I found out about this whimsical and magical place because I have been working on an app called sidequests! It's a self-hosted, open-source community app that encourages and incentivizes people to connect and support each other through quests! Quests can be anything like "I need a ride somewhere" or "Can someone help me move my furniture!" Users gain magic by doing quests and spend magic to post quests. There are also adventures which are public quests where the hosts can set a Secret and ppl who show up can get some magic if they put in the secret (plaintext, link, QR)! Magic can be used to unlock user flair and things like badges, backgrounds, fonts, etc. After an event, users can make a community post showing what they did on their quest/adventure so other people can get a glimpse into the magical worlds of their neighbors and get inspired to help out in their communities! Currently, it is a pretty traditional web app in the sense that it uses Docker and PostgreSQL for user data and such. I am a big proponent of data sovereignty and I Do Not Want People's Data!! I already knew about ActivityPub but it didn't satisfy the use cases I wanted. The AT protocol had the same limitations. So I did some digging on different social protocols and I stumbled across this magical realm! My eyes were literally fucking tearing up because this was everything I had dreamed of and more!!! Soooo needless to say, I am rewiring my entire project to use Nostr. The project is still in alpha, and since I am using Nuxt as my framework, I am now working on converting the Svelte NDK bindings to Vue ones so I (and others of course!) can use Vue with the NDK. I am passing all tests atm but I need to do some testing and documentation work. This is my repo for sidequests! I wish I could send you a prod link of it up and running but my homeserver is down rn. There are instructions in the wiki for setting up your own instance if you are curious :) https://codeberg.org/shusterrooster/sidequests I am genuinely going to convert basically all of my projects to using Nostr because this is not only the future, but the present (🎁) we deserve. Thank you for being on here and making this domain such a wonderful place! I am a big fan of the Nostr projects you are working on, keep up the great work :)

I genuinely can't believe I have gone this long without knowing about this incredible protocol! I am so amazed by everything I am seeing!!! What are your favorite Nostr apps that you use? What has been your experience on here? Please let me know your thoughts!

damn u got me there lol. I knew beef was bad for water consumption but I'm gonna start cuttin back on dairy now too 🙏

Oh definitely. I would use it in some cases, probably mostly to help with debugging stuff because AI gives a granular and more human way to search for things and ask questions. Even when it's wrong, it can still point you in the right direction. I definitely agree with your last statement, if I am only doing something for a client and it doesn't need to be the best - I would probably use a bit of AI to at least make the structure and just build and fix from there. I said in my original post that I have been interested in self-hosting models as this solves many of the issues I have with generative AI, but I haven't committed to looking too deeply into it just due to being busy and fixing my homeserver lol

I feel very similarly. I am also studying comp sci atm and I feel I am one of only a handful of students who are morally opposed to the damages of the AI ecosystem. I use it at a complete minimum, opting to read documentation thoroughly and hand-rolling my own code. I have also seen studies showing that gen AI tools make people Less productive as they have to spend more time fixing the code of the model and also make it so they don't learn the underlying systems of what they're creating. I think generative AI also feeds into the hustle culture of capitalism, it's all just Go Go Go and nothing about putting love into your creations. My coding projects are my art, they are how I breathe my life into this world, and it sucks to feel like you have to rush for no good reason. I love this world dearly. I feel crazy because everyone around me is all-in on this technology, but I cannot, in good faith, use these tools given the damage they are causing and will continue to cause.

How do you all go about using AI? I have generally tried to steer away from it, given the egregious water usage and pollution the data centers generate; not to mention the digital privacy aspect of big tech companies training their models off your personal data. It doesn't sit right with me - but I also understand that this is a really cool technology with its own upsides and downsides. I understand I am in the minority, especially amongst developers and Nostr enthusiasts. I wish to fight for a better world with the technologies available to us, but I do not wish to contribute to the harms that the corporations building this technology are committing intentionally. I am curious about self-hosting smaller models but I haven't taken the plunge just due to being busy. How do you feel about all of this? How do you use AI in your personal life? What are some ways that AI use has Improved your life? How has it Negatively affected your life? Please share your thoughts :)

This is really interesting! The project still seems to be quite early but it looks like things are coming together slowly but surely. I think the architecture does tackle some of the problems of Nostr like relay centralization, efficiency, and data ownership but the docs don't do a great job of explaining how different services should build things in standard forms (think NIPs) and how homeservers can and should be utilized by users. Most people, even those with a more technical background will probably not want to do the work and maintenance of hosting their own server and it is unclear to me where your data lives when you don't host your own homeserver. I think it would be cool if your phone could be a homeserver with just an app install, but maybe that wouldn't be the best. ALSO I read through the privacy policy of Pubky Ring and Pubky App and it just feels like they collect too much information. Given the fact they don't have a keyring app for iOS yet, I will hold off on adoption for now and see how things progress. Thank you for sharing! This is a really cool technology and I would love to hear your thoughts :)

On a separate note, I am thinking about talking to local businesses and seeing if you could trade in some magic for something like a sticker or a drink or something! Which would definitely fall more in line with crypto usage as magic. Do a quest, get a sticker :)

It's definitely something I have been thinking about given the nature of Nostr and instant transactions (like you said) but I am a bit wary because users will start off with some magic so they can post quests and such so anyone hosting an instance would need to have a pool of crypto that they can give to new users which doesn't sound like a great idea. I feel there are more caveats, even without this limitation and I just worry it has the potential to bypass the point of the app, but I am truly open to hearing your thoughts! I am definitely inclined to have crypto wallet support so people can transfer funds without worry, but that would probably be a separate optional thing. Let me know your thoughts!

Aww thank you so much 🥹 I am truly honored to be here and know such amazing people are out here using our technology for good! I will be sure to ask any questions if I have any, thank you so much :)

Hi Alex! Big fan of your work with Soapbox and Ditto! I would love to get in touch with you two! Do you have a preferred communication platform? Oh wow!! I don't even know where to begin with support haha, I am a college student and I'm relatively new to web dev so I'm still learning the ropes and learning everything I can! Would love to get in touch and see how I can support you and learn and grow with these projects! Thank you for your support 😊