Fireship
May 26, 2026
10 Unconventional Open-Source Projects Pushing Software Boundaries
Key Takeaways
- 1Ratty is a GPU-accelerated 3D terminal emulator with spinning rat cursors, built in Rust using the Bevy game engine—unnecessarily complex but visually innovative
- 2Terminal Phone enables anonymous, decentralized peer-to-peer voice and text communication over Tor entirely in bash without servers or accounts
- 3CUDA Oxide allows developers to write GPU kernels in Rust instead of C++, significantly reducing memory safety risks when working with expensive hardware
- 4Creative tools like Wario Synth (Game Boy chiptune converter) and Exipedia (Wikipedia as TikTok feed) demonstrate thoughtful alternative UX approaches to existing concepts
- 5Honker brings Postgres-style pub/sub and job queues directly into SQLite files, eliminating the need for complex infrastructure for most applications
- 6Browser-based computing (Pewter) and full-featured open-source projects prove that functional, user-friendly software doesn't require corporate backing
Chapters
1. Introduction & GitHub State
The creator observes GitHub's feed dominated by AI agent projects and low-quality markdown files, contrasting this with genuinely innovative but impractical software still being built by passionate developers.
2. Ratty: 3D Terminal Emulator
A Rust-based terminal emulator inspired by Temple OS that renders a GPU-accelerated 3D scene using Bevy game engine, featuring a spinning rat cursor and the ability to tilt the terminal in 3D space, consuming 300MB of RAM.
3. Terminal Phone: Decentralized Communication
An open-source push-to-talk app running entirely over Tor as a shell script with end-to-end encryption, no servers or accounts—using only Tor addresses as identity for ephemeral communication.
4. They Live Ad Blocker: Sci-Fi Aesthetic
A fork of Ublock Origin Light that transforms web browsing into an 80s sci-fi horror experience by replacing all ads with messaging from the 1988 film 'They Live,' blocking content while providing thematic immersion.
5. CUDA Oxide: Safe GPU Programming
An Nvidia-released project enabling developers to write GPU kernels in Rust instead of C++, eliminating memory safety risks and compiling directly to PTX without C++ or foreign function interfaces.
6. Wario Synth: Chiptune Conversion
A browser-based tool that converts songs into Game Boy chiptunes using the web audio API with pulse waves and noise channels, requiring zero server-side processing.
7. Information Consumption Tools
Jmail emulates Gmail interface for archival files; Epstein Exposed provides searchable databases and network graphs for analyzing complex connections; demonstrates accessibility-focused information design.
8. Exipedia: Educational Doom Scrolling
A TikTok-style feed of Wikipedia articles that downloads 40MB of simple Wikipedia and enables infinite browsing by category, running entirely in-browser with algorithmic curation.
9. Pewter: Browser-Based Desktop Environment
A self-hostable or web-accessible desktop environment featuring taskbar, draggable windows, file manager, and applications—positioning itself as a free, open, and functional alternative to Chrome OS.
10. Honker & Hyper Agent: Infrastructure Simplification
Honker extends SQLite with Postgres-style pub/sub and job queues for simplified architecture; Hyper Agent (sponsor) enables isolated cloud sandbox agents with browser, shell, and file system access for autonomous workflows.
Glossary
- GPU-accelerated
- Software rendering that uses graphics processing units (GPUs) for computation, enabling faster visual rendering and 3D graphics processing
- Bevy game engine
- A data-driven Rust-based game engine designed for building interactive applications with high performance
- CUDA kernels
- Functions that execute on Nvidia GPUs, typically written in C++ or CUDA C, performing parallel computation on thousands of threads
- Rust
- A systems programming language focusing on memory safety and concurrency without garbage collection
- PTX
- Parallel Thread Execution, Nvidia's intermediate representation language for GPU code that compiles to machine-specific instructions
- Tor
- The Onion Router, a privacy-focused network that routes traffic through multiple encrypted layers to anonymize user identity
- End-to-end encryption
- Cryptographic protection where only the sender and receiver can decrypt messages, preventing intermediaries from accessing content
- SQLite
- A lightweight, self-contained, serverless SQL database engine commonly used in applications and embedded systems
- Chiptune
- Electronic music composed for or imitating the sound of vintage video game hardware (e.g., Game Boy, NES)
- Pub/sub (publish-subscribe)
- A messaging pattern where publishers send messages to topics and subscribers receive them asynchronously