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Hello!

As a handsome local AI enjoyer™ you’ve probably noticed one of the big flaws with LLMs:

It lies. Confidently. ALL THE TIME.

(Technically, it “bullshits” - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5

I’m autistic and extremely allergic to vibes-based tooling, so … I built a thing. Maybe it’s useful to you too.

The thing: llama-conductor

llama-conductor is a router that sits between your frontend (OWUI / SillyTavern / LibreChat / etc) and your backend (llama.cpp + llama-swap, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint). Local-first (because fuck big AI), but it should talk to anything OpenAI-compatible if you point it there (note: experimental so YMMV).

Not a model, not a UI, not magic voodoo.

A glass-box that makes the stack behave like a deterministic system, instead of a drunk telling a story about the fish that got away.

TL;DR: “In God we trust. All others must bring data.”

Three examples:

1) KB mechanics that don’t suck (1990s engineering: markdown, JSON, checksums)

You keep “knowledge” as dumb folders on disk. Drop docs (.txt, .md, .pdf) in them. Then:

  • >>attach <kb> — attaches a KB folder
  • >>summ new — generates SUMM_*.md files with SHA-256 provenance baked in
  • `>> moves the original to a sub-folder

Now, when you ask something like:

“yo, what did the Commodore C64 retail for in 1982?”

…it answers from the attached KBs only. If the fact isn’t there, it tells you - explicitly - instead of winging it. Eg:

The provided facts state the Commodore 64 launched at $595 and was reduced to $250, but do not specify a 1982 retail price. The Amiga’s pricing and timeline are also not detailed in the given facts.

Missing information includes the exact 1982 retail price for Commodore’s product line and which specific model(s) were sold then. The answer assumes the C64 is the intended product but cannot confirm this from the facts.

Confidence: medium | Source: Mixed

No vibes. No “well probably…”. Just: here’s what’s in your docs, here’s what’s missing, don't GIGO yourself into stupid.

And when you’re happy with your summaries, you can:

  • >>move to vault — promote those SUMMs into Qdrant for the heavy mode.

2) Mentats: proof-or-refusal mode (Vault-only)

Mentats is the “deep think” pipeline against your curated sources. It’s enforced isolation:

  • no chat history
  • no filesystem KBs
  • no Vodka
  • Vault-only grounding (Qdrant)

It runs triple-pass (thinker → critic → thinker). It’s slow on purpose. You can audit it. And if the Vault has nothing relevant? It refuses and tells you to go pound sand:

FINAL_ANSWER:
The provided facts do not contain information about the Acorn computer or its 1995 sale price.

Sources: Vault
FACTS_USED: NONE
[ZARDOZ HATH SPOKEN]

Also yes, it writes a mentats_debug.log, because of course it does. Go look at it any time you want.

The flow is basically: Attach KBs → SUMM → Move to Vault → Mentats. No mystery meat. No “trust me bro, embeddings.”

3) Vodka: deterministic memory on a potato budget

Local LLMs have two classic problems: goldfish memory + context bloat that murders your VRAM.

Vodka fixes both without extra model compute. (Yes, I used the power of JSON files to hack the planet instead of buying more VRAM from NVIDIA).

  • !! stores facts verbatim (JSON on disk)
  • ?? recalls them verbatim (TTL + touch limits so memory doesn’t become landfill)
  • CTC (Cut The Crap) hard-caps context (last N messages + char cap) so you don’t get VRAM spikes after 400 messages

So instead of:

“Remember my server is 203.0.113.42” → “Got it!” → [100 msgs later] → “127.0.0.1 🥰”

you get:

!! my server is 203.0.113.42 ?? server ip203.0.113.42 (with TTL/touch metadata)

And because context stays bounded: stable KV cache, stable speed, your potato PC stops crying.


There’s more (a lot more) in the README, but I’ve already over-autism’ed this post.

TL;DR:

If you want your local LLM to shut up when it doesn’t know and show receipts when it does, come poke it:

PS: Sorry about the AI slop image. I can't draw for shit.

PPS: A human with ASD wrote this using Notepad++. If it the formatting is weird, now you know why.

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A Cuban migrant held in solitary confinement at an immigration detention facility in Texas died after guards held him down and he stopped breathing, according to an autopsy report released Wednesday that ruled the death a homicide.

Geraldo Lunas Campos died Jan. 3 following an altercation with guards. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) originally said the 55-year-old father of four was attempting suicide and the staff tried to save him.

But a witness told The Associated Press last week that Lunas Campos was handcuffed as at least five guards held him down and one put an arm around his neck and squeezed until he was unconscious.

At least 30 people died in ICE custody last year, the highest level in two decades, agency figures show. In the first 10 days of 2026, four immigrants, including Lunas Campos, died while in federal immigration custody.

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House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said on Wednesday that he would reject a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the rest of the fiscal year over concerns that it did not sufficiently curb Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.

The announcement came in a closed-door meeting with Democratic caucus members, following continued ICE violence in Minnesota as part of Operation Metro Surge.

“We’ve heard our members speak loudly that ICE isn’t doing enough, these reforms aren’t doing enough. This lawlessness has to stop,” Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (D-CA) told reporters after the meeting on Wednesday. “They are only doing this because they can. They are only doing this because the president of the United States wants to use them to terrorize communities, to terrorize U.S. citizens.”

But, according to NBC News, Democratic leaders did not state they would whip a vote to push all members to follow their “no” vote. This leaves the door open for Democrats, many of whom are facing close elections this year, to vote in favor of the appropriation bill.

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https://xcancel.com/CantEverDie/status/2014150119579349258

They might destroy the planet someday, but at least I'll still be able to take comfort in the fact that the libs were then catastrophically owned. so-true

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Gains come after US president says he will not use military force to acquire territory and cites ‘framework deal’

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jan/22/taco-thursday-european-stocks-rise-trump-chickens-out-on-tariff-threat


Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

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Archive link

Amid heightened tensions over Greenland and the political weakening of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the announcement was more than symbolic. While President Donald Trump was in Davos seeking an agreement regarding Greenland to ease tensions within the Atlantic Alliance, the Pentagon informed its European allies of the impending withdrawal of about 200 American personnel from certain NATO structures, as revealed by The Washington Post.

On February 12, Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of defense, demanded that European allies "step into the Arena and take ownership of conventional security on the continent." Initially, this ask was to be reflected in a substantial increase in European defense investments. At the NATO summit in The Hague in June 2025, European leaders committed to raising their military spending to 5% of their gross domestic product, up from a previous target of 2%.

The second condition was therefore a reduction in the American resources deployed in Europe, either directly within NATO or in various US military installations across the continent, to redirect them to other theaters of operation, such as the Indo-Pacific or the southern US border.

Washington began by announcing a modest reduction in its personnel assigned to NATO and its various structures, who are expected to be replaced by European staff. "The 31 other allies have the capacity to fill these positions," said a military source, who considered that these departures remained largely symbolic.

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submitted 45 minutes ago* (last edited 6 minutes ago) by Valasian@lemmy.world to c/fuckcars@lemmy.world
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Archive link

Just weeks after Nestlé withdrew batches of infant formula from sixty countries, Lactalis announced on Wednesday, January 21, that it was recalling six batches of its Picot brand formula in France, as well as products sold in 18 other countries. The reason: the detection of a bacterial toxin known as cereulide, which can cause diarrhea and vomiting.

The agriculture ministry confirmed to Le Monde that the same supplier, based in China, produced the raw material that brought this toxin into products made by both food industry giants.

According to the recall notice published Wednesday by French authorities, the affected Lactalis products had been on sale since January 2025, while the Nestlé formula batches were available starting in May 2025. For the agriculture ministry, the two cases are linked.

Lactalis had particular difficulty identifying the toxin cereulide was detected in a batch of milk powder at a Nestlé plant in the Netherlands," the ministry told Le Monde. "Subsequent investigations identified the culprit as an ingredient – a type of oil high in arachidonic acid – supplied by a producer in China. Other clients of this supplier then conducted their own checks."

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Archive link

In 2017, a senior French investigator returning from Milipol, the major biennial trade fair dedicated to state security, had something to confide. Shocked, he informed us he had been approached on the sidelines of the event by "an Israeli company," whose name he did not wish to disclose, that tried to sell him a geolocation tool using advertising data collected from mobile phones.

Nearly a decade later, what once seemed like science fiction now drives a well-established industry. Today, companies offer services in advertising intelligence (Adint): By collecting the geolocation data of millions of phones worldwide from advertising markets, they promise intelligence or law enforcement agencies the ability to track individuals to within a few meters.

According to Le Monde's analysis, around 15 companies, at least, now propose such services. Most are based in Israel and were founded by former members of the country's intelligence services or military. Others are based in Europe and the United States. Their raw material is the advertising data exchanged and resold on online marketplaces, collected by thousands of ordinary apps, such as games or weather apps, supposedly for advertising purposes.

Adint tools are in increasing demand. More and more companies in the sector have started showcasing them at industry trade shows and specialized conferences. According to US business magazine Forbes, US immigration police ICE recently purchased an Adint tool for $5 million (€4.3 million). Such tools have been viewed and promoted as alternatives to other tracking methods, which are either more cumbersome or increasingly ineffective. However, Adint surveillance tools, which operate under lax or even nonexistent regulation, raise major concerns about personal freedoms, since any country or institution can use them against any phone anywhere in the world.

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Japan will allocate $6 billion to Ukraine for humanitarian and technical support in 2026, according to a statement by Verkhovna Rada Deputy Speaker Olena Kondratyuk on Facebook.

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/japan-announces-6-billion-in-support-for-1769029333.html


Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

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Hey everyone! In case you haven't noticed, this is a new community focused on NonPolitical Comics (NPCs), which essentially means no gloom and doom of the day stuff.

If you like the idea, we need help! Check out the pinned post on the community.

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We made pizza last night! I call it the Millennial Falcon. Worried that our dinner party is going to get snowed out on Saturday.

This post is for casual conversation if you don’t feel like making a post of your own

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