The Programmer's Fulcrum: 29 May, 2026
Welcome to your weekly curation of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism.
Welcome to this week's The Programmer's Fulcrum.
It's your weekly curation of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse 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 the Fediverse 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.
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Featured Item(s)
Misaligned Markets writes:
Governance determines the evolution of an innovation, giving society power over a technology’s ultimate form.
To steer the future we must imagine a different past
Defend Democracy writes:
Europe is spending €300 billion to free itself from undemocratic control of its digital infrastructure. It has not yet considered what happens when the authoritarian is European.
Europe’s big tech bet is only as safe as its democracy
Yep.
Code and Civilisation writes:
Gradually, attention shifted away from the sheer accumulation of things toward the structures that made cooperation possible: the systems by which knowledge was recorded, exchanged, tested, and carried forward. Within these largely unseen arrangements, civilisation found new means of continuity.
Civilisation XIV: The Invisible Commons
Very informative.
CMSs
The Repository reports:
Patchstack CEO Warns WordPress 7.0 Could Trigger “Absolute Rush” To Steal AI API Keys
Manual do Usuário shows us:
How to disable WordPress 7.0’s new AI features
Or you could just not be a c^nt and don't use non-local AI. Or be a saint and don't use AI period.
PureBlog explores its:
Bear
Wonders of Web Weaving has a nice interview:
Wonders of Web Weaving Number 3
Bear = Nice and KISS.
Robert Birming introduces a:
Ghost
Ghost announces:
Comment threads, votes and pins
Tech Times reports:
Ghost CMS SQL Injection Hits 700 Sites: Harvard, DuckDuckGo Serve Fake Cloudflare Malware
This is why I don't self-host non-static sites.
Build Awesome
Ste Grainer shares:
Friday Fave: Build Awesome aka 11ty
Mathia Wright shares:
Micro.blog
The Art Of Not Asking Why says:
It's official: I prefer Inkwell over Elfeed
Micro.Blog announces:
We’ve restarted the iOS beta for Strata
Back to top 👆🏼
Tools
Joost de Valk opines:
Open Source First is right, but not enough.
Disconnect opines:
When this mountain range of shit collapses we need to have built a real and climbable mountain above the sea of decay.
Kevin Boone examines:
I use Organic Maps and it's good enough.
Small Web
17 year-old Frost says:
The Small Web Still Depends on Corporate Infrastructure
Nice piece.
Chat
Signal has:
Signal Labs: are “Starred messages” and these six other features coming to Signal?
Browsers
Slashdot shares:
Mozilla Brings Web Serial Workflows to Firefox, Collaborates With Adafruit
Cloud
Jorijn Schrijvershof has:
Why I left Google Workspace for self-hosted Nextcloud
The Free Knowledge Institute shares:
Writing
LibreOffice has:
New Web and Mobile Strategy for LibreOffice
ODF vs OOXML, an issue that should never have existed
Nextcloud announces:
Euro-Office: General availability set for June 9
Linux/Open Android
9to5Linux reports:
Linux Mint 23 Getting New Cinnamon Screenshots Tool, Network Improvements
Phosh announces:
Luigi311 reviews:
Clubic has an interview:
F-Droid has:
Building trust through software rather than giving it
Gael Duval promotes:
Joining the Wave: Murena & /e/OS 2026 Roadmap
This week's featured OMN tool
HubZilla
The powerful open source privacy-respecting all-in-one home base for collaboration and social interactions.
Back to top 👆🏼
Programming
Yancey Strickler looks at:
This in an in-browser light version of efforts like Newsmast Community, Acorn, and Bonfire / Manade.
Prasham H Trivedi notes:
Mobile won the platform war on distribution, not capability
Interoperable Europe has:
Grenoble is a fantastic city BTW.
Curl's main man looks at:
Daniel Beck asks:
Open source docs: where does the money come from?
Joan Westenberg proposes:
The Costco Theory of the Internet
If you are a solopreneur or small business owner, you should read this.
Matthias Schaub shares:
I rebuilt my own web image feed and gallery
A great, little, fairly KISS project.
Git
Bruno Bernardino is:
Migrating from GitHub Actions to SourceHut Builds
HTML
Frontend Masters explores:
Managing Anchor Associations With Data Attributes and Advanced attr()
CSS
CSS Tricks examines:
The State of CSS Centering in 2026.
Brian Kardell has:
Get Clamped: Unwinding Some Difficult CSS History
Donnie D’Amato looks at the color:
Very interesting and the advice not to use pure black is solid.
AI
The Guardian reports:
Pope Leo denounces ‘culture of power’ driving rise of AI
Where's Your Ed? finishes a series:
Ed may be my brother from another mother.
The University of Oxford explores:
Software Freedom as Civic Care
Fantastic, though long. Even my our standards.
This week's featured programming tool
Markdown
Write for your website.
Back to top 👆🏼
ActivityPub
IT Notes notes:
FediMeteo, HAProxy, and the art of not wasting snac threads
Jeremy Herve examines:
Radical Speed Month, and a new Reader
Pat is:
Thinking more about ActivityPub
Gyptazy announces:
Starling – A Lightweight ActivityPub Server for the Fediverse
I will definitely check this out. Maybe for the Manade website.
This week's featured ActivityPub featured tool
Validate ActivityStreams Event
Verify your ActivityStreams Event object for FEP-8a8e compliance
Back to top 👆🏼
Fediverse
Connected Places has:
FR 164 – The Pope on Defederation
If you're interested in what the Pope is building upon, check this section of the TAM out.
For Better looks at:
The 'normal' response to the Social Web
The better name might be Ad-Free Social Media.
I ran across PeerSeek this week:
If you watch videos (which I don't), give this a peak.
Elefeed announces:
Holos Social notes:
HolosSocial isn't bringing something new to the Fediverse
Multi-device support is progressing well for Holos Social.
There are three notes in this thread.
Zeitfresser says:
Stop Posting to Platforms — Turn Your (WordPress) Website into a Fediverse Node
A solid implementation. It's only drawback is its slightly wonky with some third party clients. Still, it's probably the best integration with a CMS.
Euractiv looks:
Inside the Commission’s favorite European social network
Bonfire
A quick aside - hosting, provisioning, implementation, and opinionated customization of Manade is moving along nicely.
Back to top 👆🏼
More
Daniel Prindii aks:
What are third spaces and what makes them work
Just a Simple App announces:
This is similar to Flipboard’s Surf app.
Kevin Boone announces:
keplerd: a new Java-based server for the Gemini protocol and others
Matrix
Alexia apologizes:
My Matrix post? it f^?§%ng sucked.
Element reports:
Sweden goes live with Matrix-based federation!
RSS
CybersecKyle shares:
Improving My RSS Feed and Making It More Human Readable
XMPP
Mathieui announces:
Other Federated Social Media
TechCrunch reports:
As X shuts down Communities, Acorn debuts an alternative that puts creators in control
pckt reports:
Standard.site link cards are coming to Bluesky
Elena Rossini has an expose:
Democracy Tech
Code and Civilisation explores:
Change Management as Civic Infrastructure
eMail / Newsletters
Rewiring examines:
Moving from Fastmail to a generic host + own domain
CTAs
- That’s it for this week. Please share The Programmer's Fulcrum.
- Follow us on Flipboard or Surf or at @[email protected] on the Fediverse or at thefulcrum.eurosky.social for daily coverage.
- Read, live, and share The Techno Anarchist Manifesto!
And please build something for a community!
Blasts from the past
Previous Symfony Station Posts