Penny for some pckt thoughts

My last blog post was about how I use train journeys to exit my routine and to allow myself a somewhat constrained medium to focus on work while still having some clarity, freedom and a new place to change mindsets in between working sessions. It was also my first foray into both blogging and leaflet, and it was an early view into the rabbit hole of the 'atmosphere' I started looking into. I mentioned previously the post from @dan titled "A Social Filesystem", which helped me better understand the way the atproto works and also led me to discover some cool apps and alternatives in the space.

I was already familiar with @Rudy wants revolution. and Blacksky as well as Witchsky as alternatives to Bluesky, as well as anisota which I love for its distraction-free aesthetic. With my first post I became aware of leaflet (where it was written), pckt.blog (where I write these words now), and offprint, which I understand now all use the same standard.site lexicon, which is quite nice for portability. I got acquainted with blento whose visual display I find much cooler than a simple link list one sees everywhere on the web these days. I learned about Beacon Bits, Smoke Stack, Streamplace, and recently also Keytrace, and I find it simultaneously great and hard to follow all the fun new products that build on top of the atproto. I even found the courage to try the scary "switching PDSs" and got it moved over to npmx.social with ease (and a nice nudge from @Bailey Townsend 🦀 and their awesome Moover). I also saw a few posts by other users about how they got to add bluesky comments to their blogs and websites and it got me thinking about something...
Could I bring all this together in a personal way?

I had been considering building my own website for some time, even registered the domain so I could use it for my identity on Bluesky. I even have the luck of being in Austria, whose country code is also at, like the atproto, so it was written in the stars. I was however struck with a bit of analysis paralysis because it was a domain I considered I knew too little about and the choices around tech and infra were pulling me to doubt "what if I choose the wrong thing?", "where would I even start?", and the worst offender "what if something nicer, more usable or more popular comes along and I feel the need to swap everything?". Seeing the interoperability in the space and the fun products that people were building and interoperating made me just want to try it, so I decided to go ahead with "something" and see where it goes.

It's been a while since any project, whether at work or private, has gotten me this excited to get my hands dirty and to try embedding some things into my own world, and I'm curious to see how far I get, but so far, I can link my atproto profile on my site for an about me; I can show all my standard.site posts natively on my site, along with comments, with a redirect to peoples' viewer of choice if they want to leave comments; I would like to integrate some beacons if I post about cool places I come across and show those also on my site, along with potentially some events I participate in or who knows, eventually host...

All these tools are wonderful and I find them quite easy to use, though for me a key factor in the atproto world is portability. Some accounts and some content may be blocked on certain AppViews but not from the entire environment, and your data stays with you, my data stays with me, wherever we might go. To me, this feels like we're bringing the internet in some form back to the users and out of the tight grasp of some too large players whose interests are monetary, not communal.

As a closing note, this is a really good experience with pckt.blog, thanks for making this!