I found this gem: The Original Illustrations of the Voyages Extraordinaires by Jules Verne. https://jv.gilead.org.il/rpaul/
The first Jules Vernes books I read as a kid were my mother's, who had read them as a kid too. And they had these amazing illustrations that guided (not too much, just enough) my imagination as it recreated Verne's amazing worlds.
This chart shows the number of casts I’ve posted each month since I first joined, in July 2022.
What happened in August 2023? I started running my own hub, and in October, Farcaster opened signups to everyone (until then, it was invite-only).
That p2p version of the protocol, with all its flaws, is what really got me passionate about Farcaster. I ran my own hub, and it had the same privileges like any other hub. But if I discovered Farcaster today, would it feel as exciting as the 2023.09 version? I’m not so sure.
I was thinking about this while watching this presentation about the “ATProto ethos.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A-0k58TfPo
We used to have these kinds of discussions here, too. Not so much anymore. The Farcaster ethos has become "DAU growth", there is no passion about extensibility, data ownership, censorship resistance. I don't feel there is any vision about the protocol, how they want it to look in one, two, five years, just a list of feature requests, prioritized according to some DAU metric.
Yes, I know, "none of these matter if we don't have millions of DAU".
Like I said: "DAU growth".
I also know I'm a niche audience, you can't grow to millions of users like me. Oh, well..
"The short head will be human, the fat middle social and the long tail algorithmic"
The recent LLM-generated feeds reminded me of this. Said in a different context, but it can be interpreted through a totally different lens today.
The post is no longer available, but here's the WayBackMachine link.
Connecting with people on a social wallet is even less interesting than connecting with people on a professional network.
Static site generators are simple, but if you've used them long enough you know there are a thousand details that can make your life easier or harder.
I finally built the SSG I always wanted.
The "long tail" is a beautiful concept.
Chris Anderson coined it to describe how businesses like Amazon and Netflix to sell a large volume of niche products, but for me it's everything not captured by the spotlight, the mainstream, the "most users".
The long tail is beautiful and diverse and niche and weird. I like it more than the fat head.
Early rain.
In Greek we have a special word (πρωτοβρόχια) for the early autumn rains, that come after a long, dry summer.
Web3 is focused on L1s, L2s, etc, but often ignores L0: people. But censorship resistance, and resilience in general, does not only come from tech specs. The actual relationships, sometimes mapped using tech, sometimes not, are equally important.
Our personal, social, professional, etc networks are not defined by an app or a protocol, in the same way that our friendships are not defined by the bar where we usually hang out with our friends.
Technology has become an important component of many of our relationships. I've met interesting people on Farcaster, that I wouldn't know how to contact or interact with if Farcaster went away. A good part of my L0 depends too much on an L1. From a purely technical pov, that's wrong.
I'll try to fix it. Follow me on https://x.com/vrypan and https://bsky.app/profile/vrypan.bsky.social, and I'll try to post more there too.
In April 2012, Google announced Google Glass.
The device allowed users to take photos, record videos, send messages, and receive navigation and calendar updates via its heads-up display.
Despite the innovative technology, the device faced significant criticism regarding privacy, driven by the camera's ability to record unnoticed. Social stigma also played a role, as wearing the device was perceived as unusual or intrusive. 🤔
https://x.company/projects/glass/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass
Here is a walk-through of WDIM.
Keep in mind: WDIM is focused on what your follows share and cast. If you follow 10 accounts, you will probably see nothing. If you follow accounts that cast things you are not interested in, they may be part of what WDIM shows you (though, it does take into account if you interact with a user's casts often).
It has become my favorite way of keeping up with Farcaster.
