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baristaGeek

957 karma · joined June 17, 2014

Software Engineer at Kiva.org

https://twitter.com/helloteban https://github.com/baristaGeek https://www.linkedin.com/in/tebanvargas/

Feel free to ping me! estebanvargas94 [at] gmail [dot] com

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/baristageek; my proof: https://keybase.io/baristageek/sigs/xvrFueBx0GMNM1qPjertwxrGmgyPzGzabPoXl_Q02Io ]

Medellin, Colombia

submissionscomments
baristaGeek··on Show HN: Running 104GB Qwen3.8-Flash-Next on 48GB Mac with at ~12 tok/s
For the harness... just the shell. No client library. Does that answer your question?
baristaGeek··on Show HN: Running 104GB Qwen3.8-Flash-Next on 48GB Mac with at ~12 tok/s
Also I don't know if people like this... but could this be wrapped around a nice desktop app?
baristaGeek··on Show HN: Running 104GB Qwen3.8-Flash-Next on 48GB Mac with at ~12 tok/s
I just used it, went through the whole installation (took like 1 hour approx). Long but straightforward. If I put my computer to sleep will it continue?

I started the server (very curiously I was running oLlama in the same prot slotserve uses by default, instead of switching it which I know you can do, I just ditched oLlama, perhaps an insight for you) and built a small html hello world served via Python. The thing pointed me to the localhost link, nice!

As an early user, my advice is to focus on efficiency. The efficiency of the installation but more importantly, the efficiency of running the thing. 8.1GB per slotserve process is a lot! Is that in your control?

Also, I've seen an interest of certain kinds of programmers for open-weight models. "We all know agree that LLMs for coding are very useful but we're giving money to a small set of big, evil corporations. They're Trump donors. I heard it's bad for the environment because it uses water". If it's local and open-weight, this could be marketed this way I think.

Finally, what's the actual, real use case for slotserve?

baristaGeek··on Magnitude 7.4 Earthquake – 5 km S of San José del Palmar, Colombia
Lived it from my 20th floor apartment in Medellin. It was scary af, my wife started crying, but friends and family are OK.

Interesting tech fact: A friend of mine who lives in SF couldn't communicate with his parents who were in the countryside near Pereira (one of the 2 or 3 most devastated cities) because comms were pretty bad, but luckily they had Starlink to be able communicate.

baristaGeek··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (May 2026)
SEEKING WORK | Colombia (US Timezones) | Remote or Hybrid in Colombia (can fly to the US or elsewhere for offsites)

Email: estebanvargas94@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tebanvargas/

Technologies & Skills: Software Engineering, React, Node, TypeScript, AI Engineering, System Design, AWS, Leadership.

I'm looking for a full-stack engineering role. I can be either be a pure IC or a tech lead. The main thing that I'm optimizing for is for solving the problems that I want to solve.

9+ years of experience in the industry, the past 4 in tech lead roles. I have mostly worked for US SaaS companies, and have also been a founder in the past (backed by Techstars).

CV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d0-tqGvQdwnN0sXtFfUW6qdE3l9...

baristaGeek··on Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%
Ok I actually like the idea of flatter orgs and player-coaches a lot.

However, do we really need them to AI-wash the fact that as a lot of companies, this company over-hired during ZIRP? Do we really need them to AI-wash the fact that the crypto hype is gone, therefore their business is smaller? “Company as intelligence” and “AI productivity” are just buzzwords so their stock price doesn’t suffer.

baristaGeek··on Agile Is Dying
Interesting perspective
baristaGeek··on Agile Is Dying
XD
baristaGeek··on Agile Is Dying
Staying pretty much the same, at least with the current state of technology (just way more bottlenecked by this, but with the same process). What have you seen?
baristaGeek··on Agile Is Dying
Agree! I'm not saying that people are ditching all of Agile, just certain parts of Agile. Let's call it Agile 2.0 or something completely different
baristaGeek··on Agile Is Dying
Could be the case! Without being to strict on the terminology I just wanted to give a clear message: Our planning processes and time range expectations are changing completely
baristaGeek··on Show HN: I built a live race between LLMs to see which generates tokens fastest
I built this because I just thought it would be cool to show which LLMs respond faster (between GTP-4o mini, Claude 3 Haiku, and Gemini 2.5 Flash) and show some metrics (TTFT, avg tok/s, total time, and nTokens)
baristaGeek··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2026)
Are you open to UTC -5?
baristaGeek··on How far back in time can you understand English?
This very interesting blog post got me thinking how English would look like in 2100 or 2200 driven by the changes of the internet and AI. Spelling matters less so alphabet gets reduced? Simpler grammar as it gets more spoken worldwide? Emojis as punctuation?

window unseal nite no log. odd.

baristaGeek··on Show HN: Startup Simulator – AI Choose Your Own Adventure
Hey! I just wanted to build this to show where gaming is going thanks to this AI Boom (choose your own adventure, but opinionated enough to move numbers, get items, have a game end, etc.)

Don't consider this true educational material! haha

baristaGeek··on Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
It obviously doesn’t end today but it should be fast.

When Noriega was arrested by the US, the legitimate president started operating normally a few days after.

baristaGeek··on Philz Coffee close to closing deal to sell to private equity firm for $145M
Exactly! Man… some people don’t get sarcasm
baristaGeek··on Philz Coffee close to closing deal to sell to private equity firm for $145M
Philz Coffee reportedly nearing a $145M PE acquisition. Just another "only in SF" story. Where your barista’s startup dream comes true, and the morning pour exits before your Series B.
baristaGeek··on Postgres LISTEN/NOTIFY does not scale
Very good article! Succinct, and very informative.
baristaGeek··on Postgres LISTEN/NOTIFY does not scale
Postgres is a great DB, but it's the wrong tool for a write-heavy, high-concurrency, real-time system with pub-sub needs.

You should split your system into specialized components: - Kafka for event transport (you're likely already doing this). - An LSM-tree DB for write-heavy structured data (eg: Cassandra) - Keep Postgres for queries that benefit from relational features in certain parts of your architecture

baristaGeek··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2025)
Hi! Have been following LiveKit for a while.

You mention global presence but the job application forms require legal authorization to work in the US. Can you please clarify if you're remote global, or remote US?

Ty

baristaGeek··on Show HN: Run your favorite open-source AI coding agent in the browser
So running this on the browser implies you need to know how to clone a git repo, run a chmod command, etc. How do you plan to productize this so that it actually gets to the hands of non technical people?
baristaGeek··on Show HN: Run your favorite open-source AI coding agent in the browser
What's exactly the benefit of running on the browser? I get that accessibility to a broader audience is a benefit but from what I understand these agents run on the terminal because they have a more powerful runtime. You don't have the browser's memmory limits, you can install native tools such as curl or docker, the model runs directly on your machine, and you have more security on the CLI.
baristaGeek··on Product-Driven Orgs Aren't Perfect but They're the Least Broken
Hey I wasn't aware of that! I'll post somewhere else next time.
baristaGeek··on Medellín's Green Corridors
I agree that being a local you’re not a target.

Regarding the crimes against some foreigners: - It shouldn’t happen. That’s why we elected a new major with a very different philosophy from the previous one. - 1,8M foreigners came here in 2023 and 35 got killed. Again, the number should be 0, but once you see it as a statistic it feels improbable. - If you don’t do ilegal stupid stuff you shouldn’t be doing in the first place (you know what I’m talking about) you’ll be fine.

baristaGeek··on Medellín's Green Corridors
I have never been mugged in Medellin living here 22 years out of my total 30.
baristaGeek··on Medellín's Green Corridors
I would say that beyond the green corridors, the main difference is how global it feels now. Lots of international cuisine, international DJs playing here, foreigners around, real estate ads in English, etc.
baristaGeek··on Medellín's Green Corridors
Unless you’re in tech or a few other sectors (eg: long tail exports such the company that manufactures transistors for Tesla, which is near here) the local job market is very bad. Particularly with new prices, in the wealthy areas it’s comparable to a city like Lisbon now.

If you have a remote job however, it’s a no brainer. For example, renting a 3 bedroom in a wealthy area (through the local route, not Airbnb) within a gated community that has a pool, a gym, etc = $1,000. A private maid/chef once per week = $80. Normal Uber ride = $4-$6. Meal for 2 in a very fancy restaurant = $50 - $75.

Makes SF prices feel insane.

baristaGeek··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2024)
Are you open to candidates from the rest of LatAm?
baristaGeek··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2024)
Awesome! I applied. Just letting you know in case the system flags because I clicked "no" when asked if I'm in the US or the EU.

I agree that SSR makes the "frontend VS backend API" separation very confusing. Session token VS secret key is a better framing for this, and there's a very interesting insight into the paradox that you described! The ergonomics you mention for ensuring consistency sounds like a very interesting technical challenge.

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