Web Designer Magazine Interview

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Q. If you had a crystal ball would you have given more thought to the commercial aspects that WordPress has to offer?

A few months ago I did an interview with Web Designer magazine they just published on the web asThe Wizard of WordPress, An interview with Matt Mullenweg. It includes the answer to the above question. They published it with a funky Warhol-esque cover, but I can’t find an image of that online. (Issue 167 isn’t listed on their site.)

Unbolding

Asides

Bad mornings are the ones where I sit at home compulsively unbolding things hoping that somewhere in there there will be the gem of connection and stimuli that gets me out the door.

Kellan Elliott-McCrea on a 2006 post called Twitter Curve. I really like the word “unbolding.”

Facts Backfire

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“In reality, we often base our opinions on our beliefs, which can have an uneasy relationship with facts. And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions. Worst of all, they can lead us to uncritically accept bad information just because it reinforces our beliefs. This reinforcement makes us more confident we’re right, and even less likely to listen to any new information.”

— Joe Keohane in How facts backfire. Hat tip: Ramit Sethi’s psychology bookmarks.

Syn-thesis 1 and Chris Pearson

Asides

I ended up in an impromptu conversation with Chris Pearson and Andrew Warner earlier today regarding the issue of Thesis violating WordPress’ license. For entertainment purposes you can read some choice quotes on Hacker News (here’s another) but the whole thing is worth a listen even though I did not articulate the issues as well I could have. Ultimately the legal, community, and pure business arguments fell on deaf ears, so no minds were changed but yours might be after listening to it. Unfortunately it ends with Mr Pearson basically saying “sue me.” See also: Jane’s post.

10 Million

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Earlier today this blog passed 10 million pageviews since the WP.com Stats plugin started tracking it in May 2007. I would like to take this opportunity to express a special thanks to each of my readers, old and new, especially those that take their time to leave comments. Over the years this blog has begotten numerous features such as clean permalinks, galleries, and asides that have driven core WP development, and I hope that it can continue to serve as a testbed and playground for what WordPress can do.

Job / Career / Calling

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Jonathan Haidt in The Happiness Hypothesis:

Most people approach their work in one of three ways: as a job, a career, or a calling.

  • If you see your work as a job, you do it only for the money, you look at the clock frequently while dreaming about the weekend ahead, and you probably pursue hobbies, which satisfy your effectance needs more thoroughly than does your work.
  • If you see your work as a career, you have larger goals of advancement, promotion, and prestige.
  • If you see your work as a calling, however, you find your work intrinsically fulfilling you are not doing it to achieve something else. You see your work as contributing to the greater good or as playing a role in some larger enterprise the worth of which seems obvious to you. You have frequent experiences of flow during the work day, and you neither look forward to “quitting time” nor feel the desire to shout, “Thank God it’s Friday!” You would continue to work, perhaps even without pay, if you suddenly became very wealthy.

Hat tip: Derek Sivers books page.

New Summer Design

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As has become the tradition around here, today I’m launching a new design to celebrate the new year. (See also 2006, 2008, 2009.)

As you can tell, it is very inspired by the pop art of Roy Lichtenstein, an idea that came to me while visiting the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C. last year, and again at SFMOMA in November. The idea was beautifully executed by designer Nicolò Volpato (who has now done 3 of the past 4 designs for Ma.tt) and coded up by Otto.

The header is a lot smaller, the graphics should load much faster since they’re simpler, and there have also been a few tweaks throughout the site to make it feel a bit speedier. Instead of image hacks like I’ve used in my past few designs I’m now using Typekit for pretty much everything, which feels nice.

Please take a look around, stroll through some of the recent photo albums, and generally make yourself at home. Let me know what you think in the comments. On to the next one…