Stories
I just deleted my primary MySQL database. Of course, I backed up everything, but it is the first time since 2011 I’ve cleaned up my entire database backend to the point where I could delete the entire instance (with confidence). I was motivated to do this mostly because I couldn’t downsize the AWS RDS instance to a smaller instance due to a ...
I continuing my effort to take control over my data, and digital presence and the next target on my list is Gmail. I have been using Gmail heavily since early 2007, and the application contained a significant amount of my data in its archives. I didn’t need any tools to delete my email, as Gmail provides some easy “select all” options for folders, which easil...
I had ditched my phone last year after being with AT&T for just shy of 20 years. Not having a phone made me realize how much you need a phone number to exist online these days. Facebook, Twitter, Google, all needed me to have a phone number which I can verify from time to time, to keep my accounts active.
I read a lot of patents as part of my work as the API Evangelist, and I tend to stalk and tune into the social media accounts of some of the authors. I have noticed that some of them work at large companies, and are counting each patent they file and are announcing each one like it is a badge of honor. I’m fascinated by this. Each compan...
I received this email from DJI about my drone this weekend, telling me about an upcoming update this week where I will be forced to comply with an update that is designed to limit where I can operate my drone. It is a pretty interesting look at the future of this Internet of Things beast we’ve unleashed.
When you hang out in startup circles you hear the phrase, “data is the new oil” a lot. Getting rights to the mining and extracting, and generating revenue from data is big business, and VC, Hedge Funds, and even government are getting in on the game. Whether it is gathered from private or public sectors, or in your living room and pocket, everyo...
I created a little hack on my Jekyll-driven websites to allow me to publish a week’s worth of posts (or more) ahead of time. I’ve been scheduling these publishing using my homebrew CMS, but I recently ditched it for Siteleaf, and one of the things that w...
The FCC released a statement from the CIO's office about a Denial-of-Service Attack on the FCC comment system, after
I think way too much about the digital bits being transmitted online each day. I study the APIs that are increasingly being used to share these bits via websites, mobile, and other Internet-connected devices. These bits can be as simple as your messages and images or can be as complex as the inputs and outputs of algorithms use...
I am always fascinated by how people see Internet domains. I do not expect everyone to grasp all of the technical details of DNS or the nuance of the meaning behind the word domain, but I'm perpetually amazed by what people associate or do not associate with the concept. I like to write about these things under
I closely watch the value the digital bits being exchanged via the Interwebz--it is what I do. @audreywatters always says that APIs are "reducing everything to a transaction", and I am interested understanding the value of these bits, what people are buying...
I talk to venture capital (VC) folks on a regular basis, answering questions about specific API-centric companies, all the way to general trends regarding where technology is headed. This week I was talking with a firm about the viability of one of the API companies I work with regularly, and the topic of startup dependability came ...
When you are a critic of technology you get a lot of pushback from technologists, who seem to almost aways impulsively respond that not all technology is bad, echoing conversations around race and gender. There are two default responses you get when you ask some hard questions about how technology is used: 1) Not all technology is bad 2...
I just got back from two weeks in the United Kingdom, which was my first international travel in a Trump and Brexit dystopia. My travel leaving the country, and coming back through LAX were uneventful, but it gave me the opportunity to begin pulling together my procedures for crossing borders with my digital devices.&nbs...
I track on which digital resources are valuable. Products, contacts, messages, compute, images, video, and the other valuable bits that are being moved around, and bought and sold via the Internet. I'm always trying to understand what is valuable to developers, platform operators, investors, and even the police and government...
I had come across Your College Degree is Worthless as part of my regular monitoring of the API space, which is a story I see regularly from the startup community, partly due to my relative position to my partner in crime Audrey Watte...
My partner in crime Audrey Watters and I recently rebranded our umbrella company as Contrafabulists, and along the way, we worked with our friend Bryan Mathers to help us develop some graphics that would help define our work. Bryan quickly developed a logo for Contrafabulists that I think represents what we do--embedding ourselves within the gears of the machine, pushing back on the daily stories from the tec...
I am spending some cycles on my algorithmic rotoscope work. Which is basically a stationary exercise bicycle for my learning about what is, and what is not machine learning. I am using it to help me understand and tell stories about machine learning by creating ima...
I'm spending time on my algorithmic rotoscope work, and thinking about how the machine learning style textures I've been marking can be put to use. I'm trying to see things from different vantage points and develop a better understanding of how texture styles can be put to use in the regular world.
I am enjoying using image style filters in my writing. It gives me kind of a gamified layer to my photography and drone hobby that allows ...
I had another observation out of the Uber news from this last week, where Uber was actively targeting regulators and police in cities around the globe, and delivering an alternate experience for these users be...
I putting some thought into some next steps for my algorithmic rotoscope work, which is about the training and applying of image style transfer machine learning models. I'm talking with Jason Toy (@jtoy) over at
I am captivated by the news about Uber actively targeting regulators and police in cities around the globe. I specifically love thinking about the work that regulators and investigators are having to do to be able to build ...
The military's fingerprints are visible throughout the Internet's history, with much of the history of compute born out of war, so it's no surprise that the next wave of warfare is all about the cyber (its HUGE). With so much of I...
I was sharing my latest Algorithmic Rotoscope image on Facebook and a friend asked me what I meant by training a machine learning model. I still suck at quantifying this stuff in any normal way. When you get too close to the fire you lose your words sometimes. It is why...
