Side Project Spotlight

#103: 2026 Vibes

We're back! In this season 6 premiere, Steve struggles to speak after being sick, but still manages to talk a lot about the current hype around Claude Code and Opus 4.5 and the "agentic" coding craze sweeping developer circles online right now. The Trio discuss Alex Hillman's amazing Claude Code wrapper personal assistant called "Andy." Kotaro makes some Metal shaders with Claude and is building a TouchPie with his own hands while Steve is exploring some open source models to use in a Bento Fit update and Aaron is exploring a full and satisfying life away from the computer. There is a lot packed into this episode and it ends with a special announcement!

## Show Notes

- Introductions

- Anime and Isekai: Comfort Food for Developers

- Side Project Explorations (Mostly in "AI")

- Steve Yegge’s crazy “Gas Town” multi-agent automated code factory thing

- https://steve-yegge.medium.com/welcome-to-gas-town-4f25ee16dd04

- Alex Hillman’s “Andy” personal assistant built around headless Claude Code

- https://youtu.be/yjO9UHIunSE

- https://www.youtube.com/live/rk2nsE-MlPg

- Whoops! Data exfiltration in Claude Cowork!

- https://www.promptarmor.com/resources/claude-cowork-exfiltrates-files

- Robots!

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS_z60kjVEk

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJqMPFNP4to

- Shaders!

- https://www.shadertoy.com

- Bento Fit!

- https://bentofit.app

- Raspberry Pi “Ziggy”?

- One More Thing…IRL EVENT!!!!

- Jan 29 at the Vanguard Building, 2300 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA

- RSVP: https://luma.com/98u1j4t8

- http://phillycocoa.org

## Chapters

00:00 Introductions

01:50 Anime and Isekai: Comfort Food for Developers

04:59 Side Project Explorations (Mostly in "AI")

08:58 The Rise of AI in Coding: Tools and Experiences

14:49 Innovative Approaches to Coding with AI

19:09 Alex Hillman's Amazing "Andy" Claude Code App

21:18 Building Personal AI Tools

26:03 The Bleeding Edge that is Claude Cowork

29:33 Navigating Security Risks in AI Tools

34:00 The Evolution of AI and User Experience

37:51 "Do Better!"

41:33 Making Shaders Metal with Claude

45:46 Building TouchPie: A Raspberry Pi Project

49:19 Designing Custom Hardware for Enhanced User Experience

52:16 Bento Fit: Building with Open Source Models

55:17 Future Projects and Collaboration Ideas

58:17 Outro & One More Thing...

59:46 Tag

Intro music: "When I Hit the Floor", © 2021 Lorne Behrman. Used with permission of the artist.