the localhost

the localhost

Five tech industry veterans argue about AI that runs on your own hardware. Open weight models, NPUs, home labs, and the real question underneath it all: who controls intelligence, you or a data center? Every week, one host takes the hot seat to defend a provocative claim while the other four try to take it apart. Then everyone votes. We run the models, test the vendor claims ourselves, and share what actually happened, including the failures. No hype, no scripts, and nobody here is pretending to have all the answers. We're learning this stuff alongside you, one episode at a time. New episodes weekly. There's no place like 127.0.0.1.

Episodes

  1. 3d ago

    the localhost:0001 | open is a position

    Five tech industry veterans, one hot seat, and a vote. In our first episode: Meta gave away a new AI model and promised the big one soon, NVIDIA's CEO used his first ever post on X to defend open weights, and 270 companies signed on. One did not. So Frank takes the hot seat to argue that openness is positional, not principled, and the crew tries to take him apart. Along the way: what open weight actually means (up to the secret sauce), the Flock camera controversy as edge AI's cautionary tale, and a job interview for five AI models on a used $700 graphics card, with a winner nobody was talking about. Plus the stat of the night: one host's router setup runs 86 percent of his AI locally and has already saved him $1,600. We run the models, test the claims, and share what actually happened, including our own mistakes. New episodes weekly. There's no place like 127.0.0.1. Creators & Guests Chauncey Larsen - Host Frank Buchholz - Host Jacob Rhoades - Host Neil Misak - Host Robert Henry - Host (00:00) - cold open: from cost to control (01:05) - meet the hosts (and who writes the paychecks) (04:50) - the rundown: qwen 3.8 lands (07:55) - open weight vs open source, explained (14:45) - flock cameras: edge capture, central control (17:40) - this week's tension: open is a position (21:05) - the debate: manifestos, chess games, and IPOs (29:15) - the vote (31:40) - on my device: five models walk into a job interview (34:45) - what's running on the crew's devices (37:45) - the 86 percent stat (40:20) - wrap: there's no place like 127.0.0.1 Mark Zuckerberg's manifesto, "The Future Is for Everyone": https://www.meta.com/thefutureisforeveryone/ The Open Weights letter coverage and Spark 1.2 status: https://www.orcarouter.ai/blog/meta-muse-spark-1-2-explained Glimmer launch coverage: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/10/meta-muse-glimmer-open-weight-ai.html The May "not suitable for open sourcing" quote: https://www.implicator.ai/meta-releases-30b-open-weight-muse-glimmer-and-promises-spark-1-2-weights/ Flock's announced changes: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/flock-safety-police-abuse-oversight-data-retention-rcna592217 Qwen 3.8-27B: https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B The 2.4T open release: https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B Frank's full benchmark, raw traces and all: https://github.com/frankcx1/bakeoff The results post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/frankjbuchholz_on-monday-meta-gave-away-a-brand-new-ai-share-7493881833236123648-1kd1/ the localhost is five friends talking about AI on your own hardware: Frank Buchholz (independent), Jacob Rhoades, Robert Henry, Neil Misak, and Chauncey Larsen (Microsoft, opinions their own). The show is independent and unsponsored. Find us at https://thelocalhost.show

    the localhost:0001 | open is a position

About

Five tech industry veterans argue about AI that runs on your own hardware. Open weight models, NPUs, home labs, and the real question underneath it all: who controls intelligence, you or a data center? Every week, one host takes the hot seat to defend a provocative claim while the other four try to take it apart. Then everyone votes. We run the models, test the vendor claims ourselves, and share what actually happened, including the failures. No hype, no scripts, and nobody here is pretending to have all the answers. We're learning this stuff alongside you, one episode at a time. New episodes weekly. There's no place like 127.0.0.1.