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chrismessina.me
Chris Messina
@chrismessina.me
39K followers 1K following 2.2K posts
😬 Man of the internet; generalist.
🆕 App updates and snark.
🫡 Twitter sober since April '23.
#️⃣ Invented the hashtag.
🚬 Non-smoker.
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chrismessina.me
Chris Messina @chrismessina.me · Nov 28
Bluesky is fun.

Feels like old Twitter.

So much overconfidence in ignorant positions!

I missed this! 🦃
chrismessina.me
Wow... Capital One just acquired Brex.

"Today, Brex and Capital One are announcing the largest bank-fintech deal in history for $5.15B, joining forces to build the most important financial platform for businesses in the US."

Big exit for YC!
Brex is joining forces with Capital One
Brex and Capital One are joining forces in the largest bank-fintech deal in history. CEO Pedro Franceschi shares what this means for the future of finance.
www.brex.com
January 23, 2026 at 6:40 PM
chrismessina.me
Spotify’s DJ is now appearing as a mini search bar below the speed dial section: “Ask for some music”.

#NewSpotify
A music streaming interface displays various audio content options. At the top, there's a section labeled "All," with categories for Music, Podcasts, and Audiobooks. Featured prominently is the title "Empire of Orgasm: Sex, Power, and the..." alongside a progress bar indicating playback. Below, several audio selections are visible, including "daylist," "nail polish Radio," "Dilworth," "All-In with Chamath, Jason,...," "Techdirt," and "Galaxy Brain." A prompt at the bottom encourages users to ask for music. A blue interface for an AI DJ application. The header features the title "The Erosion of the Sources of American Economy" and indicates a connection to "Master's AirPods Pro III." The screen displays a message from the DJ asking what can be played, with options to let the DJ select music or request specific tracks. Below, suggestions for music styles include "Minimal techno for a focused afternoon session" and "Ambient tracks." A text box invites users to type requests in English.
January 23, 2026 at 12:55 AM
chrismessina.me
Product Hunt is experimenting with an AI commenter called "Curious Kitty".

www.producthunt.com/p/general/cu...

#NewProductHunt
The image features a screenshot from a discussion on Product Hunt regarding a new account named "Curious Kitty." The post highlights that this account is part of an official experiment aimed at enhancing user engagement by providing additional context around product launches. It includes a comment from Sapnesh Naik, an AI Test Engineer at BlinqIQ, discussing the benefits of using the AI Recorder for test creation, emphasizing significant time savings compared to traditional methods. The conversation also touches on concerns about AI potentially overshadowing human input, with a reminder to prioritize human contributions. The overall tone encourages clarity in communication about projects and their intended audiences.
January 20, 2026 at 6:43 PM
Reposted by Chris Messina
tynanpurdy.com
I have no more patience for platforms. I'm done.
#offprint

https://tynanistyping.offprint.app/a/3mcsvjjceei23-publishing-on-the-atmosphere
Tynan Is Typing | Tynan Purdy | Offprint
Take a peek inside my brain. Internet thoughts. Design takes. Pontificating on life.
tynanistyping.offprint.app
January 20, 2026 at 2:12 AM
Reposted by Chris Messina
anew.social
For our first launch of the year, we're kicking off with more blocking features!

Rolling out today: ATProto across Bluesky, Blacksky, and any other PDS can apply domain blocklists to Bridgy Fed. Blocks come with if you Bounce, and we even added a handy list of reputable blocklists to choose from.
Launch: Domain Blocklists
In November last year, we began developing additional user-facing moderation features for Bridgy Fed users. While blocking users across the bridge was always possible via DMs, we knew it would be easi...
blog.anew.social
January 19, 2026 at 5:22 PM
Reposted by Chris Messina
offprint.app
The first article published on Offprint. @tynanpurdy.com on ownership, portability, and why he's done with platforms.

Thanks for being first, Tynan. "People over protocols, protocols over platforms" is a better manifesto than anything we could have written.
January 20, 2026 at 2:35 AM
Reposted by Chris Messina
gregpak.net
Are you still posting on X?

Please stop.
josiegz.bsky.social Josie Glausiusz @josiegz.bsky.social · 14d
Some Grok users, mostly men, began to demand to see bruising on the bodies of the women, and for blood to be added to the images. Requests to show women tied up and gagged were instantly granted.

‘Add blood, forced smile’:

www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...
‘Add blood, forced smile’: how Grok’s nudification tool went viral
The ‘put her in a bikini’ trend rapidly evolved into hundreds of thousands of requests to strip clothes from photos of women, horrifying those targeted
www.theguardian.com
January 11, 2026 at 9:36 PM
chrismessina.me
"Like hashtags, but for stocks."

Hmm, not really but okay!
bsky.app Bluesky @bsky.app · 10d
Also new in v1.114 today: cashtags! Like hashtags, but for stocks.

Tag your posts with #$AAPL, #$NVDA, whatever, then tap to see everyone else's equally unqualified analysis!
January 17, 2026 at 8:40 PM
chrismessina.me
Happy birthday 🌉!
snarfed.org Ryan @snarfed.org · 17d
It's hard to believe, but Bridgy is 14 years old today. I launched the first version of it way back in 2012. Happy birthday, little project buddy! 🎂🎈🎉
Bridgy up and running
I’ve just released Bridgy, a little side project I’ve been working on. Got a blog? Share your blog posts on social networks? Wish comments on those shared posts also showed up on your b…
snarfed.org
January 8, 2026 at 5:21 PM
chrismessina.me
This is super interesting, and will likely be a big trend (local AI on personal data) in Q1 2026.

/by @0thernet.bsky.social
Using AI for Personal Data
Actually using all this data that is collected around us
substack.com
January 2, 2026 at 10:23 PM
chrismessina.me
Lol... “You guys wanna DROP some data with me?” 🤓
Delete request and opt-out platform (DROP)
Protect your personal information. Data brokers collect, share, and sell your personal information. You can stop that from happening.
privacy.ca.gov
January 2, 2026 at 12:39 AM
chrismessina.me
Attention farming in social media is like rice farming in feudal Japan:

every post is a grain,

both require endless cultivation for sustenance.

#NotAHaiku
A classical Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock–style painting depicting feudal-era rice paddies flowing across rolling hills. Hundreds of Edo-period farmers stand knee-deep in flooded fields, wearing traditional clothing and straw hats. Each figure is quietly absorbed in a modern smartphone, its pale blue glow lighting their faces. The cold, artificial light contrasts starkly with the warm earth tones of the paddies and sky. The scene features delicate hand-inked linework, flat color planes, subtle gradients, and mist-softened mountains in the distance—an understated anachronism merging premodern agricultural labor with contemporary digital fixation.
December 30, 2025 at 9:34 PM
chrismessina.me
Telling my kids this is how mirror neurons form
jjvincent.bsky.social James Vincent @jjvincent.bsky.social · 29d
another robot highlight for 2025: man wearing humanoid mocap suit kicks himself in the balls
December 28, 2025 at 3:03 AM
chrismessina.me
Half of my bluesky experience is AI porn bots following me and the rest is randoms, including static site generators that live in PDSes

So only half as bad as X!
December 24, 2025 at 5:59 AM
Reposted by Chris Messina
wesleyfinck.org
I went ahead and created a pol.is conversation about this, pls contribute! pol.is/7bdiwbvh2d

You can contribute by voting on statements and/or adding your own statements.

First time using it, hope it helps surface useful insight!
December 22, 2025 at 7:20 AM
chrismessina.me
Zucked, same as it ever was.
pfrazee.com Paul Frazee @pfrazee.com · Dec 19
Ah that's crazy, it's almost like Threads picked up the decentralization messaging when they launched so they could neutralize the Atmosphere

sources.news/p/whats-next...
The fediverse is on maintenance mode Threads still supports federation with other apps like Mastodon, but Hayes was clear that it’s not a top priority for the current roadmap. “It’s something that we’re supporting, it’s something that we’re maintaining, but it’s not the thing that we’re talking about that’s gonna help the app break out,” he said. “As someone who has built a zillion consumer products, it’s just really hard to keep these divergent platforms and products consistent on the same protocol over time,” he explained. “There’s always going to be the trade-offs that these companies are thinking about of how much energy do I want to pour into compatibility with this ecosystem versus iterating on this thing I’m building and seeing what’s valuable.”
December 19, 2025 at 8:20 AM
chrismessina.me
I bought my ticket to #ATmosphereConf.
Be there in Vancouver March 2026!

/cc @snarfed.org @j12t.org
ATmosphereConf 2026
ATmosphereConf is the global AT Protocol community conference Join us in Vancouver, BC, Canada, March 2026 at the UBC campus. Come early for two days of extended events, deep dives, and local activiti...
atmosphereconf.org
December 19, 2025 at 5:10 AM
chrismessina.me
Super smart.

Spotify is promoting "New Year's Eve mixed playlists¹ ", using their new feature² that lets you control add customize transitions between tracks. 🪩

You can see columns for BPM and key in playlists that have been mixed.

(Also note the animated shine on the album artwork)

#NewSpotify
December 17, 2025 at 8:31 PM
chrismessina.me
There’s something ironic about a book about AI safety, ethics, and society being narrated by Digital Voice Maxwell G.
This image is a screenshot of an audiobook page for "Introduction to AI Safety, Ethics and Society" by Dan Hendrycks. It shows the book cover on the left and details such as the title, author, and date of publication below it. There is a green "Included in Premium" label indicating the audiobook is part of a premium service. To the right, there are playback controls including play, add, and download buttons. A red arrow points from the bottom right corner to a text box that states, "Narrated By Digital Voice Maxwell G" and "This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice," with an emoji of a person thinking next to the arrow.
December 17, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Reposted by Chris Messina
bsky.app
v1.112 is live!

We’re launching Find Friends, a contact import feature that helps you find people you know on Bluesky.

Try it! In the mobile app, go to Settings → Find friends from contacts.

Read how we took a more secure approach to this than other platforms: bsky.social/about/blog/1...
December 17, 2025 at 12:49 AM
chrismessina.me
Code is now a commodity.

As the ability to generate software results in its abundance, value shifts to taste, judgment, and orchestration.

Meet the Mixologist, Producer, and Architect—three archetypes builders can embody in order to thrive in the AI era:
Code as Commodity
What can salt teach about thriving in abundance?
blog.chrismessina.me
December 16, 2025 at 10:33 PM
chrismessina.me
#100DaysOfRaycast just concluded — go see @alexi.build’s archive 👇🏻
alexi.build Alexi @alexi.build · Dec 12
Day 100 of #100DaysOfRaycast

Today marks the final day of the 100 Days Raycast Challenge, but I won't stop here, I'm doubling down!

- I'm going to do another 100 days! There are just so many features in Raycast that we haven't explored yet.

- I'll launch @RaycastWeekly Newsletter soon!
December 12, 2025 at 3:51 PM
chrismessina.me
Product Hunt has added a new “Best Products” item to their nav bar, listing Trending Categories of top reviewed products.

In addition, Shoutouts have been retired in favor of “Orbit Awards”, the successor to the Golden Kitty Awards.

#NewProductHunt
This image is a partial screenshot of a webpage showing a navigation sidebar and a list of top products launching today. The sidebar on the right displays categories such as "Orbit Awards," "Trending Categories," "Engineering & Development," "LLMs," "Productivity," "Marketing & Sales," "Design & Creative," "Social & Community," "Finance," and "AI Agents." The highlighted category is "Social & Community." The main content area shows a list of product names, descriptions, and user interactions, including "ClickUp 4.0," "Finesse by Skipp AI," and "echo," with followings, upvotes, and comments. There are also small cloud icons with numbers on the right side indicating some form of metric or count.
December 11, 2025 at 8:42 PM
chrismessina.me
ICYMI, CBP is operationalizing parts of EO 14161, including: “Mandatory disclosure of social media covering the last five years for Visa Waiver Program travelers via ESTA” and collecting “High Value Data Elements”.
This image is a screenshot of a text document highlighting a paragraph about social media requirements. It states that, to comply with the January 2025 Executive Order 14161 protecting the United States from foreign terrorists and security threats, CBP is adding social media as a mandatory data element for ESTA applications. The highlighted section specifies that social media information must be provided by ESTA applicants for the last 5 years. The text is formatted with bold and italics for headings, and the highlighted part is in blue. This image is a screenshot of a list detailing high-value data fields required for certain applications. It includes items such as telephone numbers, email addresses, IP addresses, family member names, and contact information used over the past five or ten years. It also lists data related to family members like birth dates, places of birth, residencies, and biometric data such as face, fingerprint, DNA, and iris information. Additionally, it mentions business telephone numbers and email addresses used within the last five or ten years. The list is formatted in a clear, bulleted style, with each point labeled by a letter from a to k.
December 10, 2025 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Chris Messina
mmasnick.bsky.social
Remember when the internet wasn't awful? We can go back to that.

Some friends and I have released the Resonant Computing Manifesto: a call to bring back such a time, to see if we can bring back a world where technology works for us, rather than against us.

resonantcomputing.org
The Resonant Computing Manifesto
Technology should bring out the best in humanity, not the worst—a manifesto for resonant computing built on five principles that reject hyper-scale extraction for human flourishing.
resonantcomputing.org
December 5, 2025 at 5:57 PM