The Call For Papers closes tomorrow, May 1, at 23:59 Berlin time. Submit your talk now! We aim to get responses to everyone latest by May 15, and announce the full lineup publicly toward the end of May.

Inspired by @hankgreen.bsky.social's fun new timeline of photos from the Artemis II mission, I wrote up an answer to a question that's more pertinent these days than it may seem: Why are the Artemis II photos on Flickr? www.anildash.com/2026/04/30/a...

Very promising idea! I like Slack for team chat, but identity there is a confusing mess (really belongs to the company, not me). Discord is better identity-wise but the product itself has has looking for alternatives. Most importantly, really showcases the power of ATproto identity.

Success stories: ssh, HTTPS, password managers, e2ee messaging apps. But we need more of such! Asymmetric key cryptography remains an under-exploited technology IMO.

"In the English language, 'equity' often carries multiple things at once. [...] • A legal-fairness dimension: historically tied to equity in law • A financial-accounting dimension: residual value after debt • A cultural dimension: ownership as a path to wealth and agency" Great post:

Ink & Switch is ten years old this month! We made you a card to celebrate. inkandswitch.com

It's astonishing how much time in my day I spend typing in two-factor codes, picking the right Google account, and otherwise trying to convince the computer that I am who I say I am. I believe we can do better. Would love to see talk submissions from anyone working on improving digital identity.

As part of @inkandswitch.com, I'm helping to organize Lab Day, the third day of this year's @localfirstconf.com I'm in Berlin next week, gauging interest in a "meet people interested in / attending Local First Conf" Location TBD Thurs 30th 6:30pm smokesignal.events/did:plc:2cxg...

Announcing Progress Conference 2026 Speakers this year include the Director of DARPA, co-CEO of Waymo, and two Nobel Laureates. Back at the beautiful Lighthaven campus in Berkeley, Oct 8–11 It's going to be great! Apply for an invitation: rootsofprogress.org/conference

" Using these new technologies to make the world more local-first, especially maybe parts that have been resistant to that. Breaking down data silos is one of the biggest ones that's been such a long running topic at Ink & Switch with projects like Cambria." @adamwiggins.com

Passkeys are absolutely the best thing to happen to login flows in decades. But I agree with @danabra.mov — the UI copy in Google, 1Password, etc makes the mental model challenging to grasp But this pretty much nails it:

"The story of computing is one of taking these computing things that are originally are heavy and slow and require a room size computer and making them smaller and cheaper and faster. And that just opens up all kinds of new use cases." @adamwiggins.com

As someone who is contributing to both local-first and atproto I am delighted to see these communities moving closer together. We have a lot of principles and values in common

ATproto 🤝 local-first

With two weeks left in the Local-First Conf CFP window, you might be wondering who judges the submissions. Pleased to announce this year’s committee: @adamwiggins.com, @geoffreylitt.com, @schickling.dev, and @bumble.blue This group has serious credentials. Details in the thread 👇

" The data is something that has a longer lifespan. It can move with you from product to product. " @adamwiggins.com

⭐ New talk! Watch / read / visually skim here: andymatuschak.org/tat Coding agents might help us finally break out of two cages: the app model, which traps computing in one-size-fits-all silos; and programming as a specialization, which has crowded out cultures of imagination and domain insight.

The role local-first can play in the software industry: encourage us all to think longer-term.

" Where do I back it up? Can I delete it, can I duplicate it, et cetera. There's a version of that for nations. And I think that's a little bit what Europe is grappling with right now." @adamwiggins.com

" One funny aspect of GDPR, like maybe one intended or unintended consequence, is that GDPR has had a massive impact on data compatibility." @schickling.dev

" Mobile basically abstracted files away. And that's kind of a win for most of the consumer use cases. But actually is disempowering for creative work that you wanna do." @adamwiggins.com

"I think local-first is still the guiding light for us. It's kinda like the gold standard for what software should feel like, what software should be architected around." @schickling.dev

"If what you're working on, which has something to do with empowering users or making computers and software and the internet freer and more capable for enhancing human life, then you should submit a talk." @adamwiggins.bsky.social

“Good protocol design requires balancing the tensions of ideology and practicality.” – @pfrazee.com Fantastic read on federation, p2p, and software people actually want to use: www.pfrazee.com/blog/practic...

"AI is really shaking up everything. I think this does not make local-first at all, less relevant. I think this is, as for most things, a huge tailwind. " @schickling.dev

About time we got Steve on stage!

Our third #special is out. CfP for @localfirstconf.com 2026 is open. @adamwiggins.bsky.social and @schickling.dev discuss this year’s conference themes. Full episode links and show notes in the comments.

Also want to be clear...i don't want more "breaking news" i want more sickos who are like 'i've spent the last 19 years thinking about only liquid natural gas and how you move it and here is a thread about the current sittuation'

CfP is open! May 1 — CFP closes May 15 — candidates notified June 1 — speakers announced June 15 — schedule announced We want to hear from YOU!

Lab Day will not be purely filled with talks - but also show live demos, creative experiments, and community projects. A collaborative day that’s part unconference, part showcase, and shaped by the ideas that animate our community. Lab Day is included in your ticket localfirstconf.com

The local-first community in Berlin has such brilliant energy; the talks from last year's conf still ripple through everything I'm building. What's the specific topic or talk thread you're most drawn to this year?

This is our third time out with Local-First Conf! In past years we've thoroughly explored some core topics like sync engines and CRDTs. In 2026, we're broadening into areas like identity, e2ee, malleable software, and open-weight models.

Tickets for Local-First Conf 2026 are now on sale July 12–14 · Berlin · 300 people · single track Theme: user empowerment in an age of fluid software. We're going beyond CRDTs and sync. If you're building for user agency, this is your conference. Tickets live now → localfirstconf.com

Over on dead-Twitter, @geoffreylitt.com asked the following question last week: "I desperately need a Matt Levine style explanation of how OAuth works. What is the historical cascade of requirements that got us to this place?" Here's my attempt at an answer: leaflet.pub/p/did:plc:3v...

Two weeks of real-world use on Firehose, my email triage prototype. • 572 emails automatically labeled • 77% coverage (confident labels) • 98.2% accuracy on confident ✨

All peer-to-peer systems have to compromise one way or another on this: they can decide that direct P2P is essential and simply fail, they can provide centralized fallback alternatives, or they can try to find/convince/incentivize another peer to route traffic on your behalf.

Exciting news for the local-first community! 1. Local-first Conf Berlin is back on 12–14 July: www.localfirstconf.com 2. The nice folks at @cultrepo.bsky.social have made a documentary about the movement: www.youtube.com/watch?v=10d8...

Local-First Conf is back in 2026 for a third installment. This year we'll double down on what's worked in the past... but do a few things differently.

We’re back. Save the date: www.localfirstconf.com

10m documentary film on the local-first software movement! www.youtube.com/watch?v=10d8...

The London Future of coding meetup came back last night! Now renamed to "the feeling of computing". More context on the name change: feelingof.com/the-name/ I handed over running it to @todepond.com, @mimireyburn.bsky.social, and Chee. They're doing great – same energy and wild demos as always

Can an algorithm learn your life priorities when sorting email? In the first phase of my “personal information firehose” reseach, I trained an embedding-based classifier: adamwiggins.com/posts/triag...

We're all drinking from an information firehose, because sending messages via computer is frictionless. But I believe we should be able to apply social media-style algorithms to help! My new research project: adamwiggins.com/posts/perso...

After six years working on commercial products, happy to say I’m returning to the research world. Today I start as a Researcher-in-Residence at @inkandswitch.com

True peer-to-peer connections without server intermediation remains elusive for local first. Great to see ongoing research in this area.

Kinopio Year-End Investor Report As you may know, Kinopio is organic software that's completely community funded. But if you're reading this, as far as I’m concerned, you’re invested in the future of Kinopio. ↓ 1/10

The first batch of talks are published, the remaining will be published by end of week. 🌟 youtube.com/playlist?lis...

So much good stuff happening at @inkandswitch.com these days! www.inkandswitch.com/newsletter/...

We’re hosting @syncconf.bsky.social Community Day and have an open space to drop in, hack, do demos, and connect with others working on sync and related systems. Feel free to drop in during the day, we’ll do a few group discussions in the afternoon. luma.com/l28n75qt

@adamwiggins.bsky.social calling out a lot of important things in his talk: Idealism vs pragmatism in software Preventing data lockin during this AI shift Longevity of software and data preservation