At least the fiction is fun to read… https://sebastiancarlos.com/fired-from-meta-after-1-week-heres-all-the-dirt-i-got-855e4e5a0d65

If you are building privacy technology this video is worth watching. This first part about prioritizing love and intimacy is something we instinctually understand here. The second part dives into how we do or don’t bring regular people along with us on this technological journey.

Feelings are Facts: Love, Privacy, and the Politics of Intellectual Shame

A debut of new research and analysis, focused on emotions and the affective register—love! shame! intimacy! What happens when we put lov...

This is a great summary of positive things that happened this year intertwined with stats on efforts that started years ago. The latter is a good reminder that sometimes efforts to make a positive impact in the world take a bit to show results.

86 Stories Of Progress From 2024

Not everything that happened this year was terrible.

How does #Nostr enter this conversation and potentially become a new home for some of these folks? https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/01/10/tiktok-ban-supreme-court-arguments-challenge/

Hell yeah! Newcastle! View quoted note →

The inauguration hasn’t even happened yet and the mainstream media is already bowing down. The opportunity for Nostr to grow is once again approaching.

I’m excited to see a conversation starting about the limitations of social media when it comes to social change. For far too long we’ve been duped by dopamine like hits into thinking posts have the power to incite change. Awareness is not enough. “What makes this a cultural event isn’t that somebody killed a CEO, but that millions of people refused to respond the way they were supposed to respond.” The response from insurance companies was more security for CEO’s and from elected officials mostly scolding. How dare people not grieve the loss of the powerful. Note the Chief Justice John Roberts reiterated his concern about the threats to the Supreme Court in his 2025 look ahead instead of acknowledging that credibility has been severely degraded under his leadership.

Luigi and the memes

beyond rhetorical posting

Memes are only the beginning. The second article is both a critique of how social media has been weaponized by the left for performative politics as well as a guide for how to take small steps forward. The former is a much needed wake up call. The righteous callout culture also sometimes emerges here on Nostr. Mostly between people who are building so it is less toxic, but it may still be unnecessary and distracting. “We need to have room for disagreement, for trial and error.” Rejecting a know-it-all culture of condemnation, means being honest about the fact that no one has all of the answers. Eman emphasized that “no one knows quite what to do next, because this moment is unprecedented.”

Organizing My Thoughts

Wading Into 2025: How to Begin

“We live in chaotic, disastrous times, but amid that madness, we can still find each other and fight for each other.”

While humans should take responsibility for their use of social media, these articles also illustrate that there’s still a huge opportunity for disruption to social app UI. One I’m excited to tackle in 2025.

Yikes! @npub1nwad...7m8h appears to have de indexed a story about women journalists facing harassment. If the journalists in the story wanted it, that would be one thing but if someone else is asking the paper to hide the story that is poor form. View quoted note →

@Openvibe receives well earned props for its smooth cross posting interface. Nostr which enables that to work is not mentioned. Perhaps as the author notes it’s not a bad thing. Just build tools people want to use. View quoted note →

DMCA requests being used against journalists appear to be a harbinger of what’s to come in 2025 in the US media landscape. This feels like a problem space the other decentralized platforms may struggle with given their infrastructure. It’s also an opportunity for #nostr to step up.

404 Media

Copyright Abuse Is Getting Luigi Mangione Merch Removed From the Internet

Artists, merch sellers, and journalists making and posting Luigi media have become the targets of bogus DMCA claims.

Worth a read if just for the history of health insurance in the US. I remember this change taking place. View quoted note →

Are you a Nos user or someone who is frustrated about the lack of control in your feed? Nos is seeking prototype testers for Monday Dec 16 and Tuesday Dec 17. This is a 30 minute session over Jitsi meet. Interested DM me and I’ll send you a link to schedule. We are compensating participants for their time! #asknostr

It’s been awhile since I’ve been impressed with website technology. And I’m likely very late to the party on this one. Everything about this site is instantly understandable and the interaction possibilities even on mobile are 💯!

earth :: a global map of wind, weather, and ocean conditions

See current wind, weather, ocean, and pollution conditions, as forecast by supercomputers, on an interactive animated map. Updated every three hours.

Seems appropriate this week. View quoted note →

The Newcastle vs. Liverpool game was 🔥! Newcastle was a completely different team today! Incredible to watch. #NCUFC is back!

#asknostr Two questions related to DVMs as algorithmic feeds: 1. Is there a list of the publicly available algorithmic feeds people have already created? 2. Is there a user friendly tool for people to create their own algorithmic feeds?

Snow! ❄️ Turn the sound on!

@The Verge created a list of the 40 best tech books of all time and it is fascinating! I’m excited to dive in and read some of these works that have been on my list of To-Reads for awhile.

The Verge

The greatest tech books of all time

Here are 40 works of nonfiction that tell us about today and tomorrow.

While this thread mostly discusses physical products I think this is an interesting discussion for #Nostr. What graceful failure modes are we building into the apps, the protocol etc? There’s the obvious relay based decentralization at the core of Nostr but what else needs a graceful fail? View quoted note →