BOOTOSHI
Bootoshi (Saint) is a self-taught AI engineer and creator. He builds AI agents, trains local models, and makes pixel-art worlds with his duck sidekick Quest Boo. He teaches beginners to use AI agents through Field Notes, YouTube videos, live streams, and university workshops. Everything here is free: open-source tools, step-by-step guides, and the story of 16,000 hours building with AI.
Field Notes
- Build it ugly, then refactor: the AI coding workflow that works with any model
have the agent code the feature so it works, raw and messy. lock it in with tests. get a different model to check it for security holes. then refactor it. the ugly version is the prompt for the clean one, and it works with ANY model. - Getting started with AI agents: one app, one safe folder, one first project (beginner setup)
download one agent app, give it a dedicated folder, connect better research, and ask questions until you actually understand the work. this is the complete setup i give beginners. - Video Alchemy: free open-source AI video editing pipeline (cuts, captions, b-roll)
i record a 39 minute ramble, hand it to an AI agent, and get back a tight 6 minute video with word-by-word captions and b-roll cutaways. zero timeline editing. the whole pipeline is open source and free - here's how editing videos with AI actually works. - Training Quest Boo: fine-tuning a 12B local model into an AI character on a MacBook
quest boo was the first AI character i ever brought to life. he's been a prompt on top of someone else's model this whole time. so i trained him his own brain - a real neural net, on a laptop, no cloud. part 1: the forge, the map, and the world model. - Free local speech-to-text on Mac: Spokenly + Parakeet, no subscription, no cloud
you talk way faster than you type. one free app + one free local model and your voice works in every text field on your computer. 5 minute setup, $0 forever. - Right to Intelligence: why owning local AI models matters and how to protect it
open models are getting cheaper every month and your laptop can already run real intelligence. the only way we lose this is if owning the tool gets licensed away. here's what's at stake - and the 10-second move to protect it. - The free AI path: run local models on any laptop plus every free cloud tier worth using
you don't need a GPU or a subscription. any 8-16GB laptop runs real AI models locally, and the free cloud tiers hand out thousands of frontier-model requests a day. - Unitree G1 "PC to Motor Timeout" on one leg: RS485 comm cable diagnosis and fix
Unitree G1 repair log: five leg actuators reported PC to Motor Timeout and Motor Data Timeout at once. Zero motors were broken. The RS485 communication cable into the hip had an intermittent open at the pelvis harness entry. Fault tree, teardown photos, Unitree's own error-code guidance, and a triage procedure for G1 owners. - Your workflow is the prompt: the first step to using AI agents (a 15-minute homework)
most people who want to start using AI agents don't know where to begin. one 15-minute homework assignment sets you up for everything. - Intro to AI agents: USC workshop walkthrough, zero to a working agent on your computer
USC agentic workshop, full walkthrough: zero to a working AI agent on your computer in one session.