Rob Ricci
@ricci.io
Research Professor in the Kahlert School of Computing at the University of Utah
Not planning to be here much, my main account is on the fediverse at https://discuss.systems/@ricci/ - you can follow it directly here as
@ricci.discuss.systems.ap.brid.gy
Not planning to be here much, my main account is on the fediverse at https://discuss.systems/@ricci/ - you can follow it directly here as
@ricci.discuss.systems.ap.brid.gy
Do you want to know what your "Following" feed would look like without Bluesky-the-company? @mackuba.eu made a feed for this! Check out bsky.app/profile/did:... - you'll only see accounts you're following that are not on Bluesky-owned personal data servers (PDSes).
November 23, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Do you want to know what your "Following" feed would look like without Bluesky-the-company? @mackuba.eu made a feed for this! Check out bsky.app/profile/did:... - you'll only see accounts you're following that are not on Bluesky-owned personal data servers (PDSes).
Reposted by Rob Ricci
This came up a bit at @eurosky.social and is the only reasonable way to talk about how centralized any decentralized system is. Without appropriate funding nobody can moderate at the scale PBC does without heavily relying on AI and we see how that’s going for us.
Let me put it this way: the bluesky PBC moderation team has as much power as 1,361 moderation teams on the fediverse, combined. (How many fedi instances have to block an account to block it from the fraction of the network bsky controls) That's a whole lot of power in a very small number of hands.
November 23, 2025 at 9:01 AM
This came up a bit at @eurosky.social and is the only reasonable way to talk about how centralized any decentralized system is. Without appropriate funding nobody can moderate at the scale PBC does without heavily relying on AI and we see how that’s going for us.
Reposted by Rob Ricci
Me and the blep.cat team are working on creating an open Bluesky PDS running on rsky-pds!
This takes a bit of setup, and we expect it to be done in 48 hours.
This takes a bit of setup, and we expect it to be done in 48 hours.
Blep.cat
blep.cat is a Fediverse instance ran by Scan, a Software Engineer! Made for everyone (except rule-breakers 😠) but mostly focused about developing and open source!
blep.cat
November 23, 2025 at 8:45 AM
Me and the blep.cat team are working on creating an open Bluesky PDS running on rsky-pds!
This takes a bit of setup, and we expect it to be done in 48 hours.
This takes a bit of setup, and we expect it to be done in 48 hours.
Reposted by Rob Ricci
It’s way past time that qualifying nations refused to attend the World Cup. This is just yet another reason. None will though.
President Donald Trump's administration will not permit supporters from Haiti to enter the United States next summer after the nation qualified for the World Cup.
Donald Trump tells one nation's fans to stay away from World Cup in America
www.mirror.co.uk
November 23, 2025 at 3:41 AM
It’s way past time that qualifying nations refused to attend the World Cup. This is just yet another reason. None will though.
Average man thinks about the Roman Empire every 40 minutes" factoid is incorrect, @themountaingoats.bsky.social , who records a new song about the Roman Empire every 47 seconds is an outlier and should not have been counted
November 23, 2025 at 5:25 AM
Average man thinks about the Roman Empire every 40 minutes" factoid is incorrect, @themountaingoats.bsky.social , who records a new song about the Roman Empire every 47 seconds is an outlier and should not have been counted
Hey atproto folks, I want feedback on some data gathering. I'm trying to get accurate monthly active user counts for each PDS.
November 21, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Hey atproto folks, I want feedback on some data gathering. I'm trying to get accurate monthly active user counts for each PDS.
Reposted by Rob Ricci
This paper was rejected 5 times, and I'm so proud of Si for not giving up on it.
(She is on the job market, in case anyone is looking for a badass data scientist with a background in high performance computing)
(She is on the job market, in case anyone is looking for a badass data scientist with a background in high performance computing)
November 19, 2025 at 4:52 AM
This paper was rejected 5 times, and I'm so proud of Si for not giving up on it.
(She is on the job market, in case anyone is looking for a badass data scientist with a background in high performance computing)
(She is on the job market, in case anyone is looking for a badass data scientist with a background in high performance computing)
Reposted by Rob Ricci
This is, of course, a fascinating thread from Kate asking why Google is effectively cannibalizing its own market for both digital ads on third party properties and search ads, by effectively taking away the incentive to click through to third party sites. I have a theory as to why they're doing it.
So this ad revenue metric is indicative of such a fascinating and weird set of business decisions by Google to inexplicably kill of SEO-- and I honestly don't get how they think this is going to pay off for them in the long run.
🧵
1/
🧵
1/
Stereogum says Google's switch to AI Overviews reduced its ad revenue by *70 percent* www.theverge.com/entertainmen...
November 18, 2025 at 9:26 PM
This is, of course, a fascinating thread from Kate asking why Google is effectively cannibalizing its own market for both digital ads on third party properties and search ads, by effectively taking away the incentive to click through to third party sites. I have a theory as to why they're doing it.
Reposted by Rob Ricci
I'm launching a new website: sdk.blue - a list of all libraries/SDKs for building things on #ATProto, grouped by language 🙂
If I forgot anything important, or you have an ATProto/Bluesky library that you think would be a good fit there (or if I should remove anything), please send me a PR :) #atdev
If I forgot anything important, or you have an ATProto/Bluesky library that you think would be a good fit there (or if I should remove anything), please send me a PR :) #atdev
sdk.blue
A curated list of libraries & SDKs for the Bluesky API and AT Protocol
sdk.blue
November 21, 2024 at 3:23 PM
Every man who thinks, "oh, it's fine, women now have the same experience in academia as men," needs to read this shit.
The emails have Summers reporting to Epstein about his attempts to date a Harvard economics student & to hit on her during a seminar she was giving.
November 16, 2025 at 12:30 AM
Every man who thinks, "oh, it's fine, women now have the same experience in academia as men," needs to read this shit.
Custom domain-name handles are how you look cool on bluesky by paying someone that isn't the platform, therefore they are isomorphic to NFT profile pics. In this paper I will ...
November 14, 2025 at 9:05 PM
Custom domain-name handles are how you look cool on bluesky by paying someone that isn't the platform, therefore they are isomorphic to NFT profile pics. In this paper I will ...
@mackuba.eu looking at the detailed numbers from PDSes used by arewedecentralizedyet.online and I noticed some things that surprised me and don't match blue.mackuba.eu/directory/pd... - curious if you have thoughts on the mismatch. ...
Are We Decentralized Yet?
A site with statistics regarding how concentrated user data is on various web services
arewedecentralizedyet.online
November 13, 2025 at 7:41 PM
@mackuba.eu looking at the detailed numbers from PDSes used by arewedecentralizedyet.online and I noticed some things that surprised me and don't match blue.mackuba.eu/directory/pd... - curious if you have thoughts on the mismatch. ...
Reposted by Rob Ricci
While cleaning a storage room, our staff found this tape containing #unix v4 from Bell Labs, circa 1973
Apparently no other complete copies are known to exist: https://gunkies.org/wiki/UNIX_Fourth_Edition
We have arranged to deliver it to the Computer History Museum
#retrocomputing
Apparently no other complete copies are known to exist: https://gunkies.org/wiki/UNIX_Fourth_Edition
We have arranged to deliver it to the Computer History Museum
#retrocomputing
November 6, 2025 at 8:50 PM
While cleaning a storage room, our staff found this tape containing #unix v4 from Bell Labs, circa 1973
Apparently no other complete copies are known to exist: https://gunkies.org/wiki/UNIX_Fourth_Edition
We have arranged to deliver it to the Computer History Museum
#retrocomputing
Apparently no other complete copies are known to exist: https://gunkies.org/wiki/UNIX_Fourth_Edition
We have arranged to deliver it to the Computer History Museum
#retrocomputing
Reposted by Rob Ricci
https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/ now measures several more ways that our online lives are (or aren't) decentralized!
In addition to decentralized social networks (the #fediverse and #atprotocol / #bluesky ) it now has data on #web serving, #git forges […]
[Original post on discuss.systems]
In addition to decentralized social networks (the #fediverse and #atprotocol / #bluesky ) it now has data on #web serving, #git forges […]
[Original post on discuss.systems]
November 4, 2025 at 3:43 PM
https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/ now measures several more ways that our online lives are (or aren't) decentralized!
In addition to decentralized social networks (the #fediverse and #atprotocol / #bluesky ) it now has data on #web serving, #git forges […]
[Original post on discuss.systems]
In addition to decentralized social networks (the #fediverse and #atprotocol / #bluesky ) it now has data on #web serving, #git forges […]
[Original post on discuss.systems]
Wow this past week is by far the biggest jump in the Shannon Index (measure of how spread out users are across PDSes) for the atproto world since I started tracking, right on
October 11, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Wow this past week is by far the biggest jump in the Shannon Index (measure of how spread out users are across PDSes) for the atproto world since I started tracking, right on
ICYMI: arewedecentralizedyet.online now has some features that show trends over time so you can watch user data get spread out more, whether you like waffles or not, and as the atproto ecosystem grows
October 4, 2025 at 6:12 PM
ICYMI: arewedecentralizedyet.online now has some features that show trends over time so you can watch user data get spread out more, whether you like waffles or not, and as the atproto ecosystem grows
Reposted by Rob Ricci
independent plc org, ietf, migrating back to bsky, patent pledge
BROTHER WE ARE JUST GETTING STARTED
BROTHER WE ARE JUST GETTING STARTED
Bluesky runs on open protocols with open source code. Today we’re taking an additional step and making a patent non-aggression pledge to ensure that everyone can build confidently on our work.
Learn more and read the pledge in our blog post: bsky.social/about/blog/1...
Learn more and read the pledge in our blog post: bsky.social/about/blog/1...
Bluesky's Patent Non-Aggression Pledge - Bluesky
Bluesky develops open protocols. We're taking a short and simple patent non-aggression pledge to ensure that everybody feels confident building on them.
bsky.social
October 1, 2025 at 6:07 PM
independent plc org, ietf, migrating back to bsky, patent pledge
BROTHER WE ARE JUST GETTING STARTED
BROTHER WE ARE JUST GETTING STARTED
Reposted by Rob Ricci
Web trackers are *everywhere*! There are trackers embedded, to some degree or another, in most of the websites people visit.
But where, actually *are* they? As in, where are they hosted?
If you're in the USA or the EU, this is pretty well-studied. In the US […]
[Original post on discuss.systems]
But where, actually *are* they? As in, where are they hosted?
If you're in the USA or the EU, this is pretty well-studied. In the US […]
[Original post on discuss.systems]
September 30, 2025 at 8:08 PM
Web trackers are *everywhere*! There are trackers embedded, to some degree or another, in most of the websites people visit.
But where, actually *are* they? As in, where are they hosted?
If you're in the USA or the EU, this is pretty well-studied. In the US […]
[Original post on discuss.systems]
But where, actually *are* they? As in, where are they hosted?
If you're in the USA or the EU, this is pretty well-studied. In the US […]
[Original post on discuss.systems]
Reposted by Rob Ricci
I'll be updating https://jaz.co.uk/projects/orgs-using-ap/ - which is a database of companies and organisation self-hosting (as in, on their own domain) an ActivityPub service of any kind.
if you know of any, please let me know.
if you know of any, please let me know.
September 24, 2025 at 8:37 PM
I'll be updating https://jaz.co.uk/projects/orgs-using-ap/ - which is a database of companies and organisation self-hosting (as in, on their own domain) an ActivityPub service of any kind.
if you know of any, please let me know.
if you know of any, please let me know.
Reposted by Rob Ricci
excited to share that we are following through on our earlier commitments and putting together an independent+neutral organization to house the DID PLC system, includes the directory service
Creating an Independent Public Ledger of Credentials (PLC) Directory Organization | Bluesky
The Bluesky Social app is built on an open network protocol that refers to each user by a unique Decentralized Identifier, or DID (a W3C standard). The most popular supported DID method was developed ...
docs.bsky.app
September 19, 2025 at 9:31 AM
excited to share that we are following through on our earlier commitments and putting together an independent+neutral organization to house the DID PLC system, includes the directory service
Reposted by Rob Ricci
Reminder! Northsky Social has two invite queues you can sign up for.
One is a high-priority queue for members of marginalized and at-risk groups. We highly recommend including your bluesky handle at signup so we can vet you faster.
You can find that sign up here: northskysocial.com/join
One is a high-priority queue for members of marginalized and at-risk groups. We highly recommend including your bluesky handle at signup so we can vet you faster.
You can find that sign up here: northskysocial.com/join
Sign up for an Invite
northskysocial.com
September 11, 2025 at 11:21 PM
Reminder! Northsky Social has two invite queues you can sign up for.
One is a high-priority queue for members of marginalized and at-risk groups. We highly recommend including your bluesky handle at signup so we can vet you faster.
You can find that sign up here: northskysocial.com/join
One is a high-priority queue for members of marginalized and at-risk groups. We highly recommend including your bluesky handle at signup so we can vet you faster.
You can find that sign up here: northskysocial.com/join