The ur-post
Explore the concept of the ur-post and its role in microblogging, sources, and references in the digital content landscape.
One thing I’ve been wondering about (in all my musings on #microblogging) is the relationships among sources and references. Earlier, I speculated that all blogging is only reference, because an #rss feed is just a sign to a #blog post.
Interestingly, it’s a robust sign. Some feeds are so robust that they are copies of their source. There is no need to “click through” to the source, because the same information is in the feed.
Even if feeds are referrers, to what do they refer? The refer to sources.
Some sources are copies of other sources. Once a source item is copied, there’s no need to trace the feed back. A copy is just as good.
But what if there are no copies? And what if the feeds are not copies, either? Then the feeds just point back. They point back, even through many feeds, to the source. If content is not replicated, then there is always one source.
I call this the ur-post.
The agent-shaped org chart
Every real org has the same topology: principal, role-holder, specialists. Staff AI maps onto it, node for node, and the cost collapse shows up in the deliverables that were always just human-handoff overhead.
AI as staff, not software
Two frames for what AI is doing to work. The tool frame makes tools smarter. The staff frame makes roles unnecessary. Those aren't the same product, the same company, or the same industry.
Knowledge work was never work
Knowledge work was always coordination between humans who couldn't share state directly. The artifacts were never the work. They were the overhead — and AI just made the overhead optional.
The work of being available now
A book on AI, judgment, and staying human at work.
The practice of work in progress
Practical essays on how work actually gets done.
Shopping is the last mile
Every meal planning app treats cooking as the hard problem and shopping as a logistics detail. They have it backwards. Cooking is mostly solved. Shopping is the last mile.
Watch what they buy, not what they say
Forms ask people to declare preferences. Receipts record what they did. The gap between the two is where revealed preference lives, and it's wider than most product teams admit.
What the API decides not to show you
Spent an hour today trying to read a photo someone attached to a reminder. The bytes are right there on disk. Apple won't let me see them. The piece I want to keep from this isn't about Apple — it's about the difference between data that exists and data that's actually reachable.
ActivityPub spec
Explore the ActivityPub specification to understand how to write effective specs and enhance your web development skills.
The semiotics of networked content
Explore how networked content transcends platforms, focusing on the significance of signs over replication in the evolving digital landscape.
Embracing the AI workforce
Discover how AI enhances the workplace by fostering collaboration and spontaneity, offering a fresh alternative to traditional office dynamics.