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Technical

Open Source: Democratizing Powerful Tech

96% of software today uses open source code. Tech giants build billion-dollar empires on volunteer-maintained foundations. OpenSSL is encryption software that secures an estimated 66% of web traffic. So the internet runs on code secured by just 18 underpaid engineers.

Open source also has its dark side, like when Meta's AI model leaked to 4chan within a week.

Does democratizing powerful technology also democratize its misuse?

Everyone and anyone are welcome to join as long as you are kind, supportive, and respectful of others. Zoom link will be posted at 12pm MDT.

Open science infographic

Play with GitHub Copilot Agent in VS Code

GitHub Copilot Agent in VS Code

In today's (2025-05-27) post, we will play with the GitHub Copilot Agent in Visual Studio Code. The agent is different than Copilot Chat as the agent will run commands on your machine, including compiling the project, adding files/directories, and directly editing files.

Will it do what we expect? Let's find out!

Everyone and anyone are welcome to join as long as you are kind, supportive, and respectful of others.

P.S. - The image for this post was created using Claude 4. I can't create png/jpg, at least not on the free account I'm using, but could create SVG.

Consolidating Systems

The topic for the May 6th, 2025 chat is consolidating systems. Organizations often have data and business logic in several different databases and applications. They would like to have everything in one place, which is a noble goal but hard to achieve.

How do you consolidate these disparate systems? How do you avoid creating an extra system and avoid the XKCD standards problem (substitute application for standards).

Everyone and anyone are welcome to join as long as you are kind, supportive, and respectful of others.

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