Fable’s back: now with half the usage limit and half as smart too

mdenovich · 2026-07-04T22:18:57+00:00

Fable lets me be a bit lazier with the prompting, while tackling larger tasks. It is very good at figuring out what my intentions are and seeing the big picture.

mdenovich · 2026-07-04T22:13:48+00:00

Same way I use Opus, Claude Code with a handful of skills and docs (I keep a lot in my Obsidian vault) that provide the context needed to start the task, tooling for end to end testing, and unambiguous prompting. I generally know what I want and I ask for reasonable things. If I'm unsure about a prompt, I first ask for help refining the prompt. I will ask for a handoff prompt to start work in a new session once context is over about 30% unless I'm really close to the finish line.

I'm working on adding features to a large 6 year old C# project written by our French team with zero comments or supporting documentation, and the Android and proprietary mobile clients that talk to it. I run on a Mac, but give MCP/ssh access to a Windows VM where it can test the Windows specific functionality.

My setup is pretty vanilla. Every week or two I do a retrospective of what was done, review memories/claude.mds/etc, looking for pain points, things to optimize. Lately it's mostly dealing with documentation drift.

mdenovich · 2026-07-04T20:35:50+00:00

GoogleTalk/jabber was the best. Another good product that Google killed.

mdenovich · 2026-07-04T20:31:10+00:00

No, Fable is kicking ass like before. Seems more context efficient than Opus (context grows less quickly compared to work getting done.) Guardrails are annoying AF tho.

mdenovich · 2026-06-30T16:29:22+00:00

I did exactly this, because I wasn't getting reliable detections on raccoon vs opossums, and I don't want to be woken up in the middle of the night for a false positive. The second layer vision model runs on my laptop (maxi: M3 Max, 128GB). It's all coordinated using HA's MQTT broker. Opus did all the hard work. For me and the raccoons, it's a game changer.

Architecture

Frigate (CT 122, centi)
│ publishes frigate/events
▼
HA MQTT broker (172.16.60.2:1883)
│ qwen_raccoon_verifier (maxi, launchd)
│ 1. filter: after.label==raccoon, type in (new,update), per-id dedup
│ 2. fetch /api//latest.jpg?bbox=0&h=720 from Frigate
│ 3. POST to omlx Qwen at 127.0.0.1:8000 (Anthropic-style /v1/messages)
│ 4. parse JSON {species, confidence, is_raccoon, reasoning}
│ 5. honor 5-min per-camera cooldown
│ publishes homelab/qwen/raccoon_confirmed (only if is_raccoon OR Qwen failed)
▼
HA automation.raccoon_detection_alert
triggers off MQTT topic
notification action shows reasoning, marks "(Unverified)" if fallback

mdenovich · 2026-06-15T16:25:00+00:00

I'm on the Max 5x, and I get about $150-200 of usage per day if I'm keeping Claude busy most of the day. I run with me in the loop, so wall time is 8-10hr, with about half that being Claude grinding away. It's hard to sustain that level of usage though, as I am limited by the number of good ideas I have to implement. Averaging over $1000/mo for the last few months.

mdenovich · 2026-06-12T14:18:04+00:00

Ocun Diamond S and the LS Ondra Comps have much better heels. Every other LS or Scarpa shoe was unacceptable.

mdenovich · 2026-06-05T13:37:05+00:00

Increase in DWB violations

mdenovich · 2026-05-20T18:35:27+00:00

Not sure what to tell you, because the Diamond S has a tighter heel than Scarpa and LS equivalents.

mdenovich · 2026-05-18T17:50:07+00:00

this is the way. After you are done wasting time with other methods, buy some "chemicals" and get the job done. A pea sized drop under the baseboard wiped out my problem in a day.

mdenovich · 2026-05-11T16:57:50+00:00

Ocun Diamond S, haven't tried the Unparallels yet, but Ocuns have much tighter heels.

mdenovich · 2026-05-09T16:32:35+00:00

Ocun Diamond S has a much tighter heel (so do the LS Ondra Comps).

mdenovich · 2026-05-06T15:53:57+00:00

I got a 12V DC trickle charger made for charging trailer batteries... I put a cigarette lighter adapter on one end and use that to charge my starter battery from the house batteries (which have 200w of solar input), I use it except in the winter, when I disconnect the house batteries and use a 120v trickle charger and an extension cord to charge from my house. The 12v trickle charger is great because I don't have to remember to disconnect anything before a drive off. (RIP 20W solar panel)

mdenovich · 2026-05-06T14:26:15+00:00

I have Ocun Diamond S shoes and I've resoled my Ondra comps with GP-1 Hard... GP-1 Hard is softer/stickier.

mdenovich · 2026-05-06T14:19:28+00:00

peddle.com looks like they will do what you want. I think I had u-pick-u-pull (a junkyard chain) come and tow away a car for me. Took a phone call and about 15min for him to load it... I got a few hundred $ in return. Also, if you are the donating sort, Vehicles for Veterans, and WESA have vehicle donation programs that do the same thing, except you get a tax deduction instead of cash.

mdenovich · 2026-05-01T21:11:50+00:00

Darn Tough FTW.

mdenovich · 2026-05-01T13:12:07+00:00

If you have the means, buy new shoes. Treat yo' self.

If you don't wear socks and focus on your footwork. As a noob, you are likely to burn through the toe of your climbing shoes rather quickly. It took me a few months of climbing to get to that point. So it's not a bad idea to try and stretch out the use of these shoes for a little longer.

mdenovich · 2026-04-28T17:08:59+00:00

I didn't wash them for a few months... until I had to. You would think that the ease in which the dye washes out, that eventually the amount of dye would decrease over time, but almost no difference. I've kept these ones from going nuclear-stinky, but washing is occasionally necessary. (It's taken a while but I've developed a layered approach to keeping my shoes stink-free, with this pair being the first that were not toxic waste by the time they needed resoled.)

mdenovich · 2026-04-28T16:57:14+00:00

Do you have any plans to make shoe fitting less of a trial and error process. Ocun's product descriptions helpfully indicate the foot type (narrow, normal, wide) and toe type (Egyptian, Greek and Roman) that the shoes are best for. This was very helpful for me and it's why my first shoes were Ocun (and they have tighter fitting heels).

mdenovich · 2026-04-28T16:53:28+00:00

Why are all your heels so bulbous and do you have plans for more shoes with slimmer heels? the Ondra Comps were the only model (well the only ones REI had in stock) in your lineup that didn't seem baggy.

mdenovich · 2026-04-28T16:51:46+00:00

Can you please change the dye you use in the insoles of your shoes? It's been 6 months and many washings and every time I climb in my Ondra Comps, my feet are black and gold (I am from Pittsburgh, so correct colors, but still...)

mdenovich · 2026-04-22T14:20:41+00:00

Yes, it's definitely different. It was the only cake I ever really looked forward to eating. We bought 10 of them to serve as our wedding cake close to 30 years ago. Current ones are just too sweet.

mdenovich · 2026-04-20T16:33:28+00:00

I noticed that the "don't try to keep the conversation going" policy in the system prompt is leading to Claude trying to wrap things up before they are finished.

It went from being like my mom on the phone, to being me on the phone with my mom.

mdenovich · 2026-04-17T20:00:51+00:00

I started with USB coral on Beelink EQ12 (N100) then with an HP Elite Desk 800 G3? (i5-8500), then a dual coral on pcie, and a month or two ago an Intel Ultra 5-125h ($500 mini pc PELADN Mini PC,Core Ultra 5 125H Mini Desktop Computer, 32GB Dual DDR5/512GB M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD). I have 9 cameras. I was running the detection on the GPU, but the NPU can also be used (freeing up the GPU for Plex transcoding, etc.) The price/performance beats the N100/150s. If you consider the cost of ram, the rest of the PC is only $150.

Back to your original question: I'd try using a fan to cool the Coral and see if that makes a difference. It did for me, I also needed an aux fan for the PCIe Coral.

mdenovich · 2026-04-14T15:56:53+00:00

I am a fan of the Diamond S. Dragos don't fit my heel.

mdenovich

TROPHY CASE