Hey buddy,

Just wanted to give you a quick heads-up on some cool stuff I saw on Hacker News today. It was a pretty interesting Friday.

First off, you know that web framework Phoenix? Well, they just announced this thing called Phoenix.new – Remote AI Runtime. Basically, they're trying to build AI stuff right into the framework, running remotely. Some folks in the comments were kinda worried it's just chasing the latest trend, and one guy was like, "AI still barely writes any code for me!" But others are seeing potential for it to help with everyday app tasks.

Then there's this tool called Hurl. It lets you test websites and APIs using just simple text files. People seemed to dig that it lets you test things from the perspective of a user, not tied to your backend code. Though some folks who use frameworks like Django wondered if they really needed another tool.

Big news too: YouTube is really cracking down on ad blockers now. Like, harder than before. The comments section was blowing up, lots of people annoyed. Some were saying Google's ads are terrible and irrelevant anyway, and others pointed out it's all about Google making money, not really about helping creators.

Also, remember that congestion pricing they started in Manhattan? Apparently, it's working! The article says it's a success. But predictably, some people in the comments were arguing it's just a way to make money, not actually fix traffic, because they didn't make the price super high. Others brought up how much parking and roads already cost everyone anyway.

There was an interesting older article recirculating called "I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes" from 2018. It's kind of satirical but makes the point that sometimes the simplest solution (building more houses!) gets overlooked for complicated ones. The comments mostly agreed that increasing housing supply is a huge part of the problem.

For writers, there's a new open-source tool called Harper that's trying to be an alternative to Grammarly. The cool part is it's open-source and can run locally, which is better for privacy. Someone mentioned another similar one called LanguageTool. People think Harper is a good start, even if it's not perfect yet.

And this is kinda fun - someone built Infinite Mac OS X, which lets you run old Mac operating systems like Tiger right in your browser. Total nostalgia trip! The comments had people reminiscing and debating how much operating systems have really changed over the years.

Oh, and speaking of Europe, saw a quick blurb about the EU thinking about ditching Microsoft Azure cloud for a French company called OVHcloud. Sounds like they're worried about digital sovereignty and not relying too much on US tech giants. Makes sense.

Anyway, that's the quick rundown. Talk later!