My dad has spent some of his retirement doing hobbyist machine learning projects. He heard the term “data lake” a while back and has taken to calling his datasets a “data swamp.” Feels like a terminology improvement the whole field could get behind.
I tried something inspired by Bryan Cantrill‘s seminal Platform as a Reflection of Values and took a stab at enumerating Bridgy Fed’s product and engineering values.
Bryan has said that sometimes (often?) you don’t know your own project’s values, at least up front, and boy did that land here. Definitely a valuable exercise. Feedback is welcome!
Junior engineers are surprised when things break. Senior engineers are surprised when things work.
Re-introducing Bridgy Fed
Hi! I’m Ryan. I’ve been building social network bridges and related tools for over 12 years, including Bridgy, which connects personal web sites and blogs to centralized social networks, and Bridgy Fed, which connects them to the fediverse.
I love how decentralized social networks like the fediverse and the IndieWeb let us move away from walled gardens controlled by single monolithic entities. I love that we can control our own destinies online, nurture and grow our own communities and instances, and still interact with people elsewhere. I want to be able to interact across networks just like we interact across servers. That’s why I build bridges!
Recently, I’ve been working on adding new protocols to Bridgy Fed, starting with Bluesky. It’s still months away from launching, but I expect it will draw in people who aren’t familiar with Bridgy Fed yet, and I know it will affect people in obvious and not-so-obvious ways, so I want to start a conversation. What do you think? How do you hope this will work? What are your concerns? What feedback do you have, especially now while big changes may be easier to make? I’ve talked with a number of fediverse admins and representatives so far, but I want to hear from you too.
Here’s some information about Bridgy Fed: Continue reading
They paint the world full of shadows, and then tell their children to stay close to the light. Their light. Their reasons, their judgments. Because in the darkness, there be dragons.
But it isn’t true. We can prove that it isn’t true. In the dark there is discovery, there is possibility, there is freedom. In the dark, once someone has illuminated it. And who has been so close to doing it as we are, right now?
– James Flint, Black Sails
Whenever I listen to Tool, I often find myself counting beats to try to figure out which wacky time signature they’re using. 5/4? 7/8? 11/4? Sure, why not! 🤪💯