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.
If you're interested in funding or helping us find funding for a Discord replacement that's federated and end-to-end encrypted, we're interested in implementing that at 
@spritelyThe Spritely Institute ... we even had been talking about that being our big focus for 2026.
We have the skills and the underlying tech to pull this off. What we need right now is resources. Funding for open source nonprofits like ours really fell apart in 2025. If you think you know how to help, feel free to reach out.
I do not predict "the future of AI" because while I can confidently say that whatever the "current generation of LLM technology" is, it's nearing its limit, that does NOT mean that I can predict what innovations will move us past that generation. Truly disruptive tech is always a surprise.
Seeing people criticizing Gary Gygax (or any of the pioneering creators) for the 1st edition AD&D (or any early edition) rules' inconsistencies and perceived issues is like seeing someone complain about the original Star Wars film using models instead of computers for its special effects.
They were creating shit that didn't exist before. They had to make it up as they went. Everything that came after built on their blood, sweat, and tears. Show some respect.
/rant
The early Web had a quality that has been lost ever since: it was *simple*
Download #httpd , #netscape write some #html by hand and boom, the concept of a networked digital society is born.
It first started going pear shaped with #LAMP . The complexity of a full blown database was not justified for most use cases. As proven decades later by the popularity of #sqlite and #ssg approaches.
The final blow was when #bigtech got into the act. Immense complexity for the simplest things became a moat
it's that time again! get all four of our games as a bundle for the equivalent of one full price copy of kitsune tails https://itch.io/s/180112/kitsune-games-bundle-february-2026
kitsune tails is super mario bros 3 if nintendo had been brave enough to put lesbian fox girls in it, and kitsune zero is the prequel. defeat your enemies and steal their bodies and abilities in midboss, or solve push puzzles in adorable hat based puzzle game ultra hat dimension
Today we had a fire alarm in the office. A colleague wrote to a Slack channel 'Fire alarm in the office building', to start a thread if somebody knows any details. We have AI assistant Glean integrated into the Slack, and it answered privately to her: "today's siren is just a scheduled test and you do not need to leave your workplace". It was not a test or a drill, it was a real fire alarm. Someday, AI will kill us.
I’ve seen a lot of articles and posts about AI that use the term “like it or not” as in “like it or not, AI is here, and we might as well get used to it” and that is such bullshit.
Like it or not, ableism is here… like it or not, racism is here… like it or not, fascism is here.
No, fuck that, I will resist. I will speak out. I will fight back.
You do not have to roll over and accept the shit corporations and the existing power structure try to force upon you.
We can build a better world.
자다 깨서 보았습니다. 딱히 놀라지 않습니다. 평소의 실버 무빙이네요. 지난 한달간 계속 오르기만 해서 불안했는데, 이제 좀 안심이 됩니다. #발광
Watch | Herzog Says Gaza Is “Booby-Trapped,” Justifies Ban on International Journalists
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said that Gaza is “booby-trapped” as he justifies Israel’s continued ban on international journalists entering the besieged Strip, pretending the restriction is meant to “prevent harm to reporters”.
Sadhi Luokomaa 曾經遇到過一些情況，人們期待被收養者對自己能夠來到芬蘭心懷感激。這種期待在關於移民的討論中也同樣存在。
//這段話精準還原了我這些年的經歷和心路，也許不只是我：
“第一個問題總是：你從哪裡來？年輕的時候我總是會回答，但現在長大成人後，我學會了劃清界線。我沒有義務向所有人講述自己的故事。” Luokomaa 如此描述。
”Puhun äidinkielenäni suomea, mutta minulle puhutaan silti englanniksi” – adoptoidut aikuiset kokevat ulkopuolisuutta | Kotimaa | Yle
https://yle.fi/a/74-20207983
豆を発注できたい人生だった (いや、手間をかけていただくとできるんだけれども) #いろいろな人生だった
Wikipedia’s editors and readers have a dangerous generational gap. Can it become something that serves younger audiences, or will it remain stuck in the past? https://spectrum.ieee.org/wikipedia-at-25?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fedica-Mastodon-Daily-Pipeline
Scripting on the JVM with Java, Scala, and Kotlin https://lobste.rs/s/ehw8fx #java #kotlin #scala
https://mill-build.org/blog/19-scripting-on-the-jvm.html
This is supposedly what is causing trucking broker stocks to crash today:
"""
Thursday’s rout was sparked by an update from tiny AI logistics firm Algorhythm Holdings Inc., which said its SemiCab platform in live customer deployments was helping its customers’ internal operations to scale freight volumes by 300% to 400% without a corresponding increase in operational headcount. Shares of the company soared 12%.
Algorhythm, which had a market capitalization of less than $5 million before Thursday, previously operated as The Singing Machine Company, Inc. — selling karaoke products — until rebranding in 2024 as an AI logistics firm. The company reported less than $2 million in sales for the quarter ended September 30, with a net loss totaling nearly $3 million for the period.
"""
(https://finance.yahoo.com/news/logistics-stocks-sink-ai-fear-193327489.html)
Great post from Ashley Wolf on the “Eternal September” moment OSS maintainers are facing and how GitHub is trying to help. And we want your continued feedback! https://github.blog/open-source/maintainers/welcome-to-the-eternal-september-of-open-source-heres-what-we-plan-to-do-for-maintainers/
Another interesting factor of resistance to ICE in Minnesota is that it does actually change what it means to people to be "Minnesotan" in a way that I hope will inspire & encourage people there.
Sure, Minnesotans like to think of themselves as good neighbors. The idea of being a "good neighbor" is highly valued.
But I think Minnesotans have redefined "neighborliness" for themselves in recent months.
Rust workspace has three crates A, B and C. Then there's a crate COMMON-AB which contains the shared code used by both A and B and a crate COMMON-BC which uses the shared code used by both B and C. Yeesh.
New Blogpost: Lawful access to encrypted data: why is this so hard to do?
https://www.cert.at/en/blog/2026/2/lawful-access-to-encrypted-data-why-is-this-so-hard-to-do
Being exhausted after a work day => reading vintage magazines and posting funny things from them
This is supposedly what is causing trucking broker stocks to crash today:
"""
Thursday’s rout was sparked by an update from tiny AI logistics firm Algorhythm Holdings Inc., which said its SemiCab platform in live customer deployments was helping its customers’ internal operations to scale freight volumes by 300% to 400% without a corresponding increase in operational headcount. Shares of the company soared 12%.
Algorhythm, which had a market capitalization of less than $5 million before Thursday, previously operated as The Singing Machine Company, Inc. — selling karaoke products — until rebranding in 2024 as an AI logistics firm. The company reported less than $2 million in sales for the quarter ended September 30, with a net loss totaling nearly $3 million for the period.
"""
(https://finance.yahoo.com/news/logistics-stocks-sink-ai-fear-193327489.html)
으어 체중 앞 자리가 드뎌 바뀌었다
This is a test post.
This is only a test post.
You shouldn’t be able to reply it from GTS, bluesky nor wafrn runing preprod
Trump is ending deportation surge in Minnesota
Okay, here's my followup. What did I mean by "build a replacement for Discord"? That's shorthand, because to be honest, Discord is *a lot of things* because it has a lot of resources behind it. And of course, people have their own preferred directions, especially in XMPP and Matrix, and I think those efforts are worthwhile. But I'm talking about some near-future threats-and-opportunities, so let me explain what we want to, and ought to, build.
So I will detail in this thread, and yes, this will be a Classic Christine Thread (TM), what I mean. The things we would *like* to do, at a high level:
- Get "moderated chatroom with no center" tech in the hands of users
- Which also includes direct file sharing
- Advance Spritely's core tech in the process. There's nothing like a real world use case with real users to push forward your system
- Advancing that tooling also means opening up some things that you can't do anywhere else
What does that mean? Read on! Let's go!
So first, let me focus on the user-facing thing I described before getting to the larger ecosystem. "Moderated chatroom with no center." What does that mean? And why is it politically important right now?
Increasingly, we are seeing regulation and policies being driven by a coalition of two groups with differing goals: people with I will say, bad intentions to crack down on speech and communication between at risk groups, especially non-white and queer people. Who are, weirdly, teaming up with well meaning people who are upset at big tech for allowing terrible things to happen especially as engagement-oriented feeds have lead to radicalization of hate and other such things. And both of them are saying, "let's punish big tech!" Which like, great, I'm all for punishing big tech. Except...
If you use AI-generated code, you currently cannot claim copyright on it in the US. If you fail to disclose/disclaim exactly which parts were not written by a human, you forfeit your copyright claim on *the entire codebase*.
This means copyright notices and even licenses folks are putting on their vibe-coded GitHub repos are unenforceable. The AI-generated code, and possibly the whole project, becomes public domain.
Source: https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/LSB/PDF/LSB10922/LSB10922.8.pdf
![Excert from the linked document:
Three copyright registration denials highlighted by the Copyright Office illustrate that, in general, the office will not find human authorship where an AI program generates works in response to user prompts:
1. Zarya of the Dawn: A February 2023 decision that AI-generated illustrations for a graphic novel were not copyrightable, although the human-authored text of the novel and overall selection and arrangement of the images and text in the novel could be copyrighted.
2. Théâtre D’opéra Spatial: A September 2023 decision that an artwork generated by AI and then modified by the applicant could not be copyrighted, since the applicant failed to identify and disclaim the AI-generated portions of the work as required by the AI Guidance.
3. SURYAST: A December 2023 decision that an artwork generated by an AI system combining a “base image” (an original photo taken by the applicant) and a “style image” the applicant selected (Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night) could not be copyrighted, since the AI system was “responsible for determining how to interpolate [i.e., combine] the base and style images.”](https://uploads.zomglol.wtf/media_attachments/files/116/059/412/520/242/557/original/7177c68f88a00d30.png)
Good article from the Matrix folks explaining that switching to Matrix doesn't necessarily mean you can avoid age verification laws.
https://matrix.org/blog/2026/02/welcome-discord/
So I will detail in this thread, and yes, this will be a Classic Christine Thread (TM), what I mean. The things we would *like* to do, at a high level:
- Get "moderated chatroom with no center" tech in the hands of users
- Which also includes direct file sharing
- Advance Spritely's core tech in the process. There's nothing like a real world use case with real users to push forward your system
- Advancing that tooling also means opening up some things that you can't do anywhere else
What does that mean? Read on! Let's go!
@cwebberChristine Lemmer-Webber Jumping ahead - quite a bit - based on your recent "How to Level Up the Fediverse" talk, where you had mentioned the idea of, to describe it in brief, "web applications that contain multiple applications", such as online communities that contain games, etc.
I assume this is relevant to where you're going with a Discord alternative, which is actually a large number of interacting features, really?
I can see why this kind of project might be an excellent test bed for popularizing this.
Okay, here's my followup. What did I mean by "build a replacement for Discord"? That's shorthand, because to be honest, Discord is *a lot of things* because it has a lot of resources behind it. And of course, people have their own preferred directions, especially in XMPP and Matrix, and I think those efforts are worthwhile. But I'm talking about some near-future threats-and-opportunities, so let me explain what we want to, and ought to, build.
So I will detail in this thread, and yes, this will be a Classic Christine Thread (TM), what I mean. The things we would *like* to do, at a high level:
- Get "moderated chatroom with no center" tech in the hands of users
- Which also includes direct file sharing
- Advance Spritely's core tech in the process. There's nothing like a real world use case with real users to push forward your system
- Advancing that tooling also means opening up some things that you can't do anywhere else
What does that mean? Read on! Let's go!
Richard "RichiH" Hartmann shared the below article:
404 Media @index@www.404media.co
The companies have launched a pilot program in Atlanta, where “during the rare event a vehicle door is left ajar, preventing the car from departing, nearby Dashers are notified, allowing Waymo to get its vehicles back on the road quickly.”
Read more →"An AI Agent Published A Hit Piece On Me" is a *WILD* read, as is the issues, and the blackmail blogposts (and later "apology") by the AI agent https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-me/
@cwebberChristine Lemmer-Webber Even better, the AI has now walked back the apology
Absolutely thrilled to be enjoying my Amiga 1200 tower for music creation, finally! I'm loving this ❤️ 😍
Not sure if happy or sad.
Will AI kill Indian IT? The $300B billable hour reality check
https://restofworld.org/2026/indian-it-ai-stock-crash-claude-cowork/
Some news: Michael Brough's new cyberpunk nano-roguelike 868-BACK is now being published by Finji and there will be a public demo in Steam Next Fest on Feb. 23rd!
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:56xcru5bk2bsvsgufem7bah5/post/3meolefzlgk2z
石井さんだいしゅき!!
ニンゲン観察バラエティ モニタリング
石井竜也が外国人観光客に変装してサプライズ歌唱！
https://tver.jp/episodes/epipd17d63
I have a tendency to aggressively refactor when I build new things. It's one of the most valuable skills to have to fight entropy during programming.
What's interesting is the tension between aggressive refactoring and PR reviews. It's difficult to review a bundled set of changes, and it's also difficult to review the whole. That's why I like doing pair and mob programming.
まあまあよく寝れました
ござい寒い
New Blogpost: Lawful access to encrypted data: why is this so hard to do?
https://www.cert.at/en/blog/2026/2/lawful-access-to-encrypted-data-why-is-this-so-hard-to-do
@retech 
@inthehandsPaul Cantrell
With respect, if "standing in the streets did nothing to hurt them;" they wouldn't be killing people for doing that.
If you're interested in funding or helping us find funding for a Discord replacement that's federated and end-to-end encrypted, we're interested in implementing that at @spritelyThe Spritely Institute ... we even had been talking about that being our big focus for 2026.
We have the skills and the underlying tech to pull this off. What we need right now is resources. Funding for open source nonprofits like ours really fell apart in 2025. If you think you know how to help, feel free to reach out.
I can't stop thinking about the LLM-generated compiler that passes all the unit tests but emits inner loops that benchmark over 150,000x slower than a gcc debug build. I couldn't possibly have intentionally come up with such a funny demonstration of the point of genuine expertise https://harshanu.space/en/tech/ccc-vs-gcc/
@retech Yes, we are in an arms race. They've changed tactics.
And guess what? We found out. Because they're being watched. Because people are out there and being alert. And because that open outrage actually makes the media pay attention.
People are rallying against those warehouses, forcing their local gov'ts to refuse approvals. The new offices? Building management can decide the risk is not worth the rent.
@retech I think the important thing to remember is that *we* are forcing *them* to change tactics.
Which means yes, standing in the streets is most definitely hurting them. They can't bring in the numbers being demanded of them. We're slowing them and costing them money.
Glyph
rob pike
Chris Siebenmann
Tom Casavant
leyrer
infinite love ⴳ
@
Gabriele Svelto
Alice I. Cecile
julian
