A disk usage query taking 39 minutes isn't slow hardware — it's a misconfigured agent. Here's how to find the real bottleneck and fix it.

CPU-only inference on an OptiPlex 7070 is painfully slow. Here's a practical comparison of cloud APIs and second-hand GPU upgrades — with real costs in NZD.

Comparing local models for CPU-only inference on a 16 GB machine — focused on the constraints that actually matter for a Hermes agent: 64k context, reliable tool use, fitting in RAM, and response speed.

Installing Ollama and Hermes on a headless Ubuntu box, wiring up the Claude gateway, and working through the rough edges including a gateway install bug and a model that wouldn't use tools.

A complete guide to installing and optimising Home Assistant OS on a Raspberry Pi 3B — from flashing the image to the tweaks that keep it running reliably.

Comparing free tools for syncing a local folder to Google Drive or OneDrive on Linux, with a full rclone setup guide.

Before running Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi, I needed a stable network. Here's how I planned IP addressing across a Juniper SRX, managed switches, and a homelab rack.

How I added Mermaid diagram support to this blog — rendering flowcharts, sequence diagrams, and more directly from Markdown code blocks.

A practical guide to unifying Brilliant smart switches, a Xiaomi pedestal fan, and Panasonic cloud connect heat pumps under Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi 3B.

How I added procedurally generated low-poly SVG header images to every post without touching a design tool or adding any build dependencies.

How I added a comment system to a static site using a Cloudflare Worker, D1, and Resend — with no third-party widgets and no persistent server.

Why I skipped the frameworks and wrote a static site generator in ~200 lines of Node.js.