u/BestAd5572

For context, I'm a 22 year old econ major. I have no software engineering or cryptography background, but I've been learning about Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) through work.
As an experiment, I wanted to see how far I could get using ChatGPT and Claude Code. I pointed them at Niobium's public GitHub repos and had them help me build my own FHE demo. Every time something broke, I'd ask why it broke, have it explain the error, fix it, and then move on to the next thing. It felt a lot more like having a tutor than just generating code which was pretty cool.
About 3 days later, I somehow ended up with a working CKKS demo called VitalVault. It encrypts health and lab values on the client, computes a wellness score and estimated biological age using FHE, and the server only ever processes ciphertext. It never sees the actual inputs or the decryption key.

A few things I learned:

• Asking why something worked ended up being way more valuable than asking AI to just write code.
• Breaking everything into tiny pieces made debugging so much easier than trying to build the whole app at once.
• The first answer ChatGPT or Claude gave me usually wasn't the one I ended up using. Asking follow-up questions and trying different approaches almost always led to something better.
• My 2023 MacBook Air (8 GB RAM) was absolutely fighting for its life compiling everything.

I’m really just trying to learn, so I'd love any and all feedback or advice, especially from those who are familiar with FHE or more experienced Codex and Claude Code users who have built larger projects. Is there anything obvious you would've done differently, either from a workflow or prompting perspective?

https://github.com/leila-db/vitalvault-demo/graphs/traffic

For context, I'm a 22 year old econ major. I have no software engineering or cryptography background, but I've been learning about Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) through work.
As an experiment, I wanted to see how far I could get using ChatGPT and Claude Code. I pointed them at Niobium's public GitHub repos and had them help me build my own FHE demo. Every time something broke, I'd ask why it broke, have it explain the error, fix it, and then move on to the next thing. It felt a lot more like having a tutor than just generating code which was pretty cool.
About 3 days later, I somehow ended up with a working CKKS demo called VitalVault. It encrypts health and lab values on the client, computes a wellness score and estimated biological age using FHE, and the server only ever processes ciphertext. It never sees the actual inputs or the decryption key.

A few things I learned:

• Asking why something worked ended up being way more valuable than asking AI to just write code.
• Breaking everything into tiny pieces made debugging so much easier than trying to build the whole app at once.
• The first answer ChatGPT or Claude gave me usually wasn't the one I ended up using. Asking follow-up questions and trying different approaches almost always led to something better.
• My 2023 MacBook Air (8 GB RAM) was absolutely fighting for its life compiling everything.

I’m really just trying to learn, so I'd love any and all feedback or advice, especially from those who are familiar with FHE or more experienced Codex and Claude Code users who have built larger projects. Is there anything obvious you would've done differently, either from a workflow or prompting perspective?

https://github.com/leila-db/vitalvault-demo/graphs/traffic

For context, I'm a 22 year old econ major. I have no software engineering or cryptography background, but I've been learning about Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) through work.

As an experiment, I wanted to see how far I could get using ChatGPT and Claude Code. I pointed them at Niobium's public GitHub repos and had them help me build my own FHE demo. Every time something broke, I'd ask why it broke, have it explain the error, fix it, and then move on to the next thing. It felt a lot more like having a tutor than just generating code which was pretty cool.

About 3 days later, I somehow ended up with a working CKKS demo called VitalVault. It encrypts health and lab values on the client, computes a wellness score and estimated biological age using FHE, and the server only ever processes ciphertext. It never sees the actual inputs or the decryption key.

A few things I learned:

• Asking why something worked ended up being way more valuable than asking AI to just write code.
• Breaking everything into tiny pieces made debugging so much easier than trying to build the whole app at once.
• The first answer ChatGPT or Claude gave me usually wasn't the one I ended up using. Asking follow-up questions and trying different approaches almost always led to something better.
• My 2023 MacBook Air (8 GB RAM) was absolutely fighting for its life compiling everything.

I’m really just trying to learn, so I'd love any and all feedback or advice, especially from those who are familiar with FHE or more experienced Codex and Claude Code users who have built larger projects. Is there anything obvious you would've done differently, either from a workflow or prompting perspective?

>https://github.com/leila-db/vitalvault-demo/graphs/traffic

I’m convinced every city has at least one life-changing sandwich spot. Like the type of sandwich that ruins all other sandwiches for at least a month. Where is that in Charlotte?

I’m planning an in-person networking event for my company and could use some recommendations since I’m not familiar with San Francisco.

We’re expecting around 40 to 75 people, mostly in tech and startups, and are looking for a relaxed spot where people can grab a drink and actually talk. I’ve also been thinking about doing something like a board game happy hour, if there’s a place that’s good for that.

If you have any favorite venues or places you’d recommend, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks!

I’m helping organize a networking happy hour for my company and could use some local recommendations since I’m not from Austin.

We’re looking for a laid-back spot where people can grab a drink and actually have conversations (around 40–75 people, mostly in tech/startups). I’ve also been tossing around the idea of doing a board game happy hour if there’s a venue that would be a good fit.

Would appreciate any and all recs!

I’ve been learning a lot about FHE recently and keep finding myself wondering where it actually gets used in the real world.

Whenever I see examples, it’s always healthcare, finance, government, etc. And I get why as those industries deal with a ton of sensitive data. But at the same time, those don’t exactly seem like industries that are going to completely change how they do things overnight.

Maybe I’m thinking about it wrong, but what do you all think are the most realistic use cases we’ll actually see adopted in the next few years?

Curious if there are applications I’m not considering.

I’ve lived in Charlotte pretty much my whole life, and I feel like I rotate through the same handful of places over and over.

What’s a restaurant that’s genuinely great but somehow still flies under the radar? Not necessarily brand new, but just somewhere you think more people should know about.

Open to any cuisine. Bonus points if it’s been around for years and I somehow haven’t discovered it yet.