Itter.sh – Micro-Blogging via Terminal

(itter.sh)

286 points | by rrr_oh_man 4 days ago ago

78 comments

  • ryan-c 4 days ago ago

    It didn't get much attention when I posted it earlier this week, but I made an SSH movie player:

    ssh ansi.rya.nc

    (currently shows Sneakers, complete with subtitles)

  • csomar 4 days ago ago

    The SSH keystroke lag makes it un-enjoyable especially that you need to type to move around the interface. Otherwise, I like the concept. I'd rather have a terminal feed of random shit that I can filter than having to navigate around web pages.

  • ramaro 4 days ago ago

    There's also https://pico.sh/

    • eabeezxjc 3 days ago ago

      I need it from radio network like reticulum.network or meshtastic

  • thunkle 4 days ago ago

    I like the self depreciation here: > itter.sh is built with TONS of bugs on:

    • rrr_oh_man 4 days ago ago

      it's true, unfortunately...

  • toshinoriyagi 4 days ago ago

    This is very cool. Feels a lot like old school internet. A refreshing experience compared to most social media.

    • 0xDEAFBEAD 3 days ago ago

      What are the sociological factors that separate old school from new school?

      To me, I'd summarize the situation something like: The modern internet is one of continuous popularity contests, engagement farming, and status wars. The old internet was one of authentic sharing, rambling, and candid conversations.

      But what are the causes driving those effects?

      I suspect one key dividing line is the importance of feedback metrics. Likes, upvotes, downvotes, shares, whatever.

      Imagine going to a party where whenever you said something, everyone briefly did a thumbs-up or thumbs-down motion to indicate how much they liked it before the conversation continued. Obviously, that's a bastardized way to party. But it's our whole world online. We compete for popularity, and we copy popular behaviors, in search of an attention-farming fixed point.

      I also think the size of the community matters a lot. I remember in the earliest days of reddit, noticing the same usernames over and over made it feel like more of a community.

      Modern "social media" is not really "social"; it should really be called "DIY broadcast media" in my view. A key clue here is despite our brave "social" world, the concept of an "online friend" is considerably diminished relative to what it once was. You tend to be either smothered with attention, or totally ignored. I prefer chilling out over fighting to get a scrap of interaction.

      BTW here's a fun old-school guide to internet culture: https://www.flamewarriorsguide.com/ (I don't think it describes the modern internet very well)

      • eabeezxjc 3 days ago ago

        itter and prosh are not offline. I can wrote my text offline and exange data. I cant send my text to my friend for publish (I dont have internet, he have) I cant print my text on paper like qr-code

  • solarized 4 days ago ago

    The most worrying thing about isolated places like this :

       Wayback Machine can't index my content.
  • flaviuspopan 4 days ago ago

    This is so good. I love the name, logo, and bugs section.

    > exec request failed on channel 1

    Well, guess it's time to scale

    • rrr_oh_man 4 days ago ago

      yeah, I screwed this up in all kinds of ways

      thx for the love tho <3

  • joshcsimmons 4 days ago ago

    This is AWESOME. Love the idea of totally navigating around the ad-noise that the modern html/css/js web has become. This is how I first experienced the internet and I still maintain that it is one of the sanest ways to do so.

    How is adoption so far?

    • rrr_oh_man 4 days ago ago

      > How is adoption so far?

      300-ish sign-ups, 12k posts

  • tehlike 4 days ago ago

    This is timely.

    For my side project (pricetracker.wtf) i was hoping to build a terminal app that you can connect with telnet or ssh - and do navigate the app through a super simplified but interactive ux...

    Found a few libraries that seems to help with this...

  • alexrsagen 4 days ago ago

    Aw, it doesn't work :(

    > Error: User not found for posting eet.

    • IncreasePosts 4 days ago ago

      I bet you tried to register a short user name.

  • solomonb 4 days ago ago

    Its neat but isn't it basically just `wall`?

  • zipping1549 4 days ago ago

    https://github.com/bbj-dev/bbj comes to mind as well.

  • ilvez 4 days ago ago

    Curious how long it took to get it? Fun experiment. Missing readline support though :)

    I was at first thinking I could use it from my commandline directly..

  • 4 days ago ago
    [deleted]
  • abhisek 4 days ago ago

    Wow. Reminds of the old BBS era.

    • keepamovin 3 days ago ago

      I'm also building a BBS era idea, called dialup.sh that uses a 100%-text-mode browser to reverse proxy locally hosted websites for people to run little servers for their pals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Bs7BoQBoBA

      I personally like the idea of a modern browser that works over SSH/terminals, on its own, but i think the BBS/social, friend-to-friend, small network idea could be the thing the indie-web (tilde, etc) have been zeroing in on the last few years.

      It's good to see more people building in term/text interfaces. I think of it as a reaction to super saturation of attention-grabbing content all time, all places. Nice to have some quiet, some (visual? content?) noise cancellation for the web! Especially in the era of AI generated content now too. Overload, man. Get back to BBS days not a bad idea! :)

    • 4 days ago ago
      [deleted]
  • Claudiusseibt 3 days ago ago

    this is really cool but i would like to register more than one ssh key because i'm using hardware keys and if i physically loose the one key i wont be able to get in

  • VVilhelmsen 3 days ago ago

    I absolutely love this. I really hope it stays active.

  • 4 days ago ago
    [deleted]
  • MajesticWombat 4 days ago ago

    what am i doing wrong??

    Permission denied (publickey).

    • roskelld 4 days ago ago

      Presuming that you're on Windows, you might need to configure your ssh keys first.

      https://4sysops.com/archives/powershell-remoting-with-ssh-pu...

      • rrr_oh_man 4 days ago ago

        Holy moly, wow. What would be the best way to turn this into a TL;DR man for Windows users?

    • O1111OOO 3 days ago ago

      > what am i doing wrong??

      > Permission denied (publickey).

      I was having the same problem until I scrolled down for the full instructions:

      1. . SSH Key Ready?

      You'll need an SSH key. Don't have one? Generate like this:

      ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_email@example.com"

      Steps (2) and (3) are straight forward. No issues at all logging in and seeing the welcome screen. Feels like a static version of IRC...

    • Weetile 4 days ago ago

      Did you make sure to register first?

  • codingdave 4 days ago ago

    I like the idea of having different options for content creation, but I don't understand why "micro-blogging" is still a thing. It originated in message length limitations of texting back when texting was a new thing. Why inject an outdated constraint into a new tool?

    • chneu 4 days ago ago

      It's the same reason I still like sports: humans operating within constraints produce interesting outcomes.

      It's why film photography is still popular. The constraints create unique ideas.

      • caprock 4 days ago ago

        Agreed! I have enjoyed how the constraints will prod me to refine and distill an initial thought into more crisp phrasing.

    • sneak 4 days ago ago

      Do you know why Formula 1 is called Formula 1? The formula refers to a specific set of constraints to which all of the participants must adhere.

      The cars could be totally different; more tech, features, etc. The whole sport and culture is defined around the system of shared constraints.

    • add-sub-mul-div 4 days ago ago

      For the same reason that some of the things I say to people are single sentences while others are multiple full paragraphs.

    • muppetman 4 days ago ago

      Because these days morons make a 10 minute video to explain something that could probably fit into 180 chars. Everyone is all "ME ME ME! LOOK AT ME!" and 180 chars doesn't really let you make it all about yourself. So it's enjoyable to read. It's the same reason Twitter started to suck a big one once threads and unrolling and all that bollox became common place.

    • zwnow 4 days ago ago

      Because ain't nobody gonna read a 20000 word manifest

      • nathan_douglas 4 days ago ago

        Can verify, I'm somewhere on the hypergraphic spectrum and one of the reasons I like computers in general and LLMs in particular is that they're literally forced to read what I write.

        • antonvs 4 days ago ago

          Kinda. The large context windows that recent LLMs have tends to imply that their attention to your input is selective. They're just humoring you really.

      • chairmansteve 4 days ago ago

        Yep. You can link to manifest in your tweet.

    • import 4 days ago ago

      The same reason why people posting stories instead of actual posts. Or you really don’t want to write masterpiece everyday.

      • konart 4 days ago ago

        You can write a 180 characters post\tweet\toot even when there is virtually no limitation.

        I think this is what was asked by a parent commenter: why enforce any limit (except for a sane ones) at all?

        • soap- 4 days ago ago

          IMO it makes for better content. I'm not logging in to a microblogging app so I can read thoughtful, longform content, actually it's exactly the opposite.

          By enforcing a character limit you only allow a certain type of post to be made

          • flutetornado 4 days ago ago

            I prefer it because it forces distillation to core ideas, consumable quickly. Busy people have too little time to read too much verbiage.

            • lynndotpy 4 days ago ago

              And there is a mutually understood degree of nuance. There is no space to consider every route of uncertainty or qualify every statement. You can say "the Earth is round" instead of "most of us agree that the Earth very very likely exists and is very likely to be round".

          • badsectoracula 4 days ago ago

            > By enforcing a character limit you only allow a certain type of post to be made

            Yes, the one where all nuance and detail is lost after being trimmed to death so it can exist under the arbitrary limit and is much easier to misunderstand because the author couldn't put all of their thoughts in writing.

            It does help with engagement though.

            • bigstrat2003 4 days ago ago

              I think that the breakdown of public discourse in the US in the last 15ish years is directly attributable to Twitter. When the main mode of engagement with others in politics is to drop 140-char hot takes, it shouldn't be surprising people hate each other. The world would genuinely be a much better place, in my opinion, if Twitter or its like had never existed.

          • konart 4 days ago ago

            On a side note: a platform can (potentially) provide a filter that will show user only posts shorter than length L1. Or longer than L1.

          • konart 4 days ago ago

            >IMO it makes for better content.

            Sorry but this even sounds wrong. You can write an eternal masterpiece in any form. Short story, a poem, a novel, an anecdote even.

            In fact shorter form is more challenging. You have less room for a mistake. And lets be honest: most people are terrible writers|composers|painters etc.

            This is one of the reasons you see threads and services that can present you threads in a more convenient form.

        • rrr_oh_man 4 days ago ago

          > why enforce any limit (except for a sane ones) at all

          Some say Shakespeare was his (their?) best when he was limited to the fixed form of the sonnet.

          • DyslexicAtheist 4 days ago ago

            Actually it's "his". Also Redditors at the time rated him merely as "one among many talented playwrights and poets". It wasn't until the 17th century that he's been been considered _the_ supreme playwright.

            ... is this^^ the type of content you want on Itter? Because that's what you get from this crowd.

      • thenthenthen 4 days ago ago

        Not sure, but stories, threads, etc seem to be a rather top down/dark pattern thats shoved down our throats one doom scroll at a time

    • ravenstine 4 days ago ago

      People today don't read, they skim. If the text is too long, they won't even do that. Nevertheless, I'm surprised text hasn't completely died in favor of TikTok style videos, butaybe we are still on our way to that.

      • sundarurfriend 4 days ago ago

        > I'm surprised text hasn't completely died in favor of TikTok style videos

        You gave the answer yourself - TikTok style videos, short as they are, aren't as easy to skim through as microblogging sites.

        • ravenstine 4 days ago ago

          Not quite, I think. Bite sized videos provide the illusion of promise that one won't miss any information, whereas I would think that promise isn't there when skimming over text.

          • deadbabe 4 days ago ago

            you can get really good at skimming massive amounts of text such that you don’t miss anything, or at least feel like you didn’t miss anything, but most UI on bite size video platforms simply can’t provide that kind of experience very well.

    • _Algernon_ 4 days ago ago

      The medium is the message. Presumably the creators felt that it is such a fundamental part of the medium they want to recreate that they keep the constraint.

    • bee_rider 4 days ago ago

      Something like 2-5 rows at some reasonable width (40? 80?) could be nice for a sort of live feed to put over to the side in a terminal maybe.

      • rrr_oh_man 4 days ago ago

        that's a really cool thought, thank you!

    • 4 days ago ago
      [deleted]
  • halalfatal 3 days ago ago

    [flagged]

  • MajesticWombat 4 days ago ago

    sounds cool