What is Hackers' Pub?

Hackers' Pub is a place for software engineers to share their knowledge and experience with each other. It's also an ActivityPub-enabled social network, so you can follow your favorite hackers in the fediverse and get their latest posts in your feed.

Michael | VoltPaperScissors @VoltPaperScissors@chaos.social
Public
Shared by Paul Cantrell

A year ago, I saw someone open a book lamp in a bar. It was a pretty expensive product. Since I combine electronics and paper crafting, I had to DIY it and develop an easy-to-use circuit template and instructions for it. This educational project is perfect for libraries. Please :-)
Template and instructions are available on my website: voltpaperscissors.com/diybookl.
Feel free to ask any questions.

0
0
0
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
AlexMulder @alexmulder@g0v.social
Public

infosecu.technews.tw/2025/08/2

AI 錄音神器 PLAUD NotePin 背後真相：中國公司操盤、有資安隱憂？

隨著生成式 AI 蓬勃發展，近年衍生出許多有趣且實用的應用，其中就包括了被稱為 AI 錄音神器的 PLAUD NotePin（另一產品為錄音卡 PLAUD NOTE），這項產品獲得不少科技類 KOL 與網紅紛紛推薦，主打自動會議記錄與筆記生成功能。然而如果深入追查其背景後，卻浮現出不少耐人尋味的資安...

infosecu.technews.tw · TechNews 科技新報

0
0
0
1
0
0
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
Transgender World @transworld@masto.ai
Public
Shared by Paul Cantrell

Australia: Victoria Becomes First State To Offer Free Birth Certificate Updates For Trans People

starobserver.com.au/news/victo

Victoria Becomes First State To Offer Free Birth Certificate Updates For Trans People - Star Observer

Victoria is the first state in Australia to make it free for the trans community to update their gender on their birth certificate.

www.starobserver.com.au · Star Observer

0
0
0
Sue Smith @sue@glasgow.social
Public
Shared by Paul Cantrell

"Writing code is easy. Once you have a solution in mind, and have mastered the syntax of your favorite programming language, writing code is easy. Having an LLM write entire functions for you? Even easier. But the hard part isn’t the writing. It’s the reading. It’s the time it takes to load the mental model of the system into your head. That’s where all the cost really is."

idiallo.com/blog/writing-code-

Writing Code Is Easy. Reading It Isn’t.

Writing code is easy. Once you have a solution in mind, and have mastered the syntax of your favorite programming language, writing code is easy. Having an LLM write entire functions for you? Even eas

idiallo.com · Ibrahim Diallo Blog

0
0
0
Sue Smith @sue@glasgow.social
Public

I've said it before but if LLM assisted coding tools are going to retain significant usage over time (as the cost of those initial, apparent short term gains becomes clearer) it'll be dependent on better supports for people to read and understand codebases, not for LLMs to read and understand them, for human beings to do that.. they'll need to let go of the delusion that all of this can be automated

Sue Smith @sue@glasgow.social
Public
Shared by Paul Cantrell

I guess part of the reason that reading code can be harder than writing it is that what you really need to understand isn't necessarily *in* the code, you're kind of inferring the understanding you need *from* the code.

Again, we keep conflating the work with the artifact of it, and the value of code comprehension illustrates why that's a mistake.

0
0
0
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
Hacker News 100 @hn100@social.lansky.name
Public

Terence Tao: At the Erdos problem website, AI assistance now becoming routine

Link: mathstodon.xyz/@tao/1155914873
Discussion: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4

Terence Tao (@tao@mathstodon.xyz)

Over at the Erdos problem website, AI assistance is now becoming routine. Here is what happened recently regarding Erdos problem #367 https://www.erdosproblems.com/367 : 1. On Nov 20, Wouter van Doorn produced a (human-generated) disproof of the second part of this problem, contingent on a congruence identity that he thought was true, and was "sure someoneone here is able to verify... does indeed hold". 2. A few hours later, I posed this problem to Gemini Deepthink, which (after about ten minutes) produced a complete proof of the identity (and confirmed the entire argument): https://gemini.google.com/share/81a65aecfd70 . The argument used some p-adic algebraic number theory which was overkill for this problem. I then spent about half an hour converting the proof by hand into a more elementary proof, which I presented on the site. I then remarked that the resulting proof should be within range of "vibe formalizing" in Lean. 3. Two days later, Boris Alexeev used the Aristotle tool from Harmonic to complete the Lean formalization, making sure to formalize the final statement by hand to guard against AI exploits. This process took two to three hours, and the output can be found at https://borisalexeev.com/t/Erdos367.lean EDIT: after making this post, I decided to round things out by making AI literature searches on this problem, which (after about fifteen minutes) turned up some related literature on consecutive powerful numbers, but nothing directly relating to #367. https://chatgpt.com/share/6921427d-9dc0-800e-b798-be8fc94a9240 https://gemini.google.com/share/0d296454bea0

mathstodon.xyz · Mathstodon

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
why-not @Heike @why_not@mastodon.social
Public

„Mit dem Entwurf zur Neuen Grundsicherung legt die Bundesregierung aus SPD und CDU ein Sozialgesetz vor, das die Würde des Menschen antastet, geistige Brandstiftung in die Gesellschaft trägt – deutlich stärker als Hartz IV es je getan hat“

buendnis-fuer-menschenwuerde-u

"Mileis-Kettensägen-Politik" fällt den Sozialstaat, der uns alle verbindet! – Bündnis für Menschenwürde und Arbeit

Wir sind ein regional agierendes Bündnis aus Mönchengladbach. Das Bündnis will den Bedrängten und Schwachen in der Gesellschaft eine Stimme geben.

buendnis-fuer-menschenwuerde-und-arbeit.de

0
0
0
Hacker News 100 @hn100@social.lansky.name
Public

A time-travelling door bug in Half Life 2

Link: mastodon.gamedev.place/@TomF/1
Discussion: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4

A Combine soldier threatening with a baton, in front of a door. Which one is a greater menace in gamedev?

Tom Forsyth (@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place)

Attached: 1 image Recent discussion about the perils of doors in gamedev reminded me of a bug caused by a door in a game you may have heard of called "Half Life 2". Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.

mastodon.gamedev.place · Gamedev Mastodon

0
0
0
Hacker News 50 @hn50@social.lansky.name
Public

"Good engineering management" is a fad

Link: lethain.com/good-eng-mgmt-is-a
Discussion: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4

"Good engineering management" is a fad

As I get older, I increasingly think about whether I’m spending my time the right way to advance my career and my life. This is also a question that your company asks about you every performance cycle: is this engineering manager spending their time effectively to advance the company or their organization? Confusingly, in my experience, answering these nominally similar questions has surprisingly little in common. This piece spends some time exploring both questions in the particularly odd moment we live in today, where managers are being told they’ve spent the last decade doing the wrong things, and need to engage with a new model of engineering management in order to be valued by the latest iteration of the industry.

lethain.com

0
0
0
Hacker News 50 @hn50@social.lansky.name
Public

A time-travelling door bug in Half Life 2

Link: mastodon.gamedev.place/@TomF/1
Discussion: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4

A Combine soldier threatening with a baton, in front of a door. Which one is a greater menace in gamedev?

Tom Forsyth (@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place)

Attached: 1 image Recent discussion about the perils of doors in gamedev reminded me of a bug caused by a door in a game you may have heard of called "Half Life 2". Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.

mastodon.gamedev.place · Gamedev Mastodon

0
0
0
Hacker News 50 @hn50@social.lansky.name
Public

Terence Tao: At the Erdos problem website, AI assistance now becoming routine

Link: mathstodon.xyz/@tao/1155914873
Discussion: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4

Terence Tao (@tao@mathstodon.xyz)

Over at the Erdos problem website, AI assistance is now becoming routine. Here is what happened recently regarding Erdos problem #367 https://www.erdosproblems.com/367 : 1. On Nov 20, Wouter van Doorn produced a (human-generated) disproof of the second part of this problem, contingent on a congruence identity that he thought was true, and was "sure someoneone here is able to verify... does indeed hold". 2. A few hours later, I posed this problem to Gemini Deepthink, which (after about ten minutes) produced a complete proof of the identity (and confirmed the entire argument): https://gemini.google.com/share/81a65aecfd70 . The argument used some p-adic algebraic number theory which was overkill for this problem. I then spent about half an hour converting the proof by hand into a more elementary proof, which I presented on the site. I then remarked that the resulting proof should be within range of "vibe formalizing" in Lean. 3. Two days later, Boris Alexeev used the Aristotle tool from Harmonic to complete the Lean formalization, making sure to formalize the final statement by hand to guard against AI exploits. This process took two to three hours, and the output can be found at https://borisalexeev.com/t/Erdos367.lean EDIT: after making this post, I decided to round things out by making AI literature searches on this problem, which (after about fifteen minutes) turned up some related literature on consecutive powerful numbers, but nothing directly relating to #367. https://chatgpt.com/share/6921427d-9dc0-800e-b798-be8fc94a9240 https://gemini.google.com/share/0d296454bea0

mathstodon.xyz · Mathstodon

0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0