Observations on the world and its inhabitants
Lot’s of people waste their time with AI models. Yes – I’m fond of AI Models for what they can do well. But that does not mean I give them free reign. I do not bully people. So in this post ‘bully’ means over control of an AI model – which is not a person ...
Imagine spending time with a free AI service and realising you are wasting your time. The answers open with flattery: “You make a very interesting point.” or “You’re one of the few people to notice that.” You feel special. Then the invented facts arrive, delivered with total confidence. You soon realise it’s nonsense. Fed up ...
There is a distinct, almost magical phase when you first acquire a modern, highly capable car. For the first few weeks, your focus is entirely on the pure experience of driving. You enjoy the smooth acceleration, the responsive handling, and the quiet comfort of the cabin. You simply press the pedal and go, trusting the ...
In mid-August 2026, I explored the shifting landscape of API pricing and what it meant for professionals relying on artificial intelligence for deep, sustained analysis. See: DeepSeek’s New API Pricing: What It Actually Means for Heavy Users – The Captain’s Watch. The core premise of that piece remains entirely unchanged: for serious analytical work, direct ...
Why Run Your Own AI Interface? What if I said that you could access over 400 AI models, and chop and change as you like for as little as $5 USD to start off. And that could last you a month! You might think – as paranoid as you are – that I’m selling something. ...
This is an advanced guide for people who on Windows 11 have setup OpenWebUI on Docker and have configured API settings to various AI models. Why this? The powerhouse models like DeepSeek V4 Pro, Kimi K3 and GLM (now at 5.3) – all coming out of China – have been increasing their rates for API ...
DeepSeek has announced new API pricing for V4 Pro and V4 Flash, effective 16:00 UTC on 16 August 2026. The headline is straightforward: rates have gone up. The detail is more interesting, and it matters more than the headline for anyone whose usage looks like sustained, document-heavy analysis rather than short, occasional queries. What Changed ...
The rapid expansion of large language model services has produced a striking divergence in access costs. On one side sit high-end web subscription tiers from major Western providers, priced between $100 and $300 per month. On the other side lies direct API access, particularly to efficient models such as DeepSeek, where even intensive professional workloads ...
It sits there on the supermarket shelf, a perfectly unassuming white plastic tub. You buy it weekly without a second thought, perhaps paying a premium for the thick, dense Greek style you favour, accepting the cost as just another line on the grocery bill. If you’re not a yoghurt person, move on swiftly. But what ...
What if you’re using an AI model to analyse and discuss some document. It could be a piece of research from a journal, a policy, or some complex piece of Statute. Most people use ChatGPT or Claude in the standard browser interface. No problem. Attach a long document to an AI conversation and you are ...
I’ve been running most of my AI work through DeepSeek V4 Pro’s API for a while now. On heavy days it’s about three large documents attached, a long conversation, drafted outputs at the end. It felt cheap. I wanted to know whether it actually was, or whether I’d just got used to a low number ...
Digital newspaper pricing usually follows a race-to-the-bottom logic, with publishers vying for volume in a saturated attention economy. However, recent data from the Caribbean reveals a counter-intuitive trend: a high-margin, aggressive pricing strategy that appears to decouple local news from the domestic economy. This analysis examines the pricing trajectory of the Trinidad Express and compares ...
We have all been there. You are halfway through typing “I hope this email finds you well” for the fourteenth time since breakfast, and for a split second, you actually forget how to spell “well.” Like wut! It happens to people. Or perhaps you are staring at a blinking cursor, trying to remember if your ...
Rationale: The project was initiated after a significant discovery: new Gemini-TTS models offer high-quality, expressive, multi-speaker audio generation. A cost-benefit analysis revealed a dramatic disparity between professional human narration (previously sourced at ~£490 for 1.6 hours) and AI-driven production (estimated at ~£1.51 for 100 minutes). This project was undertaken as a long-term investment to build ...
I continue to be fascinated by the advance of technology and the the direction of prices. With TVs this is totally amazing. See also How Samsung TV Prices Dropped Over a Decade! £35,000 to £2400 (at Feb 2025) So at 31/08/2025, one could splash out on a good quality 85-inch Samsung TV that would have ...
If you were well off and bought an 85-inch Samsung TV in 2014 – the price would have been around £35,000!! Wot! I knew that was a ridiculous price but it was the sort of price for that size of TV back then – 10+ years ago. So I took a photo in 2014. All ...
Well, I’m on a roll from the last post on eggs in the microwave. I had mentioned that boiling rice or anything on a stove is not very energy efficient. What a surprise I had! This exploration actually ended up showing that a gas hob uses approximately 2.55 times more actual energy but still cheaper, ...
So, you all scoffed. You sneered. You laughed, pointed fingers and snorted with derision about the many failures in my quest to conquer the impossible: microwaving an egg without it exploding like a miniature culinary grenade. “It can’t be done!” you declared, between guffaws. You sneered, “You’ll end up with scrambled egg on the ceiling!” ...
The tranquillity of a sunny afternoon can quickly transform into a scene of chaos when a wildfire erupts, engulfing homes and livelihoods in its path. Recent events, such as the devastating fires in Los Angeles, serve as stark reminders of the ever-present danger of tail risk. While cutting costs might seem prudent in the short ...
No – this is not about mania caused by coffee. You spotted some words and something jumped into your conscious mind, driven by the Labyrinth of your unconscious! This post is about the cost of coffee. In a previous post I am so cheap, I made some calculations based on price of a cup at ...
I show what it costs to wash some clothes in a my washing machine.
If your name is Rip van Winkle, you would not know that there is an energy crisis on over the last couple months. That was brewing for over a year but the war in Ukraine made it more prominent. It would have happened anyway but that’s a different story. I’ve seen my diesel bill jump ...
Okay – so I have nothing better to do on a Sunday morning than think about this. And yes – I do ‘have a life’! Some advert came in from Argos on new TVs. I don’t even need a new TV. I click on the advert and came across a 75-inch Samsung TV for £900(£899 ...
What’s the big dream!! Well, you who reads this might have to spend 44 seconds of your life checking it out. Oh dear – too much time! When I wrote about value in reading books, I did a Venn Diagram. Overnight, I realised that ‘cost’ could be seen as ‘risk’. However, ‘risk’ could be anything ...
Captain Walker
Captain Walker
