Mad Sweeney is a personal online identity built around the idea that the internet works best when it remains human in scale, understandable, and owned by the people who use it.
What this is
This site is a small personal homestead at the edge of the network. Part workshop, part journal, part front door. It exists so I can write, build, and publish without turning the whole thing into a platform dependency problem.
The tools matter here because they let me keep the work readable and direct: public Unix, Gopher, Gemini, RSS, XMPP, and a bit of self-hosting where it actually helps. I care about systems that can be understood without a week of onboarding.
What belongs here
About, Now, Projects, Contact, and phlog mirrors. The phlog starts on Gopher, then gets mirrored outward to the web and, later, Gemini.
I’m drawn to the older web habits that still work cleanly: text-first publishing, simple navigation, durable pages, and a personal presence that feels like a place rather than a feed. There is a little weather in it, a little folklore, and the sense that a good page should be able to stand on its own in the dark.
What it is not
It is not a company, not a product, not a brand exercise, and not a backend diary. I’m not trying to recreate the internet as it was, just to keep a few useful, human-scale pieces alive.
Current surfaces
Web front door, Gopher phlog and root menu, Mastodon, SDF mail, and Gemini when it is ready.
If you found your way here, welcome. This is supposed to feel like a place someone made, not a system someone deployed. A little cabin light at the edge of the woods.