I know a lot of people are on their way to SxSW right now, here’s a podcast I joined called The Changelog you can download and check out on the way there (or back). It’s a bit more technical than the interviews I normally do, we talk about Javascript, Calypso, the philosophy of open source and WordPress, some of the thinking behind Automattic’s acquisitions, and my favorite programming books. I hope you can check it out, Adam and Jerod did a great job on this one.
My parents first noticed my stutter when I was three years old. For the longest time, I thought I would one day be rid of it. I went for speech therapy, I did fluency exercises, I prayed. But now, at age thirty, I’m fairly confident that it’s here to stay. […]
Somehow, as I progressed through high school, the expectant pauses of those listening to me were more difficult to bear that the nicknames and name calling. Often, I would not speak up, even when I had something I wanted to say.
My default setting was silence.
Read the rest of Mahangu Weerasinghe’s story, Breaking the Silence.
Today the Jetpack plugin turns five years old. Who woulda thunk it? It’s one of the most popular plugins in WP history, and sites that include it as part of their WordPress install are more likely to to have engaged and active users — we’ve even seen it reduce churn on major web hosts. While there’s been a lot that’s happened in the Jetpack plugin so far, what’s around the corner has me even more excited. 😀 🚀 P.S. Check out that new domain.
Ben Casnocha is an interesting and innovative character in his own right, and it’s worth reading his essay slash short book on the years he spent as the right hand man of Reid Hoffman.
It’s never a bad time to read and learn about the life, work, and poetry of Gary Snyder.
Jazzy Claire de Lune
I love this version from Kamasi Washington of Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune, or “light of the moon.” Here’s the Paul Verlaine poem that inspired the original composition:
Your soul is a chosen landscape
Where charming masqueraders and bergamaskers go
Playing the lute and dancing and almost
Sad beneath their fanciful disguises.All sing in a minor key
Of victorious love and the opportune life,
They do not seem to believe in their happiness
And their song mingles with the moonlight,With the still moonlight, sad and beautiful,
That sets the birds dreaming in the trees
And the fountains sobbing in ecstasy,
The tall slender fountains among marble statues.