Matthew Lyon

designer, programmer, artist

As a technologist, I provide fractional consulting creating tools to help people work with with information-dense & semantically-complex data, which have helped people save time, money, frustration, and lives.

As an artist, I create visual art in a variety of media, design sounds from acoustic & synthesized sources, and compose electronic music.

Music

EPs & Singles

Cover for Passage of Remnants

Passage of Remnants 2023

Cover for When Both Became Neither

When Both Became Neither 2022

Contents

Mourning Tinyletter

The smol internet needs infrastructure, too

Annoying For Engagement

Engagement Hacking Can, and Will, Backfire

Collapsing Context

The circumstances in which software is used are important

Taking up the Slack

Redesigns Change How Something Works, and For Whom

Matthew’s Linnstrument Page

a fan page for Roger Linn’s expressive MIDI controller

Linnstrument Chord Reference

Printable Chord Diagrams for the Linnstrument, or any other instrument using a fourths-based note grid

Generating Tests With Properties

An introduction to Property-Based Testing, with a focus on practical examples

Golden Times

Golden Ratio calculator for musical time values

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a poem about the new economy

Tweeting, archived

What's left of 15 years of @[email protected]

Making Music With Math

Exploring the relationship between music theory and math

Working with GraphQL for Client & Server

An introduction to GraphQL, with a focus on patterns for creating APIs

Computing Visual Art

Demonstrations of the relationships between visual art, math, and code

Understanding Time Zones

You think you want worldwide UTC – I think you're entitled. Stop treating what the clock says like a number and learn about the terminology of time

Consuming GraphQL Simply

A curl-focused introduction to GraphQL clients with a focus on learning the basics of using this powerful API tool

Dreaming of Jobs

Musing about the idea of a dream job, and how it must exist in a larger context of a dream life

Regretting the Golden Handcuffs

A story of the long tail of startup success, and an examination of costs not apparent or measured

Mistrusting Email Addresses

Email is a communication medium, not an authentication medium

Minimum Viable Documentation

Some ideas about the role of documentation writing in the process of lean software development

Refining Software

How you might learn the wrong lessons from building the wrong thing quickly

Making Time For Quality

What does it mean to be creative in an age of instant gratification? An argument for patience and the process of refinement

Matthew Lyon 2023 — all rights reserved