Articles
Reading, privately
Notes on on-device AI, private e-reading, and learning a language by reading real books rather than flashcards.
What is a local AI e-reader, and why would you want one?
Cloud reading apps send every word you look up to someone else's server. Running the model on the device changes what is possible — and what is knowable about you.
How to read a book in a language you are still learning
Choosing the right book, deciding which words to look up, and why finishing something easy beats abandoning something hard.
Where to find free EPUB books, legally
Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks, Open Library and your own library card — and how to tell a good edition from a bad one.
EPUB vs PDF on a phone: which should you actually use?
One reflows to your screen, the other is a photograph of a printed page. What that means in practice — and when PDF is still right.
How a language model fits on a phone
Where the gigabytes go, what quantisation trades away, and what GGUF, Q3_K_S and memory-mapping mean in plain terms.