This collection of starter packs might be useful:
https://github.com/stevendborrelli/bluesky-tech-starter-pack...
replies(5):
I'm looking to expand my Bluesky feed with accounts that share interesting, tech-related content, similar to what we discuss here on HN.
https://github.com/stevendborrelli/bluesky-tech-starter-pack...
Edit: saw a lot of valid responses, thanks! My question is answered and I might sign up on bsky as well if I get bored on Mastodon or want to connect with someone there :)
https://bsky.app/profile/adamgordonbell.bsky.social
I have a podcast about software development, corecursive.com, and I also share other interesting things I'm up to.
Twitter was pretty much fine until Musk started shitting it up so something that is pretty much like Twitter pre Musk is all I want. Bluesky fills that position well.
Maybe it will be different, maybe it won't. But the people moving to bsky care more about usability than they care about federation. They're not saying "this time will be different", they're picking a platform they feel comfortable using and don't care about VC money or not.
If that doesn't align with your values, maybe you don't want to join them. Because, yes, bsky is investor-financed, and at some point they'll need money. You might not agree with how they'll make that money, and it will be indeed no different. Your bubble is right on that.
I've been posting Postgres stuff for some reason
The Postgres starter pack is worth following too: https://bsky.app/starter-pack/did:plc:pqezpw5jkucrahb5pdelw5...
(One of the strengths of Bluesky over X is that Bluesky currently doesn't punish people who link away from the site)
Hey everyone! I mostly post about robotics and automation, and occasionally transit and trains.
IMO bluesky being a clone of Twitter in its UX means that you're going to get the same social dynamics, just a different group in charge of moderation decisions.
Bluesky is supposed to offer a different architecture of allowing users to decide what they see via shared blocklists and labeling services, but they still regularly ban right wingers, trolls, and griefers from having an identifier on their servers, and since there's no one hosting an alternate appview, it's Pretty Damned Centralized (tm) for the time being.
I usually post on the other site about politics, AI, games.
(I previously founded/led flutter.dev. If you’re using Flutter or Dart, I’d like to make sure you have a great experience, reach out!)
Sorry, is any of that supposed to be wrong? People who use a decentralised platform aren't going to be fans of a new, mostly-centralised platform, I don't see how that's being sore losers. I also don't think most people on the Fediverse expect mainstream adoption any time soon, and many don't want it either.
Once they add gifs, I’ll post more “build out loud” threads.
https://atproto.com/guides/self-hosting
When I tried to install mastodon it downloaded literally hundreds of random dependencies, there was no way I could verify the security of it. Real shitshow imho.
Likewise, Twitter is a very simple website to clone and compete with. Resisting the temptation to censor, putting in the effort to establish a non-exploitative business model, etc, is something that no one else has been able to do.
Default Bluesky has the "Discover" feed and the "Following" feed. The "Discover" feed is the equivalent of the algorithmic "For you" feed in X, but you can always unpin it.
The "Following" feed is close to what you want I think.
Haven't tried self-hosting Mastodon since I was looking for a social platform and not a new hobby. There's lots of hosters to choose from though, including the usual suspects like German Tchncs and French La Quadrature du Net (they also host other alternatives to big tech platforms like peertube)
Many of us have probably experienced this with at least one major platform: Facebook. A score of years ago, it was considered cool. New platforms have taken their place: in fact, for a certain audience, Twitter was once the cool place they went to after fleeing Facebook.
For certain purposes, FB is dead. Same for Twitter. Now it's Bluesky's turn. It doesn't need to last for a century to be worth it.
I’m not sure as to the future of bluesky, but they are committed to having a distributed network, and have been before they even launched.
I think claims to the contrary are sour grapes.
Even the accounts posted here, signed up in 2023, posted on bluesky three times.
If anything, I at least know some people who seem to have found some small community amongst the mastodongers.
I also really enjoy the inclusivity features like content warnings, filters, and alt texts. Didn't know I'd want these but it has been super nice around the USA election period, or when videos don't load on mobile data you can just read the text and know whether to bother with further attempts. Dunno if bsky has feature parity there or if people make use of it. My Mastodon instance in particular is quite... I don't want to say strict, but there's a good culture about it
It's an open protocol, but more like the www than email. You can port your identity to another host at any time. You can self host if you want. You have complete control over how your chosen feed algorithm aggregates posts from the firehose. If you want to make a competing service to Bluesky you can even do that, and it will still interoperate with all the Bluesky users.
Whereas with Mastodon, when you pick an instance you're essentially picking which benevolent dictator you want mediating your experience. Mastodon is decentralized in the sense that it breaks the platform up into smaller fiefdoms; Bluesky is decentralized in the sense that you retain control over your own experience.
Some recommended reading on Bluesky/atproto:
https://bsky.app/profile/laurenshof.online/post/3la5j3qgqvo2...
https://fediversereport.com/a-conceptual-model-of-atproto-an...
> Whereas with Mastodon, when you pick an instance you're essentially picking which benevolent dictator
Wait what? All of the benefits you mention for Bluesky apply equally to Mastodon (in both cases you can host your own thing if you like), and the latter (downside) applies to Bluesky when you sign up with the official server right? What's the difference you're pointing out?
Jeremy Howard @jph.bsky.social
Gaël Varoquaux @gaelvaroquaux.bsky.social
antirez @antirez.bsky.social
Armin Ronacher @mitsuhiko.at
Brewster Kahle @brewster.kahle.org
Hacker News Top Stories @hackernewsbot.bsky.social
Simon Willison @simonwillison.net
Julia Evans @b0rk.jvns.ca
Miguel de Icaza @migueldeicaza.bsky.social
Randall Munroe @xkcd.com
Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social
karpathy @karpathy.bsky.social
François Chollet @fchollet.bsky.social
I don’t put that much stock in such critiques when a project is still evolving, learning lessons, and most importantly growing.
Most of the complaints coming from the mastodon crowd feel more like emacs vs vim “debates” of yesteryear.
When I was last using bsky a lot under a different account, it was a much smaller site and a lot of the major posters seemed to mostly just be involved with interpersonal drama.
I never see these discussions on bluesky or mastodon only here on Hacker News but it almost is never elaborated just that bluesky’s is better.
I think they're both good, but different tools for different jobs. Mastodon is good for tighter knit community. I think Bluesky has potential to be a decentralized replacement for social media with n >> dunbar's number.
The difference is in the protocol. Bluesky's atproto is IMO very clever and well designed. It's not every day I read something and think to myself, "I wish I'd thought of that!" I'd encourage anybody whose interest is piqued to dig in and read up.
Sho.bsky.social
I'm going to work on starter kits for those topics, to help people find makers, creators, abd like-minded people
I mostly post stuff about databases, distributed systems and my frustrations with Rust
Like, would I depend on Bluesky for anything important? No, of course not, that would be silly. But for use as a social network, it's sufficient, for now (I'm splitting my time between it and Mastodon; Bluesky is, generally, more _fun_.)
Alt text and filters, yes. Content warnings: currently only for posts with media; hopefully this gets addressed at some point: https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app/issues/5341
A lot of the rough edges for Mastodon come from it actually being decentralized, and the extra complexity that brings. There is for all intents and purposes only one Bluesky instance, and there will likely only ever be one instance due to network effects. It's open source in the same way Reddit or HN are open source - the code is available, but there is only one implementation that matters.
I don't think you're entirely wrong - Mastodon could definitely do with better UX, but let's not pretend the playing field is level here. Bluesky's success is very much the result of corporate and proprietary development culture, advertising and startup hype, not of open source culture.
80% of my posts are about tech both in Portuguese and English, I also repost a lot of tech takes.
I try to give some Brazilian perspective on tech, if possible.
[0] Technically two if you count the development site.
[0a] New appview just dropped and it's Discord https://bsky.app/profile/samuel.bsky.team/post/3lbfdkqinl22z
They don't equally apply.
> (in both cases you can host your own thing if you like), and the latter (downside) applies to Bluesky when you sign up with the official server right?
You can host things, sure, but atproto (this is really more about the protocol than the application layer) has true account portability, whereas Mastodon does not. Moving your account on Mastodon account has multiple options, all of which are closer to redirects: https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/moving/
This all also requires cooperation from your host; if you're kicked out, then you can't do any of this. A profile redirect only stays up as long as that host is up.
Whereas with atproto, you can move between PDSes, and nothing will change with regards to your social graph. If your old PDS kicks you out or dies, you can recreate all of your data onto your new PDS by replaying it off of the relay.
That is, with Mastodon, your identity and your data storage are linked, so changing your identity requires changing your data storage, and changing your data storage requires changing your identity. But with atproto, these two things are separated, so changing one does not require changing the other.
Even if you sign up via bsky.app, there isn't even one official server: they partitioned their userbase among a bunch of different PDSes.
"all of" is accurate only in the sense that there's one major appview right now, but it wouldn't take down all of the independent PDS hosts. Anyone using an alternative appview wouldn't have been affected.
There is centralized moderation for the bluesky application, but not at the protocol level.
Dunno if they’re just lying but they keep claiming they’re breaking usage records
You just described any modern shitware that uses npm.
I will post about:
- SwiftUI
- App Store Apps
- Indie Hacking / Solo Dev / Bootstrapping
- Elixir once in a while
- and unavoidably JavaScript :)
This summer might be nice like last summer, but that doesn't mean that you a) need to believe that summer will last for ever or b) must pretend that it's not summer over there now.
In other words, who knows how long it will be good, enjoy it while it is and then move on.
yeah, they'll be pressed to turn a profit sooner or later. Consequences will flow from that.
Lists are great because you can use them as feeds that show the posts from only those users.
My understanding is that Mastodon wants to build the feature where you truly move your data into a new identity. They have the export working, but not import. So ultimately this will work as well.
If you live in the US then yes that's a seriously compelling reason to leave, but a large number of Twitter's users are not using English, they're not involved in US politics, and don't have much reason to switch unless Musk seriously upsets the operation of the platform.