Hacker NewsSunday, January 4

The United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife in a dramatic overnight operation, with Trump announcing the US will run Venezuela until a proper transition occurs. Maduro arrived in New York Saturday evening and is expected to appear in federal court Monday on narco-terrorism charges. Venezuelan Vice President Rodriguez demanded his immediate release, calling it a kidnapping, while Trump said he's open to sending US forces and that oil revenues will cover costs.

POSSE stands for "Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere" - a practice where you first post content on your own website, then share copies or links to third-party platforms like social media. This approach helps maintain ownership of your content while staying connected with friends who use different platforms, reduces dependence on third-party services, and ensures you have canonical URLs to your content on your own domain.

The author is switching from Windows to Linux (Fedora) on their desktop computer after not booting Windows for 3 months. They believe 2026 will be "The Year of The Linux Desktop" due to Windows 11 becoming increasingly problematic with poor user experience, forced features like Copilot, and system instability, while Linux has remained stable and efficient.

The author discovered that Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" has a BPM of exactly 123.45, not the commonly reported 123. Using precise manual beat counting and audio analysis, they found this specific tempo across multiple versions of the song. Given that the equipment Daft Punk used in 1999-2000 could support fractional BPMs, the author suspects this was an intentional Easter egg - a clever joke hidden in plain sight for 25 years, with the BPM literally being "1-2-3-4-5" matching the song's title about progression and improvement.

IPv6 was designed in 1995 to solve IPv4 address shortage by expanding from 32-bit to 128-bit addresses, but adoption remains below 50% after 30 years. Despite providing vastly more addresses, IPv6 lacked compelling new features and wasn't backward-compatible with IPv4. NAT technology allowed IPv4 to persist by enabling multiple devices to share single addresses, reducing IPv6's urgency.

A parent discovered a stranger had been texting their 12-year-old son through GroupMe on a "kid-safe" Gabb phone during Christmas morning. Despite using approved apps and parental controls, the complex and confusing safety systems from companies like Gabb, Nintendo, and Microsoft made it nearly impossible to properly protect their child while still allowing normal activities like gaming with friends.

The 39th Chaos Communication Congress (39C3) is a four-day conference on technology, society and utopia organized by the Chaos Computer Club in Hamburg from December 27-30, 2025, featuring lectures, workshops and events on information technology and critical discussions about technological impacts on society.

Clicks is launching the Communicator, an Android 16 smartphone with a physical QWERTY keyboard designed for communication. Early bird pricing is $399 (regular $499) with reservations due by February 27. Features include a 4.03" display, 50MP camera, 4000mAh battery, and can be used as primary phone or companion device.

On January 1, 2026, books published in 1930 enter the U.S. public domain, including legendary works by William Faulkner, Franz Kafka, Agatha Christie, and Langston Hughes. Standard Ebooks has prepared 20 free digital editions of these newly available classics.

Simon Willison topped Hacker News bloggers for the third year running, writing over 1,000 AI-focused posts without commercial bias. Jeff Geerling came second by adapting YouTube content into thoughtful blog posts. Sean Goedecke emerged as a prolific tech blogger explaining big tech politics to engineers.