Nostr doesn't need content * ppl are free * ppl can talk with each other * ppl own their profiles * ppl can be anon Nostr has everything that it needs I want to know how my contacts days are going Whether it's building nostr or making art or going for a walk I don't want or need to know influencers hot takes on the current things I don't want or need rage feeds about things which ppl have no control over My biggest fear was that I'd be drawn back to X as I have been before It didn't happen I still use X as a quick news feed But I don't spend time on it Truly sad to say, the content is kinda dull A grey propaganda forever war Even insightful and independent voices are consumed by it in opposition It consumes everything And it makes me feel physically ill Nostr makes me feel positive It's a genuine social network #nostr

#nostr Because we own our profiles And others own their profiles Does it encourage ppl to be nicer? Is there a feeling that the profile is part of a person? And not a corporate service? Maybe! Who knows

#nostr has a long way to go But it is as it is, awesome And if that's all it ever is, it will still be awesome

Goodnight #nostr

Gm

nostr is great because it's permissionless for developers as well as users. No API keys needed! Soooo I'm learning to build a nostr client for fun and maybe one day I'll build something useful And I'll sporadically post resources which I've found helpful along the way and ramblings which will mostly revolve around React as it's the framework I'm learning with I'm using Vite for starting a project

vitejs

Vite

Next Generation Frontend Tooling

npm create vite@latest npm run dev Job done This tutorial using the nostr-tools library is clear and well paced The nostr-tools library:

GitHub

GitHub - nbd-wtf/nostr-tools: Tools for developing Nostr clients.

Tools for developing Nostr clients. Contribute to nbd-wtf/nostr-tools development by creating an account on GitHub.

Later I'll try the NDK library by @PABLOF7z which is higher level and does nice things with relays and uses nostr-tools internally:

GitHub

GitHub - nostr-dev-kit/ndk: Nostr Development Kit with outbox-model support

Nostr Development Kit with outbox-model support. Contribute to nostr-dev-kit/ndk development by creating an account on GitHub.

If like me you're new to this probably the first big (but fun!) hurdle will be the general social media challenge of working with streams of events. Not the nostr protocol itself which is dead simple. Streams of events which affect other streams of events which affect your application state which affects your streams. It's very easy to create an INFINITE LOOP The first indication is the laptop fan preparing for takeoff The second is the console log showing the relays spammed with hundreds of requests... to which they are remarkably tolerant Working with event streams in React probably means using useEffect There's a tendency to overuse useEffect because of not realizing the purpose of useEffect is synchronizing streams of events ("effects") i.e. just what we need it for and no more This really is an excellent talk, both on useEffect and handling events in React in general ... I don't think a state machine is a practical fit to this particular problem but I might be wrong. One approach I'd like to try which is literally made for working with event streams is RxJS

RxJS

Sometimes you have to do things which are ugly and you need to forgive yourself for doing ugly things because at the end of the day the ugly thing is solving the problem... useEffect creates an infinite loop if passed vector dependencies because it does a shallow check on referential equality. Various workarounds are suggested including useMemo and useRef. Good discussion here: I like doing JSON.stringify on the dependencies as it makes it abundantly clear what the purpose is And TypeScript makes it safe to do JSON.stringify on Map keys 😃 Project status: amazed to see events come in. It's like building a crystal radio.

🤭

There's no such thing as provocation It's a choice You always have a choice

The hardest part of joining a social network is building contacts Around 40 seems to be the critical mass where it gets a lot easier Now I have some nice lists going and great content coming in and starting to spend too much time on my phone 😊

"oh no I'm following twice as many ppl as are following me & this will deep six my reach" Why do users even need to think about such things? Algorithms degrade user experience

I wandered into Global just now Fuck that was scary 😂

The creator => consumer 'social' feed model is great for generating ad revenue but it's a replica of the corporate press with 10x the velocity and intensity Caste systems promote friction and dysfunction and are an abomination before the Lord

Mastodon holding steady Lots of good content coming over the mostr bridge

Seen from afar, X is so full of content and so empty A barren rocky landscape of extremes and absolutes with no room for compromise There is in fact, nothing to discuss

Move along Rotten Tomatoes Here comes Nostr Potatoes It will aggregate ratings and reviews by your follow (contact) list It's a work in progress & I'm not sure what's functional yet, but the possibilities are interesting Imagine getting recommendations by putting in any curated list Or a list of followers of a nostr community

Nostr Potatoes - Decentralized movie and series review aggregator

Found this interesting podcast with @rabble and @David King on differences between nostr and Bluesky So Bluesky and nostr developers have similar backgrounds and objectives but took different paths Bluesky went for replicating Twitter services on a decentralized protocol built around existing protocols This approach led to relative complexity which hinders the pace of decentralization The protocol stores identities on servers, so users can login using emails and passwords Now I kinda understand that the heavy lifting placed on nostr clients is because the key management is local Bluesky had a lot of publicity which made open collaboration difficult Whereas nostr took everyone by surprise Having used nostr for only a few weeks I don't think I could go back to remotely stored / managed identities Not your keys not your notes It's a paradigm shift

Bluesky vs. Nostr with Rabble

a discussion on two very different approaches to decentralized social technologies

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 😬