Urbit’s main use in 2022 is as a secret handshake

Founder, gamma.io • AI/ML @ Stanford, ex-Apple

is there an explanation of what urbit is for a smooth brain like me? seen it mentioned so many times but nothing makes any sense / no good incentive for me to participate

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I think the reason it’s so hard to explain is that it’s so ambitious. They basically invented a new low-level assembly-like language, high-level functional language, and a new pattern for operating systems. The general idea (though I’ll miss a lot here) is that you run an …

instance of your OS on a server, and can host apps that other people can access. And connect to other apps that others are hosting. Right now the most popular app is Groups which is kinda like Discord; you can join different servers and channels in those servers.

The people it attracts are very interesting, and though I haven’t built stuff on Urbit, Urbit Assembly was probably the most interesting and intellectually stimulating conference I‘ve been to

I play with Urbit and rummage through Groups now and then. Now that you can run Port it helps. I can access it across devices on my local network. I find it conceptually intriguing and aesthetically pleasing. Gives me Braun vibes. https://i.imgur.com/43slIqg.jpg