AI
your 8GB graphics card can run real local AI — you're probably picking the wrong model
Phi-4 Mini, Gemma 3, and Llama 3.2 all claim to fit — I checked which one actually leaves room to breathe.
Lena Fischer · Aug 4 · 6 min
AI & Local LLMs
Local models, AI rigs and the tools that run them · page 4
AI
I priced out every way to run a 70B AI model at home — the cheapest one isn't what you'd guess
Four real paths to running a 70B-parameter model on your own hardware or by the hour — priced out with actual 2026 numbers.
Lena Fischer · Aug 4 · 8 min
AI
apple quietly cut its priciest Mac's RAM by 81% — and it might still be the smarter local-AI buy
Apple's own memory shortage just raised Mac Studio prices and gutted its top RAM tier — here's whether it's still worth buying over a GPU PC for running models at home.
Lena Fischer · Aug 4 · 8 min
AI
which quantization should you use? Q4 vs Q5 vs Q8, settled with real numbers
Every model comes in a dozen quant sizes and it's paralyzing. Here's the simple truth: Q4_K_M is the default for almost everyone, and here's exactly when to go higher.
Lena Fischer · Aug 4 · 10 min
AI
can you run local AI without a GPU? Yes — here's what CPU-only actually gets you
You don't need a graphics card to run a local AI. A modern CPU with enough RAM runs small models fine — just slowly. Here's what's realistic, which models to pick, and when you really do need a GPU.
Lena Fischer · Aug 4 · 10 min
AI
OpenAI's next AI model just quietly solved 10 math problems nobody's cracked in decades
the announcement was buried in paragraph two of a blog post about proofs — and that's the most OpenAI thing that's happened all year.
Lena Fischer · Aug 3 · 6 min
AI
someone measured the real electricity cost of running AI at home. it's almost nothing
A developer wall-calibrated an Apple Silicon power meter against a smart plug and found the real number: fractions of a cent per million tokens.
Lena Fischer · Aug 3 · 6 min
AI
how to manage your local AI models in Ollama — update, remove, and stop them eating your disk
Local models pile up fast and each one is gigabytes. Here's the handful of Ollama commands to list, update, remove, and inspect your models — and keep your disk under control.
Lena Fischer · Aug 3 · 10 min
AI
MoE vs dense AI models explained — why some huge models run faster than small ones
A '30B' model that runs as fast as a 3B one? That's a Mixture-of-Experts model, and it changes the local-AI math. Here's what MoE means and why it matters for what you can run.
Lena Fischer · Aug 3 · 10 min
AI
the best local AI for math and reasoning in 2026 — models that show their work
For math, logic, and step-by-step problems, 'reasoning' models that think out loud beat regular chatbots. Here's the best one to run locally, from an 8GB card to a 24GB rig.
Lena Fischer · Aug 3 · 10 min
AI
how to run a local AI on a Raspberry Pi — a pocket-sized offline chatbot for $80
Yes, you can run a real language model on a Raspberry Pi 5. It won't be fast, but for a tiny, private, always-on AI it's genuinely fun and useful. Here's how, and what to expect.
Lena Fischer · Aug 3 · 10 min
AI
the best vector database for local RAG in 2026 — where your AI's memory actually lives
A vector database stores the searchable version of your documents. For local RAG, the right one is simpler than the enterprise options everyone benchmarks. Here's what to actually use.
Lena Fischer · Aug 3 · 10 min
AI
the best local embedding model for RAG in 2026 — the quiet piece that makes 'chat with your docs' work
Embeddings are what let a local AI search your documents. Pick the wrong one and retrieval is bad; pick the right one and RAG just works. Here's the best local embedding model, by need.
Lena Fischer · Aug 3 · 10 min
AI
how to run local AI in Docker — a clean, portable, reproducible setup in minutes
Running your local AI stack in Docker keeps it isolated, portable, and easy to reset. It's the tidy way to run Ollama and a web UI together. Here's the simple setup.
Lena Fischer · Aug 3 · 10 min
AI
what do 'temperature' and 'top-p' actually do? the AI settings that change how your model behaves
Those sliders in your local AI app aren't decoration. Temperature and top-p control how creative or focused the model is — and getting them right transforms your results. Explained simply.
Lena Fischer · Aug 3 · 10 min
AI
how to run uncensored AI models locally — and the honest truth about when you'd want to
Local models can be run 'uncensored' — without the refusals and lectures of cloud chatbots. Here's how it works, the legitimate reasons to want it, and how to do it responsibly.
Lena Fischer · Aug 3 · 10 min
AI
how to get a free, private AI coding assistant in VS Code — no Copilot subscription, no cloud
Point your editor at a model on your own machine and get autocomplete, chat, and even an agent that edits files — free, unlimited, and with your code never leaving your PC. Here's the setup.
Lena Fischer · Aug 3 · 10 min
AI
how to run an AI that can see — local vision models for image analysis and OCR, on your own PC
A local vision model reads images, describes photos, and pulls text out of screenshots — all offline. Some open ones now beat GPT-4o at OCR. Here's how to run one, in one command.
Lena Fischer · Aug 3 · 10 min