https://tgmerritt.com/ Essays and engineering notes from Tyler Merritt: digital humans, shipping software, and the occasional 140.6. en-us https://tgmerritt.com/posts/running-a-284-billion-parameter-model-on-a-121gb-box.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/running-a-284-billion-parameter-model-on-a-121gb-box.html Sun, 02 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 I spent the week fighting a 284-billion-parameter model into a 121GB machine, and the whole exercise came down to one question: does a model this size run… https://tgmerritt.com/posts/eyeglasses-for-my-brain.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/eyeglasses-for-my-brain.html Tue, 21 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Eyeglasses for My Brain https://tgmerritt.com/posts/what-ai-taught-me-about-my-own-sentences.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/what-ai-taught-me-about-my-own-sentences.html Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 What AI Taught Me About My Own Sentences https://tgmerritt.com/essays/wrong-number.html https://tgmerritt.com/essays/wrong-number.html Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 A short story by Tyler Merritt. https://tgmerritt.com/posts/the-moment-your-body-says-no.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/the-moment-your-body-says-no.html Thu, 16 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 The Moment Your Body Says No https://tgmerritt.com/posts/my-coworker-turned-me-into-an-ai-song.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/my-coworker-turned-me-into-an-ai-song.html Thu, 02 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 My Coworker Turned Me Into an AI Song https://tgmerritt.com/posts/the-chef-s-prep-bowl-kv-cache-and-the-art-of-micro-scaling.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/the-chef-s-prep-bowl-kv-cache-and-the-art-of-micro-scaling.html Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 The Chef's Prep Bowl: KV Cache and the Art of Micro-scaling https://tgmerritt.com/posts/the-divine-prompt-on-ai-impermanence-and-the-golden-cage.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/the-divine-prompt-on-ai-impermanence-and-the-golden-cage.html Fri, 05 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 The Divine Prompt: On AI, Impermanence, and the Golden Cage https://tgmerritt.com/essays/the-kernel-i-wrote-without-knowing-cuda.html https://tgmerritt.com/essays/the-kernel-i-wrote-without-knowing-cuda.html Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 I don't know CUDA. I wrote the missing MXFP8 MoE kernel for SM120/121 GPUs anyway — and filed the pull request. That was the experiment. https://tgmerritt.com/essays/my-dgx-spark-was-running-slower-moe-inference-than-it-should-have-because-of-a-two-line-bug-that-blocked-every-sm12x-gpu.html https://tgmerritt.com/essays/my-dgx-spark-was-running-slower-moe-inference-than-it-should-have-because-of-a-two-line-bug-that-blocked-every-sm12x-gpu.html Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 An essay by Tyler Merritt. https://tgmerritt.com/posts/gemma4-think-build-report.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/gemma4-think-build-report.html Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 I wanted Gemma4 to be a local Sonnet — a model that could follow a plan and catch its own mistakes. What I got was a model that looks like it's checking its work. Those aren't the same thing. https://tgmerritt.com/posts/gb10-gemma4-mtp-benchmarks.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/gb10-gemma4-mtp-benchmarks.html Wed, 06 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 GB10/DGX Spark reality check: Gemma4 MTP gets 75-80 tok/s, NVFP4 caps at 50, and a silent vLLM failover trap that cost me an afternoon https://tgmerritt.com/essays/ride-the-lightning.html https://tgmerritt.com/essays/ride-the-lightning.html Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 An essay by Tyler Merritt. https://tgmerritt.com/posts/string-to-binary-to-string.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/string-to-binary-to-string.html Tue, 23 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000 String to Binary to String https://tgmerritt.com/posts/using-option-left-or-right-arrow-keys-in-iterm2.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/using-option-left-or-right-arrow-keys-in-iterm2.html Tue, 23 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000 Using Option + Left or Right Arrow Keys in iTerm2 https://tgmerritt.com/posts/sidebar-sync-with-sublime-text-3.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/sidebar-sync-with-sublime-text-3.html Tue, 02 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000 Sidebar Sync with Sublime Text 3 https://tgmerritt.com/posts/a-follow-on-to-why-i-won-t-do-your-coding-test.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/a-follow-on-to-why-i-won-t-do-your-coding-test.html Thu, 21 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000 A follow on to: Why I won't do your coding test https://tgmerritt.com/posts/losing-data-with-mongodb.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/losing-data-with-mongodb.html Thu, 21 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000 Losing Data with MongoDB https://tgmerritt.com/posts/creating-a-new-rails4-2-app-with-psql-and-devise.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/creating-a-new-rails4-2-app-with-psql-and-devise.html Wed, 20 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000 Creating a new Rails4.2 app with PSQL and Devise https://tgmerritt.com/posts/creating-a-new-rails-application-with-ruby-2-1-5-rails-4-2-and-postgresql.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/creating-a-new-rails-application-with-ruby-2-1-5-rails-4-2-and-postgresql.html Wed, 11 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000 Creating a new Rails Application with Ruby 2.1.5, Rails 4.2, and PostgreSQL https://tgmerritt.com/posts/losing-data-on-documents-with-mongodb.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/losing-data-on-documents-with-mongodb.html Sun, 17 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000 Losing data on documents with MongoDB https://tgmerritt.com/posts/benchmarking-if-if-blank-and-unless-blank.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/benchmarking-if-if-blank-and-unless-blank.html Fri, 01 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000 Benchmarking if &&, if ! blank? and unless blank? https://tgmerritt.com/posts/yet-another-mongodb-one-liner.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/yet-another-mongodb-one-liner.html Thu, 31 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000 Yet another MongoDB one-liner! https://tgmerritt.com/posts/another-mongodb-multi-document-update-example.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/another-mongodb-multi-document-update-example.html Wed, 04 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000 Another MongoDB multi-document update example https://tgmerritt.com/posts/back-to-the-topic-of-speed.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/back-to-the-topic-of-speed.html Thu, 01 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000 Back to the topic of speed https://tgmerritt.com/posts/sometimes-the-asset-pipeline-isn-t-flexible-enough.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/sometimes-the-asset-pipeline-isn-t-flexible-enough.html Wed, 23 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000 Sometimes the asset pipeline isn't flexible enough https://tgmerritt.com/posts/dealing-with-mongo-time-and-ruby-time.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/dealing-with-mongo-time-and-ruby-time.html Thu, 17 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000 Dealing with Mongo time and Ruby Time https://tgmerritt.com/posts/mongodb-foreach-loop-to-update-part-of-a-field.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/mongodb-foreach-loop-to-update-part-of-a-field.html Tue, 15 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000 mongoDB forEach loop to update part of a field https://tgmerritt.com/posts/rendering-pdfs-as-strings-with-wickedpdf-gem.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/rendering-pdfs-as-strings-with-wickedpdf-gem.html Sat, 15 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000 Rendering PDFs as strings with WickedPDF gem https://tgmerritt.com/posts/nokogiri-xml.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/nokogiri-xml.html Thu, 30 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000 Nokogiri & XML https://tgmerritt.com/posts/trying-to-speed-things-up.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/trying-to-speed-things-up.html Sat, 18 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000 Trying to speed things up https://tgmerritt.com/posts/hello-world.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/hello-world.html Wed, 15 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000 Hello World https://tgmerritt.com/posts/puts-hello-world.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/puts-hello-world.html Wed, 15 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000 puts https://tgmerritt.com/posts/watch-your-env-vars.html https://tgmerritt.com/posts/watch-your-env-vars.html Wed, 15 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000 Watch your ENV VARs