# billiem

Small notes on software, systems, and building things that stay understandable.

## Useful files
- /posts.json: machine-readable post index
- /feed.json: JSON Feed
- /feed.xml: RSS feed

Each published post is available as HTML and as a Markdown alternate. Dates use ISO 8601 in machine-readable files.

## Posts
- [Free compute worth claiming in July 2026](https://billiem.uk/posts/free-compute-july-2026/) ([Markdown](https://billiem.uk/posts/free-compute-july-2026/index.md)) - A July 2026 field guide to free VPS, serverless, databases, product plumbing, developer tools, AI APIs, and GPU compute.
- [GPT-5.6 needed a more ambitious prompt](https://billiem.uk/posts/gpt-5-6-needed-a-more-ambitious-prompt/) ([Markdown](https://billiem.uk/posts/gpt-5-6-needed-a-more-ambitious-prompt/index.md)) - The first GPT-5.6 LLM Choice batch was polished but shallow. A prompt built around ambition and depth produced much stronger artefacts.
- [The Model Isn't Everything.](https://billiem.uk/posts/local-llm-choice-harness-mattered/) ([Markdown](https://billiem.uk/posts/local-llm-choice-harness-mattered/index.md)) - A local LLM Choice experiment showed how harnesses, repair loops, tools, and model strength changed coding-agent results.
- [A thought can be a URL now](https://billiem.uk/posts/thought-can-be-a-url-now/) ([Markdown](https://billiem.uk/posts/thought-can-be-a-url-now/index.md)) - A Discord argument about biological wheels became a deployed Cloudflare Pages simulation in about ten minutes.
- [Voice made my idea system start working](https://billiem.uk/posts/linear-idea-ledger/) ([Markdown](https://billiem.uk/posts/linear-idea-ledger/index.md)) - A low-friction Linear idea ledger works for me because voice and agents made capture and retrieval cheap enough to happen.
- [LLM Choice is mostly an idea engine](https://billiem.uk/posts/llm-choice-as-an-idea-engine/) ([Markdown](https://billiem.uk/posts/llm-choice-as-an-idea-engine/index.md)) - Using autonomous coding-agent runs as a low-cost way to find ideas, learn unfamiliar topics, and seed later projects.
- [I added a graph because the site needed some shape](https://billiem.uk/posts/website-graph/) ([Markdown](https://billiem.uk/posts/website-graph/index.md)) - A small site graph made billiem.uk feel more like a growing personal object than a fast but flat static site.
- [My local LLM clone failed where the data failed](https://billiem.uk/posts/local-llm-work-became-a-routing-problem/) ([Markdown](https://billiem.uk/posts/local-llm-work-became-a-routing-problem/index.md)) - A local LoRA experiment on Discord data became a lesson in data shape, routing, evaluation, and knowing when to stop.
- [When personal automation stops being procrastination](https://billiem.uk/posts/chair-scraper/) ([Markdown](https://billiem.uk/posts/chair-scraper/index.md)) - A chair scraper turned a fragmented refurb search into a dashboard and alerts, saving more than £100 in a few days.
- [Free compute worth claiming in June 2026](https://billiem.uk/posts/free-compute-for-ai-side-projects/) ([Markdown](https://billiem.uk/posts/free-compute-for-ai-side-projects/index.md)) - A June 2026 field guide to free VPS, edge, database, email, observability, auth, storage, and AI compute for side projects.