Questions people actually ask.
Real answers to the questions people actually ask. If you have one that's not here, email me at xavier@thyfwxit.com.
// 01Do you fix old computers?
Yes. People bring me laptops they think are dead. Old desktops gathering dust. Family Macs that take ten minutes to boot. Most of the time the hardware is totally fine, the software is just rotted from years of use. Storage upgrade, clean OS install, sometimes a thermal paste job, and the thing feels brand new again.
I am honest about when a machine really is dead and not worth saving. But a lot less is than people assume. If you have something sitting in a closet you want a second opinion on, email me.
// 02Is Nexus AI a real product I can use right now?
Yes. Live at thyfwxit.com/nexus. Sign in with Google or hit Continue as Guest. Free. Image generation is rate limited (15 per day signed in, 150 for premium supporters). The chat is open within the published refusal policy.
// 03Why does the site have ads?
Because running the site costs me money out of pocket. About $15 to $25 a month, mostly the Replicate image generation. Cloudflare is basically free for my usage. I want the site to pay for itself, and yeah, I'd like to make a little extra on top. That's not a scandal, it's how a solo project keeps running.
If you don't want to see ads, the terminal itself is ad free. The ads only show on standalone pages (speed test, leaderboard, about, changelog, invaders, typing). You can also use an ad blocker, I won't block you for that.
// 04Why did you remove NSFW image generation?
Three real reasons.
One. AdSense doesn't allow it, and I want the site to pay for itself with ads. If keeping NSFW costs me the ability to monetize, the math doesn't work for a solo project.
Two. Replicate (the paid image provider) bans NSFW on their side too. So even if I wanted to ship it, the tooling refuses. Going self hosted on a different model would mean running my own GPU somewhere, which is way out of scope right now.
Three. I'm one person handling moderation. Trying to police explicit content alongside everything else is more bandwidth than I have.
The result is a site way more people can use safely, and I'm fine with that trade.
// 05Why no React, no Vue, no Next.js?
I want to know what every byte the page ships is doing. When something breaks at 2am I want to read my own code, not Webpack output or three layers of abstraction. The portfolio loads in under a second cold because there's nothing extra to load. For a project this size, the framework tax is not worth paying.
// 06What's actually running on your home lab?
A two node Proxmox cluster, running since 2024. AdGuard Home for network wide DNS filtering, Home Assistant for automation, OpenMediaVault for network storage, Portainer managing a Docker stack, netboot.xyz for network boot, and Uptime Kuma keeping an eye on all of it. Almost everything is an LXC container; Home Assistant and OpenMediaVault get full VMs. Nothing on the cluster opens an inbound port. Full breakdown at /projects/homelab.
// 07Why Cloudflare Workers for the backend?
Zero cold starts. The previous backend slept after 15 minutes idle and took 30 seconds to wake up, so the first visit was rough. Workers run at Cloudflare's edge globally, no cold start, no server to babysit. The whole Nexus backend, around 48 endpoints, runs as a single Worker at api.thyfwxit.com. Full migration story at /blog/cloudflare-workers-over-render.
// 08Can I install Nexus as an app?
Yes. It's a PWA. In Chrome on desktop, open the kebab menu and choose Install app. On Android, the browser will offer to add it to your home screen. The install icon is a bold terminal prompt on a dark background.
// 09What about my privacy when I use Nexus?
Chat history lives in your browser's localStorage, not on the server. Your prompts get forwarded to AI providers (Groq, Google Gemini, Replicate) so they can generate replies. Those providers see what you type while it's being processed. The server keeps a leaderboard handle and an image quota counter tied to a hashed account ID, nothing else. Full policy at /nexus/privacy.
// 10Are you hiring or looking for a job?
Open to interesting work. Not job hunting in the corporate sense. I'm more interested in contract or project work where the goal is clear and the autonomy is real. Hardware repair, infrastructure, AI integration, full stack tinkering. Email me with what you have in mind.
// 11Why is everything in monospace?
Because monospace makes it impossible to fake density. Every character takes the same space. You can't hide a thin point behind elegant ligatures. It's also faster to scan when you know exactly how wide things will be. The terminal aesthetic and the dyslexia readability case are basically the same case.
// 12What's the THYFWX in the name?
Old handle from when I started building stuff publicly. I've had it long enough that it's just part of how I sign things now.