Interacting with AI requires you to consider what role it should play, because the end goal is HUMAN betterment. This can also be viewed as, “does the human or the AI decide when it’s a good answer?” Anyway, here are the four layers of AI interaction that we use with every interaction (and may be on different levels for different interactions).
“I want AI to… give me the answer.”
I fell for TRMNL on June 2, 2025. It felt fun to transform data with some easy coding and see it appear on a screen beautifully. The dopamine loop was short and the possibilities started flooding my brain. However, before I go too far, let’s get two somethings out of the way first.
I have owned 4 variations of e-ink screens (Nook Touch 1st Gen, Waveshare NFC screens, reMarkarkable 2 tablet, and now a TRMNL). I do not hide how much of a joy it is to read, especially as my vision has, um, deteriorated after 40. Like life, the solution to readability is to add light; natural light when possible. I am a fanboy of e-ink technology itself.
E-Ink also doesn’t require power management at the scale of most modern devices. Plugging it in is a thing you forget to do because it’s so infrequent. It also feels like a trick because the last arrangement of pixels never fades, warps, or changes, instead enduring like a Roman aqueduct or a tombstone (in the case of my Nook Touch).
I have two children 5 and under and they are living in that gap where they are curious about the world, but are unable to be self-reliant on gathering that information because of learning limitations (reading words, understanding clocks, etc). Giving them independent opportunities to learn and grow requires different approaches, and this lens is constantly looking at my world and searching for new opportunities.
Get $10 off a TRMNL device with the code: mario10
Full disclosure: I’ll also get $10… to buy more TRMNLs.
I use Docker Desktop on Windows to run local AI, such as Ollama, Open-WebUI, Portainer, and even SwarmUi and Comfy-UI. Because of that, I’m regularly growing and shrinking the number of AI models on my drive and that’s a lot of GB of storage! Recently I noticed less than 15% storage remaining on my SSD and thanks to SequoiaView, I realized it was because Ubuntu was getting huge! So here’s how I solved the problem.
I wanted to learn more about running Open WebUI locally through Docker while also testing out the new Llama 3.2 Vision models (11B and 90B), but my system with a 6GB VRAM video card wasn’t going to be able to run the inference model locally, so I needed a free or inexpensive option; enter together.ai. Their free account offers the 11B model at no charge while also having easy access to the 90B model. So, I downloaded Docker Desktop as the getting started docs suggested and then my inexperience hit a roadblock: How to run a docker terminal command and what command to run?
“I need you to listen the first time.” | “Be nice to your brother!” | “If you can’t follow directions, we can’t go.” | “Can you hear my voice?”
Any of those phrases sound familiar? Knowing that children respond to games as a way to reinforce behaviors, I came up with an idea recently that was very successful with our 4 year old. Using this test is a good idea sparingly; don’t use it every time you are about to do something fun. Novelty goes a long way with most humans, but when you’re at your wits end and you are trying to engage them in a fun activity (e.g. going to a community event), then say it is time do a quick test to make sure your child can follow directions, listen, and be kind. As their parent, it’s your job to evaluate how well they do on the score; remember, you want to take them to this fun thing, so your goals is to set them up for success and evaluate them as passing.
Disney’s Lorcana by Ravensburger is a popular, though hard to find, Trading Card Game (TCG) that launched in September of 2023. I couldn’t find any brand or style guide found the official brand guide, but I couldn’t find the hex colors for the different card colors, so I’ll start with those and expand this post as needed.
#F5B202#81377B#2A8934#D3082F#0189C4#9FA8B4
Piwigo is open-source software for sharing image galleries easily. Installing it on Dreamhost (I’m using a VPS but any type of hosting works) was super easy, but by default any emails sent would have Mail System Delivery Failure due to email security problems.
Luckily, the solution was to create an email account in Dreamhost and configure SMTP in Piwigo. Here are the steps in a new installation: