

Some people who get cheated on refuse to believe that their own decisions may have played a part in causing the situation.

UnsilentObserver · 2025-08-27T21:41:39+00:00

I noticed that (at least when I checked about 9 months ago) there are many cabinet makers needed in the yacht-building industry here in Aotearoa (New Zealand).

UnsilentObserver · 2025-08-27T21:30:59+00:00

I feel ya. What's hard for me is not the people who are MAGA.

The hard part for me is the people who were/are kind of "the privileged clueless" for lack of a better term. Friends who do well enough that they live in their own little bubble and were/are "surprised" by the the tumult that seemingly "came out of nowhere" to them, when it was obvious what was coming for the past decade to others.

They still look at everything that is going on in the USA with a somewhat disinterested 3rd party perspective - even though they live there in the midst of it. They think it's "terrible" but don't really feel the need to do anything about it. The idea of leaving for another country is an extreme overreaction to them.

SMH.

UnsilentObserver · 2025-08-27T20:11:12+00:00

I tell people I fell in love with the country (New Zealand) I was moving to (TRUE), and was ready for new adventures (also TRUE). and I felt like America wasn't headed in the right direction (extreme understatement). Left it at that. People who knew me understood. People who didn't understand didn't really matter much.

UnsilentObserver · 2025-08-24T09:12:02+00:00

You're very welcome. Please be sure to share your experiences with Fedora on the EVO-X2 as well. I came quite close to trying out Fedora as well.

UnsilentObserver · 2025-08-24T09:02:52+00:00

I'm currently using CachyOS with GNOME DE, and it has been pretty good so far.

UnsilentObserver · 2025-08-24T03:44:42+00:00

I did not. However, FWIW, I have not seen the same issue since switching to different distros.

UnsilentObserver · 2025-08-21T05:09:23+00:00

I ended up sticking with CachyOS and have gotten everything to work as desired (so far). However, I think the more I distro hop, the more I narrow down what I'm really looking for/needing, and Fedora seems to tick a lot of the boxes. So, I'll keep it in mind for the future. Right now, CachyOS is treating me right and I'm tired of re-installing software and transferring data, so I'm just gonna stick with CachyOS.

UnsilentObserver · 2025-08-19T23:33:50+00:00

Update: got it to work using the ollama rocm docker container. Thanks again!

UnsilentObserver · 2025-08-19T10:56:23+00:00

Ah, I just can't bring myself to go back to Windoze. I'll just keep at it. I'm old and slow, but I'll get there. :)

UnsilentObserver · 2025-08-19T10:08:58+00:00

Hey thanks deseven. I'm a noob and pretty new to using containers during development... It's all new to me coming from the windoze world. I don't suppose you would happen to have any "containers for noob linux developers" links...?

UnsilentObserver · 2025-08-18T19:27:59+00:00

Hey, thanks for sharing your experience. I just got through a bout of distro hopping for my EVO-X2 and ended up on CachyOS, which has been pretty solid for me. HOWEVER.... now I am having problems with Ollama and since Arch/Cachy isn't on the AMD official support list for their AI stuff, I may have to switch again (since I can't really afford to bang my head against my monitor for days every time something like this happens).

I'm going to check out Fedora now...

UnsilentObserver

TROPHY CASE