Matthias Ott
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matthiasott.com
Matthias Ott
@matthiasott.com
Independent designer + web design engineer, teacher, speaker. Interface Prototyping at Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design. UX, prototyping, & design engineering workshops.
📧 Newsletter: https://ownyourweb.site
💻 Website: https://matthiasott.com
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Last week, I had the immense honor of speaking at one of my favorite events, @beyondtellerrand.com. (🤯)

My talk “Painting With the Web” is now available on YouTube. I hope you like it! 🤗💚

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Pq7...
Matthias Ott – Painting With the Web – beyond tellerrand Düsseldorf 20025
YouTube video by beyond tellerrand
www.youtube.com
Reposted by Matthias Ott
Drop your RSS feeds in the replies so people (including me) can find them 👇
January 7, 2026 at 8:56 AM
“The actor achieved what we believe is the first documented case of a cyberattack largely executed without human intervention at scale—the AI autonomously discovered vulnerabilities in targets.”

This is fine. 🔥
www.anthropic.com/news/disrupt...
Disrupting the first reported AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign
A report describing an a highly sophisticated AI-led cyberattack
www.anthropic.com
January 7, 2026 at 2:38 PM
I really wonder how long it takes a beginner like me to go from beer belly to get ripped again with Tai Chi.
I bet that by the end of November, my family won’t even recognize me.
January 6, 2026 at 8:29 PM
Reposted by Matthias Ott
Started blogging in ’95. Nearly all site’s my content from the past 30 years is still up. Sadly, the same can’t be said for most third-party content I linked to. Happily, the Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer solves much of this.

wordpress.org/plugins/inte...
Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer
Automatically fix broken links by replacing them with archived versions from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
wordpress.org
January 5, 2026 at 2:15 PM
Reposted by Matthias Ott
New #FluidType by @matthiasott.com approach that deals with the issue of users changing their base font: buff.ly/OeXELrC

By introducing a damping factor, if the base font gets larger, the increase per step gets smaller avoiding overly large font sizes. Be aware of currently limited browser support
Compressed Fluid Typography · Matthias Ott
Matthias Ott is an independent user experience designer and web design engineer from Stuttgart, Germany. He also teaches Interface Prototyping at the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design.
buff.ly
January 5, 2026 at 5:33 PM
Reposted by Matthias Ott
You should leave Substack in 2026, because they platform fascists regularly, but even before that I am *begging* you to stop referring to your writing as "my Substack" because why give them that agency. It's your writing, your posts, your words, on their platform.
January 3, 2026 at 3:54 AM
Note to self: if you block all the bots™, remember to not block archive.org_bot. Especially if you even wrote a Craft CMS plugin that notifies the Wayback Machine to crawl new posts on your site … 🤦‍♂️
January 1, 2026 at 10:17 PM
Oh, THE LÄND FÄNSHOP got häcked.
January 1, 2026 at 10:33 AM
Happy 2026!! 🎆🎉🤗💚
December 31, 2025 at 11:05 PM
What a week, huh? 😅
December 19, 2025 at 5:09 PM
What a nerd. 😍🎻
www.youtube.com/watch?v=q62H...
Inside Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with Augustin Hadelich
YouTube video by Aspen Music Festival and School
www.youtube.com
December 17, 2025 at 10:03 AM
I just love linear() 😍 #CSS #animation

Wrote about it here, in case you’re interested:

matthiasott.com/notes/linear...
Linear() Is Not (That) Linear · Matthias Ott
Matthias Ott is an independent user experience designer and web design engineer from Stuttgart, Germany. He also teaches Interface Prototyping at the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design.
matthiasott.com
December 16, 2025 at 9:22 AM
Wow. FU.

“The AI-driven growth in the data center has led to a surge in demand for memory and storage. #Micron has made the difficult decision to exit the #Crucial consumer business in order to improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments.”
investors.micron.com
December 11, 2025 at 12:43 PM
12 days of Soundtoys.
6 free plug-ins.

www.soundtoys.com/12-days-of-s...
12 Days of Soundtoys
Get up to 6 free gifts from Soundtoys December 8-19, 2025. Happy holidays and thanks for being part of the Soundtoys community!
www.soundtoys.com
December 8, 2025 at 1:15 PM
just setting up my srvr
December 5, 2025 at 2:06 PM
“Why don’t you put your site behind Cloudflare to deal with those LLM bots?”
December 5, 2025 at 9:12 AM
If you’re into #audio #plugins: Universal Audio is giving away a free plugin right now – options include many classics like the LA-2A, 1176, Pultec EQ, Galaxy Tape Echo, the (great-sounding!) PolyMAX Synth, and more. 🎛️✨
www.uaudio.com/products/pic...
Black Friday Freebie
It’s on us! Grab a free UAD plug-in from our curated list and start creating right away. Yours free, Black Friday through Cyber Monday only. Use this code at checkout. One time use only.
www.uaudio.com
November 27, 2025 at 7:57 AM
Reposted by Matthias Ott
If you missed it live, you can watch @jamessw.com & @miriam.codes's chat with @meyerweb.com about Anchor Positioning now on the Winging It show.

Includes:
-Rough edges
-Emerging patterns
-Will Anchor Positioning be baseline?
-What's next for Anchor Positioning?

www.oddbird.net/2025/11/20/w...
#css
Cross-Browser Anchor Positioning
Anchor Positioning is available in all browsers. What's next, with Eric Meyer.
www.oddbird.net
November 26, 2025 at 8:50 PM
My son was just trying to find the right tempo for a song he’s playing on the violin. So I started to clap in time.

I’m a dadronome.
November 26, 2025 at 4:08 PM
It feels really wrong – and also a bit naive and crude – that I am now forced to block individual IPs and even countries like CN, RU, or UA (💙💛) to mitigate the current LLM bot “DDoS attack” on my site. This shouldn't be something I have to do manually in my .htaccess IMHO—that’s firewall territory.
November 25, 2025 at 10:48 AM
Sorry to everyone having trouble connecting to my little website and RSS feed right now! It looks like my web hosting provider is having a hard time getting their server/load balancer configuration right. I wrote them again, hope the issue will be resolved soon. Thanks for your patience! 💚🙏
November 24, 2025 at 2:47 PM
… and after one month, we now have a rotten zombie pumpkin in our garden. 🎃🧟‍♂️😂
November 23, 2025 at 8:36 AM
❄️ It’s freezing cold outside here in Germany, and this is an interesting explainer of why that is: a warming event in the polar region is leading to an early collapse of the polar vortex, so Europe and North America are flooded with cold air, while the North Pole is unusually warm. #weather #climate
Stratospheric Warming Watch: Polar Vortex Collapse has begun, with cold air and snowfall impacts expected
A Stratospheric Warming is now collapsing the Polar Vortex, with polar air and snow forecast across the United States, Canada and Europe in December
www.severe-weather.eu
November 22, 2025 at 8:13 AM
“You tried to get me fired in September – it didn’t work, Mr. President! […] How about this: I’ll go when you, okay? Let’s ride off into the sunset like Butch Cassidy and the sun-tanned kid. And until then, if I may borrow a phrase from you … quiet, piggy!“

Jimmy Kimmel is invincible now🔥😂👏
Trump Calls for Jimmy Kimmel to Be Fired AGAIN, Threatens Members of Congress & Signs Epstein Bill
YouTube video by Jimmy Kimmel Live
youtu.be
November 21, 2025 at 8:52 PM