Notices by photomatt@mastodon.social

If you’re going to give me AI slop, at least make it fun! Give me iambic pentameter. Make it all rhyme. Have it be a song. I think we’re under-utilizing the artistic and creative capabilities of models by making them produce work that sort-of-but-not-really looks like human effort.

Important Security Update

WordPress 7.0.2 went out today with two important security updates. One is a type of pre-authorization RCE we (fortunately!) have only seen a few times in WordPress' 23-year history; the last, I believe, …...

https://ma.tt/2026/07/wp-security/

Code for the People

Lights! Camera! Action! Todd Spangler at Variety writes: Automattic’s ‘Code for the People’ Documentary Is a Rallying Cry for Users to Fight for the Open Internet…...

https://ma.tt/2026/07/people-code/

USA 250

This auspicious 250th Independence Day, I find myself thinking of what Om wrote in iAMerican when he became a US citizen in 2013…...

https://ma.tt/2026/07/usa-250/

Om Links

There has been a lot of excitement about the OmFest idea. If you'd like to attend or contribute, …...

https://ma.tt/2026/06/om-links/

All Roads Lead to Om

Yesterday, my best friend and brother from another mother, Om Malik, passed away. They say that blood is thicker than water, and what we had was way thicker than blood....

https://ma.tt/2026/06/om-2/

No Bubble http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6IQ_FOCE6I https://ma.tt/2026/06/no-bubble/

In honor of Father’s Day, I wanted to add to the two quotes from my Dad’s obituary, “Seven days without chicken made one weak.” and “If you fail at raising your children, nothing else mattered.” with another saying he had.

Ain’t no hill for a stepper.

If you’d like to learn more about this, check out this part of the A Way with Words podcast, and apparently, it might have come from the musician John Gaar.

Death by PowerPoint

PowerPoint makes us stupid. — Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps, the Joint Forces commander Classic 2010 NYT We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint.

https://ma.tt/2026/06/death-by-powerpoint/

Best Trash

A typography savant on staff had spent a month designing link underlines (literally just lines) that were more visually pleasing than Chrome or Safari’s defaults....

https://ma.tt/2026/06/best-trash/

Midjourney Medical

I'm sorry I couldn't be there in person, but I was so excited to watch the…...

https://ma.tt/2026/06/midjourney-medical/

It looks like Ubiquiti is coming for Sonos with its PoE Audio Port, a $199 device that closely resembles the $499 Sonos Port, and $599 PowerAmp. Sonos is going up-market with the Amp Multi.

Sonos has had a rough patch, but I’m pretty ride or die for them, and some of my favorite people are there: Tom Conrad, the CEO, Hugo Barra on the board, and Mike Tatum in CorpDev (he’s the guy who got me to drop out of college and join CNET back in 2004!).

The only time I don’t do Sonos in a home is for…

Assorted Links

Sometimes you have to just start with beauty. Listen to Jon Batiste's Beethoven Blues, then…...

https://ma.tt/2026/06/assorted-links-2/

WCEU

Cześć wszystkim, Kraków... I made the call not to fly to Poland for WordCamp Europe. I'm very for the last-minute notice; I was really hoping to make it. I’m okay, but I want to stay close to loved ones going through difficult times. Seeing the pictures from Contributor Day warms my heart. Bardzo za Wami tęsknię. I miss you dearly.

https://ma.tt/2026/06/wceu/

Bee Champion

Spelling bees have gotten a lot more intense. How many of these do you know? torrone, enthymeme, iguape, Denebola, fais-dodo, cywyddau, pohutukawa, monadnock, émeute, nannofossil, tongkang, Natchitoches, flaith, semele, rusell, sawder, campernelle, Nicol, Zamenis, Tharparkar, tlachtli, madoqua, retiarius, balintawak, tessaraconter, taurokathapsia, rapakivi, uayeb, paroemia, melengket, teraglin, homelyn, chikungunya, bromocriptine (cashaw)...

https://ma.tt/2026/06/bee-champion/

Maybe

I think I heard this parable somewhere in the 14 hours of Alan Watts lectures someone recommended to me in 2017, but here's a beautiful 2-minute version I'd love to share for everyone going through something. I really appreciate the love and support I received after the WP23 post, and I do want to tell people I'm okay, the post was part catharsis and part giving voice to what I see and hear privately from people who aren't public figures.

https://ma.tt/2026/05/maybe/

RIP Sonny Rollins

Sonny Rollins, the Saxophone Colossus, has passed. He is probably my favorite saxophonist, and while the aforementioned album is one of the five I would take to a deserted island, he has so many other good ones like The Cutting Edge which also has bagpipes, or Sonny Side Up with Sonny Stitt and Dizzy Gillespie. WordPress 6.7…

https://ma.tt/2026/05/rip-sonny/

Hey @tg I think you would dig a lot of what we're doing with w.org/playground . We even have a POSIX kernel in WASM happening: https://github.com/Automattic/kandelo

@tg You should check out @dayoneapp

TheOpenSource http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08NqrRQArNw https://ma.tt/2026/04/theopensource/