Matt: Time Zones

If you like rabbit holes, a wonderful way to spend your Sunday is in the writing of Zach Holman, an early engineer at Github and Gitlab. All are good, but a particular favorite of mine is UTC is enough for everyone …right? You don’t need to code to appreciate that time is a construct, that … Read more

Akismet: Happy 20th Birthday Akismet

Akismet was launched 20 years ago today, when Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg announced it on his blog in a post describing what Akismet was and what it could become. The internet has changed a lot in the past 20 years! In 2005, the internet was primarily a desktop experience, dominated by dial‑up or early broadband … Read more

Gutenberg Times: Gutenberg Changelog #123 – WordPress 6.9 and Gutenberg 21.9

In this episode, Birgit Pauli-Haack and Isabel Brison dive into WordPress 6.9 and Gutenberg 21.9. They discuss major updates such as collaborative block-level comments (notes), expanded template management, the new command palette, and foundational block visibility features. New blocks like the accordion, math, and terms query block are highlighted, alongside enhancements in typography and time-to-read. … Read more

Matt: November Atlantic

The Atlantic November issue is lovely, focused on the American Revolution. I particularly enjoyed: The Myth of Mad King George, which gave a different more nuanced view of King George I didn’t have before or from the Hamilton musical. Why Did Benjamin Franklin’s Son Remain Loyal to the British? I was obsessed with with Ben … Read more

Matt: Automattic 20 & Counter-claims

It’s a bit of Automattic lore, but although I founded the company in June 2005, CNET asked me to stay on for a few more months to finish out some projects, which I did. Our HR systems have me as the second employee, after Donncha O Caoimh (still at the company!) So today is my … Read more

Matt: Under the Weather

I don’t get sick very often, but when it catches up to me it hits like a freight train. Just trying to keep all the plates spinning while operating at 10% capacity, been sleeping a ton. Today was in some ways better, some ways worse than yesterday. I try to avoid hospitals and emergency care, … Read more

Matt: New Woo

WooCommerce 10.3 is out, just in time for Black Friday / Cyber Monday, with some nice improvements to the checkout experience, tracking cost of goods sold, and a new beta MCP server, “This new feature enables AI assistants like Claude, Cursor, VS Code, or any other MCP-compatible client to interact directly with WooCommerce stores through … Read more