off-topic – Observations from Uppsala

(Local) AI, Please Reason about Code

“Reasoning” models have become popular as a way to expand the capabilities of large language models (LLMs). Such models take more time “considering” a prompt and iterating it through the model several times, with the goal of mimicking how a human might go about solving a problem by breaking it down into steps. I tried the reasoning QwQ model on the coding problems from my previous blog posts (1,2). Quite funny and elucidating; I will quote the replies in full as they are worth reading.

(Local) AI, Please Write some Code

My previous blog post in this series tested the ability of a range of large language models to analyze a piece of C code and determine what a mystery function did. That was interesting and entertaining, but possibly not a particularly “fair” test of the models’ capabilities. Most of time, I think people use “AI” to help write code, not to understand some tricky piece of algorithmic code. Thus, I turn the problem around and ask the models to write code for the algorithm I previously asked them to analyze.

(Local) AI, Please Explain This Code

Continuing my exploration of what a local AI model can do, I decided to test them on the task of code analysis. It would be so nice to have an AI model that is tuned and trained on a particular tool or programming system, and that can be distributed for users to run on their own on their local machine, server, or cloud VM. Avoiding the need to run and charge for a custom cloud service and ensuring confidentiality and availability.

Updated 2024-12-12 with Llama-3.3-70B

More Exploration of (Local) AI Models

In my previous blog post about the Intel AI Playground, I tested it by asking it to draw cars. In this post, I share some more exploration of these local AI models and their limitations. Turns out that cars are easy, other things not so much…

Hi Local AI, Draw Me …

I recently built a new desktop computer, featuring an Intel ARC 770 graphics card (just to be different). The card is supported by the Intel AI Playground, which is a software package that makes it dead easy to run AI/large language models (LLM) locally on my GPU. I was curious as to just what this could do, as compared to the big AI models that run on cloud servers.

Reversing out of Reverse

The Intel Simics simulator version 7 removed a long-standing feature from the simulator framework. Reverse execution is no longer available. In its place, in-memory snapshots were introduced, which arguably offer most of the benefits at a lower implementation cost. What happened? I’ve been asked about the reasoning behind the chance on several occasions since I left Intel. I’d like to share my perspective on the decision, as it highlights the challenges of turning an idea into a robust, shippable feature.

Vilnius – History, Russia, Ukraine

We spent a few days in Vilnius at the end of October. Rather late in the tourist season, but the city was still open for business. It was a very good experience. Vilnius is one of the friendliest and cleanest places I have visited. Definitely on the “recommended” list. Here are some assorted notes from what we saw.

Time to Do Something New

The time has come to do something new. I am leaving Intel (and the Intel Simics team) at the end of September (2024). After more than twenty years with the team and the product this is a big step into the unknown. But when Intel offered a “retirement” package as part of its current round of cost reduction measures, I felt that it was a golden opportunity to find something new to do.

Subscription Software Revisited: SnagIt

The trend to make everything into a subscription service instead of a pay-once use-forever model is well-established. I have defended it for professional software, and I am a mostly happy user of Microsoft365. Still, I must admit that I felt mildly annoyed when my favorite screen capture program, SnagIt, announced they would be switching to a subscription-only model.

Visiting Prague

Over Easter, I took a short trip to Prague with parts of the family. It is a fascinating place – full of tourists and tourist businesses, but still feeling informal and homey. We tried to climb as many towers as we possibly could and visited a ton of sights in a few intense days.

Adventures Traveling to and from Italy

The big family vacation his summer was a cruise in the Mediterranean. Most cruises sail from Italian ports, unfortunately. Traveling to and within Italy is a bit of a challenge, resulting in far more heartburn and stress than necessary. Here is our story.

The HidrateSpark… Internet of Drinking Bottles

Earlier this Summer, I received a HidrateSpark PRO water bottle as a gift. It is a fascinating piece of “smart” technology. The bottle itself is a decent piece of engineering and a somewhat practical product. But the overall product concept just strikes me as mostly contrived. The associated app is almost comical in its attempts to turn a piece of hardware into a “service”.

That’s Odd: How iCue and Windows 11 Ruin Simics Performance

While working on some screenshots for an upcoming blog, I noticed something that something was off with the performance of Simics on my Windows 11 laptop. The CPU load did not quite go as high as I am used to – typically, compute-intense run should get close to 100% processor load using a single host thread to execute the simulation. Instead, I got to no more than about 50%, which was decidedly odd. I also had a screenshot from a few days earlier that showed some 90% CPU load. Turns out the culprit was a combination of factors, including the Windows 11 scheduler and the Corsair iCUE software pack.

Berlin – Cold War, Third Reich, and Ukraine

A few weeks ago I visited Berlin. A fantastically interesting city, and much more affordable and accessible than places like New York or London. However, it is almost comical how much of what you see ends up being about either the Third Reich or the Cold War and the DDR. The war in Ukraine was also noticeably present.

Paste as Plain Text

Windows PowerToys is a fantastic set of utilities for Windows, and it just got better with the addition of “Paste as Plain Text”. Just like the mouse pointer locator I blogged about before, it is a small thing that you get used to and immediately notice if it is absent.