The Politics of a Protocol
Nostr is a commons. Don't let it become a tragedy.
hodlbod
hodlbod@coracle.social
Christian Bitcoiner and developer of coracle.social. Learn more at info.coracle.social.
If you can't tell the difference between me and a scammer, use a nostr client with web of trust support.
Slopcraft and the LLM Society
Meditations on slop, why I'm not convinced, and what to do about it.
Digital Tools for Conviviality
Digital communication technology has exceeded its optimal scale, establishing a radical monopoly over human interaction. Internet platforms intermediate private relationships, extract value through surveillance capitalism, and reduce people to quantifiable metrics. However, certain digital tools can subvert the architecture of the corporate internet to safeguard individual freedom and human flourishing within digital environments. Two digital tools embody this conviviality in particular: open source software and asymmetric cryptography. Open source software empowers users to understand, modify, and control their tools rather than being controlled by them, while asymmetric cryptography enables private communication over untrusted networks, as well as credible exit through digital signatures. Together, these tools offer a bottom-up approach to incrementally reclaiming control over our digital lives, making small-scale resistance against intermediation and surveillance more feasible within the hostile environment of the modern internet
Nostr as Game
All systems can be approached like a game by "probing" for affordances. This can be a lot of fun, and works well in an adversarial environment.
Modernity, Marxism, and Meaning
A meditation on some things I've been reading recently. The dilemma of our place in history can feel hopeless, with no where to turn. But when every means has been exhausted, there is one thing which remains.
Information Wants to Be Free
On digital signatures, and how they free our data from the custodians who store it.
Building Nostr: A Light Touch
A short guide on how to handle malformed events, how to avoid publishing them, and when to break compatibility.
Building Nostr: Complex Problems, Simple Solutions
A summary of how the profit motive of internet businesses creates a system of incentives which drives censorship and surveillance capitalism, hurting users and undermining corporations' own value propositions — and how Nostr helps us fight back.
A Guide for Relay-Based Group Implementations
A guide for people who want to build clients for "relays-as-groups" that are compatible with Flotilla and Chachi.
AI is Anti-Human (and assorted qualifications)
AI is like any other tool. It's our responsibility to make sure it stays convivial.
Why Keys Matter
An introduction to cryptographic identity for the non-technical (but patient) reader.
Svelte 5 is not Javascript
Svelte 5 as a case study in how abstractions aimed at simplifying concepts can actually make software development more complex.
Doing DVMs
A brief walkthrough of what DVMs are, and how to build them
Simpler Attestations
On trusted timestamp attestations and converting a NINO into a nostr standard.
What *is* a nostr app anyway?
How to make the best, most impactful nostr apps by leveraging both the nostr network and the nostr protocol.
Why not NIP 29?
Why I didn't use NIP 29 to build Flotilla... and why I still might.
Key Management is a Blocker
A rough and ready survey of the nostr signer space, with a special focus on NIP 46, what's great about it, and how far we have to go.
What is the Outbox Model?
An explainer on the Outbox Model, including what it is, where it came from, and why it's integral to making nostr work.
Making Outbox Work
Disambiguating the Gossip Model. Advocating for relay proxies. Separating the Truth from the Jokes. Ban Jack! Down with Blastr!
The ethics of nostr
On why ethics is an essential component of software development.
