When I started working at Automattic, it was just me and Matt, and two servers. A web server and a MySQL server. I knew the root password to WordPress.com. I needed it as I spent a lot of time tuning the MySQL server in those days, but I was thrilled when we got some real systems people on board like Barry. I have to admit to a certain sadness when I ran sudo and the password didn’t work, however.
Automattic in 2006, when my luggage was delayed and I was wearing a British Airways tshirt.
When I started working at Automattic, many of my colleagues I work with now, were still in school. There was a time at the start of this year that my team had the first employee and the latest employee on it. I didn’t have any grey hair then, and well, I have some now, and I make jokes about the “old days” but there are quite a few of us boldermatticians.
I spent most of my time working in Vim, in an SSH session, but that’s changed to VS Code and Cursor in recent years. I tried the Vim extensions for those, but they never felt as good as the original.
Now, it’s the upstart AIs that are disrupting everything related to my job, but while it certainly feels like it’s making me a lot more productive, apparently it’s making me dumb too. Time will tell. Andrej Karpathy uses a number of analogies in this video at Y Combinator, but one thing that resonated with me was his comparing the state of AI to computing in the 60s. There were massive mainframes that people used thin clients (or punch cards!) to interact with them. In 2025, the AI is this brain in the cloud we talk to and ask questions of in a chat window. What’s it going to be like in another twenty years?
Dave Winer just reported that an ancient WordPress MU site that was shutting down has been archived by Automattic. I wasn’t aware that Harvard were using MU back in the day, but if you search, you’ll find posts like this and this one talking about upgrading WordPress MU.
Gives me a nice, fuzzy feeling seeing those long ago posts about using WordPress MU.
If you don’t know, WordPress MU began life as b2++, a fork of b2 (which became WordPress). The fork was started by me to provide blogs for the linux.ie community at blogs.linux.ie. That site is long gone, but you can see an archived copy of the front page here, where I talk about using Smarty for the theming:
We’re using the b2 weblog software, although heavily modified with the following:
Caching and templates are handled by Smarty. You don’t need to know PHP to create your template! The caching should make your page load just as fast when the server is busy as at any other time. Unfortunately, a side effect of that is that comment, trackback, and pingback counts might be stale until the page is refreshed. (Yes, I know about Smarty “insert” functions, that’ll come in a later version.)
Donncha O Caoimh, blogs.linux.ie, 2003.
I love that Automattic is now hosting the site, but I’m also glad that archive.org is out there preserving the open web. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an archive.org copy of a page show up in a Google search, however. Have you?
So much useful information is now locked in private Facebook groups, or Discord channels, it’s ridiculous. Here’s a very niche example from only yesterday. I wanted to know what bit depth RAW image files were, and one of the more useful hits was a dpreview thread from 2007!
I started work at Automattic 18 years ago today. Matt offered me a job working on a new WordPress based website a few weeks before. I had just bought a house the year before, I had become engaged the month before, and left my old job at the same time, so I jumped at the opportunity to work on WordPress full time!
It started out small with us working on 2 servers and an invite system. I felt I was doing as much admin on MySQL and Apache as coding. More people were hired. Many of them are still at Automattic. We worked on lots of cool little things like the global tag system, and so much else that I’ve forgotten about. Then moving onto the billing system because I had done billing at my previous job, then on to Crowdsignal, on to Jetpack Forms and finally onto the team working on Jetpack Boost and WP Super Cache.
WordPress.com is unrecognisable from what it was 18 years ago, but if I run “blame” on the right files, I’ll sure I’ll still see my name on some ancient code nobody has touched in all that time.
Fast forward 18 years, and I’m in the same office at home. I definitely made the right decision that day in 2005.
What does that even mean, though? WordPress is the community of people who have built it and contributed to it over the last two decades, and before that, when it was a little known blogging package called b2. So, thank you so much to everyone who has contributed to WordPress over the years.
WordPress has given me, and countless others, many opportunities we couldn’t have dreamed of. Just over two years after WordPress was first released, I joined Automattic. Working on two machines, Matt and I started work on the first WordPress.com. Here I am, almost 18 years later, and still working on WordPress related software. What a journey. Matt marked the occasion by announcing a generous scholarship programme. Matt was also on stage in London with Mike Little and Dries Buytaert last week in a conversation I must listen to yet, but I’ve heard some good things about it WRT Gutenberg.
Anyway, it’s almost midnight here, but I wanted to get some words down on this blogging platform we all love. May we all be here for the next twenty years.
Oh, and before I go, you can hear me say a few words about meetups at Automattic in the latest episode of the Distributed podcast. It’s edited well, that’s all I’ll say!
I have to say, Some Good News with John Krasinski is a breath of fresh air in this time of quarantine and isolation. John picks up on good news stories from around the world and you’ll have to have a heart of stone not to laugh or cry or both watching them.
There’s the first episode but there are currently 2 more and all are worth watching.
Lanzarote
Last Friday they held an SGNProm live on Youtube but I missed it. It was scheduled for one o clock in the morning my time! Hopefully the next episode will have clips from it. Coincidentally I started watching The Office (US) last week. I watched a couple of episodes before but it didn’t stick. I think we’ll be making it a regular watch from now on though. 🙂
Conor Pass, Kerry.
I’ve worked from home for almost 15 years now. It’s not always easy, and the first week of the Covid-19 lockdown in Ireland made me realise how cut off I am from other people. I’m not an especially outgoing kind of person but this enforced stay-at-home order is even getting to me. Two to three times a year I travel somewhere to meet my team or the rest of the company but all company travel is cancelled now for the foreseeable future.
Easter celebrations, Malaga.
I and many others have the luxury and privilege to work from home while there are millions of people sitting idle or bored in their homes. I sit here at my screen but there are health workers risking their lives fighting a disease that looks like it will be a part of our world for the next two years at least.
Indoor Market, Malaga.
Shows on TV are now watched with from the perspective of Covid-19. People have the luxury of shaking hands or hugging. People are so close to each other! They can walk into a store 2 at a time! They’re meeting for a drink! That’s a very crowded train!
It’s behind their paywall but my wife has bought the paper on and off for the last few years so I went searching for it today. No sign of it in the two local shops and I wasn’t going to risk going to any more just for a newspaper. We did sign up for the 7 day free trial of their app and I have to admit it looks great. The in-app purchase is easier to cancel than a sub on their website which requires a phone call.
The This Won’t Hurt a Bit podcast is back with two more episodes on Covid-19. Their first episode on March 24th reminded me of the fake cures doing the rounds on Facebook back at the start of March. Drinking warm water to flush any virus from your throat into your stomach to kill it was a favourite but it was oh so stupid.
In the US protestors want the stay-at-home restriction to be lifted. Some obviously are worried for their livelihood but many others believe the whole thing a hoax.
Two nurses, who have witnessed first hand the toll Covid is taking in Colorado, stood up and peacefully counter protested. Here is how they were treated. I had join them. pic.twitter.com/iJnNcqZxSv
Everything is local, but everything is also global now. The world feels a lot smaller.
There’s one topic of conversation everywhere now and that’s the coronavirus (WB), SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) which causes the COVID-19 disease. It feels like Europe and North America sleep walked into this, ignoring what was happening in China until it was too late.
This is the first in a maybe series of blog posts that I want to publish for the me in ten years time. For the time when this is all over and some sense of normality has resumed.
Throughout the first week of March companies started telling their employees to work from home. March 2nd, Google told staff in Dublin to do so.
The first meme I saw about the virus
The first reported case (and 7th in the country) of COVID-19 in Cork was in the CUH on Thursday 5th of March. Many felt the Irish Government were slow to react to the crisis.
However last Thursday afternoon, an Taoiseach Leo Varadkar announced (WB) that schools and other public buildings would be closing at 6pm that day until March 29th. The St. Patrick’s Day Festival would be cancelled. He requested that people practise social distancing, keeping at least 1 meter away from other people. People should stay in their homes. Kids should not mix with the kids in other families. Don’t go visiting grand parents.
Homework was assigned for the 2 weeks, I’m sure much to the dismay of all the kids in my son’s class.
Matt published his great post on distributed work and began it by saying,
Matt Mullenweg, Coronavirus and the Remote Work Experiment No One Asked For
Beau followed a few days later with a comprehensive blog post about the tools that Automattic uses. I don’t think he missed anything. If you’re interested in distributed work you’ll love this post.
Shoppers went mad buying toilet rolls and pasta. Lines for the cash registers over the weekend snaked all around stores. We were told that shops would maintain their supply lines and remain open but in other countries shops are now closed so people are worried.
A consultant respiratory paediatrician, Dr Muireann Ní Chroínín CUH had this to say on March 13th:
“I hope you all stay safe during this difficult time . The children will get through this no problem . Paediatric hospitals are empty in Italy at present after 3 weeks of school closure as the usual viruses stopped circulating . Remember with corona children are vectors not victims . In most epidemics young children are the transmitters . Therefore for school closure to be effective it’s really important that the kids aren’t mixing with other kids while out of school . They will give it to each other silently pass it on to our loved ones. What we do now will contribute to how this develops in cork . Avoid situations that the children will interact . If the community respond to this it will shut it down more than anything we do in hospital . From my experiences in the hospital this last week I would say that corona virus is closer to all of us than we realise and the degrees of separation for all of us is getting narrower . I’m not that good at social media but if this could be shared as widely as possible with parents in cork it will help. This messsage needs to go viral to stop the virus .”
Dr Muireann Ní Chroínín, consultant respiratory paediatrician CUH.
The “wash your hands” mantra was and is still being repeated. There are two numbers to care about. The reported numbers of infections, and the real number. It’s impossible to know the real number. Many with minor symptoms won’t contact their doctor, or maybe even know they have the virus but they’ll still be infectious. There might be 10 times or 100 times the number of infected people in your area. Most countries are trying to slow the spread of the virus by flattening the curve as described here (WB).
The famous Cheltenham races still went ahead in the UK on March 10th. Thousands of Irish people travelled over there, rubbing shoulders and exchanging coughs and sneezes in the enclosed space there. They arrived back to demands they isolate themselves for fear of infecting their families but the Government said no need if they don’t have symptoms perhaps forgetting that people are contagious before they have symptoms ..
Despite the partial lockdown of the country, pubs and restaurants remained open. Over the weekend pubs did a roaring trade prompting the Government to call for their closure from last night. Bars were still open until midnight.
We walked around Blarney on Saturday evening. Pubs and restaurants were open but they didn’t look too busy. People were eating at tables but were well spaced. Christy’s Bar was quiet with people sitting in small groups apart from each other.
Centra in Blarney has a spray and paper to decontaminate trolleys and baskets.
On Sunday morning the Feed The Heroes (WB) fundraiser was started to send food to hospital staff around the country. By that evening they had raised more than €24,000 and right now the gofundme (WB) stands at €73,916!
Most countries are putting some sort of lockdown in place. The UK appears to be doing the opposite, allowing the virus to spread through the population to build herd immunity. Days later they urged older people to isolate themselves for up to 4 months, but life seemed to go on as normal over there. Irish people were perplexed at our neighbour’s (in)actions. However, I’ve just read that Boris Johnson wants British people to avoid social contact and work from home so hopefully sense will prevail.
Unfortunately there are still horrible people about. A doctor finishing their 14th day working in a Cork hospital came out to find his bike stolen. Luckily he was inundated with offers (screenshot) to replace the bike and it ends well.
A Tweet on Saturday from Italy showed the difference a few weeks can make. The local paper had one and a half pages of obituaries. Friday’s paper had ten pages dedicated to them. That’s what we all fear could be in store for us.
On Sunday my wife and I needed to get out for a walk. Social distancing doesn’t mean you have to stay inside! Down by the River Martin we went and I have never seen so many families and small groups of people. Everyone was in good form but we all kept our distance and it was great to bump into friends down there, even if we did converse at a distance.
It’s surreal being outside. Whatever the number of reported COVID-19 cases there must be an order of magnitude more cases. Advice has been that it is already all around you in the community and you should act like you already have it but don’t want to give it to someone else. That attitude tends to colour your vision of even a solitary figure walking down an empty street.
Tonight the pubs are closed in Blarney. I think the only restaurant open is the Lantern House, maybe for take away food?
The latest news I’ve seen is that an Irish developed kit might be available in a week that can confirm infection in 15 minutes. Of course someone was bound to perpetuate the stereotype of the drunken Irishman with this comment …
I think it’s hilarious that I can only remember seeing Ireland in the news twice in my recent memory.
3/15/2020 – Pubs in Ireland asked to close due to Coronavirus.
3/16/2020 – Irish developed testing kit to confirm Coronavirus in 15 minutes.
I was feeling optimistic about a vaccine after reading this post, and the news about the kit above is great to help fight it but this video where Joe Rogan interviews Michael Osterholm, an expert in infectious disease epidemiology about the virus has got me down again. Even washing hands may do little to stop you getting the virus, but it’s still very important to do just that.
The economic cost of the virus is biting. It’s estimated that 140,000 may have lost their jobs in less than a week.
Just as I hit Publish I saw that XKCD posted a new comic and it resonates with me. My poor mind.
I really shouldn’t hit Publish so quickly should I? A Buzzfeed article says the UK Government is reversing their earlier strategy!
In this scenario, the Imperial College team predicted as many as 250,000 deaths in Britain.
“In the UK, this conclusion has only been reached in the last few days,” the report explained, due to new data on likely intensive care unit demand based on the experience of Italy and Britain so far.
“We were expecting herd immunity to build. We now realise it’s not possible to cope with that,” professor Azra Ghani, chair of infectious diseases epidemiology at Imperial, told journalists at a briefing on Monday night.
A suppression strategy, along the lines of the approach adopted by the Chinese authorities, “aims to reverse epidemic growth, reducing case numbers to low levels and maintaining that situation indefinitely”.
It requires “a combination of social distancing of the entire population, home isolation of cases and household quarantine of their family members”, and “may need to be supplemented by school and university closures”.
An “intensive intervention package” will have to be “maintained until a vaccine becomes available (potentially 18 months or more)”, the report said, painting an extraordinary picture of what life could be like in the UK for the next year and a half.
You may have noticed that I didn’t embed tweets or the Youtube video above. I also employed the Wayback Machine for as many links as I could. I didn’t embed because doing so exposes you, dear visitor, to cookie tracking by those companies, and the Wayback Machine ensures that I’ll have a snapshot of what we’re seeing online right now, even in the far distant future!
Last September almost 600 employees of Automattic travelled to Whistler in Canada for our annual Grand Meetup. As is now a company tradition a photograph was taken of everyone who attended. It’s a challenge taking a photograph of that many people. Remember how hard it was taking that family photo? The difficulty of getting everyone to look at the camera at the moment the shutter closed, or even just getting everyone in one place is multiplied when you have this number of people.
The last company photo was also taken in Whistler and we took a photo in the that same location again but it wasn’t good enough. The camera wasn’t up high enough, so people in the back were all but invisible in the photo. This photo was taken around the corner, where the photo was taken from a first floor balcony. Plenty of height and a perfect vantage point.
Taking the photo was one challenge, but then came development of the image. The camera had to be handheld because of the location on the balcony but the photographer took plenty of shots so I had a lot of material to work with.
The first issue was lining up the photos and I tried using Affinity Photo. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite up to the job (at least with the knowledge I have, it’s an excellent tool otherwise) but I learned a lot about working with layers and layer masks as I swapped parts of different images around.
Eventually I used Photoshop, loaded 3 photos in a stack and the auto align did a great job of correcting for changes in each photo.
What turned out to be the biggest pain point in developing a photo like this was removing people from the background. Here’s a few of them:
This guy stayed in the crowd for about ten images. I only realised he wasn’t part of the group when I saw him with his friends in an earlier photo.
Two guys showed off their bikes for the camera. It was easy to tell they weren’t part of Automattic!
This lady thought it would be fun to join us in the photo. Her friend was laughing in the background and can be seen in the photo below.
This man stood mostly still throughout the photos that were taken making it more difficult to remove him, but he’s gone from the final image. 🙂
I’m already planning for next year. We’ll get some shots of the background to make it easier to to clone bystanders out, and have more volunteers to help organise the shoot so we make best use of the available space.
This is (most of) Automattic. We’re in the town of Whistler, Canada for the annual Grand Meetup. The company is growing every year, from tiny origins when a small group of us hacked away on a couple of servers to almost 500 now!
In the old days the company portrait was easy. The first one was us seated around a large table. I remember well the one in Breckinridge, Colorado. The whole company fit on the stairs leading up to one of the houses we had rented.
In recent years it’s been a challenge. This year Rose Goldman Simon and I scouted the town of Whistler for suitable locations. Rose had already been around and picked out several so I helped to narrow it down. We’d need:
Somewhere high up for the photographer to stand so as many people as possible could be seen.
Tuesday, the day this was made, was a lovely bright day, but that would play havoc with the photo. We needed a large shaded area.
It needed to be close to where we’re staying. The further away we had to walk the more complicated it would become.
We narrowed it down to two locations. One in front of a local store where there’s a nice courtyard and this location above. This won out despite the fact that sunlight would be shining on the camera lens but a large whiteboard helped keep the sun off. Ironically as people dispersed after the shoot, the shadows crept up past where the camera was which would have simplified things!
Final development of the photo was in Lightroom and Affinity Photo.
You’ll also find the photo on Matt’s blog, and shared by many of my colleagues elsewhere. I’ve also uploaded the full resolution image on Cloudup.com for your viewing pleasure.
The Automattic Grand Meetup starts tomorrow so I’m in Cork Airport waiting for my flight to London.
The weird thing about timezones means I leave here in the morning and get to Vancouver in the morning. And it’s still the same day. That also means I need to stay awake so much longer.
“Today” is going to be a long day. Zzzz.
Close
Ad-blocker not detected
Consider installing a browser extension that blocks ads and other malicious scripts in your browser to protect your privacy and security. Here are a few options.
uBlock Origin is a free, open source, ad blocker for your browser.
Use pi-hole if you have a spare Raspberry Pi on your network.
Set the private DNS settings on your phone to dns.adguard.com to block adverts and trackers.
