# It's that season, again

I've been growing my hair out (too lazy to cut it) and it has -- once again -- quickly reached a length at which it draws unnecessary attention and sheds everywhere.  I suppose it always sheds everywhere, but shedding short hairs is just generally less-gross than finding a 12-inch strand lying on the toast, you were about to consume.

So, I'm back to the _50 Shades of Updo_ stage, where I struggle to figure out how to best wear my head, usually defaulting to the _Messy Bun_ look, because it's still too short to do anything more elaborate and looks silly, as a ponytail.

![bun](https://i.nostr.build/YO8Aly0qUaPOJhCw.jpg)
![bun side-view](https://i.nostr.build/hCBjIxzfvbvR9iBy.jpg)

It's really not that great of a look for me, I know, especially, now that my chin is finally succumbing to gravity, but doing something more-elegant is usually more time-consuming and doesn't have that wonderful "swept up" feeling to it. You know that feeling, when you tie all of that heavy hair to a higher point on your skull and the roots just sigh with relief.

Another look, I tend to gravitate toward, at the moment, is head scarves, like this one:

![covering](https://image.nostr.build/1fad8ea595f64ea39f75b38b751aad89f90de3737110f4b5409556f5cf6be72f.jpg)

...or a Bavarian-style bandana, for gardening or hiking (don't have a selfie handy, so here is some random chick, who also suffers from poofy, dark hair).

![Not me](https://i.nostr.build/dsoKiqIVSgAGMBYE.png)

Hiking bare-headed, with flowing tresses, is not recommended, due to all of the Nature, that you have to comb back out of it.

Generally, just bored of my inbetween length and looking forward to braiding it, in a few months. Or giving up, in frustration, and cutting it all off.

This is a long form article, you can read it in https://habla.news/a/naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzplfq3m5v3u5r0q9f255fdeyz8nyac6lagssx8zy4wugxjs8ajf7pqqxnzdenxqmrzwf4xucnqwfjhm8su2


Yeah, so, it's gotten worse.
I can literally feel the decline because I don't usually post about Bitcoin and it's like 🦗🦗🦗🦗
 https://image.nostr.build/34e83e927b12dc596959600a6505f49368a4a99c39382b0b051ec304a75ec084.jpg


It was just a typo. Running Citrine.


Their phones are hard to find, but I insisted it had to be another moto.


Yeah, it's the discount version. 😅


Moto g84


nostr:nprofile1qqsyvrp9u6p0mfur9dfdru3d853tx9mdjuhkphxuxgfwmryja7zsvhqppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qythwumn8ghj7anfw3hhytnwdaehgu339e3k7mf0qyghwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnhd9hx2tch2deau I took your advice and bought a better phone. 😅

nostr:nevent1qqs2ray57yvn2r29w8l9z0qa8d3yd5kvzf6mq4crnmgx83tkzf9p33qpz3mhxw309akx7cmpd35x7um58g6rsd3e9upzplfq3m5v3u5r0q9f255fdeyz8nyac6lagssx8zy4wugxjs8ajf7pqvzqqqqqqya57z77


Running Amethyst, with Vitrine, Orbot, and Amber. Zapping with Minibits.

Seems to work. (Hope I didn't jinx it.) 🤞


Amethyst shows a number, but I don't know what it means.


I write kind 01 notifications, when I post an article, which means about 3 people see it, instead of 0. 😅


Yeah, there aren't, but microblogging is psychological torture because you know that people COULD be looking at it, but hardly anyone actually is. With long-form, you know, in advance, that nobody is going to see it. 😅


Long-form is high-signal stuff worth pushing out to a web page, tho. That's the difference. It's not just chatter in somone's feed. It's more like blogging than microblogging.


Has anyone gone #LongformOnly, already, or have you not yet given up on being a niche internet celebrity?


I mean, think about it, it's the equivalent of publishing all the contacts in your address book. "These are the people whose email I read." 😬


What purpose does it serve to publicly broadcast who you are following/muting?


You may not realize this, but some people don't do #TheFollowThing because they have personal #relays where they allow/block npubs to the relay, or they use #DVM feeds or other #algos, so they keep what they're looking at **private**.

Some people have moved on, technology-wise, but those are some of the most-active npubs.

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/0c/ff/7d/0cff7d1f1a51d9172032ee9bda548721.jpg


The way we're doing it is very market-approach, as the user chooses the login method and gravitates to the products that support that method. So, the user can "vote with their feet", for which logins are the best.


Which one?

Asciidoc is implemented in wiki events, like https://wikistr.com. We are using the https://asciidoctor.org/ parser in Alexandria.

Gherkin scenarios are coming from me, running them with https://behave.readthedocs.io/en/latest/. Might make an event kind, for that, so that I can link them with the issue events and repo events.

https://plantuml.com/ will be implemented in Alexandria, using the https://docs.asciidoctor.org/diagram-extension/latest/diagram_types/plantuml/ They have a whole bunch of extensions, tho, like LaTeX and ePUB and etc. https://asciidoctor.org/docs/extensions/


I keep going to normal websites and be like, "Where's the Login With Extension button?" 🤔


Did you miss the long thread about Primal?


Once you get used to Asciidoc, Markdown seems literally retarded.
Once you get used to PlantUML, drawing diagrams seems literally retarded.
Once you get used to Gherkin, writing prose specifications seems literally retarded.
Once you get used to Nostr, logging in to normal websites seems literally retarded.

#JustSaying


## Stop kidding yourself.

I'm too impressed by the quality of German workers, and I've learned too much in the programs here, to ever claim that professional certifications and academic qualifications are useless. They don't all carry equal weight, but they do all communicate real traits, experience, or knowledge, that are attractive to customers.

Even possessing a qualification or exam result, from Branch A, can benefit you in Branch B. I am, for instance, not a computer scientist, by certification. I am a logistics manager and freight-forwarding agent. Software companies invariably find that interesting because of what that entails: focus on clear planning and getting concrete results, well-organized, quick-thinking and staying calm under pressure, used to dealing directly with all sorts of people, understanding marketing, logical thinking skills, experience with databases and algorithms, etc.

People who have no qualification like to claim anyone could get one, but then they should prove it in the attempt. My own apprenticeship program took 2-3 years and 30% fail the exam, on the first attempt.

## Money talks, bullshit walks.

Try to get professional insurance without a formal certificate. You will pay more, due to being a higher risk. If you pay enough, it's probably cheaper, mid-term, to go back and get the paper.

Our car insurance even offers cheaper rates to engineers because they've crunched the numbers. It can effect your life insurance costs.
And people will pay a Meister more than a Journeyman, and a CPA more than a bookkeeper, for the same work.

## Less would bring more

Getting rid of government licensing doesn't lead to a free-for-all, where everyone can just self-elect themselves as a neurosurgeon and start cutting peoples' heads open. It leads to more private qualifications, to fill the information gap, with branding.

If anything, private qualifications are harder to acquire, not easier, since they have to maintain signal, to stay on the market. That is why the IHK-lead (Chamber of Commerce) apprenticeship system, common to Germanic countries, is one of the best in the world and people everywhere are trying to copy it: the businesses, who hire and pay the apprentices, determine the curriculum, and decide which persons qualify.

Most qualifications are already private and not covered by licensing laws. The market demands them; the market receives them.

You are in denial about the importance of certification programs.

This is a long form article, you can read it in https://habla.news/a/naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzplfq3m5v3u5r0q9f255fdeyz8nyac6lagssx8zy4wugxjs8ajf7pqqxnzdenxq6nywfn8q6ngv3hz3zxft


What Nostr really shows, is the massive quality gap between hacking and engineering.

GM


Noise, from people who don't even have a feature list or some manual tests. I don't have to convince them, tho, since I'm replacing them.

https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.1445206681.0334/tst,small,845x845-pad,1000x1000,f8f8f8.jpg

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzplfq3m5v3u5r0q9f255fdeyz8nyac6lagssx8zy4wugxjs8ajf7pqydhwumn8ghj7argv4nx7un9wd6zumn0wd68yvfwvdhk6tcpr3mhxue69uhhg6r9vd5hgctyv4kzumn0wd68yvfwvdhk6tcqyq5j6hdaefta3wamk5e25jgw86rm0j3a2dpyp4jn78r265tte4pgq0wal5g


It's good enough, for what Lise will do with it.


Also difficult to tell if a solution actually solves a problem, and elegantly, if there's no spec, because the implementation is noise.


Mine was 50/50, but most people have 90% Bitcoin feeds, so... 🤷🏻♀


I know that All Hollow's Eve and Reformation Day were sort of drowned out by the Bitcoin Whitepaper Day, but I hope everyone had fun. 🥰


Frohes Allerheiligen! 🕯
Happy All Saints' Day!

May the lives and wisdom of the saints, including your loved ones, guide you on the path ahead.

https://cf.katholisch.de/fotolia_17799297_allerheiligen-1.jpg
#allerheiligen #christian #catholic


Yes! Users can help by setting up topical relays. Cooking relays, travel relays, etc.


Not really. I use them, but don't notice any effect, since most people aren't following them in their feed. Also, lost of hashtags are full of spam.


The biggest relays are Bitcoin topical relays, sometimes leaning toward Nostr Dev relays.

Give other topical relays a chance, in the default client settings, so that newbies can choose which topics they'd prefer.


Good luck getting someone to find you, if you talk about AnythingElse. Even Christians find it difficult to network, on here, and we're not just 5 npubs.

The only thing that helps is getting away from Kind 01 on the big relays.


Build an app.
Use your jumbo npub and Class A contacts to promote it over better solutions.
Leave for weeks or months on vacation or a conference or some distant planet.
Let the app atrophy and ignore issues.
Continue to accept compliments from users who don't use the app, or are sycophants, while everyone else moves on.
Build another app...

Winning.


I just added an AUTH relay and looked to see if it wrote (it didn't).


Everything else. 😂


They even write the native apps in whateverscript, now. 😭

 https://image.nostr.build/16af728bd935ab4750b1caaee9f4ca3997882c37a5c08f81c3736d59306817e1.jpg


Mood
https://i.nostr.build/Fr2ido5bEwd7HCNv.jpg
#devs


I don't understand why they use Typescript and Javascript for EVERYTHING.


Das Rabbit have AUTH, now. It didn't, last time I checked.


Native apps are generally more secure (and efficient) than web apps.

Web apps can be high-quality, but it's a lot of effort, the work never ends, and web app developers tend have less experience with QM.


Ah, weird. You might want to ask Vitor about the discrepency.


Too many 3rd-party libraries. We need to go back and code our own stuff, or audit the code we integrate. We're handling financial transactions, but leaving the users sitting ducks.

And stop putting the wallet front-and-center. We should not be conditioning users to think about hooking up a wallet, before they even really logged on, or acclimating them to wallet-stuff being constantly in-their-face.
Please also stop pressuring new users to immediately get a zap wallet, as that's leading them to make poor choices in which wallet to use. It is problematic, if a zap wallet requires KYC, even if it doesn't validate the entered data, as some people will still enter real data and it normalizes entering personal data.

And test your software. Sloppy software, that throws up a bunch of error messages and way too many permission messages, as soon as you open it, will lead to everyone just clicking things away, rather than reading the messages or feeling the alarm that they naturally should. Only ask for permissions when you actually need them, and not "in advance".

And can we please move away from java/typescript-everything? It's all a house of cards.


If your app isn't displaying it:

https://nostrudel.ninja/#/n/nevent1qqs8749j0tgjhr9x8vm74uqfxe669tz2d4um65dpjam7tu5fn6vktcgpp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mqzypajupkcz2zky0em48rp09aq3hzwmk9g2r5vmvdlkmy5kfc78px8jyzks97


Ah. It is rejecting the geyser wallet. Try gitcitadel@getalby.com.


Can you zap anyone else? Maybe your wallet isn't configured?


Was it the one from circa 35 minutes ago?


I received the zap, tho. Thanks, by the way! 😊


Yes, but I expect them to then be upfront about what happened and _immediately_ investigate it themselves, and openly self-report with their biggest npub.
They should be aggressively transparent.

Yeah, don't bother trying to change my mind on Primal. Waste of your time.


I wonder who is on the Damus recommendation list? 🤔  I've only seen the one from Primal, since I'm on Android.


Yes, that's what Primal also does.

The Primal trending list is a different topic.


Why did the devs from other apps have to figure this out and report it to us? Where are their devs? Where are they ever?

Where did they dig up this library? Why were they using it?

Why have they left that repo to rot for 6 months?

Also, they've been like this, from the beginning. I'm incredibly underwhelmed by the entire project. I've always encouraged people to switch to a different kind 01 client, as soon as possible, and I bet that those that switch early, are more likely to stick around.


That's Amethyst, but I think Damus also does something similar, right  nostr:npub1zafcms4xya5ap9zr7xxr0jlrtrattwlesytn2s42030lzu0dwlzqpd26k5?


I've been using Linux, at home, since like 2005, and tested on a Linux/Windows dual-boot since the 1998 or something, but this will be my first Official Work LinuxOnly Laptop.

I'm happy about that.


No, only Ubuntu. 😭

I don't want to talk about. I'm grieving.


We can all learn from this. No judging.
https://media.tenor.com/Sfo7_u-zu_QAAAAC/its-life-so-mistakes-are-going-to-happen-amanda-holden.gif


😅

Just had my new employer ask me if I wanted a Windows or a Linux laptop, and it was like,

Wait... is this a trick question?


Select "More" in the left-hand menu. You are very welcome.

https://media.tenor.com/cCVII3sVpJAAAAAC/evil-smile-mischievous-grin.gif


CEO had a terrible attitude and I told him that he wasn't going to last long and he didn't.


The increasing follow-concentration is a direct result of their trending list and their preset follow-list for newbies. This was immediately obvious, from the get-go, but they have just left it like that.

Also, whilst the majority of the other devs and relay-managers immediately jumped on the ReplyGuy issue, Primal was lackadaisical. They are often AWOL, and they don't seem to use the relay, web client, or image server, themselves, on a daily basis, so they let the systems atrophy, and fill up with literal garbage, while performance crawls to a halt.

The other devs are eventually annoyed by their own stuff being broken, since they use it regularly themselves, but Primal devs are like vegan butchers. They can legit watch their repos rot for half a year and not give a damn. I've seen a lot, but that takes the cake.

Primal got way too much funding and way too much adoring press, from the get-go. They're front-and-center at the conferences, of course, talking a big game. They be like
https://media.tenor.com/GAPSxsTdaiwAAAAC/valentino-rossi-rossi.gif


Making Nostr all about Bitcoin seems to have sucked in a bunch of grifters and finance-suits-in-hoodies, and it's turned newcomer's microblogging feeds into a cheesy, discount-version of Bitcoin Twitter.

Nostr has zaps, but zaps aren't the reason Nostr exists. Nostr predates the zap. Nostr has its own agenda. The real Nostr devs care about Nostr, for its own sake, and not just as a place to spend Bitcoin.

This note is signed with my private key and published to the relay on my laptop. GFY.

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqaw3y9q68yvef3qxy5qlz4wzud8yr2xre7d7l8jd055cy569350zqytkummnw3ez66tyvgaz7tmrv93ksefdwfjkccteqydhwumn8ghj7argv4nx7un9wd6zumn0wd68yvfwvdhk6tcqypa39d2hcm8rpehgre683zrv3r42lkat0vndaz85f90kzuukr5cx7g5eqfw


I suspect a lot of the problems Nostr has been having are a direct result of people onboarding through Primal, but it won't let up until Primal finally goes away or completely reforms.


I suspect that it's a majority of those onboarding, lately, unfortunately, but we manage to salvage some of them and get them to other clients.

This is one of their VC boards, FYI.
https://ten31.vc/team


They've been using crypto libraries, while marketing themselves as a Bitcoin app, yes, and it sort of bubbled up, due to an attack on the library.
Primal web repo hasn't moved in 6 months, not even a bug-fix, but they rolled back this particular commit, last night. 😅

Their whole "Bitcoin Nostr" schtick always rubbed me the wrong way, anyway, as Nostr isn't supposed to just be for Bitcoiners, and they turned Nostr into a feeder for Strike KYC, but whatever.

https://media.tenor.com/i2V9q28KQ0QAAAAC/dottie-underwood-agent-carter.gif


I feel about Primal, the same way I felt about Mutinity Wallet.

Countdown läuft...


It's a web app. Isn't as comfortable on a smartphone, as Amethyst or Damus, but I'm on my laptop most of the time.


Prefer Nostrudel, for the nerd-features, like Event Publisher and stuff. Constantly need that stuff.


nostr:npub1f6ugxyxkknket3kkdgu4k0fu74vmshawermkj8d06sz6jts9t4kslazcka did you see this go down?


Literally marketed as "Le App Bitcoin", and then they use legit shitcoin libraries. 😅

All of the #Monero guys, who have had to put up with so much crap on here, including from #Primal fanboys, must be looking at this like
https://media.tenor.com/12vmKWVVJrwAAAAC/death-stare-black-snake-moan.gif


Just broadcasted it. Can you see it, now?


You blocked  nostr:npub1w4jkwspqn9svwnlrw0nfg0u2yx4cj6yfmp53ya4xp7r24k7gly4qaq30zp?


This is one major problem that Nostr solves, that the "We all need to be using one of the big, public relays" people don't seem willing to acknowledge. The best way to make filtering easier and fairer, is to split the stream into lots of different channels, each moderated according to a different method, by different people.

nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzqat9vaqzpxtqca87xulxjslc5gdt395gnkrfzfm2vrux4tdu37f2qy88wumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmv9uqq6vfk8qunwwfc8yerzdp5xy3swc0e


And then this happened. 😬

nostr:note1lkmn2wlqa7pvla9xrqqs73hvhqyx6n3thujs98z5zuh27zqh89rq6tuvrp


Ah, it looks softer, somehow. Must be the fringe. *Cute*


Maybe 🤷♀


I've seen this in Coracle and in one other client, but I can't remember which one.
I was just trying to figure out, how to set it up in Nostrudel, but it just has a "Donate" button. I don't want to donate my money, bro, I want to donate _other people's_ money. That's more fun.

Like on the official Money Moving Fun Scale, it be like:
zapping a profile 🥳
hitting the geyserfund 😀
zap-split 😊
donate button 🙂

See how that zap-split gets the full, happy-face eye-and-cheek action going?
https://media.tenor.com/EhCuMKYF6XgAAAAC/it%27s-complicated-a-train.gif


I like it, when client devs ask for a #zapsplit. Seems the least-painful way to finance the client development and stuff because you don't miss money you never see. You just set it up, one time, and then it happens automatically, when someone zaps you.


Someone was talking about having a GM-from-frens feed, so that they could more-efficiently GM all of their favorite Nostriches.

That's actually pretty cool. GMsOnly relay. 😅


We need this movie!


I tried out Zap.Cooking. That was really fun! ☺

nostr:naddr1qqth2mr5d9kkzar994cx2ctww46z6cm0da4kjetnqgs06gywary09qmcp2249ztwfq3ue8wxhl2yyp3c39thzp55plvj0sgrqsqqqa28cys7qy


## Chef's notes

I got the recipe from the [byanjushka website](https://byanjushka.com/erdnussbutter-kekse-rezept-8177/). She includes a lot more information on there, and lots of pictures and instructions. But it's all in German, so here's my quickie, English version. I've doubled the amounts, as I first baked this for the #PurpleKonnektiv meetup, and I knew I'd have some hungry guests.

The cookies are vegan, but they're mostly just peanut, so it's sort of irrelevant. Just make sure you get the really high-quality peanut butter that is 100% peanut. You can usually identify it by the fact that the oil separates from the base, a bit. Everything else is probably with hardened palm oil, or something.

## Details

- ⏲ Prep time: 15 min
- 🍳 Cook time: 10 min
- 🍽 Servings: 30 cookies

## Ingredients

- 500 g peanut butter, normal or crunchy
- 300 g brown (or raw) sugar
- 160 ml plant-based milk (or cows' milk, if you don't care about vegan)
- 1 pkg vanilla sugar (bourbon is nice) or 1 tsp vanilla
- 250 g flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2/3 tsp salt

## Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180 °C (350 °F).
2. Beat together the peanut butter and the sugars, with an electric mixer.
3. Mix in milk and vanilla.
4. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, salt, and baking powder.
5. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, and then knead the dough a bit.
6. (At this point, I put the dough in the fridge overnight, and baked it the next day.)
7. Line your baking sheet with baking paper.
8. Form tbsp-spoon-sized balls of dough.
9. Press each one flat, with a fork, dipping the fork in water, before each press (to keep the dough from sticking to the fork).

These are the most-peanuty cookies you can possibly bake, as anything anymore peanuty wouldn't be able to stay together in a cookie shape. This is the #PeakPeanut cookie.


💯 We've come to the same conclusion.
Software can be freely shared, without much loss to the originator, as they are simply documents (that's why they're free speech). But services (including relays) that are "free and public" are prone to being

* short-lived (due to running costs and longer-term effort),
* of low quality or with a small userbase (size matters, to this discussion, because it effects the amount of cost or effort involved),
* heavily subsidized (so, controlled by third parties, rather than the users),
* or overrun by scammers and spammers.

nostr:nevent1qqs0e49ym96uu9nf0v9hllcteep0l0jytajyhrgaezdsnew6qldyzpspzemhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgqg5waehxw309aex2mrp0yhxgctdw4eju6t0qgs9df4h2deu3aae83fmet5xmrlm4w5l9gdnsy3q2n7dklem7ezmwfc79qypk


An "active followers" count would be more informative. Like, only people who have been active within the past 3 months, or something.

Number of lurkers doesn't really say much, as anyone can view our notes without loggin in, over the Internet. And, if I could have an active-follower list, I'd be inclined to peruse it, to see if anyone interesting is in there. They're following me, right? So, they might be pretty cool, right? 🤔


Another easy thing you can do, is to publish it in a different event kind and then just promote the event in a kind 01 note, or publish it to a website.

People who can #Name10Books tend to browse the articles, including from people they don't follow. Eventually, this subset of users will be entering Nostr primarily over the various long-form and OtherStuff, like they currently do with Medium, Substack, GitHub, or SimplyRecipes, so make sure that you have your notes up there.

nostr:note10nr2y540u79prfk56q4s695a740hn7f3j888nz7h3y872tcuxzaqwffxsl


Implicit list.
Like, when choosing someone to date. "He seems nice. Hope he calls me." versus "He gives me the ick."

Well, sure, but you can't write "this dev gives me the ick" on an audit report. 😅


## You don't choose software. You choose software developers.

I've done lots of internal and external software project audits. The clue to a good audit, is that you are judging the building and the builder, because the former determines the present state of the code and the latter determines how things will be built going forward.

Here's what to look for in a good developer:

* _curious_ : eager to learn from others
* _humble_ : seems slightly embarrassed, when you report an issue, and tries to reproduce and fix the problem
* _responsive_ : they try to get back to you within 24 hours, or they arrange a sub or post a notice, when they'll be away for a while. They feel bad, if they leave someone waiting, so they'll send updates, even if it's just to ask them to be patient.
* _diligent_ : they don't leave websites rotting, abandoned. They either maintain it or pull it down. They check their repos regularly and actively manage the PRs and issues.
* _egalitarian_ : they care about all of their users, whether they are rich or poor, famous or unknown, premium or freewarers
* _agile_ : they don't let the system go stale, for months, and then dump a gigantic commit
* _honest_ : they don't lie, ever. Never ever. They're not sneaky or evasive. If something they promised won't work out, they announce it. They readily admit to things that make them look bad.
* _calm_ : they are not histrionic, hyperventilatory or prone to needing a Wellness Break, to recover from the stress of dealing with humans and code
* _centered_ : they have a plan, for their software, that they regularly refine, but they don't flit from one Next Big Thing, to another. They resist hype and examine concepts soberly and analytically.
* _concerned_ : they test their software before giving it to other people because they want them to have a positive experience, while using it. If something is just a prototype, they make that clear, when announcing it.

This is a long form article, you can read it in https://habla.news/a/naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzplfq3m5v3u5r0q9f255fdeyz8nyac6lagssx8zy4wugxjs8ajf7pqqxnzdenxqen2wpn8qmnzwpsnwfxk7


I used to GM/GN more often, but then some of y'all turned it into a thing we _have_ to do, and that sucked all of the joy out of it.

Find it funny, that we went through the effort of starting a freedom protocol, and a bunch of control freaks immediately moved in and started policing the feeds and telling us what to write.

IF YOU DO NOT GM, DAS IST NICHT IN ORDNUNG. YOU MUST GM, OR YOU VILL BE PUT ON ZE LIST! 😠

https://image.nostr.build/44ba75d659fb1c3939abc4ee5b86900deb01e9f05f7e317447bca6f76a5348f6.jpg


If you want to know why so many people are cloying sycophants to the mega-npubs:

The mega-npubs are the Nostr algo.

There's like 10 accounts, where, if they boost your stuff, thousands of people see it. If they don't, dozens of people see it. So everyone hangs around them and licks their toes.

Well, I don't, but I've got bad social skills.

https://image.nostr.build/cf074391befdd0676041499937415175cb7ceafac948230884c60c4a2750e02c.jpg


I logged in with my browser extension.


I can't find anyone who uses it, regularly. 🤔


They were talking about meeting up at a Halloween Party, when we left. 😊


Do you notice a difference, or is it just another client?


Thanks. It's probably still not as nice, as everyone else's on here, but it seems really awesome, to me. 😂 I'm very easy to please.


Yeah, it's front-page news, in Germany. Determines our lives, more than our own elections.


Hi! Did you cut your hair or just an updo?


Oh, by the way, forgot to mention that there are Lightning wallets and Bitcoin trading platforms on Telegram.

Found that out, last weekend. Wild.


Just switched from next.nostrudel to #nostrudel and my notifications are 🔥.
Like, three times as many entries. 😂🤷🏻♀

There you all are!


What is a club kit?


Moto G84 G5 🥰


Nostr would be unusuable, if it weren't for Njump, Wikistr, and NAK. They're the only things that always work. 😭

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzplfq3m5v3u5r0q9f255fdeyz8nyac6lagssx8zy4wugxjs8ajf7pqydhwumn8ghj7argv4nx7un9wd6zumn0wd68yvfwvdhk6tcpr3mhxue69uhhg6r9vd5hgctyv4kzumn0wd68yvfwvdhk6tcqyqesnmvrwu0jzxthlzpzf9z0zvlsjwp0ycpkefjp0z3hxz02245c2hgayl0


Okay, it let me login, but I can't seem to add theforest relay.


Too many vegans live off of packaged soy pudding and rice cakes, and stuff, but she can cook well.


Anyone using #Ditto?


I use the Gmail, native-Android client, on my phone, and it's like an e-mail chat, now.

I automatically write shorter messages, since they changed the interface.


I just ordered a new cell phone.
Few understand the significance of this.


Best would probably be, if it didn't return an error, as nothing actually went wrong and there is no further need to act. Like the info Cloudfodder returns here.

Just FYI.

https://image.nostr.build/ad2352c20d728fb04617da8b5c406e8a0ddcf0348d3a71828586f52c5510a7b5.png


The *Eastern Orthodox Church* (also called the *Orthodox Catholic Church* or the *Greek Orthodox Church*) is the branch of the catholic (or _universal_) church that separated from the "western" [[Roman Catholic Church]] during the Great Schism.

.Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Orthodox_Church[Wikipedia])
image::https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Moscow_July_2011-7a.jpg/1280px-Moscow_July_2011-7a.jpg[church building, 300]

= Description

It is named "eastern" because Constantinople is east of Rome, but the members are spread across North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. It has no official head, such as a [[pope]], but the archbishop of Constantinople is considered the _primus inter pares_.

The seven ecumenical councils it recognizes are: Nicaea I, Constantinople I, Ephesus, Chalcedon, Constantinople II, Constantinople III, and Nicaea II. These helped define the [[Holy Mysteries]], or sacraments, of the Orthodox Church.

An explanation of the liturgical calendar(s) in use is made on the website of https://www.goarch.org/-/the-calendar-of-the-orthodox-church[The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America].

.Orthodox nuns (Source: https://www.pinterest.de/pin/49398927156378567/[Pinterest])
image::https://i.pinimg.com/564x/23/c9/7d/23c97d92029330257cbbc601ee760043.jpg[nuns, 200]

.Byzantine icon (Source: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/medieval-world/byzantine1/beginners-guide-byzantine/a/icons-an-introduction[Khan Academy])
image::https://cdn.kastatic.org/ka-perseus-images/f138b66ca867dea5e3c3199badc02d189d638238.jpg[Byzantine icon, 500]

= Great Schism of 1054 A.D.

Pope John Paul II https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/speeches/2004/june/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_20040629_bartholomew-i.html[formally apologized] for the sacking of Constantinople, that finalized the Schism, in 2004:
____
In particular, on this occasion we cannot forget what happened during the month of April 1204. An army that had set out to recover the Holy Land for Christendom marched on Constantinople, took it and sacked it, pouring out the blood of our own brothers and sisters in the faith. Eight centuries later, how can we fail to share the same indignation and sorrow that Pope Innocent III expressed as soon as he heard the news of what had happened?
____

.Sacking of Constantinople (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Crusade[Wikipedia article on the Fourth Crusade]
image::https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/ConquestOfConstantinopleByTheCrusadersIn1204.jpg/600px-ConquestOfConstantinopleByTheCrusadersIn1204.jpg[painting, 500]


Says it could not connect to the database, but I think it might just be rejecting a duplicate upon broadcasting. You might want to return a more informative message, in that case.


On that note, nostr:npub1zmc6qyqdfnllhnzzxr5wpepfpnzcf8q6m3jdveflmgruqvd3qa9sjv7f60 your relay is throwing me an error.


You show up in her normal feed, too, tho.


If you're writing something a bit high-brow or "unpopular" (in the literal sense, of requiring expertise of specialization to interpret) -- either because it's very academic or technical, or written in a more literary style -- don't feel bad, if you don't get many responses to it.

Your audience here, as everywhere, is a tiny subset of the overall population. Think more about targeting that audience with "discovery aids", like hashtags, or publishing to a relay where a lot of such people read, like devs.nostr1.com or theforest.nostr1.com.

#Economics
#Technology
#Literature


They curate the trending list, and got caught suppressing someone quite popular. Turned into a gigantic shitstorm. 😅


Their media server is notoriously subpar.


It's difficult to "surface" content, on here, and becoming more so, as the content window narrows.

One of the main issues is the simple fact that you can't tell what other people are seeing, and you don't get feedback unless they actively respond with an event. People subscribing to your relay or following you, doesn't mean that they see anything you write. In fact, they probably don't see any of it, because you posted at the wrong hour of the day, they stopped using the relays you're on, their client has a bug or doesn't use outboxes, they muted you, they're looking at a special list or a DVM feed, etc.

So, if you have a large audience or a no audience (because your post didn't publish, for instance), the response you receive is the same: silence.
Did anyone see that? No idea. Probably not. Maybe.

People think it's weird, that I always mark the notes I've read with a "like", or something, but I know the unsettling weirdness of not-knowing if a message sent has been received.


Oh, yeah, I forgot about some of those. *shudder*


Oh, I've definitely noticed. I used to like to write about Bitcoin, sometimes, on Twitter, but it's been shoved down my throat so monotonously and hysterically, since I've been here, that I usually just scroll past Bitcoin-whatever stuff.

It's been much more interesting, discussing Bitcoin at meetups, as the discussions are more profound and philosophical, holistic or highly technical. I bet that depth of Bitcoin convo would be less off-putting for new arrivals, as it would mostly be academic, but the algorithmic pressure is clearly against it.


The WoT relays have surprisingly terrible global feeds. Much better than nos.lol global, of course, but I still have to look at them through following or etc. filter. Need more manual curation on the lower level, I think.
Follow lists aren't a good-enough measure for trust, in an environment where many/most npubs follow lots of npubs, but don't look at what they post. About as effective, as requiring a one-time fee to write (so, not very effective).

Manual curation of relay whitelists is still winning this round.


I'm focusing on building my own clients, and reducing this Influencer Effect there.


finallyy... the moment we were all waiting for
nostr now has its own "how to be a model citizen" guide
nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzplfq3m5v3u5r0q9f255fdeyz8nyac6lagssx8zy4wugxjs8ajf7pqqsw9gp37ltz7w3x964vs7r2mnkqvq7ltdlh530rc23gyadmsy43dsgdqup9l


People keep complaining that I don't do enough GM notes, but I strongly suspect that plenty of people have gone ahead and automated the process, as it's such a simple, effortless combination.

Just need to have a bot that posts between the hours of 8am and 10am, with the note posted including "GM", a random inspirational quote (there are entire databases full of them), and a random AI image (easy to generate). You could prepare 3 months of them, in advance, with a script, and then have it iterate through, on a loop.


That's actually quite clever. A bit like the original rotating-outbox model, but for npubs, instead of relays.

I've tried to do something similar, manually, by hunting down new npubs and boosting them into everyone's feed.


Yes, but I've never seen such an extreme distribution.
Most social media is better about helping people interact and discover on the lower-levels. There's more concern with helping new users find normal people to talk to, and less funneling of everyone into an audience for a tiny minority of celebrity accounts.

Also, it's incredibly off-putting, to new users, to give them onboarding instructions like:
1) Follow lots of people and some might follow you back.
2) Post "GM" every morning.
3) Write about Bitcoin.
4) Post "GN" every night.
5) Blast your notes to all active relays.
6) Respond to the notes at the top of the trending list.
7) Hang out around Jack and Odell.
8) Use more hashtags.

This is a highly unnatural way to interact. That's why it's ironic, that we're so proud of "having no algos". What is that list, if not an algo? People quickly developed a manual algo, to make up for the lack of a digital one, is all.


## Yesterday was also a day

I'm still quite bullish about using Nostr to publish, and generally for OtherStuff, but I was feeling a bit pessimistic about the microblogging (kind 01) feeds on Nostr, yesterday. And, rightly so. Mine has been grinding slowly to a halt, and not for lack of effort, on my part. I regularly hear reports, from other npubs, that they sense the same phenomenon.

Most of the people I have whitelisted on the wss://theforest.nostr1.com relay (currently 302, in number) are beginning to give up on Kind 01 clients, except for occasionally making an announcement, and are increasingly moving their chatting off-Nostr. (I'm still privy to those conversations, but most of you no longer are.)

So, my feed has been getting quieter and quieter. Even adding new people doesn't help much, as they don't tend to stick around, for long, so it's a Sisyphean task.

![Relay curation](https://www.schule-und-familie.de/assets/images/wissen/ST09-Z66_sisyphus.jpg)

Some others are still bothering to show up, regularly, but they increasingly see it as a chore, or something they do to "keep up appearances". Add me to this group of wearied, diligent noters, holding down the microblogging feeds, with our exhausting attempt at #KeepingNostrWeird, while the influencers surround the gates and the Kind 01 feeds dissolve into nothing but warmed-over Bitcoin memes, GM notes, notifications from the OtherStuff, and Things Copied from X.

![Live view of us defending the microblogging feed.](https://i.etsystatic.com/12000271/r/il/85ed97/2160223296/il_1588xN.2160223296_lh8s.jpg)

The problem of barren, intellectually-emptying Kind 01 feeds is further exacerbated by the fact that new entrants to the Nostrverse find it increasingly easy to "find good follows", but they're all only finding the same follows: whoever is on the trending list.

## The See-Nothings

I keep complaining about this, but the responses I get are generally unhelpful. They are:

* mockery -- Oh, Miss Hoity-Toity wants more attention!
* insults -- Nobody is talking to you because you are boring and stupid, and nobody likes you.
* clueless -- You should try replying to other people, then they might reply to you.
* or they tell me to just stop looking at the list, if it upsets me.

![I see nothing.](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/99/a0/48/99a0486d006ef58eb76fbc243f94d9ec.jpg)

What people are missing, by telling me to just not look at the trending lists, is that the lists are a statistic of what real humans are looking at, on Nostr. The bizarrely-high concentration of npubs, on the list, so that their entries show up multiple times, suggests that what people are primarily looking at... is the trending list.

![Yes, the same npub 9 times.](https://i.nostr.build/OoiwW4KVnk76O172.png)

Either directly, because they use a client that has that built in, or indirectly, as they have been onboarded with the lists or told to "just follow the people I follow", which leads to a steadily-rising concentration of follows. This concentrating effect is accelerating.

The newly-popular WoT (web of trust) relays further exacerbate this effect, as they put a premium on the npubs that have the highest WoT score, which -- surprise, surprise! -- are the same people as on the trending list.

And this is why everyone on the trending list insists Nostr is a fun, happening place, full of human interaction. A place where replying reverently to Jack and posting GM religiously will make you a sought-after conversant. It is that place. For them.

In fact, they've reached that glorious state of #PeakSocialMedia, where they have become famous for being famous, and no longer have to even pretend to be trying to appeal to anyone with their content. They can post literal garbage, and their ~~fans~~ ~~groupies~~ ~~sycophants~~ commentariat will cheer them on, and flood their replies with ardent encouragement. Less because those other npubs actually cared about what they posted, than because they are hoping to pick up new followers in those threads, since they know that everyone is looking at those threads, because those threads are trending.

It's a pyramid scheme of following.

![Feeling blue](https://i.nostr.build/sttuMv5u9N4KpCAt.png)

For the rest of us... the vast majority of us... that blue line at the bottom is mostly how it feels.

## The trend is to trending.

What we no longer have, is people looking directly at relay feeds, to find new people, or even their own follow list feeds, to see npubs they've already subscribed to. Even when people follow me, they usually don't respond until I'm trending, which suggests that they're also seeing me on the trending list because that is what they're primarily looking at. This is why, as soon as you get on the trending list, your replies explode. And your replies will be concentrated in a hardcore few, otherwise.

Those few are the reason I keep coming back, but as they're also often chatting with me off-Nostr, I am facing the question of: _Why bother with Nostr microblogging?_

This is the question I am struggling with. If kind 01 isn't for plebs chatting, anymore, (and it increasingly isn't) then it's mostly a sort of bulletin board, where we post notifications of items we've added in OtherStuff clients, or make announcements of meetups, software releases, or conferences. This, however, is compounding the dullness of the feeds and turning it into a sort of "info flyer", except for a lucky few. But, perhaps, I am simply a #NostrBoomer, who is failing to move with the times and get with the program.

![In retrospect, it was inevitable.](https://gizmodo.com/app/uploads/2022/06/9ad13ee35e88ba8991d03936db27900b.jpg)

I'm slowly reaching the conclusion that Kind 01 in an open, centralized market of notes, will always coalesce around a small subset of #NostrElite and turn into a largely passive form of entertainment, or a frustratingly lonely place, for everyone else. There can only be so many people talking, at once, in a public square.

The only movement I currently see, that might end the slow slide of Kind 01 into irrelevance and tedium, is to create lots of smaller, public squares, through single-relay communities. This has been such a long time, in coming, and has been resisted by client devs so ferociously, that I worry that it's merely an attempt to close the barn door after the npubs have escaped.

I sincerely hope to be proven wrong, though. Perhaps the relay devs, who have valiantly taken up the fight, will #SaveKind01. We shall see.

How to find other humans on Nostr... and keep them here.

I haven't given up hope of a turn-around in kind 01 feeds, but I am increasingly jaded.

This is a long form article, you can read it in https://habla.news/a/naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzplfq3m5v3u5r0q9f255fdeyz8nyac6lagssx8zy4wugxjs8ajf7pqqxnzdenxqcnsdpexcmrxvfhy8lvk0


Oh, right. Maybe they went there.


For the record, nostr:npub1utx00neqgqln72j22kej3ux7803c2k986henvvha4thuwfkper4s7r50e8 currently has 9 posts trending on nostr.band. Yes, nine. N-I-N-E.

https://nostr.band/?trending=posts

Look at that list. Same people over and over. Tell me that there isn't something seriously fucked up about Kind 01 feeds.

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzpckv7l8jqspl8u4y54dn9rcduwlrs4v2040nxce0m2h0cunvrj8tqy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtn4w3ux7tn0dejj7qgnwaehxw309amk7apww468smewdahx2tcqyrd74hte8r5sa0x7jlh906p0z97tegenku3ygjqndfcx0ndcpstw5hzf3pm


I wonder where all of the rapey guys and the other perverts left to. 🤔 Fediverse?

Are the still on nos.lol and Damus?


I have write-limited relays in my inbox list. It was the only thing that made Nostr bearable.

You had to be there. Be glad you weren't there.


I just want to get my chat on.

Most people can't see my stuff, unless they follow me, even if they subscribe to my relay. 🤷🏻♀


Y'all be like,

Follower counts don't matter.


It means that many people (the relay subscribers, including myself) don't have to follow you, to see your posts. It has more impact, than a follow.


I can see you, even if I don't follow you.
It hardly ever works, the other way around.

I am posting from the future.


There are hardly any NIPs about relays. Every client dev just does whatever.


I'm on Nostrudel, but I'll try again.


Nobody does. That's the problem.


Yes.


Also, their cache relay stuff.


What you know about me could fit on the back of a postage stamp.


Breaking all records. 😂

But that's more than most, I assume.


Primal has been bad for Nostr.


Yeah, tried that. Since some popular clients couldn't find my notes, I had to give up and add more and more outbox relays.


Yeah, client devs and long-time users think the problems are with the protocol itself, and/or that it isn't humanly possible to build a Nostr client that actually works.

People who don't understand software development believe them and repeat their nonsense.


Abortion is just a form of euthenasia.
Kill your offspring. Kill your grandma. Kill yourself.

Culture of Death.


Meh, it's just people trying to deflect attention from bad product quality.

It's an old rhetorical trick, where you expand the scope of the argument to such a degree, that it becomes impossible to solve. A form of argumentum ad absurdum.

If the actually believed this, they wouldn't be here, themselves.

https://media.tenor.com/LWhTsJh248sAAAAC/greys-anatomy-izzie-stevens.gif


They didn't leave social media. They just went to other platforms, or they mostly post elsewhere and just dip in here, sporadically.
A lot probably even went back to X.


It's doing this, now. (That middle event is not from me.)

https://image.nostr.build/0c25ce3d8389b8bef17042c2e21b99c1294341c65b5327a4e453c2e390fa69e9.png


https://cdn.satellite.earth/7da12f5e84f9d7b7b33eb124fe460f3ca3290794b4d9514fdbe925922f5b54d8.png

inspired by the most prolific cause of my relay to crash, nostr:nprofile1qy88wumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmv9uq3wamnwvaz7tmkd96x7u3wdehhxarjxyhxxmmd9uq3zamnwvaz7tmwdaehgu3wwa5kuef0qyt8wumn8ghj76rfwd6zumn0wd68ytnvv9hxgtcqyprqcf0xst760qet2tglytfay2e3wmvh9asdehpjztkceyh0s5r9c9xkzen   and his amethyst


Those are the people happiest with the status quo.
In their view, the Nostr protocol is just a Bitcoin chat and we're all ruining the neighborhood.

They'd say, we should all be the ones to go. 🤔


This isn't about adoption. The adoption rate is much higher and faster, than when I first came here.

I also don't notice any of the "surges", that other people see.


Uh oh. Looks like we got a live one, again. 😂

U juSt cAnT c dEM beEcUz u dON't haVe eNoUgH foLloWz.


You do realize that most people eventually leave, right?
So, you have to continually add, just to have the same amount, right?

How many of my followers are even still really here? Half? 10%?


You're right. We should hard-cap follows at 400. Anything more is just being a greedy attention whore.

You first. Which of the 247 get the boot?


Bitcoin doesn't fix me.


People use social media to socialize.
Anything that keeps people from socializing is a bug, not a feature.

Telling people that they should keep using social media, but refrain from socializing and just go sit by themselves, off in a corner, and mentally masturbate, and pretend like they don't mind, is fucking sadistic.

https://media.tenor.com/YpGaQxfPdMQAAAAC/joker-imtiredofpretending.gif


https://image.nostr.build/83312c4f204442ed0ce549399d9c6b100d92acde08620a42dcb6aef0fc4d8077.jpg
#teastr #coffeestr


There's an Asian-American girl (engineering major 💪🏼), who just sat down next to us, on a blind date with a German guy, and he is soooo nervous, that it's really cute.

Totally rooting for him. 😂

https://image.nostr.build/17c32fc317b75dff1022c509a35273f18fcc4df51448ef6fc3a93090474e9cab.jpg


Yes, but they also have a lot of real ones. Just that the percentage fake is higher.


Went to 400 steadily and then basically slowed to a trickle and then stopped.


They are all fighting the outbox model, fr. They want them captive customers.


Yeah, feed went dead.


https://nostr.band/?q=Michael+j
😂😭

It's literally retarded. Look at your profile event json.


Just think: almost a thousand followers and one of the most active and interesting npubs, but someone new will not be able to find you or see your notes, unless someone else boosts it.


Yeah, probably have to write directly to megarelays, to be seen.

The note simply residing on the relay has no effect, apparently.


I'm legit wondering if I'm being shadowbanned by the trending algos because even my really popular stuff doesn't trend, but there's stuff trending, that has 2 replies. 🤷🏻♀

Maybe I angered the Nostrsoft gods.


#Nostrudel threads be like
https://image.nostr.build/a95c0932a4f48b5397d6dfd643b551c2033fd4f045656620b915f611f402341b.png


Another person who is sometimes impossible to find, even using search, is nostr:npub1wqfzz2p880wq0tumuae9lfwyhs8uz35xd0kr34zrvrwyh3kvrzuskcqsyn


You basically have to write Kind 01 notes, regularly, to get your npub above a specific WoT score, so that your group-boosting works.


It's good for making an announcement as a project team.
Then, you can group-boost one note and get it enough visibility, that potential users or members might see it. Like, if you want to announce a sw release, or a meetup, etc.

It's like a bulletin board, basically, but you can only get on the board as a team.


Yeah, it's great for publishing. You can even have the published notes turned into a webpage/blog.

I'm one of the few devs who can even voice any sort of informed opinion on this, as I also have relatively large npubs, that add followers much faster, than this one does, although they're largely dormant.


Highlighter doesn't work, for me. On any machine. 🤷🏻♀

Only use Habla, at this point.


You are all missing the point, that if I am only adding 1 follower or fewer, per day, what is the experience like for most newbies?

The feedback you are getting from newbies is only from the 1%, or so, who stick around and are having a great time because gigantic npubs boosted their stuff, immediately, and they're adding followers at a record pace.

THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT THEY DID. ALL OF YOUR STUPID TIPS DON'T WORK; I DO THEM ALL, TO ZERO EFFECT.

IT IS EXCLUSIVELY AN ARTEFECT OF BEING RANDOMLY-SELECTED FOR A BOOST, BY SOMEONE WITH THOUSANDS OF FOLLOWERS. THERE IS A HANDFUL OF NPUBS EXCLUSIVELY DEFINING EVERYONE'S FEED.

#SurvivorshipBias is real.

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzplfq3m5v3u5r0q9f255fdeyz8nyac6lagssx8zy4wugxjs8ajf7pqqs8gu6c89ye6a0hmmyusg7k74dnd56wwm07e9wpmfeqp4lljunhxvsl8zahy


And we're all sick and tired of "following" people. That UX totally sucks ass.


Discord is another big Nostrich hang-out. Also Reddit and Stacker News.


Spoken like someone with over 5000 followers. 🙄


I think I'm not even adding 1 follower per day, at this point.
Completely ground to a halt. Much less interaction than in a SimpleX chat or Telegram group.

#DeadNostr


Mindestens einer. 🫂

Sogar das einundzwanzig Relay ist englischsprachig. 🥺


😭 but it says:

Outbox
noStrudel will always publish to these relays so other users can find your notes


nostr:npub1ye5ptcxfyyxl5vjvdjar2ua3f0hynkjzpx552mu5snj3qmx5pzjscpknpr does Nostrudel ever use the outboxes? I seem to only be posting and broadcasting to the app relays.


Should I post more in #German, or nah?

https://image.nostr.build/390b6e2f8eadd31f4460dc34e01a2febbf3bf38ff82f166ceeaa39dcefcc5df9.jpg

#DACH #Deutsch


You need the Kind 01 reference, like this, to ensure that people can respond to your article. Replies to OtherStuff events are extremely buggy and flaky.

If I open this up in Habla.News, I can't post a reply to a reply. Just get errors. Or, I post a reply and it doesn't show up in the list. Just floats around in Nostrspace, wherever. Or I post a reply there, but I can't see that reply in a different long-form client.

Also, content discovery tends to be extremely difficult, for everything except Kind 01. I often can't see articles, from people who are writing to my own relays, or I need to toggle back-n-forth between four clients, to see the article and all replies, and to post a reply.


Tariffs are better than the income tax, but still have major problems.  If we are going to fund the government through taxes, we should replace 100% of taxes, at all levels of government, with sales taxes.  Then require the amount of taxes taken by each government be printed on each receipt so people see, with every purchase, how much the government is truly stealing from them.  If you want to help the poor, you could exempt unprocessed foods, rent (& home purchases), and/or electric power.  Any time someone produces their own stuff, they can avoid paying taxes.  Trading, instead of buying new, could also avoid taxation.  No individual would have to deal with audits or government spying or intervention.  A ton of government bureaucrats could be eliminated because we don't need to pay for paper pushers to nickel and dime the public.

I don't like any taxes, but a sales tax is the fairest tax.  The income tax, property tax, and death tax are the most evil.


I had mine this week, too. 😊
Living my best life.


Happy Birthday 🎉


Yup. 😊


Yes, thanks!


Maybe try my laeserin@minibits.cash


#mugshawtys

https://image.nostr.build/9fb213756f05e3f9a7bbe36d4fba656a3089f9f8a9084ed86f3e86c0c05feb68.png


We stopped in #Würzburg, on the way home and were surprised that the stores were open on a Sunday. Now, we know about the #Mantelsonntag tradition, whereby people buy a new coat for All Saints' Day.

https://image.nostr.build/ab003aaa5b7f0cb1d0d129f6b06cdea564db3c1ca34d6eb7bf3857ff17bd8546.jpg
 https://image.nostr.build/c51bd7c6866794e5f45c38e098e10c0ee91b3f13343691bb75f8fbc69cb333d6.jpg


My Nostrfam gallery recap 💜 thank you all so so so sooo much for joining us and for making this weekend so wonderful. 💫
No matter the differences between us, our hearts beat for freedom and community.

They will never separate us further! It’s time to gather around and just BE. 🫂

#PurpleKonnektiv #zusammenkommenmatters https://image.nostr.build/cedebaea70b27d804f5bac9f936f6babec6c92ac0578f23ff500ecf2072d91e7.jpg https://image.nostr.build/e84835cef201e2c9bd5c4d86b13a41693c3a6b4d4481298f937c439a6d9a8afd.jpg https://image.nostr.build/7386ce9ef17bb0b3e506f5a134993c8eeb36f82b42de35dcddd664e5bf75d653.jpg https://image.nostr.build/a6c53db037ecb730f3a42b33e4f6fda0b454221d3a398154b883e1e7ce259c6f.jpg https://image.nostr.build/d524db95cc92d801018bdbbbf294f248aa22b2d46315ed6bd967995f08604d18.jpg https://image.nostr.build/90582355328d0800dea63e7a698f7c8a06620c0e945b649041de4619c64460ed.jpg https://image.nostr.build/54e1058056968e5ee75d613788e7caaf92b52546599b59d2a8dc95a5675df65e.jpg https://image.nostr.build/1d972c2d93109bfdf66e7649fb0781d5fa6cbd064419b8152db8015eaa26897c.jpg https://image.nostr.build/fbf74b7827e67fc6ef17af8d404fb801ab6e0067967ef565aea0b9dc593e7984.jpg https://image.nostr.build/422cfa8cb828ccb9bded44e88c95ad2fb076aa2c55cff7fe63467f33121025b4.jpg


If you're a dev working on a Nostr project alone, but you're in private chats with others or you're frequently in contact with other like-minded devs, join forces!  Make a group!  Learn from each other!  Collaborate!  Nostr will be better for it.


Ha ha. I'm a sucker for a French accent.


We will. It's gorgeous up here and first round goes on the birthday girl. 😁

Shame you couldn't make it, this time.


We are supposed to be building in public. Engineers begin the building process with a blueprint.


This is all I can find, but maybe  nostr:npub1zuuajd7u3sx8xu92yav9jwxpr839cs0kc3q6t56vd5u9q033xmhsk6c2uc has a spec, someplace, with some second-party reviews.

https://habla.news/u/jeffg.fyi/MLS-over-Nostr-Oct-4-2024-ugrsvw


This was funny, but it's probably also low-key true. Makes sense that I'm building an eReader.

Like... what else would I build? 😅


Yes, we're focused on analyzing and recommending content, rather than follows. Labeling content by categories, for instance, like "Jazz" or "esoteric", etc.


It's just three ladies who invite people to cozy meetups. 😊


They really do have a lot of warnings. Streams of warnings. 😂


I'd focus on the note they were quoting.


I am not morally-opposed to content discovery. Without it, Nostr is just a high school redux, and don't nobody got time for that.


I've been told I'm not agreeable enough. Other girls are nicer. 🙄


I don't just have Nostr's most active users, I also have Nostr's most-supportive user base. #Alexandria hasn't even been released, yet, and they're already publicly cheering for us, name-dropping for us, and zapping us.

We're blessed, truly. 🙏


Yeah, yesterday was my birthday. I was slightly drunk and swimming in a sea of relatives from circa 10 am to 11 pm. Got hardly any sleep. 😅

It was fun, but now I'm running behind on a bunch of project tickets (I don't just have the software project, I'm also a member of  nostr:npub1purpleye8gzrzss99nzqqnemtf7g8xxj8p950nkyknnuqzycuh5qnazkzp and we're organizing a three-day meetup this weekend, up near Frankfurt.


My followers are extremely active, yes.

Want to get new ones, tho, to replace the few which have left (my followers rarely leave, which you would think would give someone designing a client a clue, but whatever) and to find some additional ones interested in non-Nostr and non-Bitcoin stuff. We're coming up with an eReader for books and articles, and it'll eventually have comments/highlights/book-clubs, etc. so I need more people who can "name 10 books". If they're on here, I need to find them and get their attention. If they're not on here, I need to go find them out there and get them on here.


When you pretend to be sad, when you're actually just scornful.


They told me to reply more to other people's threads, but this has actually had no discernible effect.
Writing to bigger relays, such as primal, had no discernible effect.
Writing about Bitcoin or Nostr development, had no discernible effect.
They told me to use hashtags, but this also had no discernible effect.

TBH, I suspect the biggest difference between this npub and the last one, that has over 5000 followers, is the profile pic. 😅  I think people were just following me, to see the PfP in their feed. Now, that I don't have a picture of my face next to every post, they're like, "Meh, TL;DR."


Mfw I've posted regularly from this npub, for almost 10 months and someone else has more followers, after posting for 3 weeks.

https://media.tenor.com/_R7HulA5lf0AAAAC/i-don%27t-know-cry.gif


He's just here to trash me with some concern-trolling.


I'm wearing an updo in my banner pic and men are completely *triggered* by the very thought of my hair being short.

LOL

You'll get over it.


I do, too, actually. 😅
It's by far the most performant and I use all sorts of obscure functions, like Event Console and NAK, and stuff.


Not the widest audience, but the most receptive/interested audience, yes. Even hashtags don't really work, as they're so spammy and most people don't use them, and if everyone is only looking at the trending list, and you're not trending, then they literally don't see you (even if they follow you).

Most of the users on here have never seen anything I've written. Since I often write about obscure/niche topics, this is a real problem. There's currently no way for me to just ask if there are other people who want to talk about Tibetan philosophy, or whatnot, because you have to see me asking to answer the question. Catch 22.

I'm essentially "forced" to write about Bitcoin, in order to get more visibility, so that I can then ask the new followers, if they are also interested in Tibetan philosophy. It's algo-driven writing, basically, like the way people on Instagram were all obligated to have at least one BLM post, and then they had to have a #metoo post, and etc.

I'm hoping relay-communities and better algos fix that, but the vote's still out.


Nostrudel, FTW. 😅


Damus is a whole class above Primal, but you didn't hear that from me.

I'm on Android, with the other poors.


Damn, 3 weeks. 😅  That is insanely fast, geez. I post multiple times per day, since January, and am barely over 500.

Are you user that those aren't mostly bots?


nostr:npub1xdtducdnjerex88gkg2qk2atsdlqsyxqaag4h05jmcpyspqt30wscmntxy runs Nostr.Band.


I just tried both accounts, and it didn't work.


Watch this thread fill up with people who have never tried to run a business, in order to make some money.

That's actually a brutally hard thing to do. Few.


Day 479 of me being weirded out by watching people take business advice from people who don't care about earning income.

That's like asking a celibate monk for tips on dealing with menopause. I mean, whatever. You do you.

https://media.tenor.com/vbhA-Qs483MAAAAC/but-why-homelander.gif


Just checked Primal. 7 of the posts on the 24-hour list are GM posts containing no additional information. Most of the rest are memes, shitposts, or people complaining that the trending list is nothing but GMs, memes, and shitposts. 😅

These are things that get a lot of interaction, and they're often fun for the participants, but if that's the best we have to offer new arrivals, then we're done here.


Today. 🥰  Turned 44.


Zaps are mostly an artifact of follower-count, like reactions and reposts. Quotes and replies are the only high-signal responses, as far as I can tell. And only if the responses carry information and aren't from real or artificial reply guys.

Well, and air-replies (probably the most high-signal, as it hints at some controversy or disagreement), but you'd need AI to find those, probably.


Only if you calculate based upon the root. Most clients don't display root counts. There's also no differentiation, based upon depth or entropy.

A thread like

GM
-- GM
-- GM
-- GM
-- GM
-- GM
-- GM
-- GM
-- GM
-- GM
-- GM
-- GM
-- GM
-- GM
-- GM
-- GM
-- GM
-- GM
-- GM

will usually be ranked higher than one like

Longish, interesting text containing information
-- Response with question
-- -- Answer to question
-- -- Another question
-- -- -- Answer, from someone else
-- Useful feedback to the OP
-- Interesting tidbit
-- -- New conversation participant, totally excited about tidbit
-- -- Person new participant tagged, to come look at tidbit

I mean, maybe it _should_ be ranked higher. Maybe we're all just here to say GM to Jack. But I'm saying that I don't know if algo developers are considering this effect. There's a reason why trending feeds are so mind-numbingly dull, and this is the reason.


His daily TODO list, from me. 😅


Yeah, that would be users choosing which clients they prefer, but they went a different route. Various nonprofit and investment funds picking particular clients they like, basically, with no effective feedback-loop from users.

I wrote about it, once, under my other (much bigger) nym.

https://habla.news/a/naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzphtxf40yq9jr82xdd8cqtts5szqyx5tcndvaukhsvfmduetr85ceqq49w6re94mk2ttgv9mx2ttwda6z6ctswpkxjety94nx7u3dvykkwunpde6z6mpev9mxcms7c8sha


Your first job as dev relay moderator is adding "3878d95db7b854c3a0d3b2d6b7bf9bf28b36162be64326f5521ba71cf3b45a69" to the list of moderators, as you accidentally locked me out. 😅

Tells me "not your relay", when I try to change the moderation list.


Do you mind, if I add you as a moderator to the relay? Then you can also add devs to the allow list, as you find them.


The reason why algos can't see that conversation, is because the OP doesn't contain the signal, the thread does.

In fact, social media algos _actively discourage_ human interaction. That's why influencers quickly learn to game the system by refusing to respond. If they respond to someone, and that person responds to them, the discussion thereafter is "invisible" to the algos. All of the responses have to "hang" on the OP.

nostr:npub1utx00neqgqln72j22kej3ux7803c2k986henvvha4thuwfkper4s7r50e8 nostr:npub1fd0t73r8vn3nqezdg93fyj5x5u79zucf3jaspkc2dy9sjuqx5z8qftjal4 nostr:npub1m3xdppkd0njmrqe2ma8a6ys39zvgp5k8u22mev8xsnqp4nh80srqhqa5sf


This is the sort of intense, high-signal, honest, irreverent, informative thread that humans are naturally drawn to, but no Nostr algo has been built, that can find it.

Humans do not naturally interact in a manner that causes threads to trend. Boosting out of an emotive conversation, for instance, is highly unnatural. In fact, the deeper and more meaningful the conversation, the less-likely they are to boost (or like) it.

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzplfq3m5v3u5r0q9f255fdeyz8nyac6lagssx8zy4wugxjs8ajf7pqqszalcsgl78jg8w8nwyup5y952yj5wurz749t88ype9ucjf4qexxgqxzjk3q


Happy Birthday! 🎉

We're almost birthday twins. ☺


That's a good point. Didn't think about the momentum aspect.


You had me at "Chesterton".


It's normal for devs to bicker in dev forums, and that should be visible. But if we want to attract a more diverse clientel, that probably shouldn't be what they're all staring at, when they show up. 😂

At least, give them a means to turn it off.


Nobody knows what to make of this. 😂 You'll understand immediately, once it's live.


Oh, man, you got da GitCitadel emoji!

👑 Dropped this.


Implementation of Nostr Knowledge Base (NKBIP-01) and vector embeddings (NKBIP-02). Can be used as an eReader app.


Yeah, too early for most people. Onboarding too early is burning potential users and then they leave and complain about Nostr to their friends.


Yeah, I had that idea, with timing relay subscriptions, a while back. Useful.


I've put you on a list. 😈
https://next.nostrudel.ninja/#/lists/naddr1qvzqqqr4xqpzplfq3m5v3u5r0q9f255fdeyz8nyac6lagssx8zy4wugxjs8ajf7pqq4xc6tnw3ez6vtyvvmnjcfhxgkk2efexckngc3hx5kkzd34xckkgve4xymxvwtyvc6kyegtz3a8d


I have a big list, actually. On the wiki. I'll go whitelist them all. I'm going to do an "AND", then, so that their bread baking or guitar-playing posts don't show up.


GM nostr:npub137c5pd8gmhhe0njtsgwjgunc5xjr2vmzvglkgqs5sjeh972gqqxqjak37w ☀


Should I have an npub allow list? It's just the keywords, at the moment, like on Christpill.


Do I have the keyword filter setup right?

Does it pull the whole thread, or only the note containing the keyword?


nostr:npub10npj3gydmv40m70ehemmal6vsdyfl7tewgvz043g54p0x23y0s8qzztl5h could you pipe or negentropy or whatever it is, some other relays into the feed? Maybe from theforest and damus?


I've been thinking this, lately, as well.

Most newbies don't actually want to show up and see a feed full of #devs arguing about algorithms and tiered storage, or whatnot. That's an immediate turn-off, even if it sometimes gets more interesting for users, once they've figured out how all this stuff works.

Lots of devs actually have OtherTopics. They just rarely post about them because the dev-y stuff is what gets clicks (from other devs). Since devs are inclined to stay on Nostr, however, and there are so many devs, it would be better for all of us if they/we talked more about our OtherTopics and there be a dev community relay where we could talk our dev stuff.

So, I started one, that I will manually curate:
https://devs.nostr1.com/

It just picks up keywords that sound "devish", like "C++" or "NDK" or "devs".

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzqaw3y9q68yvef3qxy5qlz4wzud8yr2xre7d7l8jd055cy569350zqqswm0f2ewfkh850jryamx6kxqev8enyghjpg5tzez9vqrvf85gtakgqsp87k


Same. When I left Twitter, it was for real. I left there for a reason and that reason hasn't changed.


2 months. I can always add them back, if they return.


You keep getting kicked off of my relay list for myterious reasons. I add you back on, like once per week. 😅


It's amazing how long they can go, without noticing, tho.


Yeah, I purge my list every month.


Rule three: don't write snarky things like that. They don't like that. 😅


Those are my feels, lately. I like our eReader idea, but I'm increasingly aware of the fact that I suck at social media. It's a whole thing.

Rule one of social media: always agree with whatever the richest man in the room is saying.
Rule two of social media: always agree with whatever the second-richest man in the room is saying, unless it contradicts the first man.


Yeah, they come here, post their Bitcoin meme stuff and then they go back to Twitter to have real conversations.


Yeah, it's mostly devs and Bitcoiners. But we're the wrong kind of devs, so we don't count. 😅

There's like a dev ingroup and The Rest.


Okay, good night, everyone. Thanks for the therapy session. It helped. 🤗


Our software project team. We're building an eReader out of Nostr notes.

https://njump.me/naddr1qvzqqqrcvgpzphtxf40yq9jr82xdd8cqtts5szqyx5tcndvaukhsvfmduetr85ceqqxkwcedv9kx27rpdej8y6tpftyjht


I was legit in tears, today. Totally miserable. This is actually the first thread, in a long while, where multiple people showed up to talk, and it wasn't just them screaming at me to kiss some dude's derrier cuz HE'S IMPORTANT.

This has actually cheered me up. There are still some normal humans on Nostr. They haven't all run away. 😆


Even Michael, the head of our project, hasn't passed 1000. It's a brutal grind, for months and months, just to get to a point where you can post something and have someone usually respond.
Hence, the low retention rate. 🤷♀


I tried to talk about classical Greek philosophy. Much silence ensued. 😅 🙈

I hate to tell you this, but 213 in 2 months is actually pretty good. My bros have been on here for over a year, some of them, and post every day, and they're stuck around 500.


I added you to my relay. Maybe that'll help.


There are actually a lot of Nostr Telegram groups, Discord groups, SimpleX chats, Slack teams, Reddit forums, Stackerwhateverpage, etc. Everyone talking about Nostr, but not on Nostr because in those other places, you don't have to be popular to have a conversation. People just talk to whoever is around and wanting to talk.

This social media stuff just sucks, man. You can be sitting there, surrounded by hundreds or even thousands of people, and feel completely alone.


Okay, but I'm different. I'm a very social animal. I'm here for chit-chat.

If I just want to get my thought out, I write an article. Not that anyone reads my articles, but it bothers me less.


It turns out, if you take out the algorithms, nearly everyone tunes into the same model.


Go deeper though, why would I engage with someone who doesn't validate my presence? That's literally what simping is. It's the opposite of having conversations. Conversations go back-and-forth, like we're doing, now, and everyone's statement is at least acknowledged, even if you disagree with it.

That used to be what Nostr was like. It's usually just influencers stuff, now. One-way speech. Like, that note coulda been a newsletter.


That is a really high curve, tho.


Feels like it.

And, you know, it's the Internet. I can't see the other person. If they don't respond, I don't even know if they saw it. Can they even see me? No idea.


They'd mute you. 😂
Learn from my experience.


I don't even remember, anymore. 😂

I kept responding to other people's stuff, but people don't write back. They just leave me sitting there, like an idiot.


My goal is to actually find people and have a conversation, but almost everyone just comes here to talk at those people.

Today was the first day, in weeks, where there's been any sign of life. It's been really lonely and dead in here. Just sitting in a corner, talking to myself, most of the time. Friggin depressing.


Following has become incredibly concentrated. It keeps getting worse and worse.

There's like 150k users that just come, look at the top ten posts, and leave. And then there's 50 of us normies normying, off in a corner.

We should just start a Telegram group. 😂


Well, whatever. Seems to be less and less point to post anything on here, if you're not one of these gigantic accounts.


Yeah, no joke.

How do you get 53 boosts? I can't even find 53 people, on here! 😂


Me: Wow, my post got ten likes and 4 boosts. New record, baby! This is the Big Leagues!

Then me: *Look at other people's posts...* 😳

https://image.nostr.build/d1156ce6dccf314d337ce3b73b0efe04cd870cff58ac6883a73c1e173ecf1cd7.png


I wanted to use more hashtags, to make my stuff more easily-discoverable, but I can't think of one for this note. Suggestions?

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzplfq3m5v3u5r0q9f255fdeyz8nyac6lagssx8zy4wugxjs8ajf7pqqszx6anal09act3jxuhs2etlz0nhtyhl7u2978ustr7l8h2syqp5gc2qn3re


Nostrudel


Timeout


But I think broadcasting doesn't work. Throws an error.


Probably mine, then. 🙈 I have three different wallets and can't zap with any of them reliably.


That's clever. I think I'm going to do that, too. Easier.

No selfies or whining posts or complaints about burning the steak. 😂 Only best of Stella.


Ah, okay, now I see something! 🥳


Okay, what do I have to do, to get this one to display? Is there some menu, someplace?

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzq4ekxjmysc6vhtgs7fz3wasgn63ppyxegplhzh5rc4mmgcg6umkuqqsfvg8kgyza2a3e22d55nweyyker2h9sqfnxewvuu3weh8mpkkcc5cpns6nf


Yes, #Alexandria. I checked to make sure the box was clicked in the drop-down.


I thought it pulls from band? 🤷🏻♀


And, like, did I miss some memo where being a terrorist wasn't proof that you're crazy? Are we differentiating now, between the terrorist-crazies and the non-terrorist-crazies? Why are we doing that? Is there a point to it?

It's just bullshit, right?


Nostr often feels like being stuck in Beta Testing Hell because you can confirm that things don't work, but nobody cares that they don't work, so things don't get fixed and you just go from one thing to the next, like

Yup, this doesn't work.
This also.
Oh, this is cool! Oh, nevermind. Doesn't work.
That doesn't work, either, and.... yeah, this never worked, and it now it crashes my browser.
There goes my cell phone battery, geez. Deinstall that...
Actualize... actualize... yeah, doesn't actualize. Moving on...
This doesn't work and the developer either died or moved to Timbuktu or has been abducted by aliens...


https://testerin.npub.pro/

It doesn't seem to find any notes from me, even though I can see them on Nostr.Band. 🤷♀  Can you see notes in yours?


There's a difference between shitposts trending because you have a lot of followers and every fart you send trends, and your article or wiki page trending because it contains things people actually want to read.

The stuff I put effort into, was not the stuff that was trending. Even when I post an article from my npub with almost 5500 followers, and embed a kind 01 link in it, to drive traffic, it'll get like 12 views. 😅  Shoot me, now, fr.

But that's the sort of thing that would have wide appeal _outside_ of Nostr.


Nostr can feel incredibly lonely. I'll spend hours writing an article and get 5 responses and it's like.... stuff like that got hundreds of thousands of views on Twitter and I was shadowbanned and regularly locked out of my account. LOL


We started monitoring servers and my new npub apparently gets looked at by hundreds and sometimes even thousands of people, but I can't tell, from my end. From my end, it's just 🦗 🦗🦗🦗

Feels like it's just me and the same 10 people I always talk to.


Just saw that I'm on the front page. 😏


People can't find the things I write here, over a search engine. So, everything is openly readable and can't be deleted (high risk), but hardly anyone will ever see it (low reward).

Content won't draw users in, if they can't stumble over the content.


Lol. https://image.nostr.build/dfb953dc44bc3d084db9592f8394ec16516468bf828b2413bff6b5ab2903b54e.jpg


From the EU Commission
https://image.nostr.build/bf750efb90cebae37ca0eab730929b72c8630ce2a9014f094d4bab743cef0673.png

With retirement age being 67 by 2029 this means that the average German man gets to enjoy his retirement for approximately 10 years. So why do we pay into pension and social security for ~50 years?


It is. It's literally selective breeding. And probably incest, as well.
Selective, incestual breeding with strangers.
Or can just have sex with your spouse in your 20s. 🤷🏻♀

I'm so glad that these people are dying out and, no, this won't help them stop dying out because these are people who couldn't be bothered to just have sex with their spouse in their 20s because they see children as accessoires to life, rather than the main show. They're not going to get over 2.1, as a group.

Ngmi.


The git stuff is also real, but we need to address some problems with the current implementations. Have to finish Alexandria first, tho.


Everyone is on Discord, Telegram, SimpleX, Slack, WhatsApp, etc.
I mean, #metoo. 🤷🏻♀

I'm looking forward to communities, books, wikis, and OtherStuff. That's more my thing. That, and reading long-form.


It will, but I'm not sure if this microblogging stuff is going to be The Thing. Seems like overengineering, if all you want to do is post GM notes or pictures of your tits or your dinner. 😂

But the keys and the relays and the intermediated P2P communication solves some complex technological problems very elegantly, so the protocol has a niche to fill.

I see Nostr's next move to replacing Telegram, Medium, and Slack, not Twitter.


Yeah, lots of people I've whitelisted on the relay have gone AWOL. Been debating removing them.
You aren't imagining the drop. It's been dramatic.

https://image.nostr.build/3655b953defa368f3c93951e0ee3ded26b263d4c00c33f26e3eb564956befb70.png


They're in Madiera, working on eCash stuff.

Because everyone only follows a handful of people, when those people are gone, so are their entire audience.

Ultra-concentrated follows. 😢


Watching my son play ⚽ was exciting. Everyone was shouting his name, which was disconcerting, but hilarious. Who are all these people? 👀😂


Nope. We've all noticed the lull.


That was beautiful.


Good grief, that's depressing.


I stick to habla.news.


(Please note that this is not official financial or business advice, but rather a description of something we have done, on an informal basis.)

# A long, long time ago

It's been nearly a year, since nostr:nprofile1qydhwumn8ghj7argv4nx7un9wd6zumn0wd68yvfwvdhk6tcpypmhxue69uhkummnw3ezuetfde6kuer6wasku7nfvuh8xurpvdjj7qpqs3ht77dq4zqnya8vjun5jp3p44pr794ru36d0ltxu65chljw8xjqv5atj2 came into being, mostly as a lark, involving a couple of members of our private chat group. Our initial plan was to work toward bounties, but Nostr bounties are a bit of a biased, uncertain thing, and our enthusiasm for that quickly waned.

So, what to do? Here we are, we three (nostr:npub1ecdlntvjzexlyfale2egzvvncc8tgqsaxkl5hw7xlgjv2cxs705s9qs735, nostr:npub1wqfzz2p880wq0tumuae9lfwyhs8uz35xd0kr34zrvrwyh3kvrzuskcqsyn, and I): IT professionals with little time, but plenty of intellectual energy, a Slack chat, a [GitHub repo](https://github.com/ShadowySupercode), and lots of frustration with the Nostr status quo.

We were, you see, Nostr end-users. We loved the idea of the protocol, but we were being regularly stymied by the poor quality of many implementations.

* Why can I not login? Oh, they fixed the login! Nope, still can't login.
* If I press this button, it says it sent, but it didn't send. Where note?
* They announced a new feature, but I tried it and it didn't work. Oh well.
* I noticed a bug in the client, reported it, and the issue is just rotting away in the project repo. Ignored.
* The website/relay/repo was here... yesterday. Today it has disappeared, and taken my zaps with it.

It was enough to make us want to tear our hair out. We decided that what Nostr needed... what it _really_ needed... was a **Nostr Stable Version**. Nothing glamorous. Nothing exotic. Nothing busy or excitable. Just something that stayed where you initially found it, ran, and actually worked. Something where you could report a bug and receive a prompt response. Maybe even something, where you could pay a reasonable fee and be _allowed to have expectations_ of some particular service being returned. And who better to build such a version, than people who want to use it, themselves?

# Things working is an underrated concept

I know that the very idea of software _running as expected_ and websites not appearing and disappearing suddenly, based upon what some particular developer had for lunch, tends to be met with little but scorn, from hardened, seasoned Nostriches (who are convinced that bugs are _all_ features), but I think the majority of potential users would see it differently.

I'm with the majority, on this one.

I like to click "save" buttons and have them save. If I publish something, I want it to appear under my list of published somethings. I like to type in the website address I always type in, and have it magically appear on my screen, as if there were a little man sitting at controls in my laptop, just waiting for me to write H-T-T-P-S... and then jump to attention.

My unreasonable expectations have no bounds, it is true. But unreasonable people are also people, so we would also like to have our own unreasonable things to play with. Scorn away. My save button will save, and my published something will publish, and my website will load _every damn time_, just to spite you.

In the larger scheme of things, you see, we win even if we fail, if we at least increase the competition enough, that _things working_ becomes the new standard. We can simply prove, definitively, that it is possible for Nostr things to work, if they are built by people who care if they work. If we also have fun together, learn something new, and come up with some cool, novel use cases, then that's pure profit.

We can only win, at this endeavor.

# Where to start?

## Name that brand

So, we had a team, we had a business idea, and we had a heck of a lot of motivation. What we didn't have, is a name. (Never underestimate the importance of naming things.)

We decided to name ourselves "GitCitadel" because "git" sounds techy, hints at our GitRepublic project, and is reminiscent of open-source development, and "citadel" reminds us of Bitcoin. The republic is at home in the citadel, naturally. All other products also live in the same citadel, hence the naming-convention of prefacing everything with "GC" (i.e. "GC Alexandria", "GC Sybil", "GC Aedile", etc.).

## Brand yourself

The next thing we did, was rent a domain and run a webserver on it. This is an important step because it gives you an Internet presence, allows you to have company NIP-05 and email addresses (a form of promotion), and it's simply exciting to have one. Feels so much more "official" and it helps increase the name-recognition of your company.

## Define yourself

We then sat down, together, over the Internet, and figured out who we are. Not who we individually are, but who we are, as a company. A company, after all, (according to the Cambridge Dictionary) is "an organization that produces or sells goods or services in order to make a profit". Now, a company's profits don't have to be monetary, but they should be something tangible. A company, in other words, is a team of people working toward some defined goal.

What is our goal? Well, we decided to think it over, sat down with the newer additions to the company (you can see who they are, on our [project wiki page](https://wikistr.com/gitcitadel-project), and came up with a Vision and a Mission:

![Vision Statement](https://i.nostr.build/ZEKjKfm6LeJAIlnD.png)

The _vision_ is what the overall goals of the company are, whereas the _mission_ describes how those goals shall be achieved. Now, this is a sort of lofty, abstract statement, so it was important that we posted it someplace publicly (to keep ourselves accountable) and look at it regularly, so that we can ponder it and realign whatever we are currently working on, with this statement. We know the statement is well-designed, if considering it helps us make decisions about what to do next.

## Pay yourselves

(I'm going to switch from "we" to "you", here, as it's easier to write this part, but let's just pretend I didn't.)

![Shakespeare](https://i.nostr.build/Fn0eOJzesCXKNAWR.jpg)

The next thing on the list, is to arrange the finances, usually by setting up a Geyserfund, with an associated wallet, and then deciding how the funds from the wallet will be dispersed or stored. (I won't tell you how we are handling that, as that's internal company business, but I'm sure you'll think of something clever, yourselves. Or just google it.)

I would encourage you to arrange to pay yourselves profits. Not merely because your idea is going to make you all fabulously wealthy and internationally famous (although, that is obviously true), but because _profits are the most pure form of communication that consumers in the market have_ with its producers, and one of the best ways to make decisions and measure increases in efficiency (increasing profits and/or output, while keeping prices steady or falling).

Cutting off this signal, in order to look pious to outsiders, is to shoot yourself in your free-market foot. Nobody says that you have to spend your profits on the proverbial _lambo and a bimbo_. You could donate them to charity, reinvest them, or store them for your nephews to inherit, but **pay them out, you should**. You don't have to love money, to value it as a tool and use it shrewdly. Money is a measure, and companies should regularly measure themselves: against their previous state, against their potential state, and against their competition.

(Also, you can use money to buy a lambo and a bimbo, but you didn't hear that from me.)

## Organize yourselves

Once you've been working together, for a while, you'll find that you need to figure out how to organize yourselves. The first step is to...

### Form a board of directors.

Stop laughing. I'm serious.

Any company has at least two roles (President and Secretary), ideally held by two different people, so any single-proprietor company is a man down. Find a different person, to be your Second, even if they're just your confident, who lets you cry on your shoulder on The Bad Days, when your code refuses to compile, and can tell people that you've become a Bitcoin millionaire and have gone on a sabbatical to hike the Himalayas and will be back in 3 months on The Very Good Days.
Because business man was not meant to be alone.

If, like us, you're a small herd of people and have already been working together for a while, then this step is actually really, really fun. Just think about what people are already doing, and put a label on it. That role is now defined and it is clear who is in charge of what.

Scientists become "Chief Science Officer" or "Scientific Advisor". The person who always writes the _okay, so this is what we've decided_ comment in the thread becomes the Secretary, the one managing the Lightning wallet and worrying over paying for the servers is the CFO, the person running the remote server becomes the CTO, and so on and etc.

And everyone knows who the CEO is. Everyone always knows. They do. Just write it down.

### Agree how to disagree

Now, have the secretary write up a Member's Agreement. It's a contract between the members, about whatever the group thinks is important concerning the way the company will operate. According to [Investopedia](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/llc-operating-agreement.asp), common topics are:
![LLC Operating Agreement topics](https://i.nostr.build/F05SyoHJgd6mhVCB.png)

Is this legally binding? Probably not. Maybe. I don't know and wouldn't tell you, even if I did. But it's _emotionally binding_, which is arguably more important.

Writing things down is an advanced form of _naming things_ and it provides clarity, helps to manage expectations, and allows you to define a working agreement before Real Money shows up and taints your interaction. You're just accepting tips, at the moment. Everyone is calm and cheerful, so now is your best time to negotiate.

Keep it very simple and only address the most basic things. If you wish to incorporate, at a later date, then you just take this to a registered agent, or other experienced person, and have them tidy up any loose ends and add the fine print.

## Go forth, together

This has probably taken you weeks, or even months, but you're now a company. Get a logo and a company npub, start dropping the company name into your notes, and get on with the business of being in business.

How we went about forming a Nostr company.

This is a long form article, you can read it in https://habla.news/a/naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzplfq3m5v3u5r0q9f255fdeyz8nyac6lagssx8zy4wugxjs8ajf7pqqxnzdej8y6rzdfkxyenzdejghmx9f


Yeah, that's true. It was so busy on here, for a while, that we all got lazy.


Thank you. 🫂


1/1000 maybe


Ah, cool. I thought it was e-Paper. Yeah, should work on anything with a browser, that can handle websockets.

Good tip, thanks! I haven't really looked into highlights, much. I'll keep that in mind, for next version. 😀


In the Work Breakdown Structure, the ePaper version is planned for v0.4.0. We're going to move to our own SDK, first, called "Aedile", and flush out some communication functionality, like highlights.

We might be able to get something simpler going with njump earlier, though, as that's already the basic tech stack we need.

https://github.com/ShadowySupercode/gitcitadel/blob/master/plantUML/Alexandria/Alexandria_v1.0_WBS.puml


It's in the browser. Svelte.


nostr:npub1n0pdxnwa4q7eg2slm5m2wjrln2hvwsxmyn48juedjr3c85va99yqc5pfp6 I found an old war-time cookbook, from 1918, to try out as a more-advanced text about food, in #Alexandria. I used dark mode, so that the old pictures stand out, more.

Things I've noticed about the rendering:
* the large first chapter letter needs to be toggled on/off, since it sometimes doesn't make sense (like in the ToC)
* floating the image left/right, so that the text wraps around the picture, and pictures display in a row, isn't working, yet, even if the text and the pictures are in the same section
* the "NOTE" box is working, but not prettily

https://i.nostr.build/1Zhmk8cHSJC20uiA.png
https://i.nostr.build/zQdZOJZzdy3juiCX.png
https://i.nostr.build/IelMjxU3FMCAD4kQ.png
https://i.nostr.build/GRbu8j1InyNspBRk.png

To see what the NOTE: would look like, after we tweak the stylesheet, it'll be something more like this (scroll to the bottom):
https://github.com/ShadowySupercode/gitcitadel/blob/master/eBooks/cookbook/cookbook.adoc


People successfully starve themselves to death because one sign of hunger is fatigue, so they just lie down, happily, and drift away, very slowly.

The body gives up hope, at some point, and just runs down the reserves. It's a hibernation function, for bad harvest years. Don't recommend turning it into a lifestyle.


It will, when we release it. 😉


It's a difference in priorities.

Dev wants to come up with some cool new thing every day, so that his buddies cheer him on, but the user can't get the GUI to allow them to login or see the entries in their thread, or their feed is boring as heck, so they just give up and walk off.

Lots of cool projects die because they refuse to follow-through cleanly on anything and just get stuck in Perpetual Prototype Purgatory.


Maybe they don't have a support team. Maybe it's just him, jumping into random convos, or something.


It's been interesting, how it has become more and more difficult to "acquire" followers, as I've gone along.

My first npub, got to 2000 followers within weeks.
My second, got to 5000 within half a year.
This one is sort of creeping along at 450-550 for weeks and weeks.

Nostr, in general, has become so eerily quiet. I thought it was just my relay, but when I look at other relays, I see the same thing.


I think right before Christmas Eve is a great time to launch because people have time to try your stuff out. Hoping we get lots of people uploading and editing collections and eBooks, to really give Alexandria a workout. Then we can get the kinks out and update the auto-tests, before we start v0.2.0.


Yeah, that's how I work.


The stuff everyone has heard of.


You can tell Nostr Core isn't a free market because the most money goes to the people doing the work that lots of people can do and would happily do, but the cost of that labor never sinks and the quality or quantity of that labor never rises.

No competition driving down prices, despite the presence of competitors.


That's how I view most of the Nostr apps, in the meantime.

Nice chair. Shame you can't sit on it.


Yeah, but it's pure research and hacking for the fun of it; no development.

That's really fun, I know, but we need more engineers, to get production-quality systems. People who understand how to set a goal, break the goal down into stages, and then focus and work toward that goal over a medium stretch of time, like 6 months to 2 years, followed by years of further development and maintenance _on the same system_. And, ideally, that person should be capable of working together with other people, so that you can have more than one person maintaining one system.

Engineers are developers with a low time-preference, basically. They think things through, before beginning, they work cleanly and carefully, they are reliable, and they are empathetic with the end users. That's why they're craftsmen, instead of hackers. They build things that people are meant to actually use.

It's the difference between a fancy chair, some artist conceived of, that looks great standing in a museum, and a chair that a master carpenter built, who spends all day producing various chairs. Which one would you prefer to sit on, every day, for years? Who would you take the chair to, if the chair broke? The artist? The artist can't even remember building that chair, and he's moved on to making pottery.

>>
The research portion occurs when a company's R&D team tests the viability of a potential product. This is the act of discovering new sciences that can be used to create new products. The development portion comes after the research and is the act of turning the discovered science into a useful product that the company can market and sell.
<<

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/042815/what-difference-between-research-and-development-and-product-development.asp


The sloppy, wild, cocaine-fueled, copy-paste hacking will continue until morale improves.


Let's do everything FOSS, they said.
We'll regularly push our commits, they said.
Because we should develop in public, they said.
So that devs can review the code from other devs, they said.
So that everyone can follow our development in real-time, they said.
So that developers can quickly respond to feedback they receive, they said.
Because that will make the products more innovative and higher-quality, they said.


Your code has atrophied, but your repo hasn't moved in months, bro.

Are you alive?
Please send emoji.


Yeah, I've reported it to him, but whatever. I've sort of given up on stuff getting fixed.


We've thought about having meetups near conferences, like nostr:npub1q6ya7kz84rfnw6yjmg5kyttuplwpauv43a9ug3cajztx4g0v48eqhtt3sh just did.


Yeah, seems to work on Nostrudel, as well. Which is good, as Coracle tends to terrorize me with permission requests. It doesn't like my signer, I think.

https://next.nostrudel.ninja/#/r/wss%3A%2F%2Ftheforest.nostr1.com%2F?people=global


https://coracle.social/relays/wss%3A%2F%2Ftheforest.nostr1.com%2F

New way to view theforest feed.


>>My dear brothers and sisters in Christ:

I want to inform you that we have reached a settlement with men and women who survived childhood sexual abuse at the hands of priests and other clergy and individuals serving in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles...

Most of the alleged acts of abuse covered in this settlement took place more than fifty years ago, with a number of the cases dating back to the 1940s. Some of these acts are alleged to have been committed by Archdiocesan clergy, some by lay people, and some by religious order priests and clergy from other dioceses who were serving here.<<

https://lacatholics.org/ab218-letter-from-archbishop-gomez/


You might need to fiddle with it a bit or add some tests, but it seems to be a good jumping-off point.


Have you run Dilger's automated tests?


Now, refactor it down to 10 lines.


The Bluesky team has an academic paper describing the protocol that’s a pretty good high level but somewhat technical overview. It includes how they see Bluesky compares to Secure Scuttlebutt, Nostr, Farcaster, and ActivityPub/Mastodon.

I think folks who are building Nostr apps or advocating for it in comparison to Bluesky would do well to read it to understand what they’re doing and how we’re different.

We should also write up one for Nostr.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.03239


libnoscrypt is getting automated unit testing :)

https://git.vaughnnugent.com/cgit/vnuge/noscrypt/.git/commit/?h=develop&id=dc47d096400e7a4d95dd9516c72876c8ad016dcb


I could do some example material and show you what it'd look like.

I'm always trying to think of unusual formats to throw at Michael, as test material. Cooking stuff is an interesting use case.


Anything formatted in Asciidoc can be imported.


I don't know why I never noticed Zap.Cooking. 🤷🏻♀
I love to cook.

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzpx7z6dxam2pajs4plhfk5ay8lx4wcaqdkf8209ejmy8rs0ge622gqqs2m48vkj2pe4g22uw6n70e65s7w32p0v4e4efrn5t8mk2zt8q67kc8v3snd


Whoa, just checked out zap.cooking. 👀
I need to start using that.


We can't have styling in events.
HTML is dangerous.

There, we got it over with. Let's move on with the conversation. 🧐


We will soon be hosting open instances of some popular web clients, such as Njump and Wikistr, and they'll be added to the list, as they go online.

And, of course, #Alexandria, once we release v0.1.0. ☺


Yeah, just keep going. Don't let yourself be intimidated or disuaded. Last one standing wins.


To be honest, we still get excited about zaps. 😅


What are you building? Let people know.
nostr:nevent1qqs0l5xd9mlzjak2frnkk7h8h275fs9vp3yz6zkej0zud4uuc04zjngprdmhxue69uhhg6r9vehhyetnwshxummnw3erztnrdakj7q3ql5sga6xg72phsz5422ykujprejwud075ggrr3z2hwyrfgr7eylqsxpqqqqqqzpsydd4


OpenSats funding your idea does not make it a good idea.
OpenSats refusing to fund your idea, does not stop it from being a good idea.

Think for yourself.
Build for yourself.
Advertise for yourself.
Let the free market decide.

Do not put your faith in kings.


This is pretty awesome.

nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzphzv6zrv6l89kxpj4h60m5fpz2ycsrfv0c54hjcwdpxqrt8wwlqxqqspr0jj33m4d5zxjeyah0ve9c3szrgg2jhsctrtewza69chr7elyhqu9an23


With which demographic, do you most-strongly identify?


I think pandering specifically to black American citizens, as a minority voting block, is becoming increasingly difficult because we've become such a diverse demographic, with increasingly varied biographies. Once you remove everyone who is a first or second-gen immigrant, mixed-raced, rural, in an interracial relationship or family, military or ex-pat, Latino, obsessed with Bitcoin or crypto, conservative Christian or Muslim, upper-class, etc., you're like down to 50 people in Augusta. 😅

This has been masked, for a long time, because the older population was so homogenous and uniform.
Younger black people don't usually define ourselves, primarily, as black people.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/01/18/key-facts-about-black-americans/