Local-Llm

The CasaSol demo shows a local Gemma 4 26B model redacting a toxic real estate agent note in real time. The implicit claim behind that demo is that the output is GDPR-clean. An anecdote is not an experiment. One demo run is a marketing moment. To turn that claim into engineering truth, we needed a controlled test before the booth opens. Enter Experiment 006: The Redactor Fidelity Test. The Redaction Contract Redaction is a contract. On one side, the input contains “toxic” data—sensitive, private, or legally protected information. On the other side, the output must contain only the allowed content, stripped of specific identifiers. ...

The Control Plane and the Hyper-Inflation of Thought In the world of local AI, there is a hidden tax. It isn’t paid in dollars, but in CPU cycles and thermal throttling. When running a model like Gemma 4 26B on a Mac Mini, the most dangerous mistake an engineer can make is confusing Agent Reasoning with Model Thinking. Mistaking one for the other is exactly how a simple request turns into a 24-minute system seizure. ...

What Adam Smith, neuroscience, and a melting Mac Mini taught me about the real division of cognitive labour. My Mac Mini was dying. Not dramatically — no smoke, no kernel panic. Just a quiet, 24-minute seizure: the fan screaming, and my Telegram bot silently refusing to answer “hello.” I’m Miktam, a software engineer who’s spent the last few months building a local AI assistant on a Mac Mini instead of paying cloud APIs to think for me. ...