I've been somewhat on-again-off-again interested in running GenAI/LLM stuff locally. At one point I tried generating images with Stable Diffusion using the Automatic1111 frontend. It sorta worked, but all of the results I got looked just utterly terrible. I think there's a bunch of steps I probably didn't do, like tweaks and extra steps and something called a LORA, that probably would have made things look better. But just, like, "install, open in browser, enter some basic prompt/description" type of stuff definitely left a lot to be desired. I didn't have the patience for it.

There's a lot of hubbub about DeepSeek lately, how the Chinese team is beating the pants off of OpenAI/ChatGPT. And how the US is trying to get it banned and such, in order to protect American money. LLM is a bit different than image generation, and presumably a bit easier to get working, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

So I downloaded Ollama and OpenWebUI.

For reference, I'm using a 16GB AMD Radeon 7800XT GPU, AMD Ryzen7 5800X CPU, and 32GB of system RAM, on Windows 11. This system is great for 1440 gaming, but not really all that special for LLMs apparently.

Anyway, once I had Ollama installed, I tried it with a few different models. It actually took several attempts, it kept throwing errors when trying to download and/or run the models. But I finally got it working. I've tried the sort-of-default Llama 3.2, as well as the 14B and 8B versions of DeepSeek-R1, and the 14B Qwen2.5-coder. Llama 3.2 seemed pretty quick at responding for a couple basic suggested questions from the OpenWebUI start page. The 14B variant of DeepSeek took about 20 minutes to talk itself into writing me a python script I asked it about (folderizing my Plex movie directory using standard Plex naming convention). The 8B version seemed a bit quicker to answer things. Qwen was quite a bit faster writing a python script to reencode a folder of movies from m4v to mp4 with ffmpeg. As expected, neither of the DeepSeek models would answer anything about Tiananmen Square, though I'm to understand that you can tweak them and take those guardrails off, I just haven't gotten far enough into this to do so yet.

But there's one really big reason I'm writing this post today. And that is a response from DeepSeek-R1 8B that was just too funny to not pass along.

Without further ado, here is Deepseek-R1 8B's answer to "Who were the characters in the nightmare before christmas?"

<think>

Okay, so I need to figure out who the main characters are from "The Nightmare Before Christmas." I remember it's a Tim Burton movie, right? Let me think. The main character is Jack Skellington, I believe. He’s the guy with the pumpkin head or something? Or maybe he's the king of Halloween Town. Wait, no, I think he works in a pumpkin patch. Oh yeah, he's the pumpkin king because he has that big pumpkin head.

Then there's Sally, she's the girl with the webbed face and green hair, right? She’s kind of a human but maybe not entirely. I think she has some gothic look, maybe part of a display in a store or something. I'm not sure about her background exactly, but she seems important to Jack.

The Pumpkin King is another character, so that's probably Jack before he becomes the king. Or maybe it's his role. Wait, no, the Pumpkin King is actually a separate character; Jack wants to be more like him. So the Pumpkin King has a face made out of pumpkins, I think, and he’s kind of scary but also cool.

Then there's Dr. Finkelstein, a scientist with a crazy look, maybe like an old inventor or something. He seems to have some experiments going on, probably with Jack. Maybe he works at the town's lab or something, but I'm not entirely sure about his role beyond that.

Barbie, right? She’s this beautiful girl who isn't from Halloween Town. Jack meets her in Christmas Town and falls for her. She seems like a normal human, which is different from the rest of the characters who are more gothic or spooky. So she's kind of a love interest for Jack.

Oogie Boomer is another character; he’s a big, bumpy man made out of trash and stuff, right? He's really into accumulating things, like hoarding. I think he has a collection of various items in his house, which is pretty chaotic. He seems to be a friend or at least a familiar face in Halloween Town.

The Mayor is the leader of Halloween Town, so that's probably a small role but important for the setting. Maybe he gives Jack some orders or assigns him tasks. I'm not too clear on his name though, maybe it's just "the Mayor."

And then there are other characters like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, but they might only appear in certain versions or sequels. Santa could be part of Christmas Town, while the Tooth Fairy is probably a friend or another figure in Halloween Town.

Wait, did I miss anyone? Maybe some secondary characters like the townspeople or Jack's coworkers at the pumpkin patch. But the main ones are definitely Jack, Sally, the Pumpkin King, Dr. Finkelstein, Barbie, Oogie Boomer, and the Mayor. Yeah, that seems about right.

</think>

The main characters in "The Nightmare Before Christmas" are as follows:

1. Jack Skellington: The Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, known for his pumpkin-headed appearance and ambition to become more than just a Halloween icon.

2. Sally: A gothic-inspired character with webbed facial features and green hair, who holds a significant role in Jack's life, though her exact background is somewhat mysterious.

3. The Pumpkin King: A separate character from whom Jack draws inspiration, featuring a pumpkin face and a persona that embodies the spirit of Halloween.

4. Dr. Finkelstein: A scientist with a quirky appearance, involved in various experiments, particularly those related to Jack's transformation.

5. Barbie: A beautiful human girl from Christmas Town, who represents normalcy and serves as Jack's love interest.

6. Oogie Boomer: A large, chaotic figure made from assorted trash items, known for his obsession with accumulation.

7. The Mayor: The leader of Halloween Town, whose role is crucial for setting the town's operations in motion.

Additional characters include Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, who may have more prominent roles in sequels or alternate versions.