You are viewing The Fantastic Site and Imaginary Hyperspace of Lord Matt, Super Geek. a blog and personal playground for me, Matthew Brown.
From time to time, I have to admit that I just have too many tabs open. Which means I am not likely to get back to them any time soon. When that happens, I make a post like this and just link out to all the pages I ve been holding open. That way, I can [ ] The post July 2026 Divestment appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord Matt .
Web writers, the AI has been trained on your public work, and it shows. You all have taught AI some truly terrible writing habits HFY writers have taught AI it has to start stories with “Bob sat on the bridge of the Earth Ship Big Birtha”. So AI does just that, even when I was [ ] The post You web writers have taught AI some truly terrible writing habits appeared first on The Fantastic Site of…
This quick and easy guide is mostly for my fellow writers and anyone else who occasionally needs special paragraphs in their document. Imagine this. You ve just finished the final draft of your 125-page work of genius. In this epic, you showed what your central character was thinking by putting their thoughts in a separate paragraph [ ] The post How to add a no-fuss thoughts custom paragraph style…
Why do so many HFY stories start with the OC standing somewhere waiting for the opening thing to happen? I ve lost track of the stories I ve listened to or read that start with some chuckle-froggy in some location with the lights blinking or the tools shining. You have done that to death. Please, dear HFY [ ] The post Please, dear HFY writers, no more stories starting with Bob sat on the bridge of…
I was struggling to get both comments and replies to post while only showing facepile for likes and boosts. I had no one to blame but myself as I coded the theme from scratch. I m posting this so the next time I have this problem (there is always a next time), future me can look [ ] The post Fixing my ActivityPub and WebMention comments to make them play nicely. appeared first on The Fantastic…
I need a special blend of stuff that might never exist. This is my attempt to dream out loud in the hope that this is the idea someone steals and runs with. What I want is a social media, Indieweb, blog, email, and personal note-taking app mashup that blends everything seamlessly together while also being [ ] The post The email, social media, and IndieWeb Node I need (that will probably never…
Every now and then, I like to share the love by focusing on a blog I have found and enjoyed. Today I d like to share Jukka s blog. Jukka is a business geek from Helsinki, Finland. Long-time readers will know I love reading the blogs of my fellow geeks. For my focus in this introduction/review, I [ ] The post Jukka s blog and email list journey appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord Matt .
Sometimes you want to write a blog or a social media update, but draw a blank on what to say. Other times, you may crave interaction and a good chat. In these cases and more, you may wish to interact with these posts with a reply post, comment, or mention. In no order of sexiness, [ ] The post 7 fun posts to reply to (espeically if you use WebMention) appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord…
If you want something a bit more special than mass-produced (AI-generated) code and storytelling, I am available to hire at a moment s notice at the highly artistic and rarefied rate of £10,000 p/hour. All real and made by an old-fashioned analogue 1.0 edition human being. Just saying. Also available: To be honest, I d take a [ ] The post Artisanal hand crafted coding, writing, blogging, talking,…
So, I recently made a little toy I call Today In Emoji. It shows you some emojis that relate to the day. If you mouse over them, you get some text explaining what the relevance is, and some are links to more information. [skip to the code] It might look something like this: There s a [ ] The post Emoji things code: thisCall() appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord Matt .
Today, I took some time out of processing the loss of my dad to do some nerdy tech stuff with OpenMentions and WebMention sources. I was interested in which sites sent the most mentions to the openmentions.com endpoints. This is not especially important, but it could indicate who the most active and interested people are. [ ] The post Exploring WebMention sources appeared first on The Fantastic…
I had a project idea in my head that seemed too complex to work on until I tried diagramming it. The idea was a multipurpose CRM-like action/account system thing. I think it might best be described by my first diagram. I mean, just look at that nonsense. How was I supposed to make a database [ ] The post The time I used diagramming for success appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord Matt .
My blog runs a handmade custom WordPress theme called LordMatt7 as it is the seventh complete rebuild since all the way back in 2005 when I first made a Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia mashup looking blog. Today I finally got fed up with the fact that there were no titles at the top. Which kind of [ ] The post I upgraded my blog appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord Matt .
I am a contributor to the Muse of Last Resort blog. Not gonna lie, there are many prompts there that I love and desperately want to see some stories based on. This is a collection of five hand-picked prompts. Cinderella – the automaton who would be a girl In this reimagining of Cinderella that you [ ] The post 5 writing prompts from the muse that I love appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord…
My initial question was What is the best way to add some AMA (ask me anything) feature (like on Tumblr) to one or more of my websites? I d thought about it for all of ten seconds before I realised that best was entirely subjective. If you already know what we are talking about, feel free [ ] The post Considerations for adding an AMA feature appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord Matt .
For my visual novel project, I wanted things that have images and tags, but can mutate or change as they gain more. This is the code I wrote: (Fediverse readers might find it looks nicer on the original page) I m far from a seasoned Python game dev, which is why I am open to some [ ] The post Python: Objects that change (for story reasons) appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord Matt .
If you are one of the five or so people who read my weight loss and pain management blog, you may know I added charts. This is how I did that. FYI: Fediverse readers, the code is unlikely to look all that nice on Mastodon, etc.. Choose view original page for an improved visual reading [ ] The post How I charted pain over time on my WordPress blog appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord Matt .
I recently made the case that Make what you need might be all wrong for the IndieWeb’s future and then theAdhocracy and made some strong counterpoints. I d like to explore those counterpoints. Just solve the problem Make what you need can be stressed as make what you need. Just solve the problem or requirement you [ ] The post Okay, make what you need might be good for the IndieWeb’s future after…
I m a huge fan of WebMention. You might have noticed how often I go on and on and on about it. WebMEntion is the future of interactive communication. Or, at least, I think so. As I have sort of made a huge fuss about how rolling your own might not be a good idea, I [ ] The post All the WebMention libraries and plugins I could find appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord Matt .
This post is an example of blog your homework , the idea that when you research something, you should write about it. I ve been looking at making blogs and indie personal websites nice and readable. Why am I writing this? This all started a few days ago when I realised how hard this blog was to [ ] The post Everything I have learned about good typsetting on websites and blogs appeared first on The…
IndieWeb has this idea of scratch your own itch or make what you need . It s okay in as far as it goes, but I (and I said this at great length before) feel it is wholly incomplete over simple, and, therefore, wrong. I get the idea. If I want a cheese sandwich, I should go [ ] The post Make what you need might be all wrong for the IndieWeb s future appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord Matt…
I can be one of the hardest human beings to make contact with on the planet (for a chronically online guy). I am part hermit, part geek. Also, I get lost inside my own ideas. This guide is mostly for people who know me, but generally for anyone who wants to make contact (like, say, [ ] The post How to actually get ahold of me (it s not easy) appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord Matt .
I was in the middle of previewing a post when I got annoyed at the line length and readability of my blog. This is what it looked like before: The change I made was this The result was this: It is not exactly going to change the world, but it sits in the overlap between [ ] The post Updating for readability appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord Matt .
I was searching for a very specific set of features in a WordPress plugin. As searching on search engines was not helping, I asked ChatGPT to interactively ask me questions about my requirements and suggest a free plugin. The WP-multicomment-threads I wanted Those of you who remember Squidoo will remember the side-by-side debate module. Comments [ ] The post Code review with me:…
As most WordPress users know, there is a great ActivityPub plugin that makes your blog part of the fediverse. It pairs well with the WebMention plugin to bring in reactions from all over. The trouble is, it can be hard to get noticed. Here are some tips to get over that hump. Have an account [ ] The post A basic guide to getting your ActivityPub blog federated better appeared first on The…
I’ve been pondering the weird collection of sets I cooked up in this post. In this post, I’d like to take a crack at defining the sets. I’m going to bow to my ego and call these the MattSets. MattSet Prime is the set of all integers found in all the other MattSets. MattSet0 is [ ] The post A brain dump from Matrix Dreams: A better-defined series of sets appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord…
Bury me with some weird shit If/when I pass, I want everyone who attends the service to bring things to fill my coffin with. These must be unique or unusual and of no discernible purpose. Things like stone polyhedral dice, an assortment of random but purposeful-looking glass counters, and a whole bunch of well-made but [ ] The post From my social node: Bury me with some weird shit appeared first…
So, you ve written a blog post and want feedback from the rest of the team? Great to hear. I guess you will now want to set it to Pending. Here s how. Look right. You should see something like this: This screenshot was taken from my editing screen as I wrote this. If the Block tab [ ] The post How to set a draft WordPress post to Pending in three easy steps appeared first on The Fantastic Site of…
No, it is not just you, the terribly built Universal Credit website appears to have unalived itself. As of now (2210 on Monday, 19th May 2025), the site is down (again). This is not the first time this month that the Universal Credit website did this. About a week ago, the site went down. And [ ] The post To no one s surprise, the Universal Credit website is down again appeared first on The…
There was a recent story in the local online news about a council using AI to stop fly-tipping. The article talks a good game about how WasteWatch scheme reduced fly-tipping. I notice that they don t actually say how this is done because I don t think they know. It seems they think AI magic happened or [ ] The post I m not entirely sure Dartford council knows how this tech stuff works appeared…
My go to IDE of choice is Netbeans, but today I tried out Zed. This is because Snap has managed to break Netbeans, and I m blown if I can figure out what they ve done to it. Installing Zed Zed was easy and quick to install. A quick line of bash and I was up and [ ] The post IDE Review: Zed appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord Matt .
So, last night I slept for a very long time. While I slept, I dreamed that I was explaining to a scientist how to do real random number generation with a computer chip. And, you know what, I think it would actually work. Computers are not good at randomness The only thing that computers are [ ] The post Have I invented perfect random number generation computer chips? appeared first on The…
The banners are for my Pixel Wall project. Password Game is the original (web-only) evil password validator game. More polished versions came later, but this is the OG original sin against security. The scoring system works with cookies. You can disable cookies and still enjoy the games, but you don t get a score. Nothing is [ ] The post I made little animated badges for Password Game and Pasword…
I d like to propose an extension of the OpenGraph protocol for easy wishlist creation. A select few might be aware that I maintain a wishlist. Currently, I manually enter each gift idea into a database. It would be dead helpful, if I could just provide a link to a page that represents an item that [ ] The post WishList: A proposed extension of OpenGraph appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord…
Today, I learned that gov.uk websites use Mark Down a system for marking up text that can safely be turned into HTML. So too does the Universal Credit Journal system (sort of). It looks like the journal system is trying to use Mark Down, and the specific code for that is fighting it hard. [ ] The post I found another (markdown) bug with the Universal Credit website appeared first on The Fantastic…
The UK Online Safety Act 2023 makes it the responsibility of site owners to carry out a laundry list of protection behaviours. The UK Government has failed to say if this act applies to blogs. It has been clear that it applies to all websites with UK users. As usual, the UK government leapt in [ ] The post The unclear UK Online Safety Act cannot possibly hope to process all the bloggers appeared…
I ve been posting here from time to time about my visual novel plans. Before I get to the giant epic that is the story of a tea-drinking wizard, I have set myself a more reasonable goal a simple story about a person lost in a magic maze. This story is currently under the working [ ] The post A new blog for my visual novel appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord Matt .
I am professionally embarrassed for whoever created the Universal Credit Website (UCW). In this post, I will explore why the website is so bad and what should be done to fix it. I m writing this in the hope that someone within the government with the power to do something reads this and implements at least [ ] The post Why is the Universal Credit website so bad? appeared first on The Fantastic…
The BBC is reporting that the UK government is asking for something dumb access to encrypted data but that is not how any of this works. The UK government has demanded to be able to access encrypted data stored by Apple users worldwide in its cloud service. Currently only the Apple account holder [ ] The post Dear Home Office, that is not how any of this works appeared first on The Fantastic Site…
I put out a request for comments on what professionals see as the most significant developments in web development for professionals. Many of the answers include AI and let s just say I do not wholly agree. My quotes from experts come from featured.com where content creators like me can seek quotes from experts for their [ ] The post The Most Significant Developments in Web Development for…
In case you missed it, the #WordPressDrama is a giant hoohaa where it seems the founder of WordPress has gone off the deep end burning everything down around him. All that really has happened is the guy has had a series of tantrums and is now facing lawsuits resulting from his actions. There are far [ ] The post How Will the Recent WordPress Drama Impact Open-Source Software? appeared first on The…
I added a few improvements to my blog. Changes Overview I noticed that my comments looked quite ugly. So I slapped some quick and dirty CSS in to tidy them up a bit. It had been a while so I had to google how to remove bullets from a list. Before and After The CSS [ ] The post Site Log: Updated comments appeared first on The Fantastic Site of Lord Matt .