Stories

I’ve learned a lot about storytelling over the last eight years as the API Evangelist. While still more art than science, I have learned a lot about the types of stories I need to tell to keep traffic flowing to my blog, and how you tell stories that make for real influence and change–two things that don’t always go hand in hand. While learning more about the types of API stories that I can tell across the API sector, I’ve also learned a lot about the storytelling that occurs as part of th...

I am a white male autodidact with significant amount of ego and confidence. Coming out of Oregon in my early 20s, lightly educated, and confident as fuck, made me pretty invincible. I could accomplish anything. I could understand anything. Point me in the direction of a new industry I had no training or experience in, and after a week I could help deliver a website, mobile application, or other system to help solve all the problems that sector faced. I knew my shit. I was confident that I ...

Being anti-government is an easy bandwagon to jump on for many American citizens, no matter what end of the political spectrum you operate on. It is easy to hate on the government, and also very easy for people to stoke that hatred of government amongst the people. It is an interesting cloud layer over our society to penetrate, as you elevate yourself out of the rural, localized discussions, and begin to engage with businesses and individuals at a higher level. Small businesses in smaller ...

It is interesting to watch people perform the both sides (Republicans & Democrats) are corrupt act leading up to this mid term election. I think about how I used to perform this act, and thinking I was doing the right thing, when I was just playing into the hands of the powers that be. The most important tool in the toolbox of the people in power is to get you to stay home on election day. If you are a conservative and you stay home, you are giving power to liberals, and if you are a l...

One thing that troubles me about the current (maybe its always been) state of conservatism, is their self-centered nature. Leading this country only for their vision, and their way of life, and not at all willing to lead this country for other people. I’m not delusional in thinking democrats lead for EVERYONE, or that it is even possible to lead for EVERYONE, but at least democrats try to ensure we all have healthcare, education, and everyone is given a certain amount of dignity as a US ci...

I fully get that I’m biased here, but I also have a unique view into the world of ed-tech. I’ve watched my partner in crime Audrey Watters (@audreywatters) dedicate herself to understanding the world of education technology over the last eight years. You can read her work on Hack Education, but it really is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes ...

I love thinking about the power of storytelling on the world around us. Stories are how our realities are constructed, managed, and if you are fortunate, evolved. Stories are how we craft the future, maintain the present, and reshape the past to be what we want. Stories are how markets are made, torn down, and remade again. Stories have always been essential to how business gets done, but in a virtualized web based landscape, stories are how we allocate space, visualize what is happening, ...

I haven’t written much on my alternate reality blog since the 2016 election. It just seemed wrong to me to write fictional stories that might be seen as real in this dystopian landscape we find ourselves in. Even though I clearly label my stories as being fictional, I just couldn’t find the energy to invest in this type of writing in these times. Part of it was the way they might be seen on the current storytelling landscape, but mostly it was about me struggling with a fake news infestati...

One of the things I find most fascinating about the blockchain, is how it is built upon people’s lack of trust. Something that makes it very appealing to libertarians, and white men, who are the tip of the anti-institution, and can’t trust anyone spear. What people in these modes of reality fail to see from the inside is how their lack of trust makes them more easily manipulated when it comes to politics, markets, and other daily events. When you trust no one, you become more susceptible t...

You raised me on a steady diet which included a fear of everything Soviet, communist, and Russian. In the classroom, on the television, and conversations around the dinner table. I went to bed at night planning for an invasion that was inevitable. When I gathered with my friends at the river on the weekends, we’d train for the coming attack. The fear of the Russians consumed me, and became part of my DNA, setting me on the same perpetual doomsday reality you’ve embraced, and see as normal....

I’ve talked several times this last year about my difficulty in reaching out to friends and family with conservative views, and how I can’t get over their use of alternative facts and reality. I’ve had several more conversations with folks lately about reaching across party lines, and taking another look at why I have trouble connecting with the Trump supporters in my life. Even saying that maybe I sh...

As technologists we love being captivated by the potential of the technology we peddle. Whether we are influenced by money, or just purely our love of technology, we enjoy believing in the power of technology to make change so much that we are willing to ignore so many other factors. This reality, coupled with the dominance of white men in the tech sector, make for a pretty potent form of delusion around what technology will be able to do. Something you can see evident in the world of tran...

I desperately needed to write this week, but this is not the subject I wanted to be writing about. I’m crushed that Anthony Bourdain took his life. I have too much experience with suicide. So much, it has changed my opinion on it, from confusion to understanding. I don’t see suicide as a viable way out, but I understand why people choose to do it. For me, the combination of the tricks that my head plays on me when in overdrive, the low lows of deep depression, and life in general, can make...

My health isn’t something I normally blog about here on my personal blog. I did talk briefly about my alcohol consumption when I hit a wall a couple years back, but I just made another discovery that I think is worth writing in my journal. I have always had a sour, upset, and sensitive stomach. I feel like about 25% of it is my body, with 75% of it being the abuse I’ve inflicted on myself by what I eat and drink. Most days my stomach feel pretty bad, and is something I have usually referre...

I work very hard to be in the moment, and enjoy each day to its fullest. The things that usually get in my way are money and work. If I let these things own me, I have a difficult time settling in each day, and ending up thinking purely about what the future holds, and wasting this amazing moment I’ve been given each day. As I struggle to seize each day, I also find myself continuing my work to free myself of my legacy programming from people I know who spend their days completely obsessed...

A post in the Washington Post getting at the root of Trump’s definition of fake news caused me to pause and think a bit. His Twitter ranting reveals a lot about how he truly sees the world, pulling back the curtain on what he actually means when he says fake news. Here is his recent Tweet:

I’ve been coming to grips with the apocalyptic upbringing I’ve had growing up in a small town in Oregon. From an early age I’ve been fed a steady diet of apocalyptic rhetoric ranging from nuclear holocaust to financial collapse induced chaos, and everything in between. Growing up I ate it up, and baked it all into my world view. It is something that I can now look back and understand how it caused me to spin out of control as a young man. It is something that in my 40s I’m finally beginnin...

I just received notification I was denied a role on a project for a federal agency because I couldn’t produce enough documentation regarding my troubled past – specifically criminal charges (not convictions) involving my drug use 20 years ago, and my divorce / bankruptcy a decade ago. It comes at a time where I’m also hearing about projections around my partners kid regarding his more recent troubled past, in which he has worked incredibly hard to put behind him. Emphasizing for me (once a...

I’ve been in search of analogy to help me work through and articulate some of self-reflection I’ve been doing since the election, and I’ve arrived at a spreadsheet analogy that is pretty dumb as fuck, but honestly I think that is one of the things that makes it work for me, and represents my condition fairly well....

I’m seeing a regular meme on my Facebook from my rural friends the last couple of weeks. The meme is all about defending their second amendment beliefs, and showcasing that their right to freely assemble militias and staying armed is what keeps the government at a distance, and from intruding on their rights. The meme includes the drone shot of the Bundy stand-off in Nevada being used as the image, showcasing the usual lack of ability by these folks to look at the bigger picture–firmly bel...

I wasn’t going to write about this topic, as I see it as an obstructionist argument, and not one that focuses on solving the problem we face with social media. However, I was directly targeted with the argument by someone I know, and after thinking on it for several days, I couldn’t shake it–so I need to write about it. Otherwise I won’t be able to move on.

As friends of mine mobilize in NYC, DC, and other cities as part of March For Our Lives, I sit at home working on a variety of public data policy projects, contemplating the roles each of play in how change occurs around us. As some of my friends mobilize, others are doubling down with their rhetoric around the 2nd amendment, and demonstrating how controlled they are by not just their guns, but the people who control policy by leveraging the gun debate. Demonstrating that their guns are mo...

I know that few people understand what it is that I do as the API Evangelist, or see the Internet-connected world as I do. While I’m not trying to influence people to see things as I do, I do want to help them see some of the algorithmic automation, distortion, and noise that is all around us. I do this through my storytelling, my photography, and any other possible means. Its tough to get people’s attention over the noise, especially when you sound like the parents in Charlie Brown, wah w...

I hear the “its a slippery slope” argument quite regularly when it comes to my work around algorithmic observability, censorship, filtering, and deplatforming, as applied to platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, and others. It is a common middle of the road way for usually white people to respond when you bring up the censorship, filtering, and deplatforming of the worst of the worst forms of speech you find online. Anytime you bring up any proposed solutions, or even just ...

I’d say that 1/3 of the time I’m firing on all cylinders, and cranking shit out as the API Evangelist. 1/3 of the time I’m pushing forward, getting work done, but not operating at 100% capacity. then 1/3 of the time I’m not operating in any reliable or predictable manner. I’m still functional these days. Most of the time. These are the days where the wrong email, Twitter troll, or other hiccup can spin me out for a day, or more. These are the days that words don’t just come. They have to b...