Blog Urbit Community Update - December 2021
Jeremy Tunnell at
1 – Recap of the year from Galen
"We focus so much of our attention on the future that it’s hard to think about the past. What happened this year? Enough that I can hardly remember it all.
At the highest level, this is the year that Urbit matured into a real platform. At the beginning of 2021, Landscape was just an app for group communication. Now it’s a system that anyone can ship their own software to.
There are so many ways that Landscape will improve and get more powerful in the coming months, years, and decades—but software distribution is a huge upgrade. Bringing the community together to celebrate this milestone at Assembly, the first Urbit unconference, was incredible. The energy of a new platform was palpable when we all got together in Austin.
The one remaining line of work that we set out on in 2021 is to Make Planets Cheap Again. We decided to do this by building our own layer 2 solution that uses Urbit itself to track address space ownership. We’re in the final phases of testing, tweaking, and checking this work. Getting L2 out the door will complete the arc of work for 2021: opening Urbit up to more people to explore, develop, and make it their own."
~ravmel-ropdyl's portrait of a very primordial tree.
2 – We shipped Tlon Hosting, Groups, Software Distribution, and soon L2.
Horizon: Tlon Hosting Services
We launched a hosting service that alleviates the burden of self-hosting and makes it easier for people to get on the network. We’ve experienced high demand…and delays due to high gas prices. Please be patient with us. L2 is coming soon (see below).
Software Distribution
Developers can now ship apps for the community to install. More on that procedure here. For users, it's as easy as searching for the @p of a trusted software distributor in Leap (the search bar) and downloading. Patience and perseverance is advised.
Check out these new apps* (from urbit.org's November newsletter):
~tiddys-sammut-posnev/headline: Urbit-native RSS feed aggregator
~dister-hosted-labweb/ursr-client: Speech recognition client for Urbit
~laddys-dozzod-dalton/gora: A proof of attendance app created by Dalten Collective. Issue your own tokens for just about anything.
~paldev/pals: A simple friend list for your urbit. The start of an interesting/hackable social interface ecosystem.
*Disclaimer: Download apps at your own risk. Only download apps from a software distributor you trust. A malicious app could take control of your ship in a variety of ways.
Port: Urbit Client
We launched Port, a desktop GUI application, that enables you to boot and manage your urbit, sans command-line tinkering. For now, Port enables local hosting with a star or planet on your computer or demo mode by spinning up a comet. Port is ideal for those who want to explore Urbit cheaply.
(soon) L2
After a year of testing, our layer 2 rollup solution to reduce transaction costs is nearly ready to be deployed. Stay tuned for an announcement in the coming weeks. You’ll be able to migrate your L1 stars or planets to L2 using [Bridge](bridge.urbit.org). Read more about our L2 solution here.
Groups
Groups has evolved into Tlon's primary mode of communication. It's clear that others are adopting it too. There's more than 200 groups on Urbit with new communities popping up every day.
~dalwes-migdec took this driving through the swamps of South Carolina.
3 – A note on OpenSea
A recent vote by the Galactic Senate upgraded our Ecliptic contracts to allow for updates related to $WSTR. This has caused some confusion on OpenSea. Urbit IDs are showing up as Azimuth Points V2. We are working with OpenSea to resolve this.
4 – We went live on Tlon TV.
- In June, ~ravmel-ropdyl and ~rovnys-ricfer unraveled their intellectual journeys in computer science.
- In July, ~ravmel-ropdyl and ~wicdev-wisryt discussed how to tell the story of Urbit by comparing its development and its felt effects for the user to the development of a '65 Porsche.
5 – Our team continues to grow. Introducing:
- ~riprud-tidmel, who first joined the team at the helm of Marcomms, but is now transitioning into a new role: VP of Product.
- ~dapryc-tilryn, who helped choreograph Assembly and who now joins the Ops team full time.
- ~rilfun-lidlen, who is finally joining the team full time to work on interface.
- ~fanfun-mocbud, who will also be working on infrastructure, specifically runtime.
- ~dovsem-bornyl, who joins the team as Landscape's new project manager.
- ~natnex-ronret, a one-of-a-kind talent who created all of the Assembly graphics and who now joins the team full time as a designer.
6 – And we're hiring.
- Community Manager: We’re hiring someone to run Community at Tlon. This includes creating and directing Community programs, owning onboarding, and support. Keep your eyes open for an official listing, but feel free to reach out in advance.
- Marketing Manager: Do you like marketing? No? Great, neither do we. We’re looking for someone to own marketing as no trad marketer has. Run a small team focused on tlon.io, Twitter, events, etc.
- Keep an eye on our website for openings as they get posted. If you have any career questions, feel free to dm ~roslet-tanner or send us an email.
7 – Miscellaneous network happenings…
- Star gazers: Star.market is live! This community-driven project is currently the only place to swap a Star for a Wrapped Star (WSTR).
- When Swiss finance and the network unite they make The Bank of Urbit, which was the topic of ~finnem's Urbit Dialogue in November.
- Also in November: we sold ~nut Galaxy with no Stars to a longtime contributor for 109 ETH. A rareoccurrence.
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I'm making the executive decision to bring back ~roslet-tanner’s recommendations because it's easier to navigate Babylon when you know a guy…
- I just listened to this London Review of Books podcast about the anchoress Julian of Norwich, who wrote the Revelations of Divine Love, the first English book known to be written by a woman.
- ~simfur-ritwed is reading Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II by Jennet Conant. He says it's a "good counterpart to (variably) WWII tech/Manhattan project histories which start later, or computer histories (such as Turing's Cathedral), which use the entire period as a backdrop."
- ~fabled-faster is reading Anathem for the first time and has successfully resisted the temptation to do cursory research on Wikipedia.
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