Matt Brown
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mattb.nz
Matt Brown
@mattb.nz
Dad, Husband, Maker, Coder, Farmer, SRE.

Cambridge/Te Miro, NZ.

https://mattb.net.nz/
Pinned
Matt Brown @mattb.nz · Nov 11
Hello Bluesky,

I've been lurking here for quite a while without it really clicking, but with the influx of folks over the last month that's changed and I intend to start being a bit more active here.

Intro thread follows if we haven't met before...
I may be featured in this meme...
October 20, 2025 at 8:53 PM
Reposted by Matt Brown
I tried to explain why I don't believe the recent accusations toward my former teammates, as well as how the Ruby and Rails Infra team at Shopify operates and why it can be trusted.

byroot.github.io/opensource/r...
Dear Rubyists: Shopify Isn’t Your Enemy
I’ve been meaning to write a post about my perspective on Open Source and corporate entities. I already got the rough outline of it; however, I’m suffering from writer’s block, but more importantly, t...
byroot.github.io
October 9, 2025 at 2:15 PM
Reposted by Matt Brown
✨ Big O ✨

Let me take you on a visual introduction to what big O notation is in my new blog post: samwho.dev/big-o.

With big O notation you can better understand how algorithms will perform in practice, finding orders of magnitude improvements often with very simple changes to your code.
August 23, 2025 at 2:35 PM
So simple and elegant. Lovely!

I mean the limitations on size are real, but for someone like me who relatively rarely posts mostly text, this is a super-easy backup option to enable.

Thanks!
I made a zero-maintenance way to keep a backup of your PDS repository in case you ever need to do an adversarial migration.

github.com/FiloSottile/...

A template that sets up a daily GitHub Actions backup with goat.

Based on git-scraper-template by @simonwillison.net.
July 31, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Winter sports...
June 27, 2025 at 10:09 PM
I just signed up for the Cambridge Half Marathon in September - raceroster.com/events/2025/... - will I see you there?
2025 — Cambridge Half Marathon —
Cambridge Half Marathon Tom Voyle Park, Taylor Street, Cambridge, New Zealand - Get Ready to Run!The Cambridge Half Marathon is back,… - September 21, 2025
raceroster.com
June 6, 2025 at 12:02 AM
Lit the fire for the first time this year...
May 10, 2025 at 6:25 AM
This is an extremely useful articulation of the value of distinctions and how they need to be constructed in order to be useful.

Inspiring!
"When in doubt, draw a distinction." 🧵

In grad school one of my professors told me that. Some of the best advice I have ever received.

This is a thread about the key distinctions I use in my work.

I had a version of it posted at the other joint, which I revised a bit to make this one.

Ready? 1/
April 27, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Baking with my sous chef.
April 18, 2025 at 12:38 AM
My thoughts on the current discussions around InternetNZ and DNS Censorship: mattb.nz/w/2025/03/31...
InternetNZ and DNS Censorship - Matt Brown
mattb.nz
March 31, 2025 at 4:10 AM
Completed my first ever timed run this morning, 10km in the Waipa Fun Run.

www.strava.com/activities/1...

my.raceresult.com/329337/resul...

Great fun!
Waipa Fun Run - 10km | Strava
My first ever timed race! 49:14 on the official timing, I forgot to stop my watch at the end :p https://my.raceresult.com/329337/results#0_B74CAE | Strava
www.strava.com
March 8, 2025 at 9:37 PM
Looking forward to getting into this which arrived in the mail today, hot off the press!
February 27, 2025 at 6:33 AM
sadly also mirrors my thoughts exactly.
February 9, 2025 at 9:41 AM
This post is a great deep dive into the current state of the NZ electricity (and broader energy) sector.

newzealandenergy.substack.com/p/new-zealan...

Unfortunately it's pretty grim reading :(
New Zealand 2025 Energy Stock Take
Taking stock of our energy system as we enter 2025 and projections for the year ahead.
newzealandenergy.substack.com
February 8, 2025 at 3:06 AM
Easing back into the new year with a retrospective of 2024 and some goal setting for 2025.

mattb.nz/w/2025/01/08...
2025 has arrived! - Matt Brown
mattb.nz
January 8, 2025 at 12:52 AM
Back in the world after a relaxing week camping in "the wilderness". What did I miss?
January 2, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Smashed out my longest run yet up Maungatautari this evening. Beautiful weather for it.

I'm sure my legs will pay for it tomorrow, but feeling pretty happy right now.

strava.app.link/9aH7RFov1Ob
strava.app.link
December 3, 2024 at 9:52 AM
Quick musings on the privacy/consent/AI brouhaha.

The BSky App exists to publish posts publicly on the public AT network. That's literally point 1 in the privacy policy/terms!

I've always understood the implicit social contract to be posting into the public domain, much like I did with Twitter.
November 29, 2024 at 5:20 AM
Nice! I am connected.
📰 Discord added 🦋 Bluesky support for their verified connections feature inside profiles. Pretty neat! 👀

✅ Discord: User Settings: Connections: Add 🦋Handle
🎯 Verify via OAuth
November 28, 2024 at 10:10 PM
The approach of following a very limited number of people, and tracking the rest via lists is working very well for me, particularly when combined with the multi-column view in TOKIMEKI.
November 28, 2024 at 11:09 AM
The downside of the surge in activity is my feed becoming increasingly unmanageable. Starter packs are probably a trap in this regard too. I wish I had been more selective about following from them...

So from today, I'm going to try a new approach using lists + tokimeki
November 18, 2024 at 9:02 PM
This would actually be really useful!
Bluesky feature request: If I’ve set up a domain name as my username, notify me when others share links to that domain 🙏
November 16, 2024 at 6:14 PM
Lovely night for a soccer game. NZ vs Vanuatu.
November 15, 2024 at 5:27 AM