Causal Islands Conference

Tickets for Local-First Conf 2026 are now on sale

July 12–14 · Berlin · 300 people · single track

Theme: user empowerment in an age of fluid software.

We're going beyond CRDTs and sync. If you're building for user agency, this is your conference.

Tickets live now → localfirstconf.com

Local-First Conf 2026 Join us for the third edition of Local-First Conf. Connect with a rapidly-growing community in an intimate setting. Berlin 12-14th July 2026.

We’ve got a save the date announcement today for this year’s Local-First Conf @localfirstconf.com - July 11th to 14th in Berlin.

We’re supporting the conference & leaning into some “Day 3” content with some malleable software and other topics.

Add your email to be notified!

from www.loper-os.org?p=568

Check out @chadfowler.com's new blog, "The Phoenix Architecture". What if software was continuing to be rebuilt?

The third path here -- beyond personal computers or renting them from the cloud -- is walkable mixed density co-op computing.

@paul-rony.bsky.social covers this in "From groups to individuals, micro-computing and us", @causalislands.com Berlin.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJjR...

A Treatise on AI Chatbots Undermining the Enlightenment On chatbot sycophancy, passivity, and the case for more intellectually challenging companions

I've been trying to articulate why the fawning, complimentary responses from AI chatbots feel so insidious to me. I've finally figured out how to explain it.

Wrote a long piece on how current model training and design choices threaten our critical thinking skills: maggieappleton.com/ai-enlighten...

Welcome to Bluesky @automerge.org

I'm glad you're consistent and not conflicted.

Automerge Community Call · Luma ☀️ Automerge Community Call Kickoff! 🌿🍉 Celebrate the season and kick off something new with our new Automerge Community Call! We’re gathering for a relaxed,…

Want to hear about the latest in Automerge? Come join the Community Call Kickoff on August 20 (and sign up for the calendar while you're at it!) lu.ma/zv6tpuu4

One more week to submit to LIVE, one of my favourite conferences!

Let's see your "new user interfaces that improve the immediacy, usability, and learnability of programming"

liveprog.org

Automerge 3 is here: the heart transplant is complete! Huge improvements in memory usage and (in most cases) correspondingly big performance improvements too. Backwards compatible on disk and the network so there's no reason not to upgrade today: automerge.org/blog/automer...

Know anyone applying to this? 👀

Sync London · Luma Interesting in building products on a local-first / sync engine architecture? Come along to the first Sync London, a meetup to learn and talk about better ways…

Are you sync curious?

lu.ma/sync-london

syncconf.dev

Dynamic documents as personal software - Geoffrey Litt YouTube video by Fission

@geoffreylitt.com’s talk at Causal Islands Toronto “Dynamic Documents as Personal Software”

youtu.be/bJ3i4K3hefI?...

We had @geoffreylitt.com join us in Toronto back in 2023.

Today he’s releasing the Malleable Software essay with the @inkandswitch.com team.

Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of locked-down apps The original promise of personal computing was a new kind of clay. Instead, we got appliances: built far away, sealed, unchangeable. In this essay, we envision malleable software: tools that users can...

New longform @inkandswitch.com essay! 📜

Malleable Software: Restoring user agency in a world of locked-down apps

by me, @joshuahhh.com, @pvh.ca and @seaofclouds.com

inkandswitch.com/essay/mallea...

It's about why people need agency over their software tools, and how to make that happen.

Scrappy make little apps for you and your friends

As a kid, I learned to program in HyperCard, a fantastic thing from Apple in the 1990s which empowered normal people to make homemade software. Last fall @pontus.granstrom.me started exploring and reinterpreting these ideas for 2025. Excited to share our writeup: pontus.granstrom.me/scrappy/

Scrappy make little apps for you and your friends

New thing! @jrcpl.us and I have been exploring home-made software. We made a prototype of a tool for making scrappy little apps for you and your friends.

pontus.granstrom.me/scrappy/

🏵️ Folk Computer May Open House · Luma From 1:30pm to 2:30pm, we'll be giving tours of the current state of Folk, our physical computing system. At 2:30pm, we'll give a short talk about our last…

If you’re in NYC and curious about checking out Folk Computer we’re having another open house event Saturday, May 31!

lu.ma/ydi03zax

Check out the first of @grjte.sh posts about combining #localfirst software - using @inkandswitch.com’s Automerge + Tiny Essay Editor - with ATProto for Lexicon data typing and public distribution.

I’m excited to read all the write ups about the Groundmist project!

USER * AGENTS * BERLIN · Luma The User & Agents community invites you to come hang out and make things together for TWO WHOLE DAYS following Local-First Conf 2025 in Berlin! We'll be coming…

if you'll be in Berlin for @localfirstconf.com and are sticking around after...

the Userandagents.com community is hosting a casual space for #localfirst people to hang / hack / chat for the Thurs/Fri after the conference!

registration and more info: lu.ma/v457jxp2

Universal Version Control Industrial research lab working on digital tools for creativity and productivity

Our new research track is called Universal Version Control and it's about exploring how to bring the power of version control to every person, on every kind of document and every kind of collaboration.
www.inkandswitch.com/universal-ve...

Local-first Conf 2025 - Community Day · Luma RSVP here to attend the pre-conference community day with workshops and unconference activities. More details to follow but RSVP to get your place and save the…

For anyone going to @localfirstconf.com, don’t forget about the pre-conference Localfirst community day lu.ma/v8ggp0u9?tk=...

Algorave at Corsica Studios · Luma It's time for another Algorave Algorave Algorave Algorave Algo— Room One features the usual combination of awesome live coded visuals and audio. While Room…

ONE WEEK UNTIL THE LONDON ALGORAVE

You can buy a ticket here for an early bird price before it goes up tomorrow

lu.ma/ig4y8mii

- Ticket revenue goes towards venue and artists
- Event is listed in two places for maximum reach and inclusion! please only buy in one place :)
- The night will be good

The Hard Things About Sync Lessons learned working on sync engine at Figma

Excited to share this blogpost with y'all!
expertofobsolescence.substack.com/p/the-hard-t...

Notes from the Lab - March 2025

Custom HTML attributes, space transforms, peer-to-peer WebRTC + DOM sync, and much more!

github.com/folk-systems...

a mysterious geometric logo

This is the logo for a new Ink & Switch research track. What are your guesses for the name of this research area?

Multi-disciplinary artist Jack Rusher on the need to sustain your creative drive in the face of technological change – The Creative Independent Multi-disciplinary artist Jack Rusher discusses habit as excellence, what scientists and artists have in common, and the influence of AI on creativity.

I recently had a great chat with @rebeccahiscott.bsky.social at the Creative Independent. You can read the interview here…

Causal Islands · Events Calendar View and subscribe to events from Causal Islands on Luma. The future of computing conference, plus selected conferences and community events around the world.

P.S. Feel free to add future of computing, local first, malleable software, and other Causal Islands vibes events to the calendar (anyone can submit).

The Causal Islands website is powered by Ghost and has a large mailing list that we can support people with as well

Sync SF · Luma Interesting in building products on a local-first / sync engine architecture? Come along to the first Sync SF, a meetup to learn and talk about better ways of…

The first Sync SF is happening on Monday, March 17th https://lu.ma/sync-sf

​Kyle Mathews - Electric, Gatsby
​Sam Bhagwat - Mastra, Gatsby
​J Chris Anderson - Fireproof, Couchbase
​Natalie Vais - Google Firestore, Spark Capital
​Jack McCloy - Snowflake
​Yonatan Feleke - Vella, lofi.software

What if hypertext were zoomable? Then you could zoom forever, in circles... I made this the other day and came up with a data structure that allows the coordinate origin to move through the graph, to keep memory fixed and avoid floating point precision limits.
folk.systems/canvas/space...