maetl

About the Author

Welcome!

This website is a journal, notebook, sketchpad, portfolio and channel to broadcast news about works in progress, things I’m thinking about, ideas I’m exploring, and various excursions into the giant apocalypse of information otherwise known as the world-wide-web.

Writing

I’m doing far too much writing at the moment. Some of it will be published soon. Recommended, are:

The Shock of the Now
The Tragedy of the Von Erich Family
The Stress Addiction Loop
Code is Not Inevitable

Software and Web Design

My Design Portfolio and Technical Resumé contain highlights of projects I have worked on over the past few years.

Open source projects: SilverStripe, SimpleTest

Music

I do freestyle rap performances and record music appearing as Maxwell Sparks.

Contact

You should follow me on Twitter.

You can email me at me@maetl.net.

What’s a maetl then eh?

maetl was always the name that I used on online forums and the like. It came about in the time that I was working for The package in Wellington, and seemed to take on a life of it's own the more I used it.

The word itself originates from Autechre's debut album Incunabula, a naïve mathematical masterpiece of early 90's electronica. Apparently the track was named when Autechre were in the studio calling each other ‘mate’ in a silly voice. There's also a typeface named maetl, designed by the legendary Mike Cina.

Attention clustering

I have been collecting personal attention data with this website since 2004. Recently, I started experimenting with different ways of introspecting the relationships of all this linked information.

Books

You really should read these books: