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projects technology

How I Setup a Private LLM Chatbot

Generative AI is everywhere; it’s feels like the most quickly adopted technology in recent memory. Although it’s easy to use tools like ChatGPT and DALL-E online, I also wanted to play around with the technology myself, so I set a goal of configuring a private chatbot. What does “private” mean in this case? Well, the […]

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technology video games

Building My First PC (Part 2)

Last time, I wrote about how I decided to build a PC and got through purchasing all of the parts. I’ll pick up from there with actually putting it together. Building My experience with building was about 20 years out of date, and even then, I hadn’t done it from scratch. I just tinkered with […]

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technology video games

Building My First PC (Part 1)

For years, I have considered building a gaming PC. From the cost to the high-minded desire to not play more games, I have always found reasons to not do it. On the flip side, I never found a good enough reason to do it. Until this past year. A few months ago, we watched the […]

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technology

Upgrading a Decade-Old MacBook Pro

Just over ten years ago, I wrote about upgrading to the first generation retina 15″ MacBook Pro. It would replace my five year old college laptop with a slimmer, more powerful computer with a state-of-the-art display. Today, I’m tapping out this blog post on the same mid-2012 retina MacBook Pro. It has lasted me twice […]

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parenting personal technology

Changed My Mind: 2021 Edition Part 1

I always find it interesting when I change my mind about something. It can happen at any time for any reason, and I might not become conscious of it for awhile. However, when I actually realize it, it’s an interesting moment. It’s hard to remember my previous mindset and reconcile why it happened. Some amount […]

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coursework technology

I Learned How Computers Work

Despite having worked as a software engineer for over a decade and received a graduate degree in Computer Science, I had a serious gap in my knowledge: I didn’t actually know how computers worked. Of course, I exaggerate. I knew how logic gates and Boolean algebra worked. I knew that compilers were related to formal […]

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technology travel

Working from an iPad (updated)

Last year, I wrote a blog post about trying to work using only an iPad. During our recent travels, I had a chance to try out the setup again, but with new hardware. My previous trip was with a first generation iPad Air (2013) whereas I’m now using a third generation iPad Pro (2018). It […]

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technology

My Second Smartphone

Six years ago, I upgraded from my flip phone to an iPhone 5s. Since then, I have taken almost 4000 photos, received directions on hundreds of trips, and viewed endless reddit posts on Alien Blue and the official Reddit app. I learned how to text, and the form factor was comfortable to hold and carry.

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technology

6 Days Without Internet

When we came home on Wednesday evening two weeks ago, we noticed that the internet wasn’t working. Julie reset the router, and it didn’t work. Not that I didn’t trust her, but I also reset the router, and it still didn’t work. We shrugged, then went out to play tennis in hopes that it would […]

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technology

The Evolution of My Notes

I have written a lot about my TODO list. I rely heavily on my TODO list because my brain is bad at remembering to do things, but digital lists synced to the cloud and linked to periodic reminders are much more reliable. However, I don’t only use digital systems to remember to do things: I […]