Translation

The Need: you cannot judge an AI job without a price tag When I start a new AI job, I always ask the same question first: what will this cost? A job can look cheap on paper and then run for hours. Or it can look scary and cost a few cents. This week I used one DeepSeek balance for four different jobs on my family book library. I wrote down the balance after each one. This post is that list, plus what I would do differently. ...

The Need: a book you want to search, but it is only paper I have a 19th-century commentary on the five books of Moses. It has six volumes. I wanted all of it inside my own search tool, so I could ask a question in Korean and get the commentary back as one of the sources. The usual way is to scan the pages and turn them into text. That worked badly for me, and the way it worked badly led to the cheaper answer. ...

There is a 1974 German theology book that exists in almost no library. One copy lives with its owner here in Korea. He wanted it translated into Korean. I offered to help. First step: get it scanned properly. I visited a professional scanning company. They said the book needed to be taken apart — pages separated, binding cut — before they could run it through their equipment. I relayed this to the owner. He said: do not cut this book. The scanning company said: then we cannot help you. ...