The Ur-post

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.

Featured writing

Why customer tools are organized wrong

This article reveals a fundamental flaw in how customer support tools are designed—organizing by interaction type instead of by customer—and explains why this fragmentation wastes time and obscures the full picture you need to help users effectively.

Infrastructure shapes thought

The tools you build determine what kinds of thinking become possible. On infrastructure, friction, and building deliberately for thought rather than just throughput.

Server-Side Dashboard Architecture: Why Moving Data Fetching Off the Browser Changes Everything

How choosing server-side rendering solved security, CORS, and credential management problems I didn't know I had.

Books

The Work of Being (in progress)

A book on AI, judgment, and staying human at work.

The Practice of Work (in progress)

Practical essays on how work actually gets done.

Recent writing

We always panic about new tools (and we're always wrong)

Every time a new tool emerges for making or manipulating symbols, we panic. The pattern is so consistent it's almost embarrassing. Here's what happened each time.

Dev reflection - February 03, 2026

I've been thinking about constraints today. Not the kind that block you—the kind that clarify. There's a difference, and most people miss it.

When execution becomes cheap, ideas become expensive

This article reveals a fundamental shift in how organizations operate: as AI makes execution nearly instantaneous, the bottleneck has moved from implementation to decision-making. Understanding this transition is critical for anyone leading teams or making strategic choices in an AI-enabled world.

View all writing →