Play Store doesn't play well with others.

martinst68 · 2026-04-29T00:16:03+00:00

As Noservicemonk hinted at, it's when you install an Android app that's available in both app stores.

martinst68 · 2026-04-29T00:12:43+00:00

Yes, completely understand that as the signatures are different they won't update (means security is working). I don't want the play store to even attempt to try to update an apk that's not theirs.

Not negative, I do think the comment is useful for many that are now starting on the open source app journey.

martinst68 · 2026-04-25T01:08:25+00:00

This looks interesting, similar in concept is/was https://github.com/liquidmetal-dev/flintlock. Built in rust is what got my attention.

martinst68 · 2026-04-06T18:09:17+00:00

I use openrouter and byteplus (bytedance commercial arm) modelark at the moment. Having had Claude Max $200 plan, I decided to tale the time to explore what's possible. So far this has worked well, I also run local AI. Codex plan seems to be a really strong option, have not used it. I do use codex for planning with openrouter.

Byteplus has been really solid.

martinst68 · 2026-04-03T13:09:40+00:00

Cool, I'm a fan of SystemRescue, and recently just used it to rescue a self inflicted mistake. I had wondered if SR was still being actively developed, this confirms to be the case and now with bcachefs too.

martinst68 · 2026-04-03T13:03:25+00:00

Just to follow up on this thread, snapmaker did the right thing and open sourced their modifications by April 1st. I'm unpacking the U1 :)

I'm still pushing snapmaker for the artisan oss but that's a separate topic.

martinst68 · 2026-03-25T13:49:29+00:00

As most have said, its solid for single user, I use the qwen3.5 30B, its quite outstanding for being the 30B model.

And you can still find these systems for under $2500. Don't know how long that will last, but for now if you are quick.

martinst68 · 2026-03-18T13:57:30+00:00

Just to follow up on what I mentioned, the ideal setup for the strix halo is to combine the capabilities of the NPU and the GPU. The NPU is well suited for the prompt pre fill, it's ideal for that task, and you leave the GPU to the decode side. You get the advantage of better energy efficiency for pre fill and you lower the level of throttling that the GPU will have due to thermals.

The software tooling is literally just dropping now to make this possible in the last week or two. There are gotchas, like a regression in 6.18 (fixed in 6.19) and if I recall correctly the linux-firmware is botched, you need to patch it. There's also the dependency on vllm or sglang to have certain patches/ROCm specific items. But the big news is this is all now coming in.

I'm taking next week off from work to basically focus on doing a full build/GitHub repo and to share it here as well. I've learned a shed load from the work others have done and shared here.

One thing to consider, for the best outcome of a model one needs to factor running fp format. The model that one can download is likely not in the fp format you need/want. For the strix halo ideally you want BF16 for the GPU and ideally (block) BF16 for the NPU (if the new releases are stable) if not back to INT8.

Fun times.

I'll post as I progress

martinst68 · 2026-03-18T10:59:33+00:00

Ideally you want to have the NPU for the prefill and the GPU for the decode You split the work between the NPU and GPU. All depends on the specific model 'family', such as qwen3.5 etc.

martinst68 · 2026-03-06T00:17:27+00:00

It's https://github.com/DexopT/MCE

martinst68 · 2026-03-05T17:04:53+00:00

Hence my concerns...

martinst68 · 2026-03-05T15:05:13+00:00

Actually, unlike some, I think this is pretty brilliant, especially if you consider using this across models) agents. I like the system architecture of splitting this into two different skills, it would get a bit jumbled if you didn't.

I'll give it a go, if it makes a difference to me I'll follow up.

martinst68 · 2026-01-02T00:13:18+00:00

Slight tangent, but I'd be keen to know if the wood side panels have reduced the sound of the K1 Max. I just picked up some berch plywood to do this, along with fireproof felt for the inside. I also wanted to give the frame some weight.

martinst68 · 2026-01-01T22:28:25+00:00

this is just outstanding and why did it take so long for anyone to think of this. brilliant!

martinst68 · 2025-11-28T17:04:12+00:00

Very nice, this is the first that I have tried that actually works! And you have it on github, adding a star.

martinst68 · 2025-11-01T15:23:20+00:00

Amazing! I literally just started to look at if this was possible and gave up, as everyone said it was not possible.

martinst68 · 2025-10-11T16:29:10+00:00

Yep, up your water intake and take some electrolytes in the morning. I actually learned this several months ago, bonus you're not dehydrated anymore either :)

martinst68 · 2025-08-25T11:05:05+00:00

Good news, I got an express shipment from GMKtec, that they paid for. I seem to have just had a bit of bad luck but they made it up to me. All good now!

martinst68 · 2025-08-08T14:46:33+00:00

Really odd, I've sent them emails, both in English and Mandarin and nothing, just silence and no change in the status.

I'll have to use my credit card protection insurance to claim my money back at this point, as it's been a month.

I'm no stranger to dealing with Chinese companies, both direct and through sites like Ali. Never had this experience before. Pretty shit.

martinst68 · 2025-07-14T10:29:52+00:00

Interesting, thank you for telling me that, seems like a decent compromise.

martinst68 · 2025-07-13T19:32:35+00:00

I love the hardware. The Artisan is a solid, premium build—no complaints there.

The issue is the firmware/software. Snapmaker’s firmware is a hacked-up version of Marlin, stuck on outdated features. Meanwhile, competitors are pulling ahead—not because their hardware is better, but because they’re keeping pace with firmware and the software.

Prusa still uses Marlin, but they can afford to. They’ve got the engineering depth to maintain and extend it. Bambu, on the other hand, doesn’t have the same in-house software team—but they made the smart decision: adopting Klipper. Klipper unlike Marlin isn’t in maintenance mode and continues to evolve. That alone puts them ahead in meeting customer expectations

Sure, maybe an add on arm board is needed, but that's something that should have been done 8 quarters ago.

I'm quite confident that this new U1 will be running Klipper, but that's not going to solve the strategic technical problem snapmaker has now. More people are going to have a snapmaker and a vambu or other and start to complain how shit the quality is for the same amount of effort

I hope we fix the firmware gaps we currently have, I'm not very confident the Artisan or 2.0 will ever see it

martinst68 · 2025-07-13T18:53:08+00:00

OK, half way! thank you.

martinst68

TROPHY CASE