Slopcraft and the LLM Society
Meditations on slop, why I'm not convinced, and what to do about it.
hodlbod
Christian Bitcoiner and developer of the coracle.social nostr client. Learn more at https://coracle.tools
Latest episodes
Digital Tools for Conviviality
Digital communication technology has exceeded its optimal scale, establishing a radical monopoly over human interaction. Internet platforms intermediate private relationships, extract value through surveillance capitalism, and reduce people to quantifiable metrics. However, certain digital tools can subvert the architecture of the corporate internet to safeguard individual freedom and human…
Nostr as Game
All systems can be approached like a game by "probing" for affordances. This can be a lot of fun, and works well in an adversarial environment.
Modernity, Marxism, and Meaning
A meditation on some things I've been reading recently. The dilemma of our place in history can feel hopeless, with no where to turn. But when every means has been exhausted, there is one thing which remains.
Information Wants to Be Free
On digital signatures, and how they free our data from the custodians who store it.
Building Nostr: A Light Touch
A short guide on how to handle malformed events, how to avoid publishing them, and when to break compatibility.
Building Nostr: Complex Problems, Simple Solutions
A summary of how the profit motive of internet businesses creates a system of incentives which drives censorship and surveillance capitalism, hurting users and undermining corporations' own value propositions — and how Nostr helps us fight back.
AI is Anti-Human (and assorted qualifications)
AI is like any other tool. It's our responsibility to make sure it stays convivial.
A Guide for Relay-Based Group Implementations
A guide for people who want to build clients for "relays-as-groups" that are compatible with Flotilla and Chachi.
Why Keys Matter
An introduction to cryptographic identity for the non-technical (but patient) reader.
Svelte 5 is not Javascript
Svelte 5 as a case study in how abstractions aimed at simplifying concepts can actually make software development more complex.
Doing DVMs
A brief walkthrough of what DVMs are, and how to build them
Simpler Attestations
On trusted timestamp attestations and converting a NINO into a nostr standard.
What *is* a nostr app anyway?
How to make the best, most impactful nostr apps by leveraging both the nostr network and the nostr protocol.
Why not NIP 29?
Why I didn't use NIP 29 to build Flotilla... and why I still might.
Key Management is a Blocker
A rough and ready survey of the nostr signer space, with a special focus on NIP 46, what's great about it, and how far we have to go.
What is the Outbox Model?
An explainer on the Outbox Model, including what it is, where it came from, and why it's integral to making nostr work.
The ethics of nostr
On why ethics is an essential component of software development.
Square peg, round hole
A brief ramble on where the protocol is going, and how we might use it more effectively.
Making Outbox Work
Disambiguating the Gossip Model. Advocating for relay proxies. Separating the Truth from the Jokes. Ban Jack! Down with Blastr!