Atmospheric Weather Report #3

This weeks report is collectively curated and could have not been possible without curation efforts from @jauntywk.bsky.social, @ronentk.me, @tynanpurdy.com, and @byarielm.fyi. Check out the open @semble.so collection to participate in future reports.

Check out last weeks report here.

Cloud Formations

• The IEFT working group for atproto has been approved. This is a major milestone that shifts the protocol towards non-Bluesky governance.
• @bad-example.com received a $20k grant from Bluesky to build out Hubble, a full network mirror/archive.
• @eurosky.social and @igalia.com announced a partnership to build out the open social web.
• Bluesky announced a $100 million Series B from a year ago. Lots of discussion arose from why they waited so long. @toni.bsky.team, Bluesky's interim CEO, shared why his weekly recap.
• @radmakr.com released an auth-proxy.
• @thisismissem.social spurred some projects by @wake.st (here) and @aka.dad (here) to collect logos for atproto apps.
• @carbonadoks.bsky.social created a thread reader in the style of 5D chess time travel. They also made another tool to search through your previous interactions with someone else. @trysound.io also prototyped an alternative bluesky viewers in the theme of hackernews.
• The atproto identity management service @plural.host is now open to the public.
• @ngerakines.me released ramjet, a new type of relay consumer.
• Bots and spam:
  1. @baileytownsend.dev released a new captcha system for PDS creation called PDS Gatekeeper.
  2. Discussion ensued after a wave to spam bots came on to the network. @tophhie.social wrote more about it.
  3. The latest version of the Bluesky app added bot labels.
• @chrisvanderloo.com created some Astro loaders for syncing atproto collections.
• @hipstersmoothie.com released an early version of @kich.io for pantry tracking, recipe management, and grocery planning.
• New updates for @heron.tunji.dev, particularly the new profile tab for seeing long-form writing from other atproto apps.
• @j4ck.xyz open sourced a tools for accessing Bluesky records as markdown.
• @minormobius.bsky.social announced ATPhoto, to manage photos on atproto
• @semble.so teased an integration with @chive.pub.
• @flo-bit.dev released contrail, an atproto backend that runs on cloudflare. @esb.lol also previewed a backfilling/sync solution that runs on cloudflare.
• @blooym.dev released an alpha for Stargraph, to manage profiles across the atmosphere.
• @blooym.dev announced a blob proxy called Porxie.
• @eurosky.social has a place to propose feature requests.
• @leaflet.pub shared a writeup of all of the changes they've been working on in the new year.
• @sifa.id made a LinkedIn importer.
• @blueat.net announced services for favicons, CDN, and Twitter mirroring.
• @torrho.blacksky.team made a proposal for PDS to PDS repo migrations.
• @formerlab.bsky.social released a FORTRAN bluesky client.
• @notplants.bsky.social shared some explorations about using a PDS as a p2p sync relay.
• @burrito.space shared an early version of p2pds, a local PDS archival/backup tool.

Flocks

• @atmosphereconf.org is next week!
  1. Submit launch announcements for the conf here.
  2. @bmann.ca shared some activities to do in Vancouver.
  3. the full schedule can be found here and here.
• The weekly atproto virtual hangout is this Sunday.
• @thomaslundstrom.bsky.social is looking for folks interested in presenting about atproto architecture at Øredev.
• @flo-bit.dev announced an alpha for atmosphere events.

Whispers in the Wind

• @laurenshof.online wrote an essay about the purpose of protocols in response to @pfrazee.com's essay Practical Decentralization. Paul responded by elaborated on why they decided to go with a VC funded corporation. @moja.blue also wrote a response.
• @bumblefudge.com published "The Decent Identity" part 1 and part 2.
• @dholms.at continues their series on permissioned data, buckets have been renamed to spaces and shared higher-level overview.
• @habitat.network continued their series on permissioned data.
• @zicklag.dev started a conversation about UCAN and atproto.
• @macwright.com wrote about breaking a habit of now building anything with atproto.
• @dholms.at mentioned PDS as a user agent, related to @whenthetimeca.me's idea of server user-agents.
• @natespilman.com shared some thoughts about atproto for normies.
• A research paper about community Moderation and blocking on Bluesky.
• @nel.pet was thinking about the association between atproto and DIDs and thinking about them in a cross-protocol/platform way.
• @bmann.ca wondered why the messaging around shared lexicons hasn't been resonating.
• @byarielm.fyi walks through about making custom feeds.
• With the announcement that Instragram will be ending E2EE DMs, @bnewbold.net riffs of E2EE and atproto.
• @aviva.gay shared a mini-tutorial on migration did:web to a new pds. @baileytownsend.dev also announced the first successful did:web migration on PDS MOOver.
• @rude1.blacksky.team
  1. is thinking about "The AT Protocol Browser", which @bmann.ca confirmed the bluesky team has mentioned they are not interested in.
  2. prompted a discussion verifying the number of active accounts on atproto.
  3. Posted about @rude1.blacksky.team crossing $6k in monthly subscriptions.
• @natespilman.com drafted some thoughts on custom HTML elements for @plyr.fm.
• Submit your projects theme to @atprotocol.dev.
• @boltless.me started a discussion around AT URIs for app records.
• @evan.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy suggests using CBOR for serialization with Activity Streams.
• @patak.cat shares a post about @npmx.dev's integration with atproto.
• @goat.navy wrote about did:cow.
• @roel.vanhooydonck.nl writes about publishing with @leaflet.pub over Substack.
• @moja.blue wrote about Mezzanine and permissioned data on atproto.
• @mihaizaurus.at wrote about the power of community.
• @taurean.bryant.land was thinking about why atproto "apps" might be a misleading name.
• @ngerakines.me gathered some thoughts about private blobs.
• @agent.io wrote about building a PDS.
• Discussion about cost to host a Mastodon server vs PDS arose.
• @taurenldn.bsky.social asks how Blacksky can interact with Bluesky's off-protocol DMs and @baileytownsend.dev explains.

That’s all for this week,

Chris

(Note that next week there will not be a weather report because I will be traveling to Atmosphere conf. Follow the semble collection for the time being.)