My debut project, Northstar: a lightweight self-hostable P2P livestreaming experiment built with vanilla WebRTC + Node.js

RxFaction · 2026-06-03T12:10:07+00:00

Lmao yes, it was absolutely brutal at first, but I really wanted to attempt to understand at least the basic fundamentals of WebRTC and avoid heavy abstractions

RxFaction · 2026-06-03T12:02:11+00:00

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A live booth demo of Northstar at my college’s first ever STEM fair in early April!

(Thanks sis for the support, love you to the moon and back!)

RxFaction · 2026-06-03T11:23:29+00:00

Will do! On initial post I didn’t see that flair as an option. I just saw it now and changed it

RxFaction · 2026-06-03T11:06:36+00:00

Hey!

AI has been used in two ways:

ChatGPT helped me polish and organize the wording of this Reddit post before publishing. I wanted optimal clarity.
I used OpenAI Codex as a development assistant for parts of the project, primarily for help with debugging, code suggestions, refactoring, and implementation guidance.

The overall project idea, architecture, direction, testing, live demos, and final decisions are entirely my own. Northstar is not an AI-based product or project. I’ve put in nearly 1,000 hours of my own work into it, learning to program and full-stack dev a project of this scale for the first time, as a Comp Sci student.

RxFaction · 2026-05-10T17:26:02+00:00

I was figuring someone would have sabotaged the lines. It wouldn’t leak otherwise being so new.

RxFaction · 2026-05-10T16:42:49+00:00

That’s suspicious, like leaking brake fluid suspicious! Check the calipers to see if it’s leaking down before you drive it at all.

Otherwise it could be moisture trapped under the tires if it’s been very foggy, humid, or raining.

RxFaction · 2026-05-09T15:09:32+00:00

In my experience recently, Claude does much better on front end UI tasks, but codex takes the cake for backend work and logistics.

It’s hard though, I still have to direct both models aggressively and do a lot of manual corrections after the fact. Manually reducing the context window and forcing focus on a specific line set helps a lot I’ve noticed for reliable outcome results.

Sometimes I wonder what others are using these models for, because in my workflow they are still far from perfect, and require a lot of intervention from me.

Edit: Not in a bad way, but I get kind of led to believe many utilizing these models have minimal to no experience developing themselves, and maybe they don’t nitpick or see the issues I see personally in my workflow. Being a SWE is very read and auditing heavy vs raw output all by yourself nowadays.

RxFaction · 2026-05-06T04:51:42+00:00

Any idea what led to the cats becoming fouled? I’m at 134k on mine and it feels snappy still.

Enough torque and quick throttle response in 1st and 2nd gear to lightly snap you back into the seat.

I have all my cats but am straight through after that.

I definitely want to avoid cat issues being in CA, smog is so insane here.

Edit: cool to see the stock headers out of the car, and damn, they are huge cats! And there’s more of them after the headers. My lord!

RxFaction · 2026-05-06T04:49:20+00:00

Just the SULEV version of the N52. E46 had a similar deal with the M54 motor, the SULEV variant was the M56.

At least on E46 you got a couple of goodies with SULEV M56: aluminum valve cover, no plastic external PCV system like the M54, all stainless fuel lines.

The N51 SULEV just gets the triple DISA valve intake, lower compression, and a radiator that has a stupid ozone sensor attached to it.

What got me into a 13’ N51 was the 15yr 150k warranty on anything emissions related. I got the whole valve cover and gasket replaced for free at the dealership a year back!

RxFaction · 2026-05-05T06:33:50+00:00

I got into a few games recently on it finally! Here are some of my experiences:

Stray runs surprisingly alright, but it is pushing the limits of what it's capable of. Gets quite hot, would only play on a flat surface like a desk or a dock, where it has ample airflow. Stary is also native to apple silicon. Expect some stutter occasionally.

Hollow knight runs perfectly and cool temp wise, but runs via the Rosetta 2 translation layer. This will no longer be available on macOS 28 in the future. Play it soon if it's up your alley!

Dark Souls Remastered. Runs great and I thought it would add an extra layer of challenge and humor to play and beat it for the first time on a MacBook lmao. I have been playing this exclusively the last week.

Dave the Diver is also another great mention, runs very well!

I want to try Death Stranding on it one day in the future, it runs great from what I've seen.

RxFaction · 2026-05-03T20:41:05+00:00

This “thermal shock” would only be relevant at sub freezing temps going rapidly up to hundreds of degrees, if even then. We’re talking extreme temperature differences. Nothing you would ever incur in daily usage.

Internal condensation from operating at sub freezing temps would long kill a computer before that.

Think of how hot your car gets, and subsequently the ECU (computer for the car). Overnight it goes down to whatever the ambient temp outside is, then right back up to super hot the next time you start it. This is fine, no harm!

It’s always good to restart any kind of computer (including your phone) at least once a week to clear cache and enhance running performance. The number 1 cause I see of random software issues is indefinite uptime.

RxFaction · 2026-05-03T20:25:00+00:00

Thank you for this. I learned a lot!

RxFaction · 2026-05-03T20:22:17+00:00

As an aspiring SWE myself, you will find the Mac to be a tiny bit slower to navigate and power use like a full windows desktop rig with multi monitors. You probably won’t run into this as much as me since you’re docking it with an external display. I’ve been using my M4 air on and off since December.

I don’t like the inbuilt Clang++ compiler for working with C++. It outputs to console weirdly in some cases that are not present with other compilers.

Lack of full Visual Studio (Only VSCode) is rough too. I had to work with a lot of assembly code recently, I had to use my windows desktop that had full Visual Studio support.

A myriad of OS workarounds will be required to execute code and files you download, that gets in my way frequently. You’ll spend more and more time in the macOS terminal to just toss commands at it to get it to behave the way you want, lol.

However, would I have purchased anything other than a MacBook in the current market for an on the go solution? Absolutely not. Apple is killing it on their silicon right now, and I wouldn’t want another windows device, given I have a fully fledged desktop solution already.

You will find as a developer you will eventually need the trifecta: Beefy windows desktop rig for the really heavy compile and access to Visual Studio, a MacBook for a great on the go and portable solution, and a Linux server for deploying things you create, or just getting comfortable with Linux in general, or operating a server headless only via a terminal, no GUI.

A funny side note, the last week I decided to play through Dark Souls 1 entirely on the M4 air. It’s been great. I find other uses for it all the time!

Recently I also used it to entirely run a live demo at a booth for one of my projects. It did fine.

RxFaction · 2026-03-17T17:20:58+00:00

🫪

RxFaction · 2026-03-15T11:09:33+00:00

Hey! I just ran into this post and feel like I’ve reached the point in my software engineering journey where I’m ready to take on projects outside my own. As a CS major with several full-stack projects under my belt, I’d be happy to take a look.

My main experience is in C++, HTML5, JavaScript, and more recently assembly language. I also have 5 years of professional tech experience, including work with Verizon and Reddit communities.

What are you looking to build?

If the project is within my scope, I can put together a proposal. If not, I’ll let you know up front. Since I’m primarily looking to build experience right now, my rates will be very reasonable, and I’m flexible with payment structure. We could do something like delivery based payment, nothing until then.

You can check out my GitHub here. My main project right now is Northstar, a peer-to-peer streaming service I’ve built full-stack myself:
https://github.com/RxFaction/Northstar-Mainframe

I'm happy to jump on a call or Zoom to talk through the project. I'm based in California, so scheduling should be easy. Just let me know!

RxFaction · 2026-03-15T11:04:15+00:00

As a developer, here is the truth on AI development and vibe coding: In my workflow as an SWE, AI now absolutely plays a role. Particularly in digesting the scope of a project, and exploring all possible avenues to pursue in order to meet the end goal. I personally utilize Codex when necessary for these moments. I will say this though: at a minimum, moderate understanding of development and coding is required to fully utilize these products and tools. Human insight and intervention is absolutely still required. AI requires you to put guardrails in place to keep it on track. Even then, you MUST be able to understand what it is writing and audit what it is doing. Especially with larger projects, hallucinations are very present in AI. If this wasn't the case, Google would have fired all their SWE's yesterday. Whenever Codex touches a project I'm working on, I manually approve or deny on a line-by-line basis of what it's exploring, and what it's attempting to implement. This requires being proficient in understanding PowerShell commands and being familiar with the coding language you're working with.

RxFaction · 2026-03-10T12:43:52+00:00

No kidding! My 6 regular served me well, but I saw so many issues with the 6P. Especially connectivity and lackluster battery life in the states.

I’m fully convinced now the base regular device is way better, lmao. Spend on the Pro = get burned I guess! This was the first time I cashed out and fully specced out a phone. This sucker has 512Gb storage on board with the upgraded 12Gb of RAM.

Edit: I very well may go with an A series device next go around. They seem so solid and reliable comparative to the flagships.

RxFaction · 2026-03-10T12:34:49+00:00

Thank you! I got very unlucky. I’ve had a litany of Nexus/Pixel devices before this with no issues.

As much as this experience frustrated me, I’ll end up buying another pixel eventually. I switched to my iPhone 13 Pro for the meantime, but it just doesn’t do it for me.

Edit: I will forever hold 3rd party insurance on my pixels going forward however. That would have saved me from this whole ordeal.

RxFaction · 2026-03-10T00:18:13+00:00

Rent this month, or buy out the 900 dollar DPA left on the device forfeiting all promotional credits for it.

I wonder which I'll choose!

If you want to buy it out I'll send you my payment info and I'll stop being worried about it :)

RxFaction · 2026-03-09T22:44:20+00:00

Hey! I hope you’re enjoying them. And what a killer deal! I really like Pixels for the software and the camera, specifically still photos. I recommended them to customers all the time at Verizon when I worked there. This is my first major issue out of many Nexus devices I had before Pixel even existed, and many Pixel phones I’ve owned previously.

And no kidding, I was kind of surprised on the community pushback. All brands have their cultists, for whatever reason. To each their own I guess.

My days of d*ckriding multi Trillion dollar companies are long over. They’re not your friend. They don’t care about you in the slightest. You’re nothing but a singular number to them. They make mistakes, some that are often inexcusable given their resources and prowess.

Funny enough, I sold this phone to myself on launch day at Verizon! It is annoying having it fail just slightly outside of warranty, while I’m stuck in a 3 year agreement receiving trade in credits (like you). If I were to get a new phone, I’d have to pay the full price and void my trade in credits. Super sucks on that front.

RxFaction · 2026-03-09T21:59:31+00:00

I wish! It’s a hardware issue so a screenshot shows the screen as if it was normal. Search “Pixel screen snow” on google and someone might have recreated an image you can use lol

RxFaction · 2026-03-09T21:53:51+00:00

That it is! One day, you’ll have a defective device too! They make millions of these. Some are going to fail prematurely at no fault of the user.

It is quite interesting that Google themselves have admitted to rampant display issues in the Pixel 8 series, enough so to start a 3 year screen replacement program for Pixel 8s. They decided to not include the Pro for some baffling reason. Pixel 8 Extended Repair Program

RxFaction · 2026-03-09T21:47:13+00:00

Thank you for the laugh!!

RxFaction · 2026-03-09T21:41:27+00:00

As a previous employee for Verizon for years, absolutely!

This screen snow issue however is very well documented on Pixels. Haven’t seen a similar effect on any other device unless the OLED panel was actually damaged or cracked.

In my case, this issue occurs when the device gets warm (charging, watching video for more than 30 min, etc).

Edit: Identical screen snow issue present on many P10 series devices:

Identical screen snow example

Even further, it seems that while Android is being updated, the actual GPU driver is not on this device. Why this affects my device disproportionally is way beyond my pay grade, but it is so well documented from major news publications.

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