Show HN: Oracolo – A minimalist Nostr blog in a single HTML file (opens in new tab)

(github.com)

90 pointsdtonon1y ago27 comments

Oracolo is a minimalist blog powered by Nostr, that consists of a single html file, weighing only ~140Kb. It works also without a web server; for example you can send it via email as a business card.

Take it as a didactic experiment, it's no production ready, indeed it has some limitations (no SEO friendly structure), but can work as a temporary solution (e.g. coming soon and parking pages), and it is still an example of how easy it is to create a Nostr-powered web app and deploy it on a low-tech infrastructure.

Comments and suggestions on how to improve it are welcome!

27 comments

jron1y ago

I regularly find myself on the internet archive hoping to find a working copy of a page created ten-plus years ago. Page rot, SEO spam, walled gardens, and AI generated nonsense are all converging to suck the value out of the WWW.

Projects like this give me a little hope that blogging can make a comeback. NIP-13 [1] also has the ability to use POW to limit bot activity. Thanks for sharing!

[1] https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/13.md

troupo1y ago

> Projects like this give me a little hope that blogging can make a comeback.

From nostr site: "If all the relays that you have used in the past go offline, all your posts will be unretrievable." https://nostr.com/relays

Nostr doesn't solve the archival problem

jron1y ago

Unlike web scraping where spaghetti logic is required to follow abstracted JS links, archival of nostr events can be as simple as running a relay and mirroring blog content.[1][2] nostr does a lot of what NNTP did but with additional flexibility.

[1] https://logperiodic.com/rbsr.html#nostr

[2] https://github.com/hoytech/strfry/blob/master/docs/negentrop...

1 more reply

dtononOP1y ago

You should take it upon yourself to save your data, if it is really important to you, so that if all your relays fail, you can simply rebroadcast all your events to a new one and you will be fine. It's a problem solved in a collaborative and decentralized way.

1 more reply

bogwog1y ago

Nostr would be so cool if it wasn't associated with bitcoin. I know the protocol has nothing to do with crypto currencies whatsoever, but the people who use it are predominantly in that world.

This is a cool project though, so nice job! I'm not sure if a blog is the best use case (regular static blogs are faster and easier), but maybe it would make more sense for other concepts.

dtononOP1y ago

Statics blogs are cool but you have to manage them uploading the content every time. The interesting aspect of this solution is that you can use whatever client that supports long format (https://habla.news, https://yakihonne.com, https://highlighter.com, etc) to write your post, and your personal blog is automatically updated. No fuss.

jollyjerry1y ago

This reminds me of Perl's http://www.blosxom.com and also https://tiddlywiki.com. Self-contained sites with minimal requirements.

karencarits1y ago

And the light-weight https://feather.wiki/ (which is not too different from tiddlywiki)

zoobab1y ago

Javascript should go to the bin.

Writing a JS engine makes it impossible for small players in the web browser market to compete.

xd19361y ago

I love distributed, server-less hosting concepts. Very cool project idea!

ollybee1y ago

What others do you know of, or is there a resource to find out more?

nanomonkey1y ago

Off the top of my head: Hypercore (DAT), GUN, Secure Scuttlebutt, IPFS, PPPP, Bamboo, BlueSky, Spritely Goblins...

If this is your jam, check out DWeb camp, put on by the Internet Archive, there will be a lot of us decentralized web technologist there.

1 more reply

0x621y ago

You might also be interested in checking out IPFS/IPNS

camgunz1y ago

I'm doing some NNTP-related work and hadn't looked seriously at Nostr until just now. It looks like the main benefit is just that it signs events, is that right?

postepowanieadm1y ago

And it's extensible.

devneelpatel1y ago

This is amazing! always been a huge fan of nostr.

blamestross1y ago

The fact the "I hate NPM" section is so simple makes me wonder why npm was involved at all.

I also deeply hate NPM. (Normalizing NPM is a hazard to society) So maybe I'm biased...

dtononOP1y ago

I used Svelte for convenience, so you need npm (or equivalent), but only if you want to develop/extend the project. If you just want to use it, the html template is sufficient.

blamestross1y ago

Honestly it's awesome you did, thanks! Also, please stop using NPM in general.

cynicalsecurity1y ago

Simple and minimalist => Requires npm ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

dtononOP1y ago

Fair objection, but if you don't need to modify the structure/behavior, you can just use the html template file I built for you :)

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

27 comments

jron1y ago

Projects like this give me a little hope that blogging can make a comeback. NIP-13 [1] also has the ability to use POW to limit bot activity. Thanks for sharing!

[1] https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/13.md

troupo1y ago

> Projects like this give me a little hope that blogging can make a comeback.

From nostr site: "If all the relays that you have used in the past go offline, all your posts will be unretrievable." https://nostr.com/relays

Nostr doesn't solve the archival problem

jron1y ago

[1] https://logperiodic.com/rbsr.html#nostr

[2] https://github.com/hoytech/strfry/blob/master/docs/negentrop...

1 more reply

dtononOP1y ago

1 more reply

bogwog1y ago

Nostr would be so cool if it wasn't associated with bitcoin. I know the protocol has nothing to do with crypto currencies whatsoever, but the people who use it are predominantly in that world.

This is a cool project though, so nice job! I'm not sure if a blog is the best use case (regular static blogs are faster and easier), but maybe it would make more sense for other concepts.

dtononOP1y ago

jollyjerry1y ago

This reminds me of Perl's http://www.blosxom.com and also https://tiddlywiki.com. Self-contained sites with minimal requirements.

karencarits1y ago

And the light-weight https://feather.wiki/ (which is not too different from tiddlywiki)

zoobab1y ago

Javascript should go to the bin.

Writing a JS engine makes it impossible for small players in the web browser market to compete.

xd19361y ago

I love distributed, server-less hosting concepts. Very cool project idea!

ollybee1y ago

What others do you know of, or is there a resource to find out more?

nanomonkey1y ago

Off the top of my head: Hypercore (DAT), GUN, Secure Scuttlebutt, IPFS, PPPP, Bamboo, BlueSky, Spritely Goblins...

If this is your jam, check out DWeb camp, put on by the Internet Archive, there will be a lot of us decentralized web technologist there.

1 more reply

0x621y ago

You might also be interested in checking out IPFS/IPNS

camgunz1y ago

I'm doing some NNTP-related work and hadn't looked seriously at Nostr until just now. It looks like the main benefit is just that it signs events, is that right?

postepowanieadm1y ago

And it's extensible.

devneelpatel1y ago

This is amazing! always been a huge fan of nostr.

blamestross1y ago

The fact the "I hate NPM" section is so simple makes me wonder why npm was involved at all.

I also deeply hate NPM. (Normalizing NPM is a hazard to society) So maybe I'm biased...

dtononOP1y ago

I used Svelte for convenience, so you need npm (or equivalent), but only if you want to develop/extend the project. If you just want to use it, the html template is sufficient.

blamestross1y ago

Honestly it's awesome you did, thanks! Also, please stop using NPM in general.

cynicalsecurity1y ago

Simple and minimalist => Requires npm ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

dtononOP1y ago

Fair objection, but if you don't need to modify the structure/behavior, you can just use the html template file I built for you :)

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse