Hacker News: eigencoder

New comment by eigencoder in "Cloudflare OS: an open platform for agents, apps, and work"

eigencoder — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 16:45:14 +0000

I think this is trying to do something similar to exe.dev, but not doing it as well

New comment by eigencoder in "Why ugly buildings create NIMBYism"

eigencoder — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 21:04:32 +0000

I mean, all words were made up once! Yeah stroad is a relatively recent one.

New comment by eigencoder in "Where .env Went Wrong"

eigencoder — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 18:27:31 +0000

But secrets are a kind of configuration, right? I agree they should be kept separate from non-secret config; ideally non-secret configuration can be committed to your codebase somewhere depending on the environment it's running in.

New comment by eigencoder in "Where .env Went Wrong"

eigencoder — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 18:22:13 +0000

Hm, I haven't seen these issues personally. We only have one `.env` file and it's just for local secrets. Configuration emphatically does not go in `.env` and ideally is in docker compose and defined in code (we use Pydantic Settings).

New comment by eigencoder in "Why ugly buildings create NIMBYism"

eigencoder — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 18:14:37 +0000

A related article on NITBYism and the built environment, but from the perspective of modern finance and how financial instruments may increase the amount of ugly buildings.

https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/you-probably-own...

New comment by eigencoder in "Italy Blocks Reproductive Health Websites Women on Web and Women Help Women"

eigencoder — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 19:55:34 +0000

I think Americans get that other countries have different laws. But freedom of speech, an ideal we lifted from European enlightenment thinkers, is so important to our culture and national mythos that it is a little surprising how differently it's valued in much of Europe.

I'm sure the culture shock goes both ways though, as you say. Curious about your perspective on the the most bizarre / arbitrary things in the US?

New comment by eigencoder in "Passkeys were invented by engineers with zero understanding of consumer brain"

eigencoder — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 20:25:10 +0000

I hate passkeys so much. They're so confusingly implemented.

New comment by eigencoder in "The startup's Postgres survival guide"

eigencoder — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 15:52:26 +0000

This was a helpful guide. For someone using postgres for a few years, but rarely to its limits, a lot of it was review, but it had some great new tidbits to take in.

New comment by eigencoder in "Claude Is Not a Compiler"

eigencoder — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 17:15:03 +0000

I always don't know enough about DNS. This is great stuff.

If exe.dev is running their own DNS zone, then wouldn't they be setting the expiry value in the SOA record themselves? So they could set it to something short, and secondary servers are supposed to honor it, right?

New comment by eigencoder in "Claude Is Not a Compiler"

eigencoder — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:39:37 +0000

Usually when you create the VM, it gets its own DNS subdomain that looks like `my-new-vm-name.exe.xyz`. (I'm not affiliated with exe.dev, I just use their product). So I doubt there would be any cached requests for that particular subdomain before the VM is created.

New comment by eigencoder in "Claude Is Not a Compiler"

eigencoder — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:14:50 +0000

I really like what exe.dev is doing. And their philosophy of how cloud services could work is amazing. I have a monthly subscription and it's really cool to just vibe code a little website with Shelley and have it running in minutes. I feel like I have so much fun using their service, and spend so much less time thinking about what things will cost, or what cloud service to use. It's just so much simpler and the friction is so much less compared to other cloud services.

New comment by eigencoder in "I'm a USB-C Maximalist"

eigencoder — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 16:14:50 +0000

I don't like USB-C because they all look the same on the outside, but they're not all the same on the inside. Especially my cheap consumer electronics. Sometimes they will charge, sometimes they won't charge, but all the cables look the same, and you don't tend to know in advance.

New comment by eigencoder in "The Meta Glasses backlash is changing how (or if) people use them"

eigencoder — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 20:47:09 +0000

I've honestly never seen someone wearing them in the wild. Is it just like a San Francisco thing?

New comment by eigencoder in "Buried Apple feature turns an iPhone into the perfect kids' dumb phone"

eigencoder — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 16:49:37 +0000

I used Apple Configurator on my mac to supervise my iphone. Once that's done, you use configurator to add a profile to the device that (1) contains an allowlist of apps that can be used and (2) an empty allowlist of websites that can be visited. #1 means you can't use any new apps, and #2 prevents the ability to browse the internet by sending links to yourself in e.g. messenger or whatsapp.

New comment by eigencoder in "Buried Apple feature turns an iPhone into the perfect kids' dumb phone"

eigencoder — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 16:35:48 +0000

One 11 year old with a rifle is probably fine, but two with rifles is just asking for trouble haha

New comment by eigencoder in "Good Tools Are Invisible"

eigencoder — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 14:35:25 +0000

I'm not sure about this.

One of my favorite tools is my bicycle. To me, the user interface of my bicycle is totally invisible. I just pull it out of the garage, hop on, and away I go. And it's not like I enjoy my bicycle as a "puzzle" either -- I just want it to go somewhere.

But to my 6 year old, the user interface is quite literally fear-inducing. Everything about the tool is very "visible" to him. Does that make it a bad tool?

New comment by eigencoder in "Buried Apple feature turns an iPhone into the perfect kids' dumb phone"

eigencoder — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 19:38:40 +0000

I like the feature, but I don't like the assumption at the beginning.

> Come September, he will have to walk across town to school on his own. But if he's going to be walking around out in the world without me, then a tracking tag won't cut it. He is far too young to have unfettered access to the internet and social media platforms, but what if he gets lost? A classic Nokia, supplying just texts and calls, won't come to his aid. Maps and satnav require a web connection.

What if he gets lost? With a classic Nokia, he could still call someone and get help. Or, he might (heaven forbid) just need to ask someone for help. Or walk around until he remembers where he is. These are all good skills to learn.

New comment by eigencoder in "Buried Apple feature turns an iPhone into the perfect kids' dumb phone"

eigencoder — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 19:34:42 +0000

Yeah, but your kid can also walk to school without a map, it's not a big deal.

New comment by eigencoder in "Buried Apple feature turns an iPhone into the perfect kids' dumb phone"

eigencoder — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 19:32:54 +0000

Also, it doesn't add up. How would Camera let you video call? Don't you need Facetime?

New comment by eigencoder in "Buried Apple feature turns an iPhone into the perfect kids' dumb phone"

eigencoder — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 19:32:06 +0000

I've used MDM to make my iPhone dumb. It's great! I wish there was an easy way to publish my configuration so others could use it / adapt it, but it's a little involved because you have to wipe your phone the first time you set it up with configurator.