How does one build a community for users on an anonymous platform?? I want people to have input on the development direction but can’t email them a poll, not everyone checks the Feedback page in-app…

We hit 600 installs on @read-theroom.bsky.social !! 💜

OMG our next user will be our 600th!! So exciting and heartwarming to see slow and steady growth 🥹 Let’s try bridge the world together friends! Who’s gonna be number 600 on @read-theroom.bsky.social ?! Jk, we’ll never know because it’s anonymous! #opensource #indieapp

I'm a physicist, not a software engineer. But, I managed to build a mobile app starting from zero dev experience while AI-assisted coding tools were evolving rapidly around me last summer. I wrote about my lessons to help those in similar positions! open.substack.com/pub/soudk/p/...

AI is quietly changing the process of science. Unlike how loudly it changed the software engineering role. Everyone can now generate ideas, simulations, even “explanations”. It’s quite powerful to be able to do breadth-first searches across domains so quickly. Who knows where it’ll take us (1/2)

I’m always surprised at how much educational content is online for free. Props to all the creators out there sharing practical tips on using new tech, or academic concepts at the very edge of what we know! Been listening to @curtjaimungal.bsky.social interviews lately and super appreciative.

And on this Wednesday morning, I yearn for Hacker News to crucify me.

Open sourced my first project! Read the Room: know the world 🦎 AGPLv3. Flutter + Supabase. Responses stay local, only aggregates hit server. Now with generation filters: Do Gen Z and Millennials actually see the world differently? 🤔 App: readtheroom.site Code: github.com/readtheroom-...

Tasteful shitposting is definitely an art and I wish I was better at it. Problem is, as with most things, you gotta practice!

Boredom is nothing but procrastination x time.

Balancing physics beam/experiment prep time with building a privacy-first app is... a vibe. Both involve caring way too much about things most people probably don't think or care about. One ends with peer review. The other ends with App Store reviews. Equally painful.

What if you could see how people across different ages, cities, and countries actually felt about an issue — not just the loudest voices, but the real distribution? Would that change how we see each other?

In ain’t much but it’s honest work ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ @read-theroom.bsky.social hit 500 installs across 50 countries this week! Steadily, slowly, growing. Check it out if you want a quick vibe check of your community :) readtheroom.site

The 2025 @read-theroom.bsky.social wrapped is out! It's been a big launch year for us: 400 users in 40 countries. Thank you to everyone participating in the ongoing social experiment ❤️ Check out the free, anonymous, social platform here: readtheroom.site #TechForGood #MobileApp #Flutter #Privacy

Who has the better vibe? Nat Geo or Wikipedia? readtheroom.site/question/c6b...

Hope @read-theroom.bsky.social gets there someday. Love Wikipedia 💜

Two year anniversary of the hackathon project that started the RTR website! Now, it's 2 months since the mobile app launch with 415 users across 42 from countries... We're trying, but need the support and feedback! Check it out :) readtheroom.site #IndieDev #Nonprofit #TechForGood #SocialTech

My IRL friend just got followed by THE John Cena on Xwitter says that is why he can't leave the platform. Can some famous John follow me here on @bsky.app so I can have a sick clap back tomorrow? Maybe @johngreensbluesky.bsky.social? That'd be sweet 🤓

That new @veritasium.bsky.social video on six degrees of separation was awesome. Check if your followers on bluesky are a small world and show us!

Yesterday I met someone who is the admin of an 80 person group chat just for... Polling. What are the chances 😂 Hopefully we can get them to merge forces with @read-theroom.bsky.social

Today I would like to publicly thank one of my dearest friends for some of the wisest words I've ever heard uttered from a human being. "To be cringe is to be free" - @janayf.bsky.social I'm here for it.

Oh yeah, one week in and here's where we are at with @read-theroom.bsky.social 362 USERS 👥🫂 38 COUNTRIES PRESENT 🌍!! >1500 questions asked pulling in 22,600+ responses. I keep checking every hour, begging to see 40 countries on the platform... My feelings rn: 🦎🥹 😆💜

(1/2) I always imagined what a decentralized and truly democratic UN would look like. What if we all really knew how the masses felt; without the top-down media, or algorithm-driven silo-ing feeds online telling us. What would that look like... Would the masses be correct more often than not?

What a launch week 💜 We can’t thank this community enough for the support, energy, and love you’ve already shown. The more you download, rate & review, the more rooms we can read. Here’s to building Read the Room together, this is just the beginning! 🦎✨

Interesting, somewhat unsurprising, take today on @read-theroom.bsky.social : Is the US a force for good in the world? We're now at 300 users in 32 countries and counting! Join in 👇🏽 See more (and anonymously ask) at readtheroom.site #USPolitics #IndieDev #sentimentanalysis #GlobalVoices

We started small. Then you joined. Now we’re building something bigger together 💜 Your rating + review isn’t just feedback, it helps new chameleons find us, join in, and keep this community growing 🦎🌍 Add your review today + help expand the conversation.

As a physicist, this was a really funny question for me to see on @read-theroom.bsky.social on day 2 of launch week. How old do you think the universe is? Clearly my physics friends all agree... Sus?? 🧐 readtheroom.site #IndieDev #Cosmology #Physics #ProductLaunch #AstroPhysics #SciComm

@read-theroom.bsky.social just hit 30 countries! We're building Earth's Vibe Check ✅ and launched on Tuesday! Know anyone who might help us fill the map below? Check it out: readtheroom.site #TechForGood #Nonprofit #ProductLaunch #BuildInPublic #IndieDev

After months of testing, the chameleons are loose 🦎🎉 Read the Room is fully released on iOS + Android! Now’s the most important step: download, rate & review. It’s the #1 way we can grow this community together!

Annnd my first app, Read the Room: Know the World is live!! 🦎 We're building a anonymous and community-driven social app to map the mood of our planet 🌍 Please check it out ❤️ readtheroom.site #IndieDev #TechForGood #privacy #nonprofit #Flutter

Wow. I just discovered MiniLM and how you can do similarity scores for ~200 word pieces of text so fast on an M1 Mac via the sentence-transformers python package 🤯

Woo! Both app stores approved us within 48 hours! Pleasantly surprised 😯 RTR is free. A nonprofit, anonymous, community-driven Q&A platform. We make maps of how the world thinks. Download links here (pre-orders): readtheroom.site App launch Sept 16th! #IndieDev #TechForGood

After ~2 years of experimenting and building with friends, I’m so incredibly relieved to submit Read the Room to the app stores 🤞🏽 it's just the start! A new privacy-first & community-driven app is coming in soon that I'm excited to share with y'all!! Stay tuned 👀 #IndieDev #TechForGood

Woohoo!

Android users: we beg you Using an Android? Not using the app every day? You are personally holding us back from greatness. (jk... unless?) We need 12 androids online daily for 14 days to hit open beta. Send help!! #androidstruggles #betaquest #readtheroom

So relieved to have actual users on the platform! A huge weight off my chest today. Thanks everyone for the quick feedback Let's go!! 🚀 🦎

Alpha testing just started 👀 It’s closed, mysterious, and probably full of bugs... but hey, beta’s next 😏 Stay tuned if you want early access by being one of our beta testers! #TechSky #polls #votingapp #newapp #appdev #mobileapp #appdesign

Let's go!!

It’s me, Karma the chameleon🦎, aka the only member of the team who’s been working on this app (besides Soud, who may be doing all the real work). The other team members are very busy providing moral support. Anyways, we’re building something cool. Stay tuned! #newapp #appdev #mobileapp #appdesign

Do LLMs and humans have the same moral bases? I tried to do a rudimentary analysis: soudkharusi.com/projects/cha... #AI #ethics

Just finished Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes --- such an emotional story, and well ahead of its time. A real tearjerker. Makes you reflect on how we as a society interact with the mentally ill or divergent. Would highly recommend the audiobook too. #mentalhealth

I've never built a mobile app, but have some #webdev experience... I need help: would you recommend trying to go with #reactnative or #flutterdev from the get go? I hope to be up and running ASAP on a cross platform/native experience for readtheroom.site Help! My backend is in Flask D:

Still, I am curious!

Wikipedia really is one of the best sources of information out there. It has its problems, it has its intricacies, but it's managed by a nonprofit and has stood the test of time.

As much as I like BlueSky, I do like posting photos in a gallery-like format. Going to be uploading my random photography to Pixelfed if anybody wants to connect over there :) pixelfed.social/soudk #pixelfed #fediverse #openweb

If I'm thinking of building a social app utilizing the ATprotocol, where should I start looking for boilerplate code or resources? Any recommendations? #atprotocol #bluesky #sideproject

This #sideproject takes up a lot more of my time than I care to admit 😜 Check it out and give us some feedback 🙏🏽

Working on this cool project with some friends @soudk.bsky.social @chrispyross.bsky.social. Give our account a follow to watch our journey!

Wouldn't it be funny if academics had on their website a section called "Portfolio" to show off their best graphs?