Links from 2025

The best interfaces we never built aren’t just sleeker screens — they’re fundamentally different approaches to creating that unique space for thinking, communicating, creating, and experiencing that makes technology truly exciting. We’ve spent two decades consolidating everything into glass rectangles. Perhaps it’s time to build something different.

Thoughts on "our" culture in three pieces from Kyle Chayka, Kelefa Sanneh, and Joshua Rothman

The vast majority of people on earth are going to drown in a lukewarm bath of AI gruel, and there is probably no effective means of mass resistance on their behalf. The consequences will be very bad. But it also means we’re likely to return to the common pattern of cultural consumption from previous centuries, where sophisticates live in their own separate taste world that is not AI-dominated. I refuse to believe this is an “elitist” position when anyone with self-determination and curiosity is also free to join in this separate taste world, and its members should encourage others to do so.

In this episode, Stuart Brown and Ben discuss the critical importance of agency positioning, exploring common pitfalls, the benefits of specialisation, and the impact of AI on agency strategies. They emphasise the need for clarity in positioning to attract the right clients and improve profitability. The discussion also covers the challenges of repositioning and the journey agencies must undertake to achieve successful outcomes.

Overview Analysis: Get a high-level summary of your component library across all pages, and print it on the canvas with a timestamp for versioning

Here's why they technically can't, and why that makes sense to me.

A deep dive into local-first architecture, triggered by wondering why Linear feels so fast. Looking at the technical implementation, exploring tools like Jazz and Electric SQL, and explaining why my next app might not need API endpoints.

Digging deeper into the data, which comes from the Understanding America Study, we can see that people in their twenties and thirties in particular report feeling increasingly easily distracted and careless, less tenacious and less likely to make and deliver on commitments.

There is no meaningful path to success today that doesn’t deeply embed AI and data into the core of the business. Not as an add-on. Not as a side initiative. And definitely not as something managed in a silo, away from the day-to-day realities of how the business actually runs. It has to be foundational.

We think we've found one of the most important and exciting bikes of the year, the new Canyon Endurace AllRoad, precisely because it's built for the real world. Featuring the smart and reliable Shimano CUES groupset and a frame designed for ultimate versatility, this is a bike that proves you don't need to spend a fortune to have a brilliant ride.

When systems try to meet everyone's needs, they don't stand for anything unique. Without a strong opinion, you can have an infinitely flexible but ultimately forgettable set of rules and constraints.

The best way to network well is to stop giving a shit about doing it well.

I'd like to explain why it really is time to send the DOM and its assorted APIs off to a farm somewhere, with some ideas on how.

More and more, debates are shaped by a mindset that sees the world as a fixed pie—where one person’s or one group’s gain is another’s loss. That mindset is known as zero-sum thinking. And it is crucial to understanding the politics and economics of America today.

Medium’s recap, financial turnaround, and difficult path back to health.

The point here is that the cyberspace close to me is filled with these new, similar people. The people close to me in the real world are pushed away, because, by comparison, they are foreign, alien, strangers.

Examine the distillation of modernism in graphic design with this vast collection of approximately 6,000 logos from 1940–1980. Ranging from media outfits to retail giants, airlines to art galleries, these clean, clear visual concepts may be seen as the visual birth of corporate identity.

A showcase of the finest logos, symbols & trademarks

Seems to have some relation to the Logo Modernism book.

Standalone battery storage is perfect for properties where installing solar panels isn’t an option or preference. It helps reduce electricity bills, provides backup during power cuts (with an EPS), and gives you more control over energy usage.

Good FAQ.

For mission command to work, you need clarity of intent, high trust, coherence, the ability to escalate without penalty, and a culture that values the "process" of providing feedback and problem solving[...] By contrast, tech often adopts the language of mission command (e.g., autonomy, empowerment, intent) without investing in the hard infrastructure of trust, shared context, and safety necessary to escalate.

Humans have no universal faculty to judge aesthetics: Our appreciation of beauty is highly-contextual and depends on factors other than the raw visual stimulus. Most tech-workers are unaware of this fact, and for them, the fact that AI-art resembles human-art means it must be pretty damn good. But AI art is already in very poor taste: not just because it recycles existing conventions in a way that looks outmoded, but because it's already overly associated with less-than-prestigious institutions. GenAI art has already reached polyester status, and this is just the beginning. Despite all the techno-utopian promises, our brains see it as ersatz.

The positive rhetoric and branding of placemaking is that it transforms run-down areas into vibrant and economically successful parts of the city. The reality is that it creates sterile places, emptied of so many of the essential aspects of urban life, except the expensive activities. The city may be emptier than ever of children and families, but tables at sought-after restaurants are still booked up weeks in advance.

<dialog> and popover are currently the only two ways to access the browser’s top layer. So what’s the difference between them and which one should you use when?

Critics in the 21st century embraced mass culture in a belief that it would liberate audiences — but it's directly responsible for triggering the feelings of stagnation

How LLMs are making traditional apps feel broken.

The Cannae Problem is not exclusive to ancient warfare. It stretches across institutions throughout history and into our modern world. When organizations, systems, movements and humans become victims of their own success, when they mistake "what worked before" for "what will always work," they create the conditions for catastrophic failure.

How to discuss and describe a design system’€™s biggest changes

This is a great example of how a mix of common challenges can stymie the common sense playbook. The mix of optics pressure, a "guarded" toxic personality, low trust, and a swamped partner is hard to surmount. Even an experienced manager will struggle in this situation.

Aha, Brewfile.

What we need are the tools that let us compose across the stack. Then we can create self-contained LEGO blocks that run where appropriate—and snap them together. Any piece of UI can have its own backend needs and frontend needs. It’s time that our tools acknowledge that, embrace that, and let us speak our users’ language.

Make faster, more accessible, more environmentally friendly websites, by removing these tags from your site's <head>.

Isn’t it amazing how the answer to everything is always the same? Pay attention. Trust the process. Seek to understand. Question your assumptions. Read a book.

User journeys should be managed like products — by people and teams with specialized, journey-dedicated roles who continually research, measure, optimize, and orchestrate the experience.