Hot takes & Cold Storage, May 22, 2026

About this episode

Nate discusses recent developments in technology, including AI tools, privacy laws, and a significant supply chain security incident.

Welcome back to Hot Takes and Cold Storage! After a brief hiatus around Red Hat Summit season, Nate is back with a packed episode. Hot Takes: Microsoft quietly added Copilot as a co-author to VS Code git commits — even with AI tools disabled. They reversed it after developer backlash, but it’s another reason to consider VSCodium. The Dutch government has launched its own self-hosted Forgejo instance as a digital sovereignty move, joining a growing trend of nations taking control of their code infrastructure. US states continue filling the federal privacy vacuum. California’s AB 2561 now prohibits apps and OSes from resetting your privacy settings, and Connecticut passed a law requiring data brokers to register with the state. MiciMike is producing a drop-in replacement PCB for the Google Home Mini Gen 1 that turns it into a Home Assistant Voice device — completely local, ESP-based, and available to back on Crowd Supply. And in a story that writes itself: a CISA contractor stored AWS GovCloud admin credentials, a Firefox password CSV, and deployment documentation in a public GitHub repo. For six months. With secret scanning disabled. Cold Storage (Deep Dive): The TanStack Supply…

People in this episode

Host: Nate

Topics covered

• AI tools
• digital sovereignty
• privacy laws
• hardware development
• supply chain security

Keywords

• Microsoft Copilot
• VSCodium
• Forgejo
• privacy settings
• supply chain worm
• TanStack
• malicious packages

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Microsoft, VS Code, VSCodium, Dutch government, Forgejo, US states, California, Connecticut, Home Assistant, CISA

Products: Google Home Mini Gen 1

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