Top all-time · #434
Matt Webb
Personal blog · interconnected.org · on HN as genmondesignculturewriting
Matt Webb's personal blog at interconnected.org covers design, culture and writing. Since 2008, 129 different Hacker News readers have linked it 257 times, most often “Every webpage deserves to be a place”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Rarely recommended · 3 of 34 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Matt Webb's blog as a favourite personal blog and for essays on technology, computing history and culture, such as early multi-user computing, RSS and XSLT, and his experimental projects.
- Recommended for · 3 comments
- Called a favourite blog read consistently; one commenter says to 'drop everything & go read' an essay; a page is called 'wonderful'.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 34 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Every webpage deserves to be a place5 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2024-09-06
- The surprising ease and effectiveness of AI in a loop4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-03-17
- The subjective experience of coding in different programming languages (2023)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-12-05
- /home/feed4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-05-09
- I wish my web server were in the corner of my room4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-10-11
- My new fave thing to go to is algoraves3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-12-11
- Sometimes the product innovation is the distribution3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-09-27
- Mapping the landscape of gen-AI product user experience3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-07-19
- Who will build new search engines for new personal AI agents?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-03-21
- Sage and a glimpse of group computing from before the PC3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-05-27
What Hacker News says?
I wondered the same thing. Turns out, there's a whole language for XML stylesheets: XSLT[1]. The stylesheet used to style that page is http://interconnected.org/home/static/styles/pretty-feed-v2.... (will probably want to view source). [1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/XSLT
Comment linking /home/static/styles/pretty-feed-v2.xsl
on “I Still Use RSS”Submitted I wish my web server were in the corner of my room as a story · 589 points
HN discussionRSS onboarding is a struggle for new users. RSS, unlike commercial products, lacks a "front page" to explain the benefits and how to get started. Two things that can help: 1. Have a prettified RSS feed that tells new users what it is, rather than showing raw XML. For example here's mine: http://interconnected.org/home/feed 2. (plug) Link to https://aboutfeeds.com which is a one-pager RSS explainer site, providing li…
Comment linking /home/feed
on “I Still Use RSS”Submitted Here comes the Muybridge camera moment but for text as a story · 249 points
HN discussionIt works in the browser. For example, my RSS feed is processed with XSL to provide a friendly landing page: https://interconnected.org/home/feed (view source, second line)
Comment linking /home/feed
on “How to build a personal webpage from scratch”Submitted Show HN: Galactic Compass – an app that points to the galactic center as a story · 175 points
HN discussionThis is one of my favorite blogs that I read consistently. Some of my favorites: Micromorts: units to measure risk of death— https://interconnected.org/home/2020/09/01/microcovids First words— https://interconnected.org/home/2020/10/12/first_words State sponsored fashion— https://interconnected.org/home/2022/08/16/fashion Speaking with dolphains— https://interconnected.org/home/2020/07/20/dolphins Bottling the overv…
Comment linking /home/2021/07/20/overview_effect
on “I wish my web server were in the corner of my room”Submitted Tech has graduated from the Star Trek era to the Douglas Adams age as a story · 166 points
HN discussionInterestingly, the background colour of this site seems to change over time very subtly, and it's done by CSS with no JavaScript: The "changingbg" parts in https://interconnected.org/home/static/styles/interconnected...
Comment linking /home/static/styles/interconnected-2020.css?v=7
on “I wish my web server were in the corner of my room”Submitted Every webpage deserves to be a place as a story · 164 points
HN discussionYeess. Recommendation, drop everything & go read Matt Webb on the computing that could have been, talking SAGE & multi-user workspaces[1]! > Right now we’re in the era of personal computers. Collaboration, social use of tools, togetherness: all of these are hacks on top of something that, at its core, was designed for the individual first. > But there’s a particular photograph of group computing from the 1950s, from…
Comment linking /home/2021/12/21/sage
on “50th Anniversary of the Mother of All Demos (2018)”Submitted Mars Problems vs. Venus Problems as a story · 159 points
HN discussionI'm a big fan of the coming anthropomorphisation of computers. It seems so clear (to me) that the future is heading that way. Apple have already hired writers for Siri; how many more years before its personality starts to change to match the tone and manner that you ask questions? Young children have already started to mis-identify Siri as a real person! There was also the film Her the other year which seems quite p…
Comment linking /home/2015/06/16/conversational_uis
on “Compiler Errors for Humans”Submitted Computers should expose their internal workings as a 6th sense as a story · 158 points
HN discussionHere's the RSS for the blog of the aboutfeeds.com maintainer (genmon here on HN—including here in the comments to this submission): < https://interconnected.org/home/feed > If you wanted an informal list of people making use of this pretty-feed.xsl specifically, it would be possible to solicit that sort of thing through GitHub and see if others come out of the woodwork to identify themselves.
Comment linking /home/feed
on “RSS Feed Best Practices”Submitted Sometimes the product innovation is the distribution as a story · 123 points
HN discussionCool people: • https://tracydurnell.com • https://www.benkuhn.net • https://schmud.de • https://brandur.org • https://bytes.zone • https://cassidoo.co • https://www.chrbutler.com • https://sive.rs • https://fasterthanli.me • https://akkartik.name • https://www.todepond.com • https://blog.gingerbeardman.com • https://gwern.net • https://interconnected.org • https://jacobfilipp.com • https://johnnywebber.com • https:/…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Favorite blog in 2024?”Submitted Training my sense of CO2 ppm as a story · 121 points
HN discussionLiving the I wish my web server were in the corner of my room [1] dream. Which I think- as typical Webb- speaks so succinctly to what a real & meaningful connection to technology is. [1] https://interconnected.org/home/2022/10/10/servers
Comment linking /home/2022/10/10/servers
on “The Raspberry Pi 400 in My Bedroom”Submitted I wish my web server were in the corner of my room (2022) as a story · 117 points
HN discussionThis reminds me of Matt Webb's piece titled "Instagram as an island economy"[1] where he writes about the concept of encoded labour: "Every "user" of Instagram is a worker. There are some people who produce photos -- this is valuable, it means there is something for people to look it. There are some people who only produce comments or "likes," the virtual society equivalent of apes picking lice off other apes." [1]…
Comment linking /home/2012/04/11/instagram_as_an_island_economy
on “We All Work for Facebook”Submitted Narrative Jailbreaking for Fun and Profit as a story · 105 points
HN discussionI found most interesting the part of your story where you developed an intuitive sense of its location: > […] it’s a nice trick if you can do it, but it’s better when you can do it at any time, without an app. Which is what happened. > > First I got good at figuring out the ecliptic. That’s the flat disc of the Earth’s orbit (and the solar system). If you wave your arm along the path that the Sun makes across the sk…
Comment linking /home/2021/06/30/galaxy
on “Show HN: Galactic Compass – an app that points to the galactic center”Submitted Dunbar’s number and how speaking is 2.8x better than picking fleas as a story · 95 points
HN discussionBlog author here. Here's the Markdown. https://interconnected.org/home/2024/02/15/galactic-compass.... Sorry for all the noise! It's kinda fun with 2 or 3 simultaneous readers. With 500... well, I'll be building an off switch next.
Comment linking /home/2024/02/15/galactic-compass.md
on “Tech has graduated from the Star Trek era to the Douglas Adams age”Submitted Unoffice Hours (2020) as a story · 87 points
HN discussionMark Weiser was my friend and mentor at the University of Maryland, so I've posted some stuff about his work and life here in the past. As usual, I've checked and updated the broken links to archive.org. (One of my favorites is the 1995 Computer Chronicals video at the end with a profile of Mark's band, Severe Tire Damage, the first band to ever perform live over the internet, who upstaged the Rolling Stones over MB…
Comment linking /home/2021/08/27/data_sense
on “Calm Technology”Submitted Why not faster computation via evolution and diffracted light? as a story · 67 points
HN discussionHa! I did the same in 2014, interesting to see how it has changed in that time http://interconnected.org/home/2014/12/12/billy_joel
Comment linking /home/2014/12/12/billy_joel
on “Wikipedia pageviews this year for each line of ‘We Didn't Start the Fire’”Submitted Lightbulbs Were So Startup as a story · 62 points
HN discussion
