Poured over

Most days I make myself a cup of coffee and try to close a tab

Not to praise but to bury

There isn't a term of art for the rare but not unheard of obituary written by someone who has themselves passed. When American monster Dick Cheney died last week his Times obit was written by Robert McFadden, who is still with us though he retired in 2024 after over six decades of reporting.

Jim Ray|November 10, 2025

Zohran Mamdani was the right amount of online

Yesterday's off-year election dominated certain parts of the news cycle, no more so than Zohran Mamdani's decisive win in the New York mayor's race. The Mamdani campaign has been the rare ray of light in a year that's been dominated by a much broader continued slide into authoritarianism in the U.S. and Mamdani, at 34 years old, has shown what a truly online campaign that doesn't descend into the cynicism preferred by algorithmic mediated platforms.

Jim Ray|November 05, 2025

Social media is a party and we can't party all the time

Aaron Ross Powell wrote a long, thoughtful post about social media and blogging. I thought his metaphor for social media as a party works really well for diagnosing why short-form media feels so bad for us and why the media ecosystem, which has become dominated by these party dynamics, feels so corroded.

Jim Ray|November 03, 2025

We should all be Luddites

Luddites are having a bit of a moment. Brian Merchant's excellent Blood in the Machine is one of the more high-profile contemporary recountings of the struggle to wrest control from the narrative of technological inevitability and show how the story of technology can't be separated from the deployment capital against labor.

Jim Ray|October 31, 2025

50 reasons to build a website

Chris Coyier has 50, out of approximately one (1) infinite number, great reasons to build a website. A bit cheeky, sometimes serious, just as the web should be.

Jim Ray|October 30, 2025

Measured AI

Gina Trapani has a thoughtful meditation on what it means to be a technologist working in this era of AI hype.

Jim Ray|October 24, 2025