Hacker News: matthewn

New comment by matthewn in "Ask HN: Share your personal website"

matthewn — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 22:33:35 +0000

https://www.mahnamahna.net/

New comment by matthewn in "Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears"

matthewn — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 21:44:00 +0000

For more on this -- and how Sears had everything it needed (and more) to be what Amazon became -- see this comment from a 2007 MetaFilter thread: https://www.metafilter.com/62394/The-Record-Industrys-Declin...

New comment by matthewn in "Bill Atkinson has died"

matthewn — Sat, 07 Jun 2025 17:26:33 +0000

In an alternate timeline, HyperCard was not allowed to wither and die, but instead continued to mature, embraced the web, and inspired an entire genre of software-creating software. In this timeline, people shape their computing experiences as easily as one might sculpt a piece of clay, creating personal apps that make perfect sense to them and fit like a glove; computing devices actually become (for everyone, not just programmers) the "bicycle for the mind" that Steve Jobs spoke of. I think this is the timeline that Atkinson envisioned, and I wish I lived in it. We've lost a true visionary. Memory eternal!

New comment by matthewn in "The story, as best I can remember, of the origin of Mosaic and Netscape [video]"

matthewn — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 22:33:29 +0000

Any link to there from here will only get you JWZ's take on HN.

New comment by matthewn in "HyperCard Simulator"

matthewn — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 00:12:51 +0000

I would say that HTML/Javascript is not a "tool" in the same sense that HyperCard was.

HyperCard's real strength was that it allowed mere users (not programmers) to create their own apps (or "stacks", in the HyperCard parlance) through pointing and clicking, plus an English-like scripting language (HyperTalk).

We have largely abandoned the idea that users should be able to create their own apps, so there is no popular, modern analogue to HyperCard, though some people keep trying. For instance, LiveCode is a commercial product that is directly inspired by HyperCard. And CardStock is an open source HyperCard clone that swaps out something English-like for Python as the underlying scripting language.

https://livecode.com/

https://github.com/benjie-git/CardStock

New comment by matthewn in "A Road to Common Lisp (2018)"

matthewn — Wed, 22 May 2024 03:30:27 +0000

If you install the django-extensions package and use runserver_plus instead of runserver, when you hit an exception you get a live REPL in your browser where you can poke around and inspect at will. It's not CL-level power, but it's mighty useful.

New comment by matthewn in "We've Forgotten How to Use Computers"

matthewn — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 18:58:07 +0000

Odd title for a piece that is mostly an elegy for the mouse.

New comment by matthewn in "About half of Bandcamp employees have been laid off"

matthewn — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 23:11:09 +0000

Bandcamp had 118 employees total. That doesn't smell bloated to me.

(Source: https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/bandcamp-layoffs-oakland...)

New comment by matthewn in "So let’s talk about this Wayland thing"

matthewn — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 04:20:32 +0000

I use Espanso for this; it has worked well on Wayland for some time.

New comment by matthewn in "Bram Moolenaar has died"

matthewn — Sat, 05 Aug 2023 16:34:13 +0000

Terribly sad news. Thank you, Bram, for the finest software tool I've ever wielded.

New comment by matthewn in "Why Lisp Syntax Works"

matthewn — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 21:48:07 +0000

Similar argument from this lengthy but enjoyable essay: https://stopa.io/post/265

New comment by matthewn in "CardStock"

matthewn — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 03:31:32 +0000

Huge HyperCard fan here, this is a very happy discovery indeed! It captures the spirit of HyperCard -- stacks, images/sounds, etc. -- but the icing on the cake is that Python replaces HyperTalk and the entire Python ecosystem is at your disposal. That's incredible. I'm salivating.

The built-in Reference Guide is fantastic, too. Will definitely be keeping an eye on this project.

New comment by matthewn in "Kottke.org is 25 years old today"

matthewn — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 16:47:22 +0000

Would LOVE to see memepool resurrected!

New comment by matthewn in "Ask HN: How to Learn Django in 2023?"

matthewn — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 17:26:02 +0000

As others have said, Will Vincent's books are excellent. I also like Mastering Django a great deal; it is extremely comprehensive: https://masteringdjango.com/

New comment by matthewn in "AutoHotKey V2 (Breaking Upgrade)"

matthewn — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 00:30:26 +0000

https://github.com/espanso/espanso/discussions/1178

New comment by matthewn in "Thunderbird 102"

matthewn — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 23:56:21 +0000

Thunderbird has been more than "an email client" for so long that people made the exact same kind of complaint when RSS support was added.

Thunderbird is a messaging/communications client, and way more people will benefit from Matrix support than would ever benefit from Maildir support.

Further, my understanding from the Thunderbird team's comms is that they are very much in control of their own destiny. I don't get the sense that Mozilla has much say in Thunderbird's roadmap (or even cares) at this point.

New comment by matthewn in "Thunderbird 102"

matthewn — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 23:44:14 +0000

There is a new global font size setting in this release:

https://twitter.com/mozthunderbird/status/153930732204379750...

If you want to target the message list specifically, I'm pretty certain that can be done with a userChrome.css tweak.

New comment by matthewn in "SomaFM"

matthewn — Tue, 31 May 2022 23:50:20 +0000

I have very fond memories of Music for Hackers ("soundscapes for compromising a remote host"). Have never found anything that fills that particular niche the same way.

New comment by matthewn in "Ask HN: Share your personal site"

matthewn — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 01:56:29 +0000

Love the design!

New comment by matthewn in "Ask HN: Share your personal site"

matthewn — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 22:56:32 +0000

https://www.mahnamahna.net/

Originally built as a blosxom-powered blog in 2003, the site grew with a motley collection of perl and php scripts, as sites did back then. Then as social media came to prominence, I drifted away from my own site, as so many others did.

I spent much of the early pandemic rebuilding from the ground up with Django and Wagtail. Migrated the old content without breaking old links. Added some front-end niceties without breaking anything for non-JS visitors. Recently reached feature parity with the original site. Now I just need to figure out what I want to blog about. :)