jetsnoc

For me, it's mostly because I want whatever I'm running to stay on my own home network, with access to Home Assistant, my homelab, and so on. Beyond that, old laptops are hard to beat for this: I already have a few, plus spares, they sip power, the battery is a built-in UPS, and the screen and keyboard mean I have a console when something goes wrong — no hunting for a monitor. There are plenty of use cases for a cheap cloud VM or VPS too, of course.

In my case, most of my VMs live on a proxmox cluster of HP EliteDesk minis, with the laptop sitting outside that as the thing that manages the cluster and a few other odds and ends.

jetsnoc

8 か月前議論

Very cool. You built it, shipped it, and sold it.

At first I thought this might be a Nano SaaS, but without a clear definition, I’m now guessing that would be something like one tenth of the numbers you mentioned. So “micro” seems right.

If the term or threshold does not exist, let’s define it as such.

jetsnoc

8 か月前議論

Sixteen years here, and the half-life decay of this community has been slower than anywhere else. That takes real, consistent work, and we have been lucky to have it. Through good times and rough ones, including the loss of Aaron Swartz (who I only knew of through HN), this has stayed a place for real conversation.

The grit, curiosity, and people building things have always been inspiring.

Thanks for all the discussions over the years.

Happy Thanksgiving!

jetsnoc

9 か月前議論

Model performance summary:

  **openai/gpt-oss-120b** — MLX (MXFP4), ~66 tokens/sec @ Hugging Face: `lmstudio-community/gpt-oss-120b-MLX-8bit`

  **google/gemma-3-27b** — MLX (4-bit), ~27 tokens/sec @ Hugging Face: `mlx-community/gemma-3-27b-it-qat-4bit`

  **qwen/qwen3-coder-30b** — MLX (8-bit), ~78 tokens/sec @ Hugging Face: `Qwen/Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct`

Will reply back and add Meta Llama performance shortly.

jetsnoc

9 か月前議論

It’s a Claude agent prompt. I don’t recall who originally shared it, so I can’t yet attribute the source, but I’ll track that down shortly and add proper attribution here.

Here’s the Claude agent markdown:

https://github.com/lst97/claude-code-sub-agents/blob/main/ag...

Edit: Updated from the old Pastebin link to the GitHub version. Attribution found: lst97 on GitHub

jetsnoc

9 か月前議論

  Models
    gpt-oss-120b, Meta Llama 3.2, or Gemma
    (just depends on what I’m doing)

  Hardware
    - Apple M4 Max (128 GB RAM)
      paired with a GPD Win 4 running Ubuntu 24.04 over USB-C networking

  Software
    - Claude Code
    - RA.Aid
    - llama.cpp

  For CUDA computing, I use an older NVIDIA RTX 2080 in an old System76 workstation.

  Process

    I create a good INSTRUCTIONS.md for Claude/Raid that specifies a task & production process with a task list it maintains. I use Claude Agents with an Agent Organizer that helps determine which agents to use. It creates the architecture, prd and security design, writes the code, and then lints, tests and does a code review.

jetsnoc

11 か月前議論

I'll admit it. I've done this, but only a few times and only when someone sent me truly egregious AI slop—the kind where it's obvious no human that respects my time ever looked at it.

My reaction is usually, "Oh, we're doing this? Fine." I'll even prompt my LLM with something like, "Make it sound as corporate and AI-generated as possible." Or, if I'm feeling especially petty, "Write this like you're trying to win the 2025 award for Most Corporate Nonsense, and you're a committee at a Fortune 500 company competing to generate the most boilerplate possible." It's petty, sure, but there's something oddly cathartic about responding to slop with slop.

jetsnoc

昨年議論

I wasn’t aware of this, it’s extremely shortsighted. My employees’ chats are my company’s data, and I should be able to use them as I see fit. Restricting API access to our own data moves them quickly in to the 'too difficult to continue doing business with' category.

The reality is that Slack isn’t that sticky. The only reason I fended off the other business units who've demanded Microsoft Teams through the years is my software-engineering teams QoL. Slack has polish and is convenient but now that Slack is becoming inconvenient and not allowing me to do what I want, I can't justify fending off the detractors. I’ll gladly invest the time to swap them out for a platform that respects our ownership and lets us use our data however we need to. We left some money on the table but I am glad we didn’t bundle and upgrade to Slack Grid and lock ourselves into a three-year enterprise agreement...

jetsnoc

昨年議論

Thanks for the perspective—makes sense from a financial reporting lens. Curious how you'd balance that with the reality that modern software is rarely a finished asset, and startups often don’t have revenue yet when these costs hit.

jetsnoc

昨年議論

Unlike a building—where you might find one for sale and simply buy it—most companies don’t "buy one software" from a vendor and amortize it like a purchased asset. Instead, they hire full-time teams to build, maintain, and evolve software as a core, continuous function of the business. And most companies don’t "sell one software" either—they lease it to others, as software-as-a-service.

In your analogy, when a company constructs and sells a building, labor costs are deductible as part of the cost of goods sold. Only the profit—when the finished product is sold—is taxable. But under the new Section 174 rules, software R&D labor is treated like the purchase of a capital asset, even though the company is leasing a service, not selling a final, tangible product.

The flaw? Software isn’t a static, finished asset you walk away from. It’s a living system. One update might fix a bug, introduce a feature, and improve long-term architecture all at once. Is it maintenance? Innovation? Infrastructure? The answer is usually “all of the above.” So how does anyone report that cleanly on a tax form? What’s the IRS’s standard test for sorting that out?

Before TCJA, some companies may have stretched R&D definitions to claim Section 41 credits. But after the TCJA change, the incentive flipped. Now, companies are penalized for doing real R&D—the very thing we should be encouraging. Startups are now paying painfully high tax bills simply for building something they cannot lease out en masse yet.

We should want to incentivize invention, not suppress it. We need more startups, not fewer. Software—especially with generative AI—is one of the few options for us left that can create new markets, expand GDP, and drive compounding national growth. The upside is limitless. This is hammering our economy and it’s strangling startups at the exact moment we need them most.

Congress, do the right thing; restore the rules we had pre-TCJA.

Timeline:

- 1981: Section 41 introduced — provides tax credits for qualified R&D activities.

- Pre-2018: Under Section 174, R&D expenses (including software) were fully deductible; Section 41 credits could be claimed.

- 2017 (Dec): TCJA passed by the 115th Congress and signed by President Trump; Section 174 expenses to be amortized over 5 years starting in 2022.

- 2022: Amortization rule takes effect. Companies must now capitalize and amortize R&D expenses.

- 2025: Section 174 amortization remains in effect; Section 41 credits still exist but now come with a steep tradeoff.

jetsnoc

昨年議論

We chose Tailscale as our mesh zero-trust platform primarily for its 4via6 subnet routing. Many of our interfacing networks reuse CIDR ranges, and we had no interest in maintaining a custom WireGuard implementation to handle subnet overlaps. The hidden operational cost of bespoke networking solutions is never trivial. Tailscale’s combination of 4via6, fine-grained ACLs, lightweight agents, and a customer-friendly licensing model made it an easy decision for us—especially given their flexibility around node licensing, which erred in favor of the customer and our custom use cases that would have otherwise inflated our COGS.

jetsnoc

昨年議論

They need to implement secondary and tertiary domains—with diverse registrars and hosting infrastructure—for the Zoom client’s calling home. Maybe even a fallback anycast ip address for service discovery. Given how much companies like mine pay for service, it’s reasonable to expect that level of engineering foresight. But hindsight will do—let’s get it fixed. #HugOps to all employees working overtime and taking care of this.

jetsnoc

昨年議論

I interpreted the message sas aying the fault lies with those who transmitted the top-secret through Signal and not a fault of the Signal company/app.

jetsnoc

2 年前議論

Bruce came into the world and made it a better place. Bruce was smart, kind, thoughtful, and generous. I have never met him personally, but early in my life, his story had a significant positive impact on my life. Like him, I too grew up in Twin Falls, Idaho. It’s a conservative state in an LDS Religious stronghold. My high school technology teacher (Mike) was married to his sister at the time and spoke fondly of him but more importantly, spoke specifically about who Bruce was. In hindsight, he knew I needed to hear it.

I wasn’t out as gay yet, maybe only 15 years old. Of course, it would have been a death sentence for a teenager in Southern Idaho to come out as gay. One day though, Mike told me “You know, you can grow up here and you can be /different/ in many different kinds of ways, you can be a band nerd, a guy who writes software, you can be gay, you can be /yourself/ and no matter what some adults might tell you right now, you will be okay. Not only okay, but you can live a fulfilled and successful life while being authentic and true to yourself. You are never the person that these adults claim you are. They don’t know anything.“ He then went on to tell me Bruce’s story and how in his opinion, of course, Bruce wasn’t “evil” or “wrong” for being gay.

In 2005, I wrote my technology teacher a personal thank you letter. I wrote one to Bruce as well and I asked if it could be shared with him.

Bruce took the time to respond:

  Dear Brian,
  Thank you for taking the time to write your letter.  I was very moved by your story.  There were parts that really reminded me of some of my own experiences in life.
  The beautiful thing about life, at least as I have seen it, is that if you keep trying and never doubt yourself, you really can make amazing things happen both in yourself and in the world around you.  I am sure you too have already touched many people around you and have been a positive influence for them. That's so very important.  You may never realize the good you are doing, but it is happening.
  Being gay is becoming more and more accepted as "normal" and one day maybe it just won't matter.  As for being a geek, I don't consider that a bad term.  The world needs geeks.  But then they need gays too!
  Thanks again,
  Bruce Bastian

jetsnoc

3 年前議論

Oh, I see. Thanks for your perspective. I can understand trying to use contacts and calendar for this and the need to keep it simple. I had a really hard time keeping those organized and the data entered but as apps like Messages get smarter and recognize when I say Happy Birthday to someone that it needs to put a birthdate on that contact, it’s getting a lot easier for me to stay organized.

jetsnoc

3 年前議論

Might you consider for just a moment, if you will, people who do have a larger problem. People who are neurodivergent who may be challenged with object permanence. Apps like this help greatly. It's not that we don't care or we're stuck with a device in our face, it's that the person doesn't exist unless brought to the front and center.

jetsnoc

3 年前議論

This isn't a stressor, just an observation. Another thing I would share is that most of the people on the road are twice my age. This can be a pleasure when you meet unique people who like you because you remind them of their grandkids which means they spoil you with meals and stories. This can also be a nightmare where they are retired, have nothing to do but complain and there is a major generational difference in how they understand and respect your same-sex marriage.

jetsnoc

3 年前議論

I don't full-time or even part-time RV. I own a class-a 36' diesel pusher. During the summer, I spend one month on the Oregon coast, and during the winter, I go to Twenty-Nine Palms or Palm Springs for one or two months. This allows me to fully immerse myself in an area and explore national parks and new places for an extended period.

I wish I would have known how stressful it can be. For me, It feels like there is always a drag of stress - maybe a 30% overhead of stress. If you suddenly don't have hot water, it is on you to fix it because when you are "living" in it for that period, someone won't be able to come to help you repair it for several weeks. You can't even throw money at it, they just are too busy and can't come out.

Driving can be stressful too. You get experienced to it after a while but driving at night down a two-lane highway with diesel trucks behind you, in front of you (another lane), and directly to your left where the vortex pulls you in all while you're trying to keep it in the lane can be stressful. Pulling into a truck stop to fuel can be stressful.

I like to stick to around < 300 miles per day. I prefer to arrive before it's dark. This means a 12-hour drive I would make in my car can end up taking 2-3 days in the RV. I don't mind taking the time now. I relax, unplug and enjoy it. It now relaxes me. I would rather it take time than to worry about driving at night or pulling into a spot at night.

The last few times we went we had two older dogs. One was having seizures. We didn't know it yet but she had kidney failure and had quit eating as much. We didn't notice her feeding habits at home since the other dog was a jerk, eating her portions without us knowing. The trip was fortunate because we got to see everything up close and in person. I have a slight deficiency in object permanence and for them to be right there in my face, we were able to see it. The other dog -- nicknamed Pigbert now -- was having serious issues with his arthritis. He would randomly screech due to pain. A steroid for two weeks solved it quickly.

If you combine those things with the 30% constant drag of stress it can be very unpleasant. No hot water, caring for dogs in crisis, and stressful drives all lead to something that is quite unmanageable.

My advice is to just be aware of managing stressors and ensuring you have as few as possible on travel days. My other advice is - if it sounds like it is for you - DO IT. I have backpacked Europe and traveled to very nice resorts. None of them top the amazing experiences I have had on the road. I won't personally live in that small of a space full-time or part-time but I admire those that do it.

jetsnoc

3 年前議論

That works fine if the use-case allows for high-latency and doesn't need TCP. To your point, I would imagine most all home use-cases are fine in this regard.

jetsnoc

3 年前議論

In Rural areas some people need longer range wifi. IoT devices in different buildings or data service for things on a farm.

If the costs were lower, I deploy something in my neighborhood. For whatever reason, my neighborhood has terrible LTE service. I don't know the exact reasons why but I suspect I have poor service either due to geography like we're using another counties cell tower on a butte 5 miles away due to line of sight issues or maybe there are metallic properties of the land here on our canyon rim (mostly lava flows.)

As my spouse and I bike, take walks or drive to work I would love to have data service in that few mile radius around my house. If my phone could have an eSIM with my provider but a SIM with my own private LTE and a meeting call can fail over between data services, I would have a lot more flexibility.

I would have a lot of other use-cases with IoT and maybe quadrupeds as things like that become more generally available but data within a few mile radius would be the first thing.

I suppose I could get four 90 degree antennas at a higher db power output and blast my neighborhood with wifi but that has a lot of downsides.

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