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Mark Qvist built #Reticulum, an open mesh protocol some call “the next internet.” It ran on nearly any network, even the most meager, for free. Then he vanished. The dev community took over, and ran with it. Great story here: nodestar.net/mark-qvis…
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I’ve long been fascinated by the #mesh network #reticulum & the #LXMF messaging protocol built atop it—especially for areas w/o reliable Internet, or where govt. blackouts occur. I strongly believe bridges from LXMF to the open social web & open messaging protocols like #DeltaChat are strategic. I’d love to connect with others sharing similar thoughts.
Links: https://reticulum.network
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This tracks. #AI
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Every day of this hurts us more than them. And they know it. Not sure Trump does. [www.nytimes.com/live/2026…)
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Great news about an mRNA vaccine for pancreatic cancer, in early trials. It looks like patients who responded are still alive 6 years later. That’s a huge deal.
Am super hopeful for MRNA cancer vacines for a hosst of our deadliest cancers. #Science
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I’m convinced that very soon, all AI model capabilities will be negligible for most users & completely commoditized & also have near zero switching costs. No “moat” for any of them. #AI timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technolog…
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It’s a competitive field, but Brendan Carr, Trump’s FCC chairman, is second only to RFK Jr. (maybe Pete Hegseth) among Trump admin figures who’ll cause the longest-term damage to the most people. We’ll take decades to heal from them. www.politico.com/news/2026…
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Nothing to see here people. (sigh) I imagine everyone sitting around this meeting would have a hard time telling if they should sit on the “oligarchy” side or the “kleptocracy” side of the table. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/2…
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I’m looking to seee how #Nostr is going these days. #Primal seems to be the best UX I’ve seen for web, and maybe for mobile apps too. Any others I’m missing? https://primal.net/home
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AI sycophancy is a HUGE problem, right up there with the ongoing 10% hallucination rate the models see. It’s a real issue. https://loops.video/v/eQ6slkEree
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This is getting worse by the month. Space debris is a real challenge for our satellites. It’s wild to think about a ‘Kessler syndrome’ tipping point. There needs to be as much work put into fixing this as there is by billionaire-funded companies getting material into space. #SpaceDebris spectrum.ieee.org/kessler-s…
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This is precisely correct.
“The difference from corporate social media comes down to incentive structures. Platforms designed around narcissism & parasocial relationships produce content optimized for engagement. A federated network w/ no central owner produces something closer to actual knowledge-sharing, because nobody profits from making it addictive.”
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Journalists, stop with the “format wars” headlines for Bluesky vs. Mastodon! 🤦♀️ This isn’t zero-sum; when one wins, both benefit. It’s also the wrong question entirely. Twitter was already broken before it became ‘X,’ remember? #OpenSocialWeb
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Survival of the funniest.
“However, many scientists believe that humour is far more widespread amongst the animal kingdom than this…. other researchers have noted that dolphins appear to produce sounds of joy while they are play-fighting, and elephants trumpet in excitement when playing. Some parrots have been known to tease other animals for fun, for example by whistling at and confusing the family dog.
There’s even evidence that rats enjoy a good laugh. For the last decade or so, Jeffrey Burgdorf, research associate professor at Northwestern University in the US, has been tickling rats for a living. When the rats are tickled, they squeak joyfully in a high-pitched noise similar to a giggle.”
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The $1.5 Billion Butterfly Effect: How eBay’s Acquisition of PayPal as a “Butterfly Effect”
I was having breakfast with a friend today, and we fell down a rabbit hole: How different would our country—and the world—be today if eBay hadn’t chosen to adopt, and eventually acquire, PayPal in 2002?
It sounds like a niche piece of Silicon Valley history, but when you look at the “PayPal Mafia” timeline, it’s arguably is hard to overstate what impact that had.
1. The Funding of the “PayPal Mafia”
When eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion, it didn’t just exit a startup; it liquid-fueled a group of the most ambitious (and controversial) minds in tech. Without that specific injection of capital and credibility at that specific moment, the “PayPal Mafia” wouldn’t have had the war chests to build their next empires.-
Elon Musk: Without his $180M payout, there is likely no SpaceX, and certainly no capital to save Tesla during the 2008 crunch. And later to fuel the X/Twitter takeover.
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Peter Thiel: His payout funded Palantir and his early $500k investment in Facebook
2. The Political Butterfly Effect
This is where it gets truly wild. Without the specific brand of “Techno-Optimism” or “Effective Accelerationism” championed by Thiel, Sacks, and Musk, the financial and digital support systems for modern political movements: including the momentum behind the 2024 Trump campaign—might have looked entirely different. David Sacks’ influence as a political kingmaker and the shift of Silicon Valley toward the right are direct descendants of the PayPal exit.History isn’t just made by “inevitable” trends; it’s made by specific liquidity events. A single board meeting at eBay in the early 2000s inadvertently decided so much more of our political, technological and cultural world. At the time it seemed like the most pedestrian choice in the world, one that they could have chosen a dozen other options for.
I wonder. what choices are being made today that will have a simliar effect 20 years from now.
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This is a test of a new compose app I’m playing with for posting to my social accounts. #Ignore
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**Proposal for Fediverse Remote Content Engagement** Updated April 14, 2026
Tim Chambers, @tchambers@indieweb.social Updated: April 2026 Enhancing User Experience for Remote Social Interactions in ActivityPub Applications I. Introduction: The Challenge of Federated Interactions Decentralized social networking platforms, operating on a federated model where users reside on independent servers (instances) yet can interact across the network, offer resilience and community autonomy. However, this architecture has historically presented user experience (UX) challenges, particularly for interactions initiated from one instance but targeting a user or content on another. Continue reading →
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Merry Christmas everyone!
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Cool, added this search tool to my micro.blog site, will find out best way to add it to top of the UX:
