The Programmer's Fulcrum: 30 January, 2026
Welcome to this week's The Programmer's Fulcrum.
It's your weekly review of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism. 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.
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.
Follow us on the Fediverse
Featured Item(s)
Hamish Campbell (the originator of the Open Media Network) has two items:
One story, we have to keep telling is that we can take a different path, that in a 4opens world, exchange is no longer driven primarily by the blunt instrument of money. That doesn’t mean money vanishes overnight, or that material realities are ignored. It means money stops being treated as the only valid way to recognise value, coordinate effort, and motivate participation.
This matters, because money is a very crude tool. Capitalism trained us to believe that if something matters, it must be priced. If it has no price, it has no value. If it cannot be owned, it cannot be protected. This blinded framing works tolerably well for scarce physical goods, but it breaks down completely in the digital realm, where information can be copied, shared, and improved without depletion.
The end of money as the primary motivator
This ties in with Yanis Varoufakis' book, Techno Feudalism: What Killed Capitalism. And it was the main inspiration for the Techno Anarchist Manifesto.
Open Media Network Site CMSs
Ben Werdmuller notes:
Journalism lost its culture of sharing
Source has the article Ben commented on:
Journalism lost its culture of sharing
Groups like The Pudding, City Bureau, and Bellingcat are still fighting the good fight.
WordPress
WordPress.com has:
12 Top WordPress Themes People Actually Use in 2026 (Tested & Ranked)
I build sub-themes off 2024 for my WP sites.
WordPress Studio 1.7.0: Meet the New Studio CLI
Make WordPress has:
Call for Testing – Customizable Navigation (“Mobile”) Overlays
The Gutenberg Times has:
WP Developer explores:
5 Best Cloudways Alternatives in 2026: Expert-Tested for Performance & Value (Complete Guide)
I used Siteground for many years with my small clients and it was great.
The Repository reports:
WordPress Meetups to Add Hands-On Contribution Sessions Alongside Traditional Formats
Now this is where we can get some things done.
Great news.
Unleash WP shares:
WordPress 7.0 Enforces Block API v3: Why Existing Blocks Begin to Fail
This is from a little while back, but it's important.
The same goes here from SpeckyBoy:
How to Protect WordPress Block Layouts From Accidental Changes
Learn WP Theme Dev has a series:
Building a Custom Block Part 1: Scaffolding block files
Building a Custom Block Part 2: Attributes and Supports
Building a Custom Block Part 3: Inner Blocks and Inspector Controls
Building a Custom Block Part 4: Adding Styles and Custom Interactivity
WP Editor and Blocks has:
The Interactivity API State Flow: A Comprehensive Guide for Large-Scale Applications
Delicious Brains examines:
The Anatomy of theme.json: A Developer’s Cheat Sheet
This is one to bookmark.
Ghost
TechResolve shows us how to:
Migrate WordPress Posts to Ghost CMS: A Content Export Script
This has a whiff of AI about it, but it appears to be good information.
Progressier shows us how to:
Turn your Ghost Website into a PWA
Synaps Media looks at:
On a similar note, Magic Pages (the host for this site)
On Cloudflare, Ethics, and European Sovereignty
We want effectiveness in fighting Techno Feudalism not ideological purity. There is no problem with allies who fight the same enemy but with different tools than we might choose.
Beware of Ghost phishing links
Drupal CMS
Drupal announces:
Drupal CMS 2.0 is here: Visual building, AI, and site templates transform Drupal
Its founder, Dries Buyaert has:
AI creates asymmetric pressure on Open Source
This is a nuanced take. But Dries, you forgot to mention AI use is immoral because it destroys the environment, steals from creators, is inherently biased, and destroys democracy! At least it's optional (for now).
Can AI be used ethically? Maybe. See my note below the David Duymelinck below.
Grav CMS
SelectHub compares:
I have an aside on this below, which is why I shared this comparison.
Back to top 👆🏼
Techno Anarchist / OMN Tools
About Signal reports:
Signal popularity soars, number one in Finland
The Association for Progressive Communications reports on:
Teamtype on becoming independent of big corporations and their cloud servers
Chat
Cyber Insider reports:
Signal president warns AI agents are making encryption irrelevant
Browsers
Mahdi M. notes:
Pop-Ups Are Back, Baby, And Browsers Don't Care
David Bushell explores:
Fantastic site design David.
Waterfox announces:
No AI* Here - A Response to Mozilla's Next Chapter
This is a slightly older post but relevant to the previous link. BTW, I use WaterFox, Zen, and LibreWolf on a daily basis. There is no need to put up with the clowns running Mozilla.
Writing
LibreOffice looks at:
Validating ODF and OOXML files
Creative
GIMP announces:
Krita announces:
Linux
Linux iMac has:
Linux Distros I Recommend for Those Switching from Windows
The KISS aspect is vital. I use Zorin for that reason.
Mat shares:
F-Droid has:
F-Droid Basic 2.0 alpha released
F-Droid in 2025 - Strengthening Our Foundations in a Changing Mobile Landscape
This week's featured OMN tool
From idea to publication in one app Zettlr supports your writing process at every stage. Progressing from initial notes to journal submission or book manuscript it works with you.
Back to top 👆🏼
OMN Programming
Laura Kalbag announces her classic book is now online and free:
It's supported by the great team at Small Technology Foundation and built with their Kitten tool.
Roave shows us how to:
Write a reusable GitHub Action
Hopefully a similar approach works with other Git tools. No one should be using GitHub.
Frontend Masters opines:
Supporting Open Source in 2026: Why It Matters More Than Ever ($50,000)
Terence Eden asks:
HTML
CSS Tricks says:
There is No Need to Trap Focus on a Dialog Element
HTMX
The Thread Whisperer says:
The React-to-HTMX Pipeline Will Define the Next 5 Years of Web Development
If you are a paying member of Medium, this might interest you.
Twig
Symfony announces:
Twig 3.23: Introducing new operators and destructuring support
Cool. BTW, I missed Symfony-adjacent site building (Symfony Station was sunset) so I built my new community project, Manade on Kirby CMS. Now I can keep my YAML and Twig skills sharp. Not to mention HTML and CSS.
SS was/is on Grav CMS, which FYI is ten times easier to use than Kirby. Kirby compares to Drupal so its more scalable.
CSS
Polypane helps with:
Understanding the fundamentals of CSS Layout
Another one to bookmark.
Always Twisted is:
Introducing ReliCSS: A Tool for Front-End Archaeology
A great tool.
CSS Tricks demonstrates:
Responsive Hexagon Grid Using Modern CSS
Overly complicated, but very interesting.
W3WebTech has the encouraging results of a survey:
Usage statistics and market shares of CSS frameworks
You would think with all the tech bro hype Failwind ruled the roost. It's even behind Foundation in use. I imagine that's because people who know what they are doing on the frontend know that Tailwind sucks.
My bias aside, I hope you are all among the 80% who use no framework.
Web Components
Øystein Amundsen shares:
I built a data grid with web components – here's what I learned
JavaScript
MDN has:
AI
Dan Shapiro shares:
The Five Levels: from Spicy Autocomplete to the Dark Factory
Armin Ronacher asks:
Agent Psychosis: Are We Going Insane?
David Duymelinck ask:
Not is the right answer 95% of the time. I think it's ok in these cases.
In rare, possibly good news Ai2 announces:
Open Coding Agents: Fast, accessible coding agents that adapt to any repo
At least they have open data and SERA allows you to roll your own coding agent. If we are stuck with this shit, this is the way to do AI.
Michael Buddingh explains:
How LLMs sabotage existing programming practices by privatizing a public good
This still tracks. Unfortunately. 😡
So, it’s vital for you to share your knowledge by participating in the Open Media Network and open source.
Other
OpenProject has:
5 steps to get started with live collaboration in Documents
I missed this one last week.
Codeberg announces:
A centralized changelog for various Codeberg services
XWiki announces:
Release Notes for XWiki 18.0.0
This week's featured programming tool
p2panda provides building blocks for peer-to-peer applications.
Back to top 👆🏼
ActivityPub
My Bad Take space looks at:
This is relevant to ATProto as well.
I ran across Stegodon this week:
Interesting, but obviously not for everyone.
This week's featured ActivityPub featured tool
ActivityPub is the ActivityPub handbook that every social software hacker needs.
I am slowly making my way through it.
Back to top 👆🏼
Fediverse
Hamish Campbell has:
Real Community, Not Algorithmic Spectacle
Fediverse – What actually happened (no bullshit version)
Connected Places shares its:
FR: 150 – On ICE, Verification, and Presence As Harm
FediLabs has:
Winsome explores:
The Federated Web: Marketing in a Decentralized Internet
DeepWiki explains:
The fundamental concepts of how ActivityPub federation works in Discourse
Betula announces:
I just came across Betula, a free self-hosted single-user federated bookmark manager.
PeerTube announces:
Friendica announces:
Bonfire
I published our second Bonfire article this week:
TAM and OMN tools for potential Bonfire
This week's featured Fediverse Platform/Tool/Resource
HubZilla is the powerful open source privacy-respecting all-in-one home base for collaboration and social interactions.
Back to top 👆🏼
More
Matrix has:
This Week in Matrix 2026-01-23
If you are going to FOSDEM, you should check their devroom out. And the Element Server Suite project is interesting.
XMPP has:
MongooseIM 6.5 - Open for Integration
RSS
FreshRSS announces:
New release 1.28.1 of FreshRSS
This is a bug release that I hope fixes some things. I could never get it going on my self-hosting and had to go with an old school solution, SelFOSS.
P2P
I ran across Quiet this week:
Quit Big Tech. Never look back.
Other Slightly Federated Social Media
TechCrunch reports:
TikTok alternative Skylight soars to 380K+ users after TikTok US deal finalized
CTAs
- That’s it for this week. Please share The Programmer's Fulcrum.
- Follow us on Flipboard or at @[email protected] on the Fediverse 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