Ollama models not loading after update (dual RTX 3060)
5 mins
When Ollama auto-updated on my small dual RTX 3060 headless setup, model loading suddenly stopped working - no errors, just silence and hanging clients. The GPUs were detected, yet nothing generated and loading of tensors failed from one day to the other. Upgrading drivers and even moving from version 0.12.4 to 0.12.5 did not help, while other CUDA applications ran perfectly. After a few hours of debugging, the fix turned out to be simple: rolling back to Ollama 0.12.3 instantly restored normal behavior. If you are seeing lines like llama_model_load: vocab only - skipping tensors and key with type not found ... general.alignment, this post walks through what happened and how to get your models running again without tearing your hair out.
Science as a Collective, Ever-Growing Enterprise
17 mins
For a long time, I thought of science as something done by brilliant individuals - lonely minds uncovering truths in isolation, excelent researchers doing their isolated work far above the understanding capabilities of everyone else. Over time, I realized that this image is deeply incomplete. Science is not a solitary act but a vast collective enterprise: a self-organizing network of countless people across generations, each contributing a fragment to the immense mosaic of human knowledge. It’s not just about experiments, but about documenting, teaching, and preserving what we learn so others can build upon it. Yet this collective enterprise does not mean constant social interaction — its true communication channels are publications and presentations, the shared language of discovery. This essay explores science as a living, creative system - one that depends as much on imagination and diversity of minds as on logic and precision. It argues that politics and the public often miss this deeper truth: that the scientific process is society’s long-term memory and imagination combined, not merely a source of immediate economic gain or the work of some view excellent isolated minds that compete against each other and whos performance can be measured in form of economic gain or number of publications. From the quiet curiosity of basic research to the emerging cooperation between human thinkers and artificial intelligence, science remains our shared attempt to understand the universe - together.
WASM as a Secure Sandbox: From the Browser to Distributed Runners
9 mins
From faster JavaScript to a universal sandbox, WebAssembly has quietly grown into one of the most promising technologies for safe, portable code execution. This article looks at WASM not just in the browser, but as a general-purpose runtime: compiling C (or Rust) with Emscripten, running code in interpreters like wasm3, and embedding untrusted functions in distributed systems. We will also quickly look at its security strengths - and why, like any runtime, it is not a magical solution.
Building Semantic Suggested Articles for a Static Blog (and How To Visualize Embeddings)
37 mins
Semantic search is a trending topic - and as of today a suprisingly simple concept. Instead of relying on keywords, this article shows how to use embeddings to capture meaning and suggest genuinely related posts. Along the way, I will show how to visualize embeddings in 2D and 3D, making the abstract mathematics of similarity tangible through interactive plots that visualize this blog itself. From theory to practice, the article walks through a full pipeline. It covers chunking content, generating embeddings with Ollama or OpenAI, storing them in PostgreSQL with pgvector, and finally integrating related-article boxes directly into Jekyll. Code snippets, schema definitions, and configuration examples make it easy to reproduce - or adapt for your own projects.
Instrumentation Amplifiers - a quick overview
8 mins
Instrumentation amplifiers are the quiet workhorses behind precision measurement. From strain gauges in mechanical systems to Pirani gauges in vacuum technology, they allow engineers to pick up the tiniest signals while ignoring large amounts of electrical noise. Built on the foundations of the classical difference amplifier, modern INAs overcome its limitations by offering high input impedance, simple gain adjustment, and excellent common-mode rejection - all in a compact chip. This article walks through the principles step by step, starting from the difference amplifier and leading to the full instrumentation amplifier. Equations, circuit diagrams, and practical notes show why INAs are indispensable in sensor front-ends and data acquisition. Whether you’re an engineering student, hobbyist, or professional, this quick overview will give you the tools to understand when and why instrumentation amplifiers matter.
Understanding Wasps: A Misunderstood Neighbor in the Garden
58 mins
Wasps often suffer from a bad reputation as aggressive stingers, but in reality they are vital neighbors in our gardens. They act as natural pest controllers, removing flies, caterpillars, and other insects, while also visiting hundreds of plant species for nectar and contributing to pollination. Far from mindless automatons, studies show that wasps learn, remember, recognize faces, and even demonstrate reasoning abilities. Their so-called aggression is predictable and usually defensive - stings occur mainly when a nest is disturbed or a wasp feels directly threatened. By learning to read their behavior, we can safely coexist with these insects. A foraging wasp on fruit is harmless, a guard wasp with wings spread is issuing a warning, and only persistent provocation leads to an attack. Wasp colonies are temporary, vanishing in winter, but while active they provide free ecological services worth billions globally. Understanding these modes and signals helps transform fear into respect, showing wasps not as pests but as intelligent, beneficial allies in maintaining the balance of the garden.
Preprint: Ghost Imaging with Free Electron-Photon Pairs
1 min
Coincidence imaging, also known as ghost imaging, is a technique that exploits correlations between two particles to reconstruct information about a specimen. The particle that relays the spatial information about the object remains completely non-interacting, while the particle used to probe the object is not spatially resolved. While ghost imaging has been primarily implemented on photonic platforms, it becomes particularly intriguing when applied to particles with fundamentally different properties, such as massive, charged electrons and massless, neutral photons, especially considering the role of both particles as cornerstones of highly advanced microscopic platforms. In this work, we investigate coincidence imaging using electron-cathodoluminescence photon pairs generated within a transmission electron microscope. Utilizing a custom-built free-space cathodoluminescence setup, we demonstrate ghost imaging of complex patterns. We are able to obtain a spatial resolution down to 2 um, paving the way for adaptation of quantum-enhanced imaging techniques from photonic quantum optics to electron microscopy.
The Enigma of Consciousness: Are Humans Uniquely Special in the Realm of Mind and Experience?
23 mins
Are humans metaphysically unique, or is consciousness a matter of organization and dynamics that could, in principle, emerge in other substrates? This essay tackles the long-standing debate by weighing arguments for human exceptionalism against counterpoints from philosophy of mind, neuroscience, and AI. It explores whether qualities like subjective experience, qualia, and the hard problem demand a biological essence, or whether feedback loops, global broadcast, embodiment, intrinsic drives, and learning dynamics suffice to explain why minds feel the way they do. The conclusion points toward a continuum rather than an exclusive divide: human minds feel special, but their vividness and unity can be linked to patterns of information processing, not an untouchable spark. Machines do not yet meet these conditions fully, but no principled barrier rules it out. What makes minds special is excellence of organization—loops, memory, drives, and adaptation—not the matter they are built from.
Preprint: Coherent Driving of a Quantum System with Modulated Free-Space Electrons
1 min
Preprint on arXiv: Control of quantum systems typically relies on the interaction with electromagnetic radiation. In this study, we experimentally show that the electromagnetic near-field of a spatially modulated freespace electron beam can be used to drive spin systems, demonstrating free-electron-bound-electron resonant interaction. By periodically deflecting the electron beam of a scanning electron microscope in close proximity to a spin-active solid-state sample, and sweeping the deflection frequency across the spin resonance, we directly observe phase coherent coupling between the electron beam's nearfield and the two spin states. This method relies only on classically shaping the electron beams transversal correlations and has the potential to enable coherent control of quantum systems with unprecedented, electron microscopic resolution, opening novel possibilities for advanced spectroscopic tools in nanotechnology.
Getting started with MCP servers
23 mins
Give your agents real hands and eyes. This article introduces the Model Context Protocol (MCP) as a standardized, modular way to expose tools, resources, and prompts to any orchestrator - discoverable at runtime, permissioned by design, and refreshingly simple to implement. We start with a tiny toy MCP that is copy-pastable and runable in minutes. Then we turn it up a notch with an MQTT-powered MCP that bridges into the real world - sensors, home automation, lab gear, and small robots - using safe allowlists, request/reply with timeouts, and robust async hand-offs.
