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.
What activities or services are you most hoping for coming from a privacy rights organization?
The UK Online Safety Act ushered in an age verification market without regulating providers.
Our open letter calls for this to be corrected ahead of tomorrow's debate.
We're supported by the Age Verification Providers Association and 600+ members of the public.
Read more ⬇️
#OnlineSafetyAct #onlinesafety #osa #ageverification #privacy #ukpolitics #ukpol
A story of Fediverse UX problems
"Everyone *ing hates you!" See what happens when unarmed, peaceful citizens put their bodies in the way of an unwarranted ICE raid. A tense run-in unfolds between St. Paul, Minnesota residents and ICE agents. #Minnesota #ICE
Mommy! Surely those spicy chicken wings are for me? #dog #dogs #dogsofmastodon
Dave Winer, @davewDave Winer ☕️ is basically the inventor of RSS and I take the chance to mention him as I am doing my best to be an RSS advocate with my own possibilities and limits, even with non-technical people who don't understand why I insist in "so complex things" when "commercial platforms give you everything in an instant".
I talked about ActivityPub and RSS during my last WordCamp, Pisa -Italy- 22nd November 2025. Italian, unfortunately; I'll share my talk when it's out on WordPress TV but I fear there won't be English subtitles.
But I limited what I wanted to say because a word could violate WordPress's code of conduct.
It's nothing obscene, it's the metaphoric name of an anchor-stone. But in Venice they call it "coion", like the vulgar word for testicle. It's basically a round stone structure which firmly anchors the arch of a bridge, to its vertical support. It's invisible to human eyes, people even don't know it exists. But it allows Venetian bridges to resist for centuries. It's fundamental. But if for a reason or another it becomes visible, it means that the bridge is damaged.
Same way of a linchpin for a wheel.
This word is even used for a person. When someone is essential for a community, determines its success too, but if they get attention or ask for visibility, they could even become an obstacle. Or they are treated as such. No idea if the word corresponding to "coion" for a person has the same idea in English. I have found "moron" but I don't know if it's the same.
Basically, when you are important and have not a very strong personality, so you let others treat you as invisible, they consider you as always available, always granted. And treat you badly if you raise your hand and say "I'm here too"; they immediately send you back to your place.
RSS is treated the same: many of commercial platform users don't even know about its existence but without RSS, no newspaper or whatever social pages sharing news automatically, could fetch contents.
I agree with Dave when he says that RSS is more important than ActivityPub. Simply RSS can work without ActivityPub but often not vice-versa.
ｻﾑﾑ
Hashcards: A Plain-Text Spaced Repetition System
Link: https://borretti.me/article/hashcards-plain-text-spaced-repetition
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46264492
Every time I go to Oakland I just feel more strongly about leaving SF to move there. I just prefer everything about it. Diversity, food, weather, restaurant options. Lesbians.
This will be a long post. The satire snake flags I've collected over the years. Just borrowed one from 
@catsaladCat 🐈🥗 (D.Burch) 
so figured I'd share the rest.
![A satire don't tread on me flag. The caption is "[patriotic choking noises]" and the snake is on a ventilator.](https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/718/868/203/019/100/original/d8dc427dc4dded45.jpg)
RE: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@eniko/115717705308072732
surprised nobody has gone "eniko please" to this yet. clearly you all expect this level of nonsense from me now and i must try harder
Rainbow rat having the time of his life playing the maracas
Also a cat in progress
You know that saying, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time," that is supposed to represent how big tasks can be accomplished in small steps?
I think about the times when I go into hyper-focus mode and churn out thousands of words in a day or complete a months-long project in a weekend, and I wonder if I'm more like a snake, unhinging my jaw and just inhaling the whole thing at once.
subshells
Permalink: https://wizardzines.com/comics/subshells/
Feiertagstradition bei uns? Abwägen, ob es sicher genug ist, mit dem Kind zur Chanukka Feier zu gehen.
Update Now: iOS 26.2 Fixes 20 Security Vulnerabilities, 2 Actively Exploited
Link: https://www.macrumors.com/2025/12/12/ios-26-2-security-vulnerabilities/
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46264101
Update Now: iOS 26.2 Fixes 20+ Security Vulnerabilities
Apple today released iOS 26.2, iPadOS 26.2, and macOS 26.2, all of which introduce new features, bug fixes, and security improvements. Apple says that the updates address over 20 vulnerabilities, including two bugs that are known to have been actively exploited. There are a pair of WebKit vulnerabilities that could allow maliciously crafted web content to execute code or cause memory corruption.
www.macrumors.com · MacRumors
Link author: 
Juli Clover@julipuli@mastodon.social
FA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA
Today’s the last day of our #GivingTuesday campaign! ⏰ If you’ve been thinking about spreading health for the holidays, now is a good time to donate. 😷 ❤️ Donations made today will be matched. 🎉
“ICE or migra watch is a practice that grew out of the community defense strategies developed by the Black Panthers in the late 1960s, which inspired cop-watching across the country. It is most visible on the streets, where pairs or teams document law enforcement in their own neighborhoods.” https://newrepublic.com/article/204225/chicago-neighborhood-resistance-ice-immigration
What one person wants from an alternative to a Twitter:
• choice of home-feed algorithm,
• editable posts,
• ability to moderate replies
An amazing resource by EFF around age verification on the internet.
Threatened With Jail for Offering Blankets to Migrants https://jacobin.com/2025/12/greece-aid-workers-migrants-detention/
Oliver is seeing improvement on the new meds, even gained some weight! 🤞🏼🐱 #FosterKittens #cats #CatsOfMastodon
Study finds manager scores for employee performance correlated to employee self-evals. Women and ppl of color tended to give themselves lower marks. Women of color rated themselves the least favorably and got the lowest scores from managers.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/12/why-self-appraisals-may-not-be-best-way-to-judge-job-performance/
3/
From-time-to-time these local Linux User Groups (LUGs) would put on a Linux InstallFest —
An in-person event where people (who weren't using Linux yet, but were interested) would bring their computer to the Linux InstallFest, and someone from the local LUG would help install Linux for them on their computer.
This helped spread Linux.
We (of the Fediverse) could do something similar.
...
4/
We (of the Fediverse) could learn from the Linux User Groups (LUGs).
We could have our own version of a Linux InstallFest — a Fediverse JoinFest.
An in-person event where people who are interested in the Fediverse, but are having trouble joining — can bring their mobile phone or laptop, and some Fediverse-savvy person (like us) could help them join the Fediverse.
We could install a Fediverse app on their mobile phone for them.
We could help them pick a server to join.
.
“It's the most unbelievable scene I've ever seen,” said New South Wales Premier Chris Minns. “A man walking up to a gunman who had fired on the community and single-handedly disarming him, putting his own life at risk to save the lives of countless other people.” https://people.com/hero-bystander-wrestles-gun-beach-terror-attack-hanukkah-11868718
+++Medienspiegel zu unseren Palantir-Recherchen und die Stellungnahme von Palantir-Kadern selbst+++
In Deutschland haben unsere Schweiz-Scoops einige Fragen aufgeworfen.. "Grünen-Geheimdienstexperte Konstantin von Notz kritisiert den Einsatz der Überwachungssoftware Palantir in Deutschland. Grund sind neue Erkenntnisse aus der Schweiz. Innenminister Dobrindt gerät unter Druck", schreibt beispielsweise die Wirtschaftswoche. Der Standard, Netzpolitik.org und weitere griffen diese Woche unsere Recherche mit Fokus auf den Evaluationsreport der Schweizer Armee ebenfalls auf. Und es folgen bald noch weitere Artikel (stay tuned!)
In der Schweiz? Schweigen im digitalen Blätterwald (bis auf ein paar Ausnahmen wie 20min.ch, soweit ich es überblicken kann). 😉 🤨 Bei den Ringier-Medien verwundert das ja nicht. Aber bei den Anderen?
Meanwhile hat ein von uns befragter Palantir-Kadermann mit seinem eigenen "Factchecking" auf unsere beiden Artikel bei LinkedIn reagiert. "It’s a shame that with all the cooperation and access granted to Republik, they couldn’t exercise the integrity to push beyond salacious conspiracies and cheap recitals of already-debunked Palantir myths. Swiss readers deserve better."
Na dann... 😉
It's wet, windy and unseasonably warm. Dark, dreich and depressing.
Scenes from better winter days on Ilkley Moor.
@mxk @Xobs@mastodon.socia
To give some background, I "hitchhiked" my functions on another tape-out that was paid for by a company called Crossbar Inc. Crossbar took the unusual step of agreeing to open source all the RTL they were legally allowed to, and they held up to that agreement.
Thus from the get-go, I was not the architect of the chip, but rather, a guest on someone else's chip. I could politely advise, but not dictate the terms of the cores.
Here's the what:
The components that aren't open sourced are the foundry IP (analog + detailed memory models + USB), the AMBA bus framework, plus a couple small blocks (RTC, MDMA) that I didn't have a say in and are not required for normal operation.
Here's the why:
Foundry IP models (analog+memory) are quite difficult to open source and considered to be out of scope for this project. There's people working on it, but at the moment there are no processes smaller than 130nm that have open source IP. To give some context, at 130nm you might be able to do a chip that runs at dozens of MHz with a few dozen kilobytes of RAM. In contrast, Baochip runs at 350/700MHz with a couple megabytes of RAM.
USB/AMBA models were picked for their maturity. The open-source alternatives didn't provide the same feature set or validation quality. Eventually such IP can be brought up to standard but one has to allocate risk strategically; if the chip doesn't boot because of a bus framework bug, then you have no chip at all.
For the blocks I was directly responsible for, I picked a fully open source bus framework. The framework did turn out to have several subtle bugs, which took a lot of effort to rectify (open source comes with no warranty, so all the testing falls on your shoulders!).
One bug unfortunately made it through to the final silicon and requires a less than desirable work-around (the chip has to reboot itself once to get a clock domain synchronizer into a reliable state; end users barely notice it because it's quite fast, but this is only possible because the main CPU boot is reliable). So in the end, Crossbar's choice to insist on a battle-proven bus framework was prescient: the chip probably wouldn't have worked at all if we went with the fully open source framework on the first go around.
The other small blocks were mostly last-minute add-ons and we didn't have the time/resources to qualify open source versions and we already had off-the-shelf, tape-out proven, closed-source versions. There was only one of me involved in the tape out, versus dozens of engineers on their end, and the schedule was fixed by their needs.
The Crossbar version of the chip also has a Cortex-M7 in it - they viewed it too risky to go with a pure open source core, and I respect that opinion - but their CPU is fused off in my version of the chip, so it is dead silicon.
Basically, the question is equivalent to "how come you didn't boil the ocean in a single kettle", and the answer is "the kettle isn't big enough, so we have to boil it one kettle at a time".
As to which kettles were picked to boil: all the blocks that can perform a computation on my version of the chip are open source.
The remaining blocks can either be verified to be working correctly by e.g. read/write tests (fill the memory with random values, read back & compare; the existence of "shadow" memory can be disproven with IRIS), or they can't affect computation (eg analog blocks), or they should just be passing data around without modification (eg bus frameworks).
This approach does not disprove the existence of malicious code buried somewhere in the closed source blocks, but it does say you can inspect all the blocks that we say *should* be doing computation and you can confirm their function. It's a "better-than-nothing" approach, and it enables some pretty neat stuff in terms of simulating the chip to develop/debug firmware.
I understand this approach will disappoint those who want the highest bar cleared on the first try. To those who disapprove: it's open source, please jump in and help clear the bar!
But, let's consider that we can raise the bar now, so why not raise it? We don't have to settle for fully closed source solutions, so long as incremental progress is considered acceptable.
ならない？
そうか……
Over quota? "du -sh * | sort -h " will give you a sorted list of your
directory sizes.
-- David Scheidt <dscheidt@tumbolia.com>
もう年末年始休暇ということにならないですかね
I'll be presenting some of my latest work on Xous & Baochip with 
@Xobs at #39C3 on Day two, 11PM room One:
Hope to see you there!
For more on Baochip, checkout bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/baochip.com or read the source at github: https://github.com/baochip/baochip-1x
The TL;DR is that Baochip is a "mostly-open" RTL SoC in 22nm TSMC, purpose-built for Xous and expressly packaged for IRIS inspection. It packs in five RISC-V CPU cores (one Vexriscv CPU at 350MHz, and four PicoRV's at 700MHz), 2MiB on-chip SRAM and 4MiB on-chip RRAM (basically FLASH).
I'm aiming to have the chip broadly available by early 2026. Right now I have first silicon. You can follow development & ask questions on the Baochip discord at https://discord.gg/yesbcPF9Xy
Sorry, no website yet - I suck at marketing - but hey, at least the source code is up!
@gooser3000Knut Branson are you imaging an API that doesn't exist?
寝よう、
Proposal for a new regulation, dear 
@EUCommissionEuropean Commission. When a digital service like Apple iCloud, Google, Facebook etc decides to block or delete your account, they MUST give you a way for a limited time (I'd propose 6 months) to download all data/files they have stored under that account. You should be able to access it using the last known credentials. AFTER a full download has occurred, the account may be finally deleted. I am sure it needs more refinement, but the principle should be established.
Proposal for a new regulation, dear @EUCommissionEuropean Commission. When a digital service like Apple iCloud, Google, Facebook etc decides to block or delete your account, they MUST give you a way for a limited time (I'd propose 6 months) to download all data/files they have stored under that account. You should be able to access it using the last known credentials. AFTER a full download has occurred, the account may be finally deleted. I am sure it needs more refinement, but the principle should be established.
@jwildeboerJan Wildeboer 😷
@EUCommissionEuropean Commission They should presumably also refund any app/assets purchased using that account in the past (at least) year, with the loss being attributed against the app store provider, rather than the suppier of the app/asset.
#Windows 3.1 included a red and yellow 'Hot Dog Stand' color scheme so garish it was long assumed to be a joke, so I tracked down Microsoft's original UI designer to get the true story
You know that saying, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time," that is supposed to represent how big tasks can be accomplished in small steps?
I think about the times when I go into hyper-focus mode and churn out thousands of words in a day or complete a months-long project in a weekend, and I wonder if I'm more like a snake, unhinging my jaw and just inhaling the whole thing at once.
IT security in the 90s ...
3/
From-time-to-time these local Linux User Groups (LUGs) would put on a Linux InstallFest —
An in-person event where people (who weren't using Linux yet, but were interested) would bring their computer to the Linux InstallFest, and someone from the local LUG would help install Linux for them on their computer.
This helped spread Linux.
We (of the Fediverse) could do something similar.
...
4/
We (of the Fediverse) could learn from the Linux User Groups (LUGs).
We could have our own version of a Linux InstallFest — a Fediverse JoinFest.
An in-person event where people who are interested in the Fediverse, but are having trouble joining — can bring their mobile phone or laptop, and some Fediverse-savvy person (like us) could help them join the Fediverse.
We could install a Fediverse app on their mobile phone for them.
We could help them pick a server to join.
.
2/
I am old enough to remember when Linux was not yet common.
(I started using Linux back in 1996. And have been using some distro of Linux since then.)
Back then, Linux User Groups (LUGs) got created in different cities by regular people who were enthusiastic abut Linux — to provide help, support, and community for those who were interested in Linux.
(I used to be an active member of VanLUG — the Vancouver Linux User Group.)
3/
From-time-to-time these local Linux User Groups (LUGs) would put on a Linux InstallFest —
An in-person event where people (who weren't using Linux yet, but were interested) would bring their computer to the Linux InstallFest, and someone from the local LUG would help install Linux for them on their computer.
This helped spread Linux.
We (of the Fediverse) could do something similar.
...
1/
We (of the Fediverse) should take a lesson from Linux (and the LUGs back in the day) and do in-person Fediverse JoinFests.
Where we help people join the Fediverse.
Similar to the Linux InstallFests decades ago.
🧵
2/
I am old enough to remember when Linux was not yet common.
(I started using Linux back in 1996. And have been using some distro of Linux since then.)
Back then, Linux User Groups (LUGs) got created in different cities by regular people who were enthusiastic abut Linux — to provide help, support, and community for those who were interested in Linux.
(I used to be an active member of VanLUG — the Vancouver Linux User Group.)
1/
We (of the Fediverse) should take a lesson from Linux (and the LUGs back in the day) and do in-person Fediverse JoinFests.
Where we help people join the Fediverse.
Similar to the Linux InstallFests decades ago.
🧵
Andy Piper
@
北南
Quincy
Evan Prodromou
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@
✧✦Catherine✦✧
🕊️ 
Stefano Marinelli
