The Programmer's Fulcrum 24 July, 2026
This post originally appeared on The Fulcrum. Welcome to this week's The Programmer's Fulcrum. It's your weekly curation of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Open Social development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism. As usual, we aim to provide actionable content you can use to destroy Techno Feudalism each week. It has the additional benefit of weakening authoritarianism. IMHO, the best way to do that is to use tools from the Techno Anarchist M
This post originally appeared on The Fulcrum.
Welcome to this week's The Programmer's Fulcrum.
It's your weekly curation of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Open Social development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism.
As usual, we aim to provide actionable content you can use to destroy Techno Feudalism each week. It has the additional benefit of weakening authoritarianism.
IMHO, the best way to do that is to use tools from the Techno Anarchist Manifesto to build your own site(s) to participate in the Open Media Network. Then you should share it (them) via Real Simple Syndication (RSS), the Fediverse, and possibly a newsletter or podcast. This approach is similar to what some call the IndieWeb and its POSSE philosophy.
The second best strategy is to have accounts on open social and use the hell out of them. And do the same with a RSS feed reader.
We publish TPF on Fridays so you can enjoy it over your weekend.
There's good stuff in all of our categories, so please take the time to enjoy and bookmark the items most relevant to your goals. We hope you are inspired to create new ones.
Or you can jump straight to your favorite section.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And may involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck´em.
Featured Item(s)
Patrick Leavy writes:
Both Big Tech and government security services operate large scale surveillance. How do they relate to one another? In the West we say "Aren't we lucky we don't live in a surveillance state like China!" but haven't we just privatised the surveillance?
The back door surveillance state
Ludic Mataroa writes:
I've had a front-row view to our collective institutions across both the private and public sector undergoing breath-taking mass psychosis.
This essay is an attempt to describe the bizarre dynamics that are currently at play and to reassure the people trying to survive amidst all of this that they are not crazy.
The reality is thus: the people in charge either have no plan, or see no path forwards other than keeping their heads down. Not at banks, not at hospitals, not in our government institutions.
The world’s organisations have been captured by people in the throes of frothing excitement, and saner people who now live in a state of constant commingled fear and frustration.
AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making
What's Happening on my Feed? writes:
Social media apps have become a vehicle for community building, world news, and political campaigns.
As app owners have enmeshed themselves more with the state, the carceral logics that haunt marginalized communities offline, became a part of their digital realities online.
Traditional Social Media as a Prison
CMSs
TechPolicy Press shares:
The Web Needs a Context Layer Built on a Shared Protocol
This is all well and good but we need less talk and more walk from NGO fucks.
Adam Newbold explores:
Hardcore IndieWeb: Run your own website 100% independently for only $0.01/day
Great stuff.
I also ran across the options OnionPress, Skypress, and Pagecord this week.
WP Mayor compares:
WP-CLI vs REST API vs Abilities API: Choosing the Right WordPress Interface for the Job
pckt opines:
Blogging: It's more social than ever !
So, similar to Ghost's capabilities but in the Atmosphere.
Write.as / WriteFreely
Write Freely announces:
Tools
TechCrunch reports:
Nonprofit Current AI is racing to build the World Wide Web of AI, free for all
Wallabag has:
Et si l'été servait à lire enfin les articles mis de côté ?
Le CAPTCHA optionnel arrive dans wallabag grâce au financement de wallabag.it
How-to Geek shares:
I turned my old Kindle into a self-hosted Pocket replacement
Chat / Team Chat
Signal announces:
Signal allows iPhones to be linked as secondary devices (beta)
Browsers
9to5Linux reports:
Mozilla Firefox 153 ESR Is Now Available for Download, Here’s What’s New
Firefox also announced they are back on Shitter.
Remember to use non-AI Firefox forks like Zen, Waterfox, or LibreWolf. Fuck Firefox and Mozilla's Vichy asses.
Waterfox announces:
6.6.17- Security and regional search follow-up
Cloud
Nextcloud compares:
Freedom of choice in Nextcloud Office: powered by Euro-Office, Collabora, and Thinkfree Office
I would avoid any MicroSlop taint, so don't use Euro-Office.
Writing
LibreOffice explains:
How proprietary formats have become Microsoft’s main tool for lock-in
And announces:
LibreOffice 26.2.5 is available for download
Explorers show us:
A look at how to lay out eBooks. Useful and I think my 2027 project will be to write a book.
Creative
GIMP has its:
Google Summer of Code Midpoint Progress
Linux / Open Android
F-Droid has:
Hosting / Serving
Coryd says:
Self hosting a PDS isn't hard (so far)
This week's featured OMN tool
Skypress
A calm place to write long-form, and publish it to the open social web.
Just click and write.
Programming
Random Thoughts on Leadership and Technology shares:
Very interesting. Can AI coded opensource products kill off corporate tech horseshit before corporate tech kills the planet?
A related question, will open, Chinese communist AI kill off fascist Silicon Valley AI?
Git
Forgejo announces:
Forgejo 16.0.1 was just released!
BleepingComputer reports:
FakeGit campaign uses 7,600 GitHub repos to push SmartLoader malware
If you use ShitHub or AI you deserve what you fucking git. ;)
Markdown
Newsonaut opines:
Markdown makes learning HTML less scary
HTML
Geoff Graham
Handling Alt Text in a Linked Image
CSS
Masters.dev has:
Masonry (with Animation) in CSS
Slick but rarely needed effect.
Using animation-composition in CSS to Avoid Redeclaring Other Values
Ditto.
JavaScript
Infrequently Noted laments:
The Absolute State of Management
Reason 1,212,368 that React sucks. Fuck MicroSlop.
AI
Codeberg is:
Protecting our FLOSS commons from LLMs
Dusty Cloud
Faulty Towers, vibe sickness, and the vibe bobsled
Are humans actually the dumbest monkeys?
TechCrunch reports:
Patreon stops asking AI bots not to scrape — and starts blocking them
Proycon has:
Formulating an AI policy for my free software projects
Erlend Sogge Heggen notes:
Open models are decelerationist
Other
XWiki announces:
XWiki SAS Q2 2026 updates: new features, improvements, and what’s next
OpenProject has:
Planning work is only half the job: Resource management comes to OpenProject 17.7
OpenProject Roadmap 2026: The strategic topics shaping our development
This week's featured programming tool
Forgejo
Forgejo is a self-hosted lightweight software forge. Easy to install and low maintenance, it just Using animation-composition in CSS to Avoid Redeclaring Other Valuesdoes the job.
ActivityPub
Ata Kuyumcu acknowledges:
Fantastic article.
Waffle's yttrx blog shows us how to:
Run your own welcome-bot: a step-by-step guide for other instances
Tom79 announces:
This week's featured ActivityPub featured tool
DrFed
DrFed is a web-based platform for developing and debugging ActivityPub implementations.
Permanent aside here (unfortunately)
This is a perpetual pet peeve because many people aren't able to comprehend ⬇️:
- The Fediverse is for communities (private, semi-private, formal, informal, or otherwise)
- and the Atmosphere is for the masses (unwashed, washed, or otherwise).
- And Corporate social media is for naive fools and intentional cunts.
Also, you can avoid surveillance on the Fediverse with some effort (and choosing the correct tools) but not on the Atmosphere (permissioned spaces not withstanding).
So, recognize their natures and don't ask the two protocols to go against them. This is also why we have accounts on both platforms and use them differently.
Fediverse
André Menrath reports:
There now is a poll plugin for WordPress that has full Fediverse support
Mastodon has its:
Which is cool but remember, friends don't let friends join Mastodon.Social.
Elena Rossini starts a new series:
A newbie's guide to self-hosting: GoToSocial part 1 (installation and set-up)
FediLap notes:
HolosSocial is different from any other software
The iOS app is now fairly usable though it won't generate Identity Recovery. The Linux app won't import backups. The same goes for F-Droid plus it has a weak UI. So, not ready for primetime yet regarding cross-platform syncing.
But, I still like and use it. It has potential.
FediTips has:
Mastodon updates built-in system to prevent you seeing the same post boosted again and again
Artist Alley has:
Artist-Alley implements ArchivePub, an open federation protocol built on the ActivityPub data model
More
Zsolt opines:
Roomy papa, Erlend Sogge Heggen says:
I wanna make $1million for a thousand indies
Now that's an admirable business plan.
Other Federated Social Media
Daniel's Leaflets continues a series:
Permissioned Data Diary 7: Off the Record
Nick's Blog also continues a series:
Permissioned Data Shapes: Private Events
Permissioned Data Shapes: Community-Moderated Content
Permissioned Data Shapes: Forums
Permissioned Data Shapes: Polls
On a related note, Luke Kanies shares some doubts:
Boltless reports:
Tangled is considering changing the data host of some records from PDS to Knot
Aral Balkin asks:
And Hamish Campbell chimes in with:
Europe’s digital sovereignty needs challenges
Meanwhile, Mu.Social is:
Introducing Newsrooms v1 in
mu.social
The Walrus has:
A Canadian Social Network? Don’t Roll Your Eyes Yet
eMail / Newsletters
Magic Pages compares:
Substack vs. Ghost for a paid newsletter
Plus as I'm sure you know, Suckstack is a Nazi bar. So, don't publish on it, read anything from it, or sharing any of its Vichy content.
CTAs
- That’s it for this week. Please share The Programmer's Fulcrum.
- Follow us on Surf or at @[email protected] on the Fediverse or at @thefulcrum.eurosky.social on ATProto for daily coverage.
- Read, live, and share The Techno Anarchist Manifesto!
And please build something for a community! We're painfully nurturing Manade.
