You can run a small model on almost any hardware, for free, and just play around. It doesn’t need to be some “frontier” (whatever the hell that means) model by any means. Grab some new tech and slap it on whatever hardware you have laying around, see what you think.

Making it about the hardware costs is not the play, they’re not an actual barrier.

I don't want to use a crappy model that can't do any of the things I want it to.

I'm not coding with Claude cause I enjoy the inherent novelty of LLMs. I'm doing it cause it's enabling me to quickly solve problems without getting stuck on the hitches that have deterred me from bothering with dozens of side projects my entire life.

> you can run a small model

but why?