- Capability is not the question.
+ Legitimacy is.

I am a designer and software engineer in Del Mar, California. I build small tools that I need myself, then publish them so other people can run their own copies.

AI is part of my everyday work. I use agents to research, write, and code, from the command line, where I can see what they do. I also spend a lot of time thinking about what that changes, and what it should not be allowed to change.

Short takes on AI and software. The long versions live in FieldNotes/. The inbox highlights the latest essay and why it is worth reading.

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From : github.com/yagami1997
Date : Fri, 04 Sep 2026 23:09:20 -0700 (PDT)
Subj : When Open Was the Default
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If you have ever wondered how much of your digital life really belongs to you, this essay is worth
reading. It makes a familiar situation easier to see: we can spend years putting our work into a
service without knowing what we would keep if that service changed or disappeared.

The clearest lesson is that convenience and control are different things. An app can be excellent
and still leave its users with very few choices. The time to think about those choices is while
everything works, when moving elsewhere is still a decision you can make for yourself.

It also gives a practical reason to care about free software. You do not have to read code to
benefit from someone being able to improve a tool, maintain it after its author leaves, or help you
keep using it. That possibility can outlast the company or person who started the work.

The essay gives equal attention to the people who create what we use. Sharing an article, a
photograph, or a program should leave its creator with a say in how others use it. A worthwhile idea
of openness has to make room for both the reader and the person doing the work.

What stays with you is a simple question: does this tool leave me with choices? Can I take my work
elsewhere, get help when something goes wrong, or continue without the original provider? Those
questions make this a useful read for anyone who works online, whether or not they write software.

--
yagami1997 | Del Mar, CA | building in the open
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[END OF MESSAGE]  n)ext  q)uit  r)eply  ?

Full essay: When Open Was the Default · Previous: From Anti-Microsoft to Anti-Black Box

Tools should deepen understanding. I want to work beside AI, with a view of what it does and a way to question it. Somewhere in the work, I should still be able to read the configuration, trace a decision, and say no. A small system should remain legible to one careful reader. That is a form of respect. — Field Notes, BurnBox

Trust needs boundaries. Sharing something should not mean leaving it exposed forever. Access should have a purpose, an expiry, and a way to revoke it. Sensitive data should stay with the user where it can; privacy claims should be clear about what the software actually protects. — VeilHub, esimswap

A system should be able to account for its failures. After an interruption, it should know what was completed and what remains. I want decisions I can trace, boundaries I can understand, and enough evidence to put things right. — BurnBox, Arclane

Quiet usefulness is progress. A request arriving without a safeguard being dismantled matters more to me than another promise that everything will soon run itself. Make the useful thing small enough to understand, and be explicit about where it stops. — Arclane, VeilHub

Software is for particular people. TradeMind began as a tool for my friends in China. Its language and documentation follow their needs. I want the people it was written for to be able to read it, adapt it, and carry it forward. — TradeMind, BurnBox

• Networks. How traffic is routed, and how to write routing policy that a person can still read a year later.
• Applied cryptography. GPG, AES-GCM, PBKDF2. Not the math, the practice: keys, expiry, revocation, who holds what.
• Telecom plumbing. Phone numbers, number portability, eSIM profiles. The parts of the network nobody looks at until they break.
• Markets as a system. U.S. equities as something to model and backtest, not something to bet on.
• Writing. Long-form essays on technology, companies, and the decisions behind them.
• History, philosophy, theology. The traditions that ask what no KPI dashboard will: even if you can do this, should you, and who has the right to decide where you stop.

Six tools. Self-hosted, free software, no hosted service. You run it, you hold the keys, you can shut it off.

General questions, ideas, and feedback belong in GitHub issues.

Private contact goes through GPG only. No plain email, no DMs. Think of it as a small decryption puzzle: if you can play this game, we already speak the same language.

Support keeps the long-term projects alive.

Del Mar, California · Last updated: 2026-09-04 23:09:20 PDT