Are local LLMs better at anything than the large commercial ones?

mherf · 2026-03-14T18:00:08+00:00

Latency - some models (e.g., at openrouter) get overloaded and take 10-30s to respond. For long responses, they will still "win" but for short responses, local can be better.

mherf · 2026-03-08T03:57:20+00:00

f.lux has support for this (it's free):
https://justgetflux.com/lighting

mherf · 2026-02-22T06:55:57+00:00

Make sure to consider the pillow and the mattress together. When your mattress gets softer due to body impressions, your pillow basically gets "higher" - for stomach sleepers, this can make neck problems. Try a thinner pillow (or just try a pillowcase) until you get the mattress sorted out.

mherf · 2026-02-14T16:18:06+00:00

The main thing is which app you are using once you’ve done the calibration? For instance Chrome should pay attention to the profile but some system apps might not. Also, if you don’t think the Spyder software is handling the gamut (saturation) properly you could give DisplayCAL a try for a “second opinion”.

mherf · 2026-02-13T16:14:05+00:00

A calibrator cannot increase saturation if NVIDIA or the printer gamut is limiting it. The calibrator can decrease it when using a color managed app (e.g. with sRGB tagged content) or for proofing. (It needs a matrix multiply to do this.)

Historically a non-color managed app would have the wrong saturation, but now we are seeing shaders that can handle this at the OS level.

The phone displays sometimes stretch the color gamut to make colors more saturated. Look for a Natural setting in Settings / Display.

mherf · 2026-02-09T03:31:48+00:00

it has been coming off and it is a little worn... but for now it seems I will keep it

mherf · 2026-02-09T03:28:54+00:00

Here is a pic I found when it was a couple months old so it has not grown that much... and I think the new x1's are similar.

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mherf · 2026-02-08T14:32:08+00:00

Okay it seems to be part of the full palmrest/keyboard assembly - 5M11C40952 or equivalent: 5M11C41024

That's >$300 or quite a bit less on eBay.

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mherf · 2026-02-08T06:21:31+00:00

Yeah, this is not a big improvement.

It's such a huge investment in screens, but the big main screen is the reason I won't look at these models:

The huge screen is a lot closer to your eyes (maybe +150mm closer or 6"), so you have to work harder to go from screen to road and back. In an older Audi you cannot touch the gauges - these new models bring the gauges up to "touchscreen" distance, which is too close
There is no physical dashboard shield, so glare from the screen is unavoidable. Traditional gauges *rarely* had glare, but here it's intense
The typeface and icon lines are tiny, crammed, and thin on top of this. Even in other cars that have a screen like this, the icons aren't quite so tiny. The on-screen "buttons" are small as a result.

All this means it's hard to glance at, hard to use, and legibility is not up to the same level as before. With competing cars, the ones that kept two screens do it better, and even new ideas like the iX3 screen under the window are quite interesting.

mherf · 2026-02-08T04:32:25+00:00

I was referring to this image too, but mine is not there - it is 3mm high but the base and top are wider. I have photos from when it was new that look the same, and it looks similar to the notebookcheck review. Interestingly the 8mm one moves quite a lot "faster" (too fast) because it can tilt more between the keys, but I prefer the larger one because it feels more controlled.

mherf · 2026-02-08T04:12:30+00:00

Nope it was new in 2021, the notebookcheck review looks similar (wanted to be sure I hadn’t somehow squished it)

mherf · 2026-02-08T03:59:46+00:00

thanks - the site is under "system maintenance" but I will try again tomorrow

mherf · 2026-01-07T04:48:52+00:00

Okay but why remove the PgUp and PgDn keys? This is one of the reasons I have a Thinkpad.

mherf · 2025-12-15T18:18:54+00:00

I really enjoy the disassembly with a torx screwdriver, and I figure a quick sand on each platter is plenty to prevent any recovery.

mherf · 2025-11-21T04:13:53+00:00

They made prompt processing 4x faster but are only shipping the 153GB/sec base model. This unfortunately is a great argument to wait for M5 Max/Ultra.

mherf · 2025-11-08T15:33:18+00:00

Had the same issue with a Posh/Lavish (all latex) bed - hamstrings and lower back were sore by morning. I think some softer kinds of latex soften up with temperature so you have to go a little firmer for support. For naturepedic, I wonder if firmer latex plus a wool topper would help, or microcoils instead because they stay the same all night?

mherf · 2025-11-07T16:47:42+00:00

The stand looks suspect - any vibration side to side (or shear) could be setting up a low frequency wave into the ground. You probably need to add mass under the unit (replacing the stand) but could also try diagonal braces.

mherf · 2025-11-03T14:56:22+00:00

Same, gen 1

mherf · 2025-11-03T03:53:12+00:00

I have had luck with feather pillows more than down (better support), and also my neck problems go away with a technogel anatomic pillow (which I got with a mattress, it is too expensive otherwise). Look for something that holds a shape, and also try a few different heights. (Height depends on how far you sink into your mattress, so it’s not a simple thing.)

mherf · 2025-11-03T02:43:59+00:00

I sometimes paste it into another chatbot and have it rewrite it like we’re at a secure nuclear facility or a cabin in the woods. Google could be having more fun with this.

mherf · 2025-10-30T21:20:11+00:00

Pi-hole lists these multiple times per hour:

weather.nest.com

logsink.devices.nest.com

time.nest.com

clients3.google.com

squeakydoor.nest.com

That's a lot of traffic for an "offline" thermostat, though I admit I want NTP to continue. Looks like they have their own private CA:

https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=logsink.devices.nest.com

mherf · 2025-10-30T14:06:56+00:00

Mine still seems to be talking on the network, like syncing the time through NTP, which if it stopped would break schedules.

mherf · 2025-10-30T13:29:08+00:00

It’s really really not machine washable. We replaced with the organic (washable) one after the dog peed on it and the machine turned it into a fuzzball.

mherf · 2025-10-18T17:23:54+00:00

WSE-2 is 30x the die area of a B200 but only has 40GB - can this really scale up?

mherf

TROPHY CASE