Stories

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.

I have tied a double knot in my shoe laces since I first learned to tie my own shoes. It is something I haven’t thought about a lot over the years. I just do it. Along the way I learned to tie many other types of knots, and I have worn boots, tennis shoes, sandals, and many other types of footwear. I’ve still just always tied a double knot. There has been no change in tne 45+ years of lacing up my shoes. Now, 50 years in, I have just simply started tying just a simple bow. No double knot. ...

Last Sunday I started feeling like crap again, and by this Sunday, I am writing this while feeling thankful to be alive. I can’t say that this experience was worse than my first or previous experiences (3 times now), but I can say it is a humbling experience. Monday through Friday the fever was an extreme roller coaster. Tuesday through Thursday I could barely breathe. After a week I am extremely tired, my chest hurts, and I am slowly coming back into the world.

It has been four years since you checked out Isaiah. Some things have gotten harder and some things have gotten easier. We have made it through your 4th death day, and coming up on your 31st birthday. I am sure it would drive you bonkers and make you roll your eyes that I write a post like this addressed to you, but you are dead and I am left alive taking care of your mother, so too fucking bad. I am pissed at you because I have to be here for all the pain and anger your mother has to expe...

I read the title of this post on the Internet. It resonated with me. Sure there are things in the city like constructions and crowds that can be noisy, but really the noise is primarily cars. But as I was thinking about this it isn’t just that cars are loud, and we separate this and apply to the city, but also everything that is wrapped up in our obsession with cars and how much we love to hate cities because of our largely avoided institutional racism.

I just solid our 2021 Kia Telluride and travel trailer to a wonderful family the other day. It makes me very happy. I basically gave them the trailer if they paid blue book for the car. It was a hell of a deal, but it was so worth it to get rid of it without any friction, and an added bonus that it went to such a great family. It has once again left us without a car, living in a big city, but absolutely loving not having to own an automobile, and I am hoping will be something that will con...

I am a big fan of facing our pasts. It is the only way we will find peace and balance in our world. We have to do this at the individual, community, and national levels. In doing this work, I have learned too much about the history of our country to look the other way. This history I’ve been learning about differs very much from the history we were spoon fed in school across the United States. From how we engaged with the human beings who lived here when we founded this nation, to the huma...

I dream a lot at night. Every night I dream. However, last night was the first time I have not had a dream that was a complete hamster wheel of a hustle, and was just an interesting vision from my home. There is a lot in that sentence that makes sense to me, but I need to unpack for anyone reading this, but also so that I draw a little line in the sand of my journey with a stick. My dreams are always a television channel left on overnight, but when it comes to which channel is left on, it ...

I’ve come to realize that it isn’t me that is mentally ill, it is that I choose to live in this world with my heart and mind open. I have chosen not to live with a wounded and closed heart, and living an intellectual existence is literally the only way I can stay sane. Unfortunately a by-product of these two choices means that each day has its ups and down as you make your way through the world and actively respond to a very extractive, exploitative, and often uncaring world of people who ...

Technology likes to focus on scale, prioritizing quantitative approaches to defining and shaping what digital success looks like. To achieve scale you need to effectively reduce an experience or series of experiences to scalable transactions. This is a game that often begins with an equal balance of qualitative and quantitative approaches to defining, measuring, and ultimately shaping digital success, but over time it becomes easier to focus so heavily on scale and quantitative measurement...

I like my blog because it provides me with dated looks into how I feel in any particular moment–something I need to feel sane in a pretty insane digital landscape that likes to just memory hole things so it can perpetually celebrate what is next. With this in mind I wanted to write a blog post about the current AI wave we are in so that I can read it after we have survived it—-which we will. It is so fascinating how people so badly want to believe in AI, and the oxygen gets sucked out of t...

My eyes get tired. I don’t have the time. It is hard to focus. And the many other excuses I have uttered throughout my adult life when it comes to why I can’t read even 1 book, let alone possess a steady diet of book reading, all seems intentionally crafted to me these days. I’ve managed to carve out two (going on my third) dedicated session where I carve out dedicated time and make book reading a priority. I’d say that in normal times I am to the point where I am always moving forward (al...

I am a big believer in owning your own domain. I do not care what you put there, but you should have at least on online domain which you control. Ideally you have an email address there too, and keep your site(s) somewhat active. I have winters on each domain where I do not update anything, but I always come back to them, otherwise I let a domain go. Today is one of those days where I step back and assess the state of my personal and professional domain(s).