A quantum physics effect to teach, a puzzle to build, a problem to solve, a tool to learn!
Polarizing filters are plastic films that let light shine through only in a particular direction (angle). Combining two at 90 degrees completely blocks light.

Very counterintuitively, inserting a third filter between two filters at 90 degrees allows some light shine through!
This interesting effect can only be explained with quantum physics, as brilliantly explained in this 3Blue1Brown video.
Polarizing filter films are cheap... So I wanted to create a carboard toy to demo this effect in a suprising way to my kids!
A puzzle to build
Idea is to build a puzzle around this weird effect.
I want to build a cardboard octagon with many "windows" (holes), each window covered with one polarizing filter at a certain angle, like this:

Stacking multiple such octagons on top of one another will block light in some combination of filters and not others, depending on the individual filter angles. Moreover, rotating octagons in the stack will make the "displayed pattern" change!

A problem to solve
One a set of "patterns" to display is decided, is it possible to write a program to determine the assignment of filter angles, for each "window" in each octagon, that is able to produce them all?
In principle, yes! In practice, there's an explosion in the number of possible combinations! Eg. 8 angles × 10 windows × 8 slices × 5 octagons × 8⁴ rotation combinations × 5! orderings × 5 upside-down flips is about 8 billion.
...a bit too much for simple for loops! I need a smarter approach.
A tool to learn

Google OR-Tools CP-SAT is a powerful constraint programming solver. It can be used to quickly find solutions to huge combinatorial problems - where one has to find one valid assignment to thousands of variables under thousands of constraints within billions of possible combinations (not all of which valid or optimal)!
Solvers are applicable to many problems and are not new in SUSE's tradition - eg. the zypper package manager uses libsolv to compute valid package dependency combinations, and Uyuni uses Optaplanner to compute valid subscription assignments.
CP-SAT is open source, very efficient (actually close to the state of the art in the field) and easily scriptable from Python... a very interesting target to experiment with!
Now I have an excuse to play with this!
Scope of HackWeek
Find a combination that works for a decent example, and actually cut it in cardboard and filters to try it out!
https://github.com/moio/octaopticon
This project is part of:
Hack Week 23
Activity
Comments
-
about 2 years ago by moio | Reply
Day 1 diary - the physical prototyping day
Spent a bit of time into producing good SVGs with Python, then printed them and tried to find dimensions that worked (one big and one small for testing).
After few iterations decided to go with octagonal stars rather than plain octagons:

Then literally hammered out holes with a 10mm punch! Worked beautifully.

Then, cut and tested positioning of filter film:

All seems good from the physical realm so far.
Next up: coding to determine per-hole filter positioning!
-
about 2 years ago by moio | Reply
Day 2 diary: mostly coding
CP-SAT
Learnt a lot about CP-SAT, evolved some code I had around to handle:
- a variable number of "pizzas" ("stars with filter windows")
- a variable number of "slices" ("sectors" of stars)
- a variable number of "windows" per "slice"
- a variable number of "angles" filters can be glued on
- a variable number of "images"
Difficult part today is the reordering of "pizzas" in the "pizza stack". Giving that ability makes more combinations possible, but indirection has to be dealt with in code.
Testing
The good part about this problem is that tests can trivially be randomized, so it's easy to see if produced solutions work or not.
The bad part is not all randomized problem instances have a solutions. For those who do not, CP-SAT will happily burn CPUs for hours. I added a pretty arbitrary time limit.
ChatGPT
I used ChatGPT for the scaffolding work - and was quite happy with it:
> Set up a new Python 3.9 based project according to current best practices. > > The project must use the ortools library from Google (note that is a wrapper around a C++ library) > > Include support for: linting, dependency management, github codespace, tests, a Dockerfile, github actions on push and PR including and tests and lint, github actions for release of source archive and docker container on ghcr.io > > Also include a scaffolded README and LICENSE (AGPL) > > The project must compile and work cross platform, including Linux x86 and Mac arm. > > Explain every file created step by step and why
Not a perfect result, but a good result to learn from - faster than stitching together 10 blog posts (for someone not daily into an ecosystem).
-
about 2 years ago by moio | Reply
Day 3 diary: 3 failures, 1 success
Failure 1: adding the possibility of re-ordering the stack
I thought that allowing to re-ordering pizzas in the stack could help with storing more "images" - found out that as not the case. On a large set of pseudorandom tests, only an extra 4 out of 186 could be solved by changing the order. Not worth it, commit reverted.
Failure 2: going from a SAT problem to an optimization problem
CP-SAT has the cool ability of allowing to specify an objective function to minimize or maximise - making it simple to reformulate a satisfiability problem in an optimization one. I tried this approach to make the assignments more flexible but failed: I could not find a good way to mix it with the Automaton constraints which I am using to simulate light traveling through a series of filters. Path abandoned for now.
Failure 3: allowing brighter-than-specified pixels
This seemed an easy way to enlarge the solution space - interestingly, almost no effect was visible in tests. Sticking for the simpler approach (to match pixel values exactly) for now.
Success! First small four-pizza prototype works!
I am happy to report that after some serious hammering and cutting...
...and serious gluing of filter films...

...I've got a nice filter set! Notice how filtering of monitor light (which is polarized) changes with rotation!

Now I made four pizzas...

And, in the right order, they will display a programmed X pattern!

I was able to "store" 7 patterns in the four pizzas (a "Y", a "q", the "X" above, an "o", an "I", a "c" and a "K").
Next step: the bigger brother pizza with bigger patterns!
-
about 2 years ago by moio | Reply
Day 4 diary: scale up!
Today I dealt with the bigger version of the puzzle. Software scaled just fine!
About hardware I was lucky enough to get help from my son across all phases!

I am really happy with the result, here they are in all their whiteness:

What message did we hid in there? Stay tuned tomorrow for the last demo!
PS. Thanks to colleague AR about having kids do some of the job - that worked great!
-
about 2 years ago by moio | Reply
Day 5 diary: it's a wrap!
Today I created a video to explain progress and results, enjoy!
Tricky part was to get light right - so that it was clearly visible on video. Ended up with an inverted laptop screen covered with an opaque film - otherwise light comes polarized and all behavior is totally different!
Similar Projects
Collection and organisation of information about Bulgarian schools by iivanov
Description
To achieve this it will be necessary:
- Collect/download raw data from various government and non-governmental organizations
- Clean up raw data and organise it in some kind database.
- Create tool to make queries easy.
- Or perhaps dump all data into AI and ask questions in natural language.
Goals
By selecting particular school information like this will be provided:
- School scores on national exams.
- School scores from the external evaluations exams.
- School town, municipality and region.
- Employment rate in a town or municipality.
- Average health of the population in the region.
Resources
Some of these are available only in bulgarian.
- https://danybon.com/klasazia
- https://nvoresults.com/index.html
- https://ri.mon.bg/active-institutions
- https://www.nsi.bg/nrnm/ekatte/archive
Results
- Information about all Bulgarian schools with their scores during recent years cleaned and organised into SQL tables
- Information about all Bulgarian villages, cities, municipalities and districts cleaned and organised into SQL tables
- Information about all Bulgarian villages and cities census since beginning of this century cleaned and organised into SQL tables.
- Information about all Bulgarian municipalities about religion, ethnicity cleaned and organised into SQL tables.
- Data successfully loaded to locally running Ollama with help to Vanna.AI
- Seems to be usable.
TODO
- Add more statistical information about municipalities and ....
Code and data
Help Create A Chat Control Resistant Turnkey Chatmail/Deltachat Relay Stack - Rootless Podman Compose, OpenSUSE BCI, Hardened, & SELinux by 3nd5h1771fy
Description
The Mission: Decentralized & Sovereign Messaging
FYI: If you have never heard of "Chatmail", you can visit their site here, but simply put it can be thought of as the underlying protocol/platform decentralized messengers like DeltaChat use for their communications. Do not confuse it with the honeypot looking non-opensource paid for prodect with better seo that directs you to chatmailsecure(dot)com
In an era of increasing centralized surveillance by unaccountable bad actors (aka BigTech), "Chat Control," and the erosion of digital privacy, the need for sovereign communication infrastructure is critical. Chatmail is a pioneering initiative that bridges the gap between classic email and modern instant messaging, offering metadata-minimized, end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) communication that is interoperable and open.
However, unless you are a seasoned sysadmin, the current recommended deployment method of a Chatmail relay is rigid, fragile, difficult to properly secure, and effectively takes over the entire host the "relay" is deployed on.
Why This Matters
A simple, host agnostic, reproducible deployment lowers the entry cost for anyone wanting to run a privacy‑preserving, decentralized messaging relay. In an era of perpetually resurrected chat‑control legislation threats, EU digital‑sovereignty drives, and many dangers of using big‑tech messaging platforms (Apple iMessage, WhatsApp, FB Messenger, Instagram, SMS, Google Messages, etc...) for any type of communication, providing an easy‑to‑use alternative empowers:
- Censorship resistance - No single entity controls the relay; operators can spin up new nodes quickly.
- Surveillance mitigation - End‑to‑end OpenPGP encryption ensures relay operators never see plaintext.
- Digital sovereignty - Communities can host their own infrastructure under local jurisdiction, aligning with national data‑policy goals.
By turning the Chatmail relay into a plug‑and‑play container stack, we enable broader adoption, foster a resilient messaging fabric, and give developers, activists, and hobbyists a concrete tool to defend privacy online.
Goals
As I indicated earlier, this project aims to drastically simplify the deployment of Chatmail relay. By converting this architecture into a portable, containerized stack using Podman and OpenSUSE base container images, we can allow anyone to deploy their own censorship-resistant, privacy-preserving communications node in minutes.
Our goal for Hack Week: package every component into containers built on openSUSE/MicroOS base images, initially orchestrated with a single container-compose.yml (podman-compose compatible). The stack will:
- Run on any host that supports Podman (including optimizations and enhancements for SELinux‑enabled systems).
- Allow network decoupling by refactoring configurations to move from file-system constrained Unix sockets to internal TCP networking, allowing containers achieve stricter isolation.
- Utilize Enhanced Security with SELinux by using purpose built utilities such as udica we can quickly generate custom SELinux policies for the container stack, ensuring strict confinement superior to standard/typical Docker deployments.
- Allow the use of bind or remote mounted volumes for shared data (
/var/vmail, DKIM keys, TLS certs, etc.). - Replace the local DNS server requirement with a remote DNS‑provider API for DKIM/TXT record publishing.
By delivering a turnkey, host agnostic, reproducible deployment, we lower the barrier for individuals and small communities to launch their own chatmail relays, fostering a decentralized, censorship‑resistant messaging ecosystem that can serve DeltaChat users and/or future services adopting this protocol
Resources
- The links included above
- https://chatmail.at/doc/relay/
- https://delta.chat/en/help
- Project repo -> https://codeberg.org/EndShittification/containerized-chatmail-relay
Bring to Cockpit + System Roles capabilities from YAST by miguelpc
Bring to Cockpit + System Roles features from YAST
Cockpit and System Roles have been added to SLES 16 There are several capabilities in YAST that are not yet present in Cockpit and System Roles We will follow the principle of "automate first, UI later" being System Roles the automation component and Cockpit the UI one.
Goals
The idea is to implement service configuration in System Roles and then add an UI to manage these in Cockpit. For some capabilities it will be required to have an specific Cockpit Module as they will interact with a reasource already configured.
Resources
A plan on capabilities missing and suggested implementation is available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZhX-Ip9MKJNeKSYV3bSZG4Qc5giuY7XSV0U61Ecu9lo/edit
Linux System Roles:
- https://linux-system-roles.github.io/
- https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/openSUSE:Factory/ansible-linux-system-roles Package on sle16 ansible-linux-system-roles
First meeting Hackweek catchup
- Monday, December 1 · 11:00 – 12:00
- Time zone: Europe/Madrid
- Google Meet link: https://meet.google.com/rrc-kqch-hca
Improve/rework household chore tracker `chorazon` by gniebler
Description
I wrote a household chore tracker named chorazon, which is meant to be deployed as a web application in the household's local network.
It features the ability to set up different (so far only weekly) schedules per task and per person, where tasks may span several days.
There are "tokens", which can be collected by users. Tasks can (and usually will) have rewards configured where they yield a certain amount of tokens. The idea is that they can later be redeemed for (surprise) gifts, but this is not implemented yet. (So right now one needs to edit the DB manually to subtract tokens when they're redeemed.)
Days are not rolled over automatically, to allow for task completion control.
We used it in my household for several months, with mixed success. There are many limitations in the system that would warrant a revisit.
It's written using the Pyramid Python framework with URL traversal, ZODB as the data store and Web Components for the frontend.
Goals
- Add admin screens for users, tasks and schedules
- Add models, pages etc. to allow redeeming tokens for gifts/surprises
- …?
Resources
tbd (Gitlab repo)
Improvements to osc (especially with regards to the Git workflow) by mcepl
Description
There is plenty of hacking on osc, where we could spent some fun time. I would like to see a solution for https://github.com/openSUSE/osc/issues/2006 (which is sufficiently non-serious, that it could be part of HackWeek project).
Improve/rework household chore tracker `chorazon` by gniebler
Description
I wrote a household chore tracker named chorazon, which is meant to be deployed as a web application in the household's local network.
It features the ability to set up different (so far only weekly) schedules per task and per person, where tasks may span several days.
There are "tokens", which can be collected by users. Tasks can (and usually will) have rewards configured where they yield a certain amount of tokens. The idea is that they can later be redeemed for (surprise) gifts, but this is not implemented yet. (So right now one needs to edit the DB manually to subtract tokens when they're redeemed.)
Days are not rolled over automatically, to allow for task completion control.
We used it in my household for several months, with mixed success. There are many limitations in the system that would warrant a revisit.
It's written using the Pyramid Python framework with URL traversal, ZODB as the data store and Web Components for the frontend.
Goals
- Add admin screens for users, tasks and schedules
- Add models, pages etc. to allow redeeming tokens for gifts/surprises
- …?
Resources
tbd (Gitlab repo)
mgr-ansible-ssh - Intelligent, Lightweight CLI for Distributed Remote Execution by deve5h
Description
By the end of Hack Week, the target will be to deliver a minimal functional version 1 (MVP) of a custom command-line tool named mgr-ansible-ssh (a unified wrapper for BOTH ad-hoc shell & playbooks) that allows operators to:
- Execute arbitrary shell commands on thousand of remote machines simultaneously using Ansible Runner with artifacts saved locally.
- Pass runtime options such as inventory file, remote command string/ playbook execution, parallel forks, limits, dry-run mode, or no-std-ansible-output.
- Leverage existing SSH trust relationships without additional setup.
- Provide a clean, intuitive CLI interface with --help for ease of use. It should provide consistent UX & CI-friendly interface.
- Establish a foundation that can later be extended with advanced features such as logging, grouping, interactive shell mode, safe-command checks, and parallel execution tuning.
The MVP should enable day-to-day operations to efficiently target thousands of machines with a single, consistent interface.
Goals
Primary Goals (MVP):
Build a functional CLI tool (mgr-ansible-ssh) capable of executing shell commands on multiple remote hosts using Ansible Runner. Test the tool across a large distributed environment (1000+ machines) to validate its performance and reliability.
Looking forward to significantly reducing the zypper deployment time across all 351 RMT VM servers in our MLM cluster by eliminating the dependency on the taskomatic service, bringing execution down to a fraction of the current duration. The tool should also support multiple runtime flags, such as:
mgr-ansible-ssh: Remote command execution wrapper using Ansible Runner
Usage: mgr-ansible-ssh [--help] [--version] [--inventory INVENTORY]
[--run RUN] [--playbook PLAYBOOK] [--limit LIMIT]
[--forks FORKS] [--dry-run] [--no-ansible-output]
Required Arguments
--inventory, -i Path to Ansible inventory file to use
Any One of the Arguments Is Required
--run, -r Execute the specified shell command on target hosts
--playbook, -p Execute the specified Ansible playbook on target hosts
Optional Arguments
--help, -h Show the help message and exit
--version, -v Show the version and exit
--limit, -l Limit execution to specific hosts or groups
--forks, -f Number of parallel Ansible forks
--dry-run Run in Ansible check mode (requires -p or --playbook)
--no-ansible-output Suppress Ansible stdout output
Secondary/Stretched Goals (if time permits):
- Add pretty output formatting (success/failure summary per host).
- Implement basic logging of executed commands and results.
- Introduce safety checks for risky commands (shutdown, rm -rf, etc.).
- Package the tool so it can be installed with pip or stored internally.
Resources
Collaboration is welcome from anyone interested in CLI tooling, automation, or distributed systems. Skills that would be particularly valuable include:
- Python especially around CLI dev (argparse, click, rich)
Improve chore and screen time doc generator script `wochenplaner` by gniebler
Description
I wrote a little Python script to generate PDF docs, which can be used to track daily chore completion and screen time usage for several people, with one page per person/week.
I named this script wochenplaner and have been using it for a few months now.
It needs some improvements and adjustments in how the screen time should be tracked and how chores are displayed.
Goals
- Fix chore field separation lines
- Change screen time tracking logic from "global" (week-long) to daily subtraction and weekly addition of remainders (more intuitive than current "weekly time budget method)
- Add logic to fill in chore fields/lines, ideally with pictures, falling back to text.
Resources
tbd (Gitlab repo)
openQA log viewer by mpagot
Description
*** Warning: Are You at Risk for VOMIT? ***
Do you find yourself staring at a screen, your eyes glossing over as thousands of lines of text scroll by? Do you feel a wave of text-based nausea when someone asks you to "just check the logs"?
You may be suffering from VOMIT (Verbose Output Mental Irritation Toxicity).
This dangerous, work-induced ailment is triggered by exposure to an overwhelming quantity of log data, especially from parallel systems. The human brain, not designed to mentally process 12 simultaneous autoinst-log.txt files, enters a state of toxic shock. It rejects the "Verbose Output," making it impossible to find the one critical error line buried in a 50,000-line sea of "INFO: doing a thing."
Before you're forced to rm -rf /var/log in a fit of desperation, we present the digital antacid.
No panic: we have The openQA Log Visualizer
This is the UI antidote for handling toxic log environments. It bravely dives into the chaotic, multi-machine mess of your openQA test runs, finds all the related, verbose logs, and force-feeds them into a parser.
Goals
Work on the existing POC openqa-log-visualizer about few specific tasks:
- add support for more type of logs
- extend the configuration file syntax beyond the actual one
- work on log parsing performance
Find some beta-tester and collect feedback and ideas about features
If time allow for it evaluate other UI frameworks and solutions (something more simple to distribute and run, maybe more low level to gain in performance).
Resources
Multi-agent AI assistant for Linux troubleshooting by doreilly
Description
Explore multi-agent architecture as a way to avoid MCP context rot.
Having one agent with many tools bloats the context with low-level details about tool descriptions, parameter schemas etc which hurts LLM performance. Instead have many specialised agents, each with just the tools it needs for its role. A top level supervisor agent takes the user prompt and delegates to appropriate sub-agents.
Goals
Create an AI assistant with some sub-agents that are specialists at troubleshooting Linux subsystems, e.g. systemd, selinux, firewalld etc. The agents can get information from the system by implementing their own tools with simple function calls, or use tools from MCP servers, e.g. a systemd-agent can use tools from systemd-mcp.
Example prompts/responses:
user$ the system seems slow
assistant$ process foo with pid 12345 is using 1000% cpu ...
user$ I can't connect to the apache webserver
assistant$ the firewall is blocking http ... you can open the port with firewall-cmd --add-port ...
Resources
Language Python. The Python ADK is more mature than Golang.
https://google.github.io/adk-docs/
https://github.com/djoreilly/linux-helper
Local AI assistant with optional integrations and mobile companion by livdywan
Description
Setup a local AI assistant for research, brainstorming and proof reading. Look into SurfSense, Open WebUI and possibly alternatives. Explore integration with services like openQA. There should be no cloud dependencies. Mobile phone support or an additional companion app would be a bonus. The goal is not to develop everything from scratch.
User Story
- Allison Average wants a one-click local AI assistent on their openSUSE laptop.
- Ash Awesome wants AI on their phone without an expensive subscription.
Goals
- Evaluate a local SurfSense setup for day to day productivity
- Test opencode for vibe coding and tool calling
Timeline
Day 1
- Took a look at SurfSense and started setting up a local instance.
- Unfortunately the container setup did not work well. Tho this was a great opportunity to learn some new podman commands and refresh my memory on how to recover a corrupted btrfs filesystem.
Day 2
- Due to its sheer size and complexity SurfSense seems to have triggered btrfs fragmentation. Naturally this was not visible in any podman-related errors or in the journal. So this took up much of my second day.
Day 3
- Trying out opencode with Qwen3-Coder and Qwen2.5-Coder.
Day 4
- Context size is a thing, and models are not equally usable for vibe coding.
- Through arduous browsing for ollama models I did find some like
myaniu/qwen2.5-1m:7bwith 1m but even then it is not obvious if they are meant for tool calls.
Day 5
- Whilst trying to make opencode usable I discovered ramalama which worked instantly and very well.
Outcomes
surfsense
I could not easily set this up completely. Maybe in part due to my filesystem issues. Was expecting this to be less of an effort.
opencode
Installing opencode and ollama in my distrobox container along with the following configs worked for me.
When preparing a new project from scratch it is a good idea to start out with a template.
opencode.json
``` {
AI-Powered Unit Test Automation for Agama by joseivanlopez
The Agama project is a multi-language Linux installer that leverages the distinct strengths of several key technologies:
- Rust: Used for the back-end services and the core HTTP API, providing performance and safety.
- TypeScript (React/PatternFly): Powers the modern web user interface (UI), ensuring a consistent and responsive user experience.
- Ruby: Integrates existing, robust YaST libraries (e.g.,
yast-storage-ng) to reuse established functionality.
The Problem: Testing Overhead
Developing and maintaining code across these three languages requires a significant, tedious effort in writing, reviewing, and updating unit tests for each component. This high cost of testing is a drain on developer resources and can slow down the project's evolution.
The Solution: AI-Driven Automation
This project aims to eliminate the manual overhead of unit testing by exploring and integrating AI-driven code generation tools. We will investigate how AI can:
- Automatically generate new unit tests as code is developed.
- Intelligently correct and update existing unit tests when the application code changes.
By automating this crucial but monotonous task, we can free developers to focus on feature implementation and significantly improve the speed and maintainability of the Agama codebase.
Goals
- Proof of Concept: Successfully integrate and demonstrate an authorized AI tool (e.g.,
gemini-cli) to automatically generate unit tests. - Workflow Integration: Define and document a new unit test automation workflow that seamlessly integrates the selected AI tool into the existing Agama development pipeline.
- Knowledge Sharing: Establish a set of best practices for using AI in code generation, sharing the learned expertise with the broader team.
Contribution & Resources
We are seeking contributors interested in AI-powered development and improving developer efficiency. Whether you have previous experience with code generation tools or are eager to learn, your participation is highly valuable.
If you want to dive deep into AI for software quality, please reach out and join the effort!
- Authorized AI Tools: Tools supported by SUSE (e.g.,
gemini-cli) - Focus Areas: Rust, TypeScript, and Ruby components within the Agama project.
Interesting Links
Uyuni Health-check Grafana AI Troubleshooter by ygutierrez
Description
This project explores the feasibility of using the open-source Grafana LLM plugin to enhance the Uyuni Health-check tool with LLM capabilities. The idea is to integrate a chat-based "AI Troubleshooter" directly into existing dashboards, allowing users to ask natural-language questions about errors, anomalies, or performance issues.
Goals
- Investigate if and how the
grafana-llm-appplug-in can be used within the Uyuni Health-check tool. - Investigate if this plug-in can be used to query LLMs for troubleshooting scenarios.
- Evaluate support for local LLMs and external APIs through the plugin.
- Evaluate if and how the Uyuni MCP server could be integrated as another source of information.
Resources
Song Search with CLAP by gcolangiuli
Description
Contrastive Language-Audio Pretraining (CLAP) is an open-source library that enables the training of a neural network on both Audio and Text descriptions, making it possible to search for Audio using a Text input. Several pre-trained models for song search are already available on huggingface
Goals
Evaluate how CLAP can be used for song searching and determine which types of queries yield the best results by developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in Python. Based on the results of this MVP, future steps could include:
- Music Tagging;
- Free text search;
- Integration with an LLM (for example, with MCP or the OpenAI API) for music suggestions based on your own library.
The code for this project will be entirely written using AI to better explore and demonstrate AI capabilities.
Result
In this MVP we implemented:
- Async Song Analysis with Clap model
- Free Text Search of the songs
- Similar song search based on vector representation
- Containerised version with web interface
We also documented what went well and what can be improved in the use of AI.
You can have a look at the result here:
Future implementation can be related to performance improvement and stability of the analysis.
References
- CLAP: The main model being researched;
- huggingface: Pre-trained models for CLAP;
- Free Music Archive: Creative Commons songs that can be used for testing;
Sim racing track database by avicenzi
Description
Do you wonder which tracks are available in each sim racing game? Wonder no more.
Goals
Create a simple website that includes details about sim racing games.
The website should be static and built with Alpine.JS and TailwindCSS. Data should be consumed from JSON, easily done with Alpine.JS.
The main goal is to gather track information, because tracks vary by game. Older games might have older layouts, and newer games might have up-to-date layouts. Some games include historical layouts, some are laser scanned. Many tracks are available as DLCs.
Initially include official tracks from:
- ACC
- iRacing
- PC2
- LMU
- Raceroom
- Rennsport
These games have a short list of tracks and DLCs.
Resources
The hardest part is collecting information about tracks in each game. Active games usually have information on their website or even on Steam. Older games might be on Fandom or a Wiki. Real track information can be extracted from Wikipedia or the track website.
Port some classic game to Linux by MDoucha
Let's pick some old classic game, reverse engineer the data formats and game rules and write an open source engine for it from scratch. Some games from 1990s are simple enough that we could have a playable prototype by the end of the week.
Write which games you'd like to hack on in the comments. Don't forget to check e.g. on Open Source Game Clones, Github and SourceForge whether the game is ported already.
Hack Week 25 - Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares
Work on Master of Orion II continued with Tech Review and Colony list screens.
Hack Week 24 - Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares & Chaos Overlords
Work on Master of Orion II continues but we can hack more than one game. Chaos Overlords is a dystopian, lighthearted, cyberpunk turn-based strategy game originally released in 1996 for Windows 95 and Mac OS. The player takes on the role of a Chaos Overlord, attempting to control a city. Gameplay involves hiring mercenary gangs and deploying them on an 8-by-8 grid of city sectors to generate income, occupy sectors and take over the city.
How to ~~install & play~~ observe the decompilation progress:
- Clone the Git repository
- A playable reimplementation does not exist yet, but when it does, it will be linked in the repository mentioned above.
Further work needed:
- Analyze the remaining unknown data structures, most of which are related to the AI.
- Decompile the AI completely. The strong AI is part of the appeal of the game. It cannot be left out.
- Reimplement the game.
Hack Week 20, 21, 22 & 23 - Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares
Master of Orion II is one of the greatest turn-based 4X games of the 1990s. Explore the galaxy, colonize planets, research new technologies, fight space monsters and alien empires and in the end, become the ruler of the galaxy one way or another.
How to install & play:
- Clone the Git repository
- Run
./bootstrap; ./configure; make && make install - Copy all *.LBX files from the original Master of Orion II to the installation data directory (
/usr/local/share/openorion2by default) - Run
openorion2
Further work needed:
- Analyze the rest of the original savegame format and a few remaining data files.
- Implement most of the game. The open source engine currently supports only loading saved games from the original version and viewing the galaxy map, fleet management and list of known planets.
Hack Week 19 - Signus: The Artifact Wars
Signus is a Czech turn-based strategy game similar to Panzer General or Battle Isle series. Originally published in 1998 and open-sourced by the original developers in 2003.
How to install & play:
- Clone the Git repository
- Run
./bootstrap; ./configure; make && make installin bothsignusandsignus-datadirectories. - Run
signus
Further work needed:
Advent of Code: The Diaries by amanzini
Description
It was the Night Before Compile Time ...
Hackweek 25 (December 1-5) perfectly coincides with the first five days of Advent of Code 2025. This project will leverage this overlap to participate in the event in real-time.
To add a layer of challenge and exploration (in the true spirit of Hackweek), the puzzles will be solved using a non-mainstream, modern language like Ruby, D, Crystal, Gleam or Zig.
The primary project intent is not just simply to solve the puzzles, but to exercise result sharing and documentation. I'd create a public-facing repository documenting the process. This involves treating each day's puzzle as a mini-project: solving it, then documenting the solution with detailed write-ups, analysis of the language's performance and ergonomics, and visualizations.
|
\ ' /
-- (*) --
>*<
>0<@<
>>>@<<*
>@>*<0<<<
>*>>@<<<@<<
>@>>0<<<*<<@<
>*>>0<<@<<<@<<<
>@>>*<<@<>*<<0<*<
\*/ >0>>*<<@<>0><<*<@<<
___\\U//___ >*>>@><0<<*>>@><*<0<<
|\\ | | \\| >@>>0<*<0>>@<<0<<<*<@<<
| \\| | _(UU)_ >((*))_>0><*<0><@<<<0<*<
|\ \| || / //||.*.*.*.|>>@<<*<<@>><0<<<
|\\_|_|&&_// ||*.*.*.*|_\\db//_
""""|'.'.'.|~~|.*.*.*| ____|_
|'.'.'.| ^^^^^^|____|>>>>>>|
~~~~~~~~ '""""`------'
------------------------------------------------
This ASCII pic can be found at
https://asciiart.website/art/1831
Goals
Code, Docs, and Memes: An AoC Story
Have fun!
Involve more people, play together
Solve Days 1-5: Successfully solve both parts of the Advent of Code 2025 puzzles for Days 1-5 using the chosen non-mainstream language.
Daily Documentation & Language Review: Publish a detailed write-up for each day. This documentation will include the solution analysis, the chosen algorithm, and specific commentary on the language's ergonomics, performance, and standard library for the given task.
