Why this blog?

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Whenever I come across a problem I look on google for answers. Every now and then the answer is not straightforward and I have to do some ingenious thinking. This blog allows me to share my finding with other developers.

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The long long tail of AI applications

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Last year multiple companies asked me for advice. " We are evaluating this AI powered product, but do you think it makes sense at all? It seems a bit niche and we think ChatGPT might make this entire thing obsolete soon. " Long tail - credit to Wikipedia My answer so far has always been: "No, bare LLMs are not going to compete with this product." I think that people are failing to understand the distinction between different classes of AI companies. I see it like this: Foundational AI - creating models like GPT-4 (text), Sora (video) etc. Applied AI - using existing models to create smart applications. Note that there are also companies not focusing on AI - they will start lagging behind, let's forget about them ;) There are orders of magnitude  (!)   more companies that will deal with Applied AI than Foundational AI, and they will be very busy for decades to come. Here's why: To get the most out of LLMs, you have to ask the right questions. LLMs have acc...
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Cowboy C3 battery teardown / disassembly and rear light fix

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A bit over a week ago the rear light of my Cowboy v3 / C3 broke down. Everything else was fine. Update on January 4th 2024: In the end I managed to fix the light. Check the bottom of the post for the conclusion. Thanks to reddit user  icannotfindagoodname  for the help in finding the issue! After chatting with Cowboy support they offered me a new battery for 490 euros and that they would also send an offer with a discount, which appeared a couple days later. The discounted price was 367 euros. A bit much for a broken LED module! The battery was still totally fine. So I'll attempt to fix it myself and I'll show you how to disassemble the battery here. WARNING - DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME Now I need to warn you to not try this at home. I have been working with electronics for a long long time and I know what to do and what not to do, and most importantly, know what I should not even try. Battery packs are not a joke and could lead to serious fire and health problems if not handled c...
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Bakelite to the Future - 1950s rotary phone ESP32 bluetooth headset

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Edit: since creating this post I've also created a video about this project on YouTube. See it below or jump straight into all the details below. Here's a very beautiful antique rotary phone. It's a Dutch PTT phone model called simply "1950" . But, what's this at the back? A USB-C port? A peek inside shows us some weird things! How did that LiPO battery get there? Ok let's quit the jokey intro, this was all me. I've had this phone for about 15 years and over the last couple of weeks I've converted into a fully functioning Bluetooth headset using an ESP32 microcontroller. In this post: - 1 - Features - 2 - Lessons Learned - 3 - Pictures and story!  of how it got made (scroll down!) but first... Does it work? This morning was the first Google meet I've used it in: A participant reported on the sound quality "I didn't know how much I missed the different sound quality! Beautiful. We could hear you very well, not distorted. I wish I record...
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