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Blaine

@blaine.bsky.social
7.7K followers 633 following 1.4K posts

Sociotechnologist, activist. First employee @ Twitter, built that and pioneered social decentralization, created OAuth. Shy cloud-observer, mostly. Building Roundabout for local communities at @newpublic.org.

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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This is so exciting. I say that as someone building what would have historically been seen as a "competitive" product. Instead, we're building on shared foundations. Our shared goals are measured in terms of our communities' collective well-being. 💖
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
@jerthorp.bsky.social is an incredible human who LOVES birbs and knows everything about them. He also knows everything about data visualization, and is a great teacher. If you're over 35, I think this class is mandatory: www.jerthorp.me/learning
jerthorp.me
LEARNING | jerthorp
Online courses and wokshops about birds, data and creative coding. Binoculars to Binomials is for coders who are interested in cultivating an observational practice, and for birders who want to dive ...
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Simon Willison @simonwillison.net · 18/09/2026
Being a computer scientist who refuses to find anything about LLMs interesting right now is a bit like being a geneticist who refuses to find anything interesting about the recently opened Jurassic Park
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
@standard.site folks: how are we doing different types of publications? Is there any way of signaling "newsletter" vs "blog post" vs "technical documentation" or "poem"?
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Amy Zhang @axz.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
We were interested in studying the Bsky custom feed ecosystem, with a focus on feed creators, as arguably the first real instantiation of the vision of middleware providers for social media services like recommendation. The idea always seemed great in theory, but how sustainable is it really?
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I love this new passkey feature where I have to cancel three separate requests from password managers (1p 🤢, Keychain, Google) and then select which passkey provider to use, and then unlock with my fingerprint. If I get any of them wrong, the auth fails and sends me to the fallback. It's so great.
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Eleanor Saitta @dymaxion.org · 11/09/2026
Repeat after me: all technical problems of sufficient scope or impact are actually political problems first.
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Rude1 Haunted Badness. ⁂ @rude1.blacksky.team · 10/09/2026
We’ve changed the title to “Founding Designer” to better represent the ownership responsibilities of the role We have also opened up to remote (US) with eastern time overlap. blackskyweb.xyz/about/jobs/f...
blackskyweb.xyz
Founding Designer
Product, brand, and visual identity About Blacksky Algorithms Blacksky Algorithms is building an interconnected suite of products reshaping how people connect, participate, organize, and transact onli...
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Anil Dash @anildash.com · 09/09/2026
There are a lot of people who think their parents got their brains destroyed by Fox News, but somehow they’re not getting their brains destroyed by staying on Twitter.
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Rude1 Haunted Badness. ⁂ @rude1.blacksky.team · 02/09/2026
@blackskyweb.xyz is building an interconnected suite of products reshaping how people connect, participate, organize, and transact online. We’re looking for a Head of Design to lead and shape how our products and brands look, feel, and work. please circulate widely. blackskyweb.xyz/about/jobs/h...
blackskyweb.xyz
Head of Design
Product, brand, and visual identity About Blacksky Algorithms Blacksky Algorithms is building an interconnected suite of products reshaping how people connect, participate, organize, and transact onli...
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I started to write an essay in this text box about the tensions of technology, understanding, economics, and social value – but I have so much (meaningful) work to do that I've managed to stop myself. If the above sounds interesting (esp. the "meaningful work" bit), come hang out with us!
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
This would give us a way to talk about how much impact a given system has: "a single email account is probably on the order of 100 μDEUh per year, while Palantir's stack for 300k people might be 1 MDEUh per year, or 30,000x more impact than the equivalent email system."
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
I think we need a way to talk about datacenter usage. Everyone uses datacenters, like everyone uses fossil fuels. Some more than others. I propose "Datacenter Equivalent Unit" or DEU, comparable to the shipping industry's TEU ("Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit") or "barrels" for oil usage.
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
It doesn't help anyone when people who buy beef and pork daily from McDonalds and Walmart – but who think that veganism is good in principle – spend significant energy attacking the local cooperative organic farm for raising a handful of free-range chickens.
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
James Bond writer tempted to set next 007 movie in surprise locationThree blue-collar guys sitting behind a porch railing in front of an unremarkable looking house in the countryside.
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
I'm pretty excited about this: we're launching a ヽ(^O^)ノ paid ⎝(^O^)ヽ virtual residency at New_ Public for folks with big ideas for making the internet a better place. Got a big idea? 💡✅ Care about people and communities? 💖✅ Please apply and share! newpublic.org/eir
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Come work with us!
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
So excited that I can finally talk about this! We're working with Chicago Public Media to bring @roundabout.town to communities across Chicago, under the umbrella of chicago.com! (all built on atproto!)
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Evelyn @kandake.africa · 28/07/2026
After AtmosphereConf I was hit with the realization that I couldn't continue working in corporate tech where I had could not see the impact of my or the companies work on communities. I've started a new venture, Eskahlay, rooted in my nubian culture to build sustainable community technology.
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Lexicon d'Origine Contrôlée
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Today feels like celebrating a twenty-year wedding anniversary, five years after a catastrophic divorce ended the relationship. For me, the relationship started well before the ceremony, and the fault lines of the relationship were visible soon after the honeymoon ended. bsky.app/profile/newp...
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Happy Canadian Visibility Day! 🍁🇨🇦
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
I've had this poster hanging on my wall for well over a decade. It's not radical, it's common decency.
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
I've just watched a presentation by one of the most incredible, thoughtful researchers I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. I hope I can share it, because I'm crying here. 😭 Living in a tiny community that's lived through a major wildfire is a vibe, y'all.
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
At Roundabout, we're very excited about this proposal for permissioned atproto data. Roundabout has been built on atproto, but has been on a separate network because there are some (many!) things that just aren't for the whole world. This will bring us a big step closer to being on main!
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Rude1 Haunted Badness. ⁂ @rude1.blacksky.team · 23/06/2026
Blacksky is building ~the intercommunal net~ where communities create virtual spaces collectively managed by their members -- from moderation policies to recommender algorithms. We're hiring a Founding Engineer (Rust) @ $180K base who will report directly to me and lead our atproto implementation.
blackskyweb.xyz
Founding Engineer (Rust)
Systems, protocol, and infrastructure About Blacksky Blacksky helps communities create virtual third places where members democratically govern the recommender algorithms and moderation policies that ...
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
My thought for the day: Don't confuse products with protocols, and vice-versa.
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
This is a good explainer. The one change I'd make is that the fiefdom thing is something that very explicitly came from Mastodon, as it was implemented in the world. ActivityPub is in many ways just "two-way, more efficient RSS"
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
This article calls out something interesting about the C-22 debacle. C-22 makes clear that no encryption back-doors should be in place, and it seems like the liberal ministers and law enforcement "just" want to be able to make secret metadata and data retention orders.
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Leader of a national party, hanging out in cattle class. Love to see it.
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
It was the best of governments / it was the worst of governments.
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New_ Public @newpublic.org · 16/06/2026
Here’s @rude1.blacksky.team, Founder and CEO of @blackskyweb.xyz and Excellence Award Winner of the #OpenSocialAwards. Blacksky is a beacon of choice, community, and agency in a bleak social media landscape. They’re building the tools they need and sharing them with everyone.
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
This is such a farce. "They put slot machines in the libraries! That's probably bad!" / *Government does nothing for 20 years, enshittification of libraries continues* / "We must ban libraries, they're harming the children!"
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
"We are so committed to fairness that we have lost sight of the unfairness of doing nothing." I feel like this quote, from this article about an indigenous project to address the problem of housing unaffordability in Vancouver, is true of so many things right now: www.nytimes.com/2026/06/15/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | One City Might Have Just Cracked the Housing Crisis
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Sam Goto @sgo.to · 12/06/2026
More info here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzMx... Coming out June 28th to chrome stable: developer.chrome.com/blog/io26-we... Should work out of the box for gmail addresses, but you can run your own email provider / issuer: dickhardt.github.io/email-verifi... RPs: github.com/samuelgoto/e...
youtube.com
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
I just tried a thing that I've honestly been waiting for since ~2006. @sgo.to is a genius, and his persistence is a godsend. I'm told it'll be live in a few months-ish. Can't wait to share more widely, thinking about implications in the meantime. (Sorry to be coy, it's not easily demo-able yet)
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Same, but in 🇨🇦 cc @avilewis.ca - we really need to get our geese in a flank, or we'll just mint Telus as the new Meh-ta.
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Robin Berjon @robin.berjon.com · 12/06/2026
Expect to see more of this before it changes. The old European elite has figured out that there's money to be made repeating the same business strategies that have got us where we are but with a 🇪🇺 sticker on top. It'll take a bit of a time for people to notice that we also need new thinking.
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New_ Public @newpublic.org · 11/06/2026
We had so many amazing applicants to the #OpenSocialAwards that the jury asked that we acknowledge some of the amazing honorable mentions. First up: @stream.place brings a familiar Twitch/YouTube-style video experience to the open social web.
Pink background with blue dandelion seeds graphic and "Open Social Awards" text. Pink banner reads "Honorable Mention." Shows pink cube logo, "Streamplace | Seattle, USA" and description "Open-source live and on-demand video built on AT Protocol, verifying human authenticity in an era of AI-generated content."
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Boris @bmann.ca · 11/06/2026
The ONLY bright spot is that … it seems like almost none of it is fully baked and being left to figure out AFTER the bill is passed Like C-22, I created an open collection on Semble for stashing links semble.so/profile/bman...
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Really disappointed that Canada is joining the crowd in banning social media for under-16s. The *best-case* scenario is that it entrenches Apple and Google's control over our online identities, and will do very little to improve things for kids, let alone the rest of us.
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
A social media ban for under-16s would probably fix this.
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
I need to write more about this, but one of the core benefits of atproto is that it (dramatically) lowers the cost of coordination, both in divergence and convergence.
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
So much this. Listen to Rachel "wise web lady" Coldicutt.
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
This Halifax Public Library vending machine at the Halifax airport is so cool! @hfxgov.bsky.social ❤️📚
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New_ Public @newpublic.org · 05/06/2026
🏆 Congratulations to @newsmastfoundation.org, @sill.social, and @blackskyweb.xyz, the winners of the first ever Open Social Awards! 👏👏👏 New_ Public, @publicspaces.net, and @waag.org are proud to award them in recognition of their excellence and innovation on the open social web. newpublic.org/OSA
A graphic announcing the Open Social Awards 2026 Winners. The light blue header features a fireworks illustration and the Open Social Awards logo. Below, on a white background: Grand Prize goes to Newsmast Foundation (shown with a red geometric logo). Excellence Awards go to Sill (shown with a gold "S" logo) and Blacksky Algorithms (shown with a black starburst logo). Honourable Mentions go to Bounce, Dandelion, Streamplace, Leaflet, and Bonfire Networks.
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
An observation while I'm at #pubconf26: it's a little thing, but we use hashtags because Twitter never added support for properly tagging tweets as "part of a conversation" - there is nothing stopping us from doing this now. We talk about fun and functionality, so let's do it.
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Ben Werdmuller @werd.io · 05/06/2026
“The time for dialogue with these people is long gone.” @robin.berjon.com’s opening talk is a call to action to build collective power in opposition to extractive big tech. #pubconf2026
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Fuck cancer.
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Blaine @blaine.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
@kandake.africa @robin.berjon.com I can't reply on the other thread, but kich.io looks great! I didn't get a publishing interface done, but I was playing around with some related bits on pannacotta.org a few months back – need to get kich recipes in there, too, now! 😁
pannacotta.org
Panna Cotta
Explore 5,000+ semantically annotated recipes powered by RelationalText
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