Stories

Mediocre by Ijeoma Oluo is one of the books on my deprogramming list of books. The book holds a special place on the list because it describes the systemic programming which I am working to deprogram myself of. I am taking the individual responsibility to repeatedly look at myself in the mirror and atone for my complicity in the violence of white male supremacy. I am not one of the rich and powerful white men, but I am very much complicit i...

Another week in this messed up timeline and another week of people I care about being endlessly obsequious towards the machine. People’s ability to worship and obey the machine operating all around us makes me so very sad. It won’t save you!! It won’t secure you a place at the rich and powerful table. It will just leave you sad and lonely, reminiscing about a time where you think you almost felt human. It will just isolate you. Right now the machine appears to be working for you because yo...

We went for breakfast ramen this morning. You heard that right. I had steak and eggs ramen. It was a lovely and very soul nourishing experience. It was a cold and slushy day as we made our way down to lower Manhattan and found our way into the oddly placed Ramen By Ra. The space, chef, and food were perfectly aligned to sit you down for a warm and nourishing experience that would share with you a very familiar story which had been reimagined to conn...

There is a lot of history present in my new tattoo, but the urgency by which I needed to draw that blood can be seen through my Marvelesque lens of the API universe. Clearly this isn’t an API Evangelist story, which is why it’s here on Kin Lane, so my apologies in advance for the API blah blah blah bleeding over here. Anyways. Let me try to explain my tattoo in the context of what I am seeing happening right now.

I am continuing down my abstraction rabbit hole. I wanted to better visualize what I have been seeing in my head so that I can share with other people, but also so I can keep working on other concepts within this dimension. I have adequately supported how I see (computer science) abstraction in service of APIs, derivatives to further shape the layers of (computer) (financial) abstraction, as well as expan...

Generally speaking the Aye (AI) crowd is made up of some questionable people saying some pretty questionable things, but there are also many good hearted and well-meaning people caught up in the hustle. However, when you look at the upper echelons of who is championing Aye on stage with Trump, do you go—those are my people? Is that thing you are excited about? Is it the same thing those people are excited about? What do you think that means? How does that make you feel? And is it something...

There is a lot of celebration and discussion around AI agents using applications with the recent OpenAI Operator release, and speculation throughout the API community about what this means for APIs. If I am wearing my API Evangelist hat, I’d make similar arguments that the web applications these agents are using are all using APIs, and that the OpenAI Agent also is available as an API, so us API people are safe. Right? Right? Right?

There is a lot of speculation right now out there about what artificial intelligence means for APIs. People love saying there is no AI without API. Which is true. However most of the crystal balling done by the API crystal ballers are just looking at the technical details, as well as the business details from their own perspective selling API solutions. My crystal ball tells me that APIs will indeed be left behind because of artificial intelligence. Let me explain…

I have been shifting my less official, more personal, and sometimes controversial stories over here to Kin Lane, helping make sure my stories on API Evangelist do not scare the normals. This post should get at the heart of what you were looking for when it comes to the relationship of not just AI agents with API governance, but also operations, and individual APIs—because it is all connected.

It is interesting to see what older aspects of the Internet we’ve adopted, as well as the newer parts at the front edge that we are being sold but haven’t yet adopted. I am a huge fan operating within my own domain. Publishing data, content, and artifacts within the domains I own. I also really like the Mastodon and Bluesky protocols, as they both have ways of operating and federating within your own domain. Operating within your domain is everything. It is how you accumulate and retain th...

Whenever I get left behind on a hike, an outing to the park, or maybe a trendy neighborhood—-I get irrationally angry. I have zero tolerance for people who will not wait for me, even if I am to blame for stopping to take a photo or look in the window of a shop. I don’t just get angry, I get downright mean and nasty about it. I’ve learned so much about Kin Lane over the last 25 years that when he gets angry like this I know there is some deep seated emotional reason to blame which has next ...

I have fallen down the abstraction rabbit hole this week. Abstraction is a word I use often in widely imprecise ways. After Audrey called me out, stating that I don’t think you are using that word correctly, I wanted to understand further. I love words. I love rabbit holes. I enjoy the confidence of being precise, and I hate it when I am using words in imprecise ways.

Continuing my exploration into the concept of the digital fracking that is in use with APIs, but in service of wider abstractions like cloud, social, mobile, and AI, I wanted to evaluate some of the high pressure materials in use that help create the most optimal environment for digital resource extraction from companies and individuals. Physical fracking for oil and gas utilizes materials made up of water, sand, and chemical a...

I hate mornings. I wake up angry at the world. Having to get up early has been an injustice ever since I was a teenager. I know getting up at 6:00 AM every morning is better for me, but don’t tell me that at 6:30 AM. I will tell you to fuck off and die, and likely mean it. The struggle with the morning is a real one for me each day, but I take it by the horns willingly, knowing that this is part of my legacy programming that I can’t quite seem to shake, and once the day gets going I will b...

I am looking to frame a common practice I see occurring across the technology sector, but as I do with most of the masters tools, think about ways in which I can use to tear down his house, but also just grease up his hammers, loosen his axe heads, and other things that will just drive him bonkers. My new framing is called “digital fracking”, which also has been called disruption, cloud, APIs, AI, and other incarnations over the years, but is rarely about whatever words are used up front, ...

I spend a lot of time thinking about real world analogies for the Internet, and more recently for artificial intelligence. One analogy for the Internet I keep coming back to is the automobile, something which I think works well when also applied to AI. I feel like artificial intelligence is to the mind what the automobile has been for the body. I predict that in the 2100s we’ll be working hard to extract AI from our daily lives in similar ways to how we are working to extract automobiles f...

Every Saturday morning about 7:50 AM, just as we are ending our walk in the southwest corner of Central Park at Columbus Circle, I hand the dog leash to my wife and wave goodbye to my Rottweiler and descend down the stairs to the 1 line of the NYC subway, eventually making my way up to 110 Street Cathedral Parkway. At the 110th stop I ascend the stairs up to Broadway, grab my wallet to check if I have at least $50.00 in my pocket, otherwise I stop at the Chase Bank on the corner. This was ...

Audrey and I headed down to the East Village last night for the Radical Book Buzz with Library Freedom Project and Library Futures at The Francis Kite Club. The intimate event showcased the good work of the Library Freedom Project and Library Futures organizations, but also showcased ten publishers who support rad...

I am obsessed with seeing and showcasing the bias in the Internet. My storytelling on API Evangelist is driven by this obsession and the AI images I use across my storytelling is all about keeping this bias visible. It is a long read, but this amazing story of the portrait of Francis Williams has helped bette...

I have been listening and thinking deeply about why the artificial intelligence conversation is leaving such a bad taste in my mouth. It is hard to form a thought, let alone vocalize oneself in today’s hostile and noisy environment about not just AI, but the wider Internet, but I figured I’d draw a few lines in the sand on the beach of my little island. I am very confident in the fact that, as many AI believers love to point out, that I will be left behind by the current AI revolution. Mor...

I don’t have too many regrets as I enter the second half of my life. I am pretty confident in who I am and that my journey was worthwhile. I am a good and hardworking person. However, when it comes to Internet technology I have a couple of serious regrets, or more appropriately regerts. To help me deal with these regerts I went and got a tattoo on my arm to help me repent, but also not lose sight of what matters in the future—here are my regerts.

I am going to call it now. Kamala Harris will win this presidential election. People are tired of Trump’s shit. While patriarchy is still strong, it has run its course and Trump is the final gasp of this destructive and toxic way of living in this world. We are ready for woman to lead, and specifically a woman of color. I don’t think a white woman could break through this, and I believe Kamala can. This is the moment, whether you think we are ready or not-—there is no better time than now....

I have struggled with why I need to publish stories publicly on my blogs over the last year. After stepping back from social media, killing Twitter, and limiting my work storytelling to LinkedIn, and personal to Facebook and Instagram I was left with the question once again—why do I publish my stories on my blogs? It is all so wrapped up in my performance as both Kin Lane and API Evangelist, as well as the social media movement of the last 15 years, I struggle with unwinding it all. Howev...

I feel like an overclocked processor most days. Back in the early days of the Internet I used to gather old computers from large companies and recycle them. As part of this work I’d find certain processors and graphics boards that had more value for modification than others. I remember there were a handful of processors that you could mess with their BIOS and set the rate they would work beyond the factory settings—-it was called overclocking. Most of the time you’d end up with a super fas...

I sat down this morning and listened to two new albums I had purchased this week—-Only God Was Above Us from Vampire Weekend, and As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again by the Decemberists. I didn’t just put on these albums and then go do something else, like get online, or clean the house. I just sat there and looked out the window, sometimes closed my eyes, and listened to both albums end to end.