2026-06-06 03:07:24
Cześć wszystkim, Kraków… I made the call not to fly to Poland for WordCamp Europe. I’m very sorry for the last-minute notice; I was really hoping to make it. I’m okay, but I want to stay close to loved ones going through difficult times.
Seeing the pictures from Contributor Day warms my heart.
Bardzo za Wami tęsknię. I miss you dearly.
The Protect The Shire post on W.org contains what I planned to talk about, and Mary Hubbard and Matías Ventura will lead the Q&A keynote at the end.
I’ll watch all the sessions so if any WordCamp speakers would like feedback on their talk, just fill out this form, and I’ll write something up and message it to you on the .org Slack.
2026-06-02 02:44:51
Spelling bees have gotten a lot more intense. How many of these do you know?
torrone, enthymeme, iguape, Denebola, fais-dodo, cywyddau, pohutukawa, monadnock, émeute, nannofossil, tongkang, Natchitoches, flaith, semele, rusell, sawder, campernelle, Nicol, Zamenis, Tharparkar, tlachtli, madoqua, retiarius, balintawak, tessaraconter, taurokathapsia, rapakivi, uayeb, paroemia, melengket, teraglin, homelyn, chikungunya, bromocriptine (cashaw)
Check out the first 90 seconds of this video where Shrey Parikh gets 32 out of 34 correct to become the 2026 champion. That speed round is called a “spell-off,” and so many of the kids are getting all the words right that they use it to break ties. Lots of words to press. 
2026-05-31 12:49:08
I think I heard this parable somewhere in the 14 hours of Alan Watts lectures someone recommended to me in 2017, but here’s a beautiful 2-minute version I’d love to share for everyone going through something.
I really appreciate the love and support I received after the WP23 post, and I do want to tell people I’m okay, the post was part catharsis and part giving voice to what I see and hear privately from people who aren’t public figures.
On weekends, I like to look back on the week and find a silver lining or learning from things that were challenging. It helps reframe things. After it was reported that I had 21 hours of depositions over 3 days, people were like “wow that must have been terrible,” but actually, while the prep and process were intense, I found it energizing and I learned a ton. Will post more about that later. You never know where things will lead.
2026-05-27 09:21:17
Sonny Rollins, the Saxophone Colossus, has passed. He is probably my favorite saxophonist, and while the aforementioned album is one of the five I would take to a deserted island, he has so many other good ones like The Cutting Edge which also has bagpipes, or Sonny Side Up with Sonny Stitt and Dizzy Gillespie.
WordPress 6.7 in November 2024 was named in honor of Rollins.
We rarely choose a living musician for a release so the team actually prepared a gift we sent to him with the names of all the contributors.
Mr. Rollins,
Your immense contributions to music are a source of deep inspiration to the thousands of open source contributors to WordPress. We like to say ‘Code is poetry’, and we’re honored to pay tribute to you and your legacy of creativity and innovation by naming the 6.7 release of WordPress to you.
It was sent to his publicist, so not sure if he got a chance to see it, but I hope it at least gave him a chuckle to have a random Open Source project celebrating him.
He was the last surviving jazzer in the Great Day in Harlem photo.
2026-04-07 08:01:28
It’s very cool to see Theo / t3.gg‘s open source arc.
Just in general, with people creating more software than ever, it’s so exciting to see an explosion of open source and a growing understanding of why working together on open source makes so much sense for the future we want to build.
2026-04-05 23:40:50
You call yourself a Christian engineer, but you haven’t given your life to Open Source? Huh.
What license would Jesus choose? I don’t know if it’s GPL or MIT, but sure as heck it isn’t proprietary.
Letting proprietary code dictate your life is like following a Bible you’re not allowed to read. Beware those who would seek to mediate your relationship to the divine.
Happy Easter, y’all. 
Update: BTW, the above would probably be a lot better if I spoke it, because people would hear a very humorous tone, but that’s not clear from the text! So some have said I come off pretty jerky, and some said blasphemous. Fair! I’m also not saying it’s literally funny, it just would be a little clearer I was trying.
Also, I mean examples as possible metaphors or parallels and not literally, but never say that up front. Also as thought experiment, not literally as judgey. “No” or “it is totally fine” are valid answers to the first question, lots of more possibilities — the “Huh” is meant more out of curiosity than judgment, a conversation starter, not an ender.
Finally the ender “Happy Easter, y’all)” in my Houston culture and context / the South would be pretty clear as actually happy, friendly and playful. But said in a different tone or without that context, the opposite! I have friends in NYC for whom that would read deep sarcasm, a big FU and rude bye. I didn’t think of that!
Anyway, I’ve learned a lot from the feedback, will probably still learn more, and want to deeply appreciate the people who care enough to give it to me and spend time explaining and answering my questions. Thanks, y’all! (Not sarcastic 
<— Real smiles and gratitude, not smug.)
I’m not thanking all the Twitter / X trolls, though, and I’m not going to engage any more because the real or perceived trolling makes it almost impossible to change, nor do I harbor any illusions of changing some minds. I’ve devoted hundreds of hours to it in the past, but it didn’t help, and that took a lot of time away from my favorite people and loved ones.
(Also, I think something has changed; in open source and WordPress, we’d fight like crazy, but ended up coming together or having a meal afterward before diving back in. Social media I think has made that rarer and harder.)
(and the new Spring colors are on the site.)
