date: 2026-07-08T00:00:00Z published: 2026-07-08T00:00:00Z title: “Post-mortem of a project that isn’t dead: six weeks of a self-hosted thinking partner” enableToc: false description: “Building a 42,000-chunk personal RAG agent on a free-tier VM — architecture, decisions, failures, and what I’d do differently.” draft: true TL;DR — Six weeks ago I started building a thinking partner: an agent I can

date: 2024-04-23T00:00:00Z published: 2024-04-23T00:00:00Z description: “Everything is in a cyle of bunding and unbundling.” title: “Streaming Wars: Bundling and Unbundling” enableToc: false

author: Nick Ali date: 2023-04-23T00:00:00Z published: 2023-04-23T00:00:00Z description: Rendering Star Wars characters using Midjourney AI draft: false title: Experimenting with Midjourney enableToc: false

author: Nick Ali date: 2021-04-30T00:00:00Z published: 2021-04-30T00:00:00Z description: Rendering a cat head with Zdog. draft: false title: A Cat’s Head enableToc: false One of my favorite things about working in the ad agency world is you get exposed to a lot of different industries. And working with a lot of different technologies. I’ve always liked to learn new languages or frameworks. It’s th

author: Nick Ali date: 2021-01-18T00:00:00Z published: 2021-01-18T00:00:00Z description: How to install Intel e1000e drivers on MacPro 4,1 if you already put Ubuntu on it. draft: false title: Install e1000e networking drivers in Ubuntu for MacPro 4,1 enableToc: false I’ve got a couple of Mac Pro 4,1 cheese graters from 2009. For fun, I wanted to install Ubuntu on it. The server and desktop ISOs ha

author: Nick Ali date: 2021-05-02T19:00:00Z published: 2021-05-02T19:00:00Z description: Technology solutions start out great, but eventually run into a wall of human problems. draft: false title: Technology will not fix People Problems enableToc: false Cashing in on Clubhouse On what has changed with Clubhouse when it went from invite only to open for all:

author: Nick Ali date: 2021-03-30T00:00:00Z published: 2021-03-30T00:00:00Z description: We don’t fully understand how companies become successful. draft: false title: Take Apple as an example… enableToc: false I’ve always thought most business biographies and case studies as business self-help books. Everyone likes to read them like they will have nuggets of wisdom that will reveal that one secre

author: Nick Ali date: 2021-06-15T00:00:00Z published: 2021-06-15T00:00:00Z description: In future, only the affluent will be able enjoy the real world, while the masses live virtually. draft: false title: Real Life for the Affluent, Online for the Masses enableToc: false The way I look at it, there are two related trends happening. First, many, if not most, are happy living most of their lives on

author: Nick Ali date: 2021-05-18T00:00:00Z published: 2021-05-18T00:00:00Z description: Did COVID-19 really cause transformational changes? draft: false title: “Here we go again: Everything is Changing! (COVID-19 edition)” enableToc: false

author: Nick Ali date: 2021-03-18T00:00:00Z published: 2021-03-18T00:00:00Z description: Not understanding the 4Ps leads to unnecessary revisions. draft: false title: Leave the 4Ps alone enableToc: false

author: Nick Ali date: 2021-05-27T00:00:00Z published: 2021-05-27T00:00:00Z description: “Of course, the short answer is: it depends.” draft: false title: Is Marketing Personalization Overhyped? enableToc: false

author: Nick Ali date: 2021-01-15T00:00:00Z published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00Z description: Do all brands need Growth Hacking? draft: false title: Growth Marketing Hocus Pocus enableToc: false

author: Nick Ali date: 2021-05-01T00:00:00Z published: 2021-05-01T00:00:00Z description: Reaching peak intelligence draft: false title: Conspiracy Unicorn enableToc: false

author: Nick Ali date: 2021-03-12T00:00:00Z published: 2021-03-12T00:00:00Z description: Why CAC payback period is more important than LTC:CAC. draft: false title: CAC Payback Period > LTV:CAC Ratio enableToc: false

date: 2021-08-16T00:00:00Z published: 2021-08-16T00:00:00Z description: It’s a bit complicated. title: B2B Tech Marketing Gone Wrong? enableToc: false

author: Nick Ali date: 2020-12-14T00:00:00Z published: 2020-12-14T00:00:00Z description: Leave social media and subscribe to newsletters draft: false title: Returning to Newsletters enableToc: false One of the projects I took on this year was decluttering my sources of news. Perhaps Marie Kondo-fying some. The first step was unsubscribing to hundreds of newsletters that I had signed up for over th

author: Nick Ali date: 2020-04-14T00:00:00Z published: 2020-04-14T00:00:00Z description: "" draft: false title: Reddit Programming Humor enableToc: false True

author: Nick Ali date: 2020-12-16T00:00:00Z published: 2020-12-16T00:00:00Z description: Will we have AI companions? draft: false title: AI Replacing Human Connections enableToc: false With the arrival of consumer-facing AI, are we at the beginning of replacing human communications? A few times (here and here), I have talked about my idea of Netflixication of Men. The basic idea is there will be s

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Hello, I'm trying out a small web app for posting updates since creating markdown files every time is painful! ![](https://web-files01.nali.org/2026/2...

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