Notes for July 31, 2026

List of active Forums on the web: Forum Revial Movement - Fight for forums on the internet and maintain knowledge, in-depth discussions & the freedom of speech - Active Forum Directory

Forums have played a big role in making the World Wide Web great in the first place. They acted as a melting pot for knowledge and communication between users around the whole world. A whole culture evolved around forums. Not one, but many. Forums served a purpose. They still do. Forums are meaningful. Still. Since the breakthrough of social media and platforms like Discord, forum usage has been in decline for years now. A lot of forums have died already or are abandoned but there still are very active forums and great niche forums with low activity that need us to repopulate 'em. We really should make a turn as the internet society and start using forums again more often. We as well should download and dump forums to be able to archive what once has been written.

I've been so hyperfixated on blogs the last few years, I totally forgot forums used to be so big. They're just as important to the small web / indie web / open social web movement as blogs, if you ask me. I've been hanging out (mostly lurking) on 32-bit Cafe lately and it's unlocking a lot of old memories of browsing stuff like the ESP Guitar forum, XDA Developers, and other sites I used to frequent back before Discord and Reddit stole all the thunder from forums.

What sucks about Discord or Facebook communities is that they're a walled garden for anyone who doesn't want to go through their KYC process and register an account. And before Reddit became the main content of Google search results, forums were king. I dont know that we could possibly get back to how it was in the good old days, but the Forum Revival Movement is a great place to start.

Another cyclospora outbreak grows, source still unknown: FDA

Oh good. This just keeps getting better. Luckily, my autistic ass has been on a steady diet of McDonald's and other highly processed food products since I was in pampers. I knew ordering my McDoubles with only ketchup wasn't for nothing. I'll pass on the blueberries too, for now.

AT Protocol helps attack a lot of these problems. Not by replacing RSS, but by providing better foundation for the data that RSS currently holds.

I love RSS, but it's a pretty old technology that hasn't changed a whole heck of a lot in a long time. I still use it daily, through Miniflux. And even for my paid podcast subscriptions I always opt for the RSS feed to plug into Overcast instead of paying through Apple Podcasts with an in-app purchase.

I think the Atmosphere could provide a pretty nice upgrade; adding a layer of functionality on top of an already great technology, just like it's doing with the web itself.

Introducing the Forkchop:

View post on Bluesky

Winamp is back, with Deezer-powered streaming

Winamp and Deezer announced a partnership on Wednesday that will let Deezer power a new Winamp premium subscription. Deezer supplies the white-label streaming technology and its global licensed catalogue. Winamp keeps its own brand, its own look, and its own idea of how a music player should feel.

God damn it. I already pay for the Apple Music family plan, now I'm gonna have to try this on top of it. There's no way I could talk the rest of the family into switching to Winamp.