oulu2006

Apple playing 3d chess here -- they can just absolutely kill it in making the HW available for everyone to run models at home, and will do a better job than Nvidia especially when M7 comes out which is specifically designed for AI workloads.

Thanks OP

So everyone has their preferred way of doing it.

1. I go direct to source, i.e. DS platform, I find it cheaper than paying the openrouter tax -- I also switch it up a bit

2. I built a local LLM router, that I update with new profiles that have my preferred provider of the week (lowest token costs/speed) with fallbacks, like mimo --> DS4 etc.. if there is overloading,

3. I use 3 diff harnesses, CC/Codex + Opencode -- they all talk to each other through a custom rig system that routes messages between llms using a Rust backed structured JSON system

Not saying this is the best, it's just what I like and works for me^.

I can flow quite naturally between Opus/Astra/K3/GLM/MiMo/DS/etc.. this way and often do...more so these days with subs no longer great as they used to be.

yeah same that's my preferred flow now -- sill use Claude and OpenAI a bit, though recent nerfs to subs has really made using codex much harder.

DS 4.1 flash is my main powerhouse and Opus/Astra my auditors (when they're not out of tokens) otherwise K3 or DS4 pro

See my later post in this thread, I go into more detail about how I use AI in the restorative process.

In addition, I literally had AI build a complete list of parts to order from Amazon down to the caps for each system I wanted to rebuild -- it was close to 20 different items, I would have probably given up if I had to try and assemble this list from different YouTube videos.

No, not everyone, there's no easily accessible video showing how to setup aquarium lights to slowly de-yellow ABS plastic -- at least I didn't find one; AI helped me find an obscure reference to it and I then read a few message boards where it was mentioned.

I also use AI to take in-progress pictures as I desolder to help me check for traces that need to be repaired or help identifying specific chips. I probably could try and find a video where the same chip is featured and someone explains it, and/or retrieve the schematic for the specific logic board, but that's very painful and does slow the process. Think of AI, in this specific case, as enabling skill development for me in a field I wouldn't have necessarily have gotten into, because of being short on time and AI helps me consolidate that information quickly.

I'm learning by doing things.

For example: AI has helped me get into restoring retro tech, specifically resoldering leaky caps on retro Macintosh logic boards. Before AI, I didn't know how to use a multimeter (I knew theoretically how it worked), I didn't know how to use flux, solder wick, heat gun. I also didn't understand how bromine radicals yellowed plastic and how to reverse it by using blue light similar to what they use for indoor aquariums.

So AI unlocked doing for me.

This is an interesting comment -- your life is precious brother, you might have something in store down the road :)

Precisely, there are about 100 of these, and everyone makes a new one every week.

He's correct internationally, compared to real socialists in countries like Australia/NZ, US dems are definitely mildly center right.

This is more accurate, I've written enough code in my life to never really want to do it again ....but I still love creating (code was merely the way to do it) so LLMs help with my underlying passion.

I don't find the same, like you, principle/CTO engineer, there's a world of difference between simplistic prompt/vibe coding and building a properly architected/performant/maintainable system with agentic coding.

That's great and I'm the same, 40s multiple founder and I was ready to hang it up after my last exit -- had 0 passion to code anymore and now I'm back and LLMs are reigniting my passion to create again.

It's Qwen3.5 now, you're a bit behind the times.