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Blueskyfeedbot: Post RSS Feeds to Bluesky via GitHub Actions

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Re: Blueskyfeedbot: Post RSS Feeds to Bluesky via GitHub Actions

#61

Somehow spooky for what github actions are used. On the one side it is cool to have hosted task runners with multiple options thanks to using vms in github actions, on the other side is the question: is this what github actions ate ment for?

According to the official documentation[1]:

> You can discover, create, and share actions to perform any job you'd like, including CI/CD, and combine actions in a completely customized workflow.

I guess it wasn't the goal initially, but it includes so much features now that it became a kind of _serverless_ orchestrator.

I don't use GitHub for that but my own self-hosted Gitea instance (so not quite serverless here), and I use it for this exact purpose: orchestrating containerized jobs without needing to setup something trickier. And since it's directly attached to a git repository, you don't need a second tool. So you know have everything configured and versionned at the same place.

Sure, it won't work if you need to run multiple big runners to do a job, but for small, periodic tasks like that, it's just so easy to do.

[1]:https://docs.github.com/en/actions

Re: Blueskyfeedbot: Post RSS Feeds to Bluesky via GitHub Actions

#62
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My distrust of Google certainly started with the shutdown of Reader. Everything they've done since has made it worse. I was in the position to choose a cloud provider several years ago and would not even consider GCP. I seriously doubt they'll kill GCP, but I see no reason to take a chance on anything Google does outside of search, docs, mail and the core things.

My self hosted FreshRSS instance is better than Google Reader ever was. Just about every website and service I use has feeds. People/geeks are rediscovering RSS. I think this might be the golden age of RSS.

Self-hosted FreshRSS + NetNewsWire on Mac and iOS/iPadOS is my combo of choice, works great. After Reader died I migrated to Feedly for a while, but self-hosting the backend and not having ads injected + being able to debug and properly manage feeds is way nicer.

Re: Blueskyfeedbot: Post RSS Feeds to Bluesky via GitHub Actions

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's complicated, and I think it's less malicious in a way that "kneecapped" implies. Sure, RSS still exists in some form, but I think the utility of it has been in decline, and a lot of 'content' simply isn't accessible by RSS feed anymore. An argument can be made that they provided an RSS reader service no one could come close to matching and basically dominated the area. Google's deep support also helped it prolif…

I haven’t noticed a decline in support for RSS. Essentially all blogs support it, even relatively new ones like Substack that are more email-centric.

I rarely see RSS buttons on websites any more, rarely does a podcast link to an RSS feed

Re: Blueskyfeedbot: Post RSS Feeds to Bluesky via GitHub Actions

#64

We've really come full circle. Back when Facebook was a user-friendly place, you could connect any RSS feed to your Facebook feed. My FB was just a collection of things I posted to del.icio.us, flickr, etc etc. It really was a sign of the crapification of that place that was to come when they ripped out this feature.

Not to mention XMPP integration. Obviously a totally different philosophy that actually cared about the user.

Used to be able to add friends birthdays and events you'd rsvp'd "Going" to your calendar via iCal URLs too. That was so damn useful.

Re: Blueskyfeedbot: Post RSS Feeds to Bluesky via GitHub Actions

#65
post #57
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an open protocol for anything that’s real-time and shareable Does that mean that at the protocol level one can share content of larger sizes than what Bluesky does by default? Even though not standard at least via the ActivityPub protocol one can set more reasonable character lengths, though unsure how most Mastodon clients handle that in practice. Bluesky devs seem set, from some past HN interaction, on keeping th…

In my experience, Mastodon clients handle large posts (say 5000 chars instead of 500) very well. > In a decentralized application, such as Bluesky, as opposed to Mastodon, I can see a future where it would be a replacement for Reddit and HN, without those limits. Not sure if you're saying that Bluesky is decentralized and Mastodon not, which if anything would be the other way around. The other interpretation is that…

Probably should have been a bit more clear.

Involuntarily when I say decentralized I'm thinking about more peer-to-peer distribution of content (a la torrents), instead of federated. Mastodon instances are these islands of content, at the whims of the owner, as to what content you can see and what policies they think there should be. Your identity is also attached to the instance, migration isn't seamless and you can't just move around your account like a domain name.

My understanding of Bluesky, actually the AT protocol, is that there are features in there to allow you to own your identity (via domain names) which would make migration between instances seamless. At the same time, there is a different deployable services for redistributing (filtered/moderated) content.

Based on posts I've seen on HN, these were still partial of planned things (?). On the other hand, not even sure if there are self-hosted Bluesky instances yet.

Re: Blueskyfeedbot: Post RSS Feeds to Bluesky via GitHub Actions

#66
post #56
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an open protocol for anything that’s real-time and shareable Does that mean that at the protocol level one can share content of larger sizes than what Bluesky does by default? Even though not standard at least via the ActivityPub protocol one can set more reasonable character lengths, though unsure how most Mastodon clients handle that in practice. Bluesky devs seem set, from some past HN interaction, on keeping th…

There already is a Reddit-like application that uses ActivityPub. It's called Lemmy ( https://join-lemmy.org/ ).

Thanks. I'm aware of most, if not all, these alternatives as I've spent some time a few years ago researching them before sending a proposal @ NLnet for funding in this space.

I should have said P2P in my comment instead of decentralized, as the broader term captures the concept of federated as well.

Re: Blueskyfeedbot: Post RSS Feeds to Bluesky via GitHub Actions

#67
post #9

Is it weird that I feel weird about using github as basically a free lambda service?

Well Microsoft is using Github to put developers out of a job. So I wouldn't feel all that much sympathy for them.

I think it's far more fair to say that developers have agreed to let them use their data (that they will use to reduce dev jobs) in exchange for a service that can almost entirely be easily migrated elsewhere.

If you think MS using github code to train AI is bad, let's be pragmatic about where we're putting the blame or there's no shot we can course correct.

I personally am not looking forward to the pain of losing my job, but I would never presume my job is more important than progress. My job wouldn't even exist if we halted progress to save the jobs.

Re: Blueskyfeedbot: Post RSS Feeds to Bluesky via GitHub Actions

#68
post #65
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, Mastodon clients handle large posts (say 5000 chars instead of 500) very well. > In a decentralized application, such as Bluesky, as opposed to Mastodon, I can see a future where it would be a replacement for Reddit and HN, without those limits. Not sure if you're saying that Bluesky is decentralized and Mastodon not, which if anything would be the other way around. The other interpretation is that…

Probably should have been a bit more clear. Involuntarily when I say decentralized I'm thinking about more peer-to-peer distribution of content (a la torrents), instead of federated. Mastodon instances are these islands of content, at the whims of the owner, as to what content you can see and what policies they think there should be. Your identity is also attached to the instance, migration isn't seamless and you can…

> which would make migration between instances seamless.

Which instances? :)

If you're referring to "Personal Data Stores", sure. However, it's the "Relay" (i.e. the aggregator that generates timelines) that everyone relies on is centralized. In contrast, with Mastodon for example, both "Personal Data Store" and "Relay" functionalities are decentralised, offering a complete solution with no centralised choke-points. At least that's my non-authoritative understanding.

There is this lengthy blog post, _How decentralized is Bluesky really?_ [0], if you want to read more about the differences between Bluesky and ActivityPub (e.g. Mastodon).

[0] https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/

Re: Blueskyfeedbot: Post RSS Feeds to Bluesky via GitHub Actions

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bluesky has launched RSS feeds - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39007756 - Jan 2024 https://openrss.org/blog/bluesky-has-launched-rss-feeds How would you extend this ("a distinct AT Proto lexicon seems like the actual way forward IMHO") beyond the RSS feed you can get from a Bluesky profile?

RSS feed is a pull type thing, AT Proto is push if I understand it correctly. So instead of you polling an RSS feed on Bluesky, they would send you a stream of messages

Certainly, I asked because I am building on AT Proto for fun and wanted to hear more on the idea for building purposes. I love RSS, but am excited what potential open standard successors could be built on AT Proto.
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