Thirty-seven

Birthday

I turn 37 today. I look around and I feel incredibly lucky to be writing this after a topsy-turvy year. I have health. I have friends whom I love. These are all good reasons to feel optimistic about the future. A few unconnected thoughts today:

My father had me when he was exactly 13,300 days old, and this year I passed that number of rotations of the Earth.

It’s hard to plan when so much is changing, so resolutions this year haven’t felt the same. But in times like these it’s even more important to plan for the long-term. A look back, once a year, is enough to remind of what remains.

I’m so thankful for the internet. It’s where I learned and practiced my trade. It’s where I connect every day with the most interesting and eclectic group of people I could imagine, a modern day Florence during the Renaissance. I hope to make a lot more internet and enable others to do the same.

Many years ago I said “Technology is best when it brings people together.” This quote has taken on a life of its own on motivational posters and images. When I first said it I think I had in mind WordCamps and meetups and other physical gatherings; this year it transformed for me seeing how technology brought together those separated by the pandemic. This year has appeared divisive, so it’s easy to overlook how many times people came together. It’s like the old saying, it’s not how many times you fall, it’s how many times you get up. Fall thirty-six times, get up thirty-seven.

All birthday posts: 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39.

21 thoughts on “Thirty-seven”

  2. Matt, happy birthday or as we say “Alles Gute zum Geburtstag” have an even better year and stay the way you are! Thank you for your inspiration and leading as an example!

    Reply

  4. Happy birthday Matt!
    Just like what we were taught in school, “Technology is useless without ethics”

    It’s amazing to see in action and hear the good things Technlogy had done all these years.
    And here’s to an amazing year ahead 🙂

    Reply

  6. Happy belated birthday Matt. I said a birthday prayer for you yesterday. May this new year bring you much peace, continued health and a luminous continuation of your life’s work.

    Reply

  10. Happy birthday Matt,

    .. code is poetry .. poetry is future .. and future is the wrench of time .. all of it connects ideas nobody can think about because one suggestion is not allways enough .. rotations detect relations, collect & emit following moments to be lively !!

    Reply

  14. Dear Matt
    I am so glad you opened the way for sharing.
    Try to apply the same principles to our news information.
    The 4 principles of WP must also be applicable to other things like programming.
    Giving will be the standard
    Programs like WP, Libre office, Wiki, Git, Telegram etc are already much better than Google and facebook stuf.
    Huge offices and millions of employers are useless.
    All those lazy shareholders too.

    I want to try to apply your 4 principles to a new news website.
    It must be possible to make news and science better by removing the subjectivity.
    Reliable news that can be improved by anyone.
    It seems like a difficult job but worth a try.
    Change the world or go home.
    Maybe you have ideas about this.
    Have a happy birthday and another 37 years.
    knowledge is also poetry

    Reply

  18. Just imagine what 2020 would have been like if it had happened in 1990? I wonder how many lives tech has saved during COVID? Imagine having nothing but a telephone to connect with the outside world during a Pandemic?

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