this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2026
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Privacy
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Before you buy anything make sure you research it first. Start buying things that you own the infustructure for. Don't buy a 3d printer that doesn't support Linux, or buy a 3d printer that won't be effected by the 3d printing laws that try to stop gun parts from being printed.
That logic should apply to everything. If you are buying a IP camera make sure to get one that does PoE and doesn't connect and ping hone to a server before sending you your data. Don't buy a WiFi garage door opener unless you installed the ZigBee switch yourself. You should aim to be able to do everything yourself without needing subscription models or useless internet of things devices.
Things you likely want now before they get further ruined:
A google pixel phone to flash and de google.
A car before ~2013 that you plan on learning how yo repair when it breaks down.
A AMD based PC with a a 16gig GPU. Thats like the absolute lowest end you can use LLM's and defuision models locally that don't completely suck ass. And if you're not much of a gamer or desktop user you can turn this PC into a server and run your own services in docker so you reduce your dependency on apps.
I just bought a 1972 tractor to work my vegetable garden. I've already learnt to service it, i've changed the clutch (took me 3 months on and off ... its bloddy 4 tonne gear). Just to say that the future is sbout diy. Government control, robotics and inflation all force you to rethink your life model and that of your family. Invest in a small piece of land and become self sufficient. Its hard work but its life changing.
A tractor is still something on my list I want. I think I'd only ever be able to afford a old one like yourself and I imagine the relationship with the tractor to be adversarial at all times. Never use it until you need it and then you have to fight with it to work.
But huge satisfaction comes when it does work.
Anything worth while takes effort
What the hell does a WiFi garage door opener have to do with ZigBee. Two completely different technologies there.
I meant more or less don't buy a WiFi garage door opener that sends data off to your servers install a ZigBee switch yourself.
I do not care to reread my long over opinionated posts they're full of spelling and grammatical errors.
Thanks for the somewhat lengthy reply! Makes sense. On the topic of AI...
I'm not fond of LLM and diffusion* technology right now because of where training data came from. However, machine learning is cool. I'd like to be able to run AI compute loads for things like security camera image detection and the like. Do you know of (I know what I'm asking here lol...) any feasible way to buy capable hardware for a somewhat less inflated price? I'll buy things I must disassemble to save a buck. Local hardware for machine learning applications is something I've wanted for a while but keep waiting to pull the trigger on because of how fast progress is these days.
You want to look into frigate, and you don't need much of a graphics card. You could use a old gaming PC with a gtx 1060 from 10 years ago.
There's cameras with tensor cores in them too. I only played around with the pi ai camera but frigate uses the same yolo models. so you can have your camera process the image detection or the server's GPU.
It doesn't take as much as you think. Its when you want to generate content that its important you need lots of vram or cram the entire model into context.
I am the biggest ai hater I know but local models, and old school ai technologies before LLMs are pretty cool.