Sampson Ho
📋 About
Self-taught developer and data analyst based in San Diego. I run a homelab on Unraid and a fleet of local AI models — LLMs, vision, multimodal — that I wire into tools replacing things I used to pay for.
The goal: own the stack end-to-end. The constraint: my wife has to think the server noise is worth it. She's ambivalent so far.
📉 Subscriptions I've Cut
| Service | Replaced By | Before | Now |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Gemini / ChatGPT | Open WebUI + OpenRouter | $19.99/mo | ~$5/mo API |
| Google Drive | Nextcloud + Backblaze B2 | ~$25/mo | ~$2/mo |
| Cloud Photo Backup | Immich (self-hosted) | ~$10/mo | $0 (on Unraid) |
Over a year that's a GPU upgrade. And the data stays mine.
🤔 Why Self-Host?
Data Ownership
My photos, documents, and chat logs live on my hardware — not getting analyzed by someone else's models. If a service goes under or changes its pricing, I don't lose access.
Privacy-First AI
Running local LLMs means I don't pay per-token or hand my queries to a third party. The 3070 isn't fast, but it's mine.
It's Fun (and Expensive)
These are things that are cool but my wife is less convinced about. The server rack lives in the closet. She's chosen to ignore it.
📸 Beyond the Terminal
She runs the house. I just pay the server bills.
26.2 miles. Once. (Maybe again.)
Fastest weapon. Best weapon.
Aeropress and a grinder that cost more than my first server.
Swap the placeholder divs for <img> tags with actual photos.
📝 Updates
Building a public landing page — chat & photos behind 2FA
sampshimi.com is public-facing, but the AI chat and photo library sit behind Cloudflare Zero Trust with two-factor. How to split public vs. private content on the same domain. Read more →
Killing my Google Drive bill with Nextcloud + Backblaze
120 GB off Google Drive, self-hosted on Unraid, now paying pennies for B2 cold storage. Read more →
Replacing Gemini with local AI — the real cost comparison
Open WebUI + OpenRouter vs. the $20/mo subscription. Performance, latency, and trade-offs. Read more →