Matt Webb is the founder of Acts Not Facts, a vehicle for product invention.
Through that, he is also the inventor of Poem/1, an AI-powered rhyming clock. How does it work? It tells the time with a brand new poem every minute, composed by ChatGPT. It’s sometimes profound, and sometimes weird, and very occasionally it fibs about what the actual time is to make a rhyme work... It has a cute e-paper screen.
So far it's been featured in Fast Company, Forbes, Ars Technica, The Verge, Bloomberg, the New York Times and more.
You can back the kickstarter here. It's pretty neat!
Twitter (X) → twitter.com/genmon
Threads → threads.net/@genmon
Instagram → instagram.com/genmon
LinkedIn → linkedin.com/in/genmon
Workspace Items: Desk
Mac mini M1
MacBook Air M2 13” — this is the best laptop Apple have made since the 12” aluminium Powerbook
I don’t have a KVM switch — I use the machines simultaneously using Apple’s Universal Control it is a robust as hell. I forget there are two computers there
Ring light because of the pandemic
Aranet4 CO2 monitor — if I forget to open a window and it gets about 800ppm I get nervous. Above 1000ppm and I start getting stupider
Cricket ball as fidget device
On the top shelves are Wisden cricket almanacs and a piece of metal I use to burn incense which is a part of the Concorde fuselage, a project that my parents were attached to
Workspace Items: Shelves
The book situation is out of control. Visible sections are cybernetics/computing history, history, mythology, and design. Psychology and animals are off to the side
In the middle: I leave this camera set up to snap any good poems from the Poem/1 technical prototype. Camera is a Sony NEX-5N. It’s old but there’s nothing like it for size, just perfect in the hand and pocket
HomePod mini, the only smart speaker with an open mic in the house
“Twinkly” brand Christmas lights. The app uses computer vision to place the RGB LEDs in 3D space, then you can run animated patterns over them
Many ornaments and bits and bobs! There’s an old FM3 Buddha Machine, archive boxes for issues of JBIS (Journal of the British Planetary Society, which I throughly recommend) and an original LOT 2046 tattoo machine (as-yet unused…)
The cushion on the arm chair is in the new Elizabeth line moquette
