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I haven't really felt compelled to write a personal
newsletter lately. I have to admit it is a byproduct of
working in the Claude mines. I don't do a lot of
self-reflection while in the mines, and when I am out, I
tend to think about what I want to do next. It is a really
narrow existence. I just don't feel like focusing on
Kin. I want to feed the machine.
Working online and writing code has always been an
isolating experience, but I think LLMs have turned this up
to 11. I have the ability to step away. I read my books,
spend time with my gurls, walk away from the computer
every morning and evening, and ride my bike during the
day. I am physically and mentally able to pull away. It is
something I don't think many others have. Writing
this newsletter is part of that. It is important. I'd
say it is the canary in my Claude mine.
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Audrey, Poppy, and I
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I sure do love my gurls. I love walking with them in the
mornings in Central Park, in the evenings along the West
Side Highway, and everything in between. They both center
my day. They both center my existence. Combined with daily
chats with my kiddo, I am left with my glass pretty full.
I consider myself lucky to have my gurls in my life,
helping bring joy and purpose to my day.
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Reading a book on bench in park.
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The weather is perfect right now. We are past the summer
humidity and slipping into fall. Poppy and I went to a
little hill along the West Side the other afternoon and
sat reading a book for a while. A squirrel bitched at her
for a bit, and we both sat soaking up the sun and enjoying
the people moving through the park. Poppy loves sitting on
benches and people-watching. She could sit there for hours
taking in the sights.
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How Our Days Became Numbered
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I finished reading How Our Days Became Numbered: Risk and
the Rise of the Statistical Individual, by Dan Bouk. It
was a well-researched walk through the rise and dominance
of the insurance industry in this country. The story
connected the dots on how statistics became baked into how
our world works, and how insurance agents taught us to
size ourselves up using predictive models, setting the
stage for the denial-of-service attack artificial
intelligence is waging on our humanity today.
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There was another death on the Central Park loop this
week. This time it was an elderly man who hit an unleashed
dog and went over the handlebars. Poppy and I showed up
about 45 minutes after it happened, and the police were
photographing the scene. A couple of weeks ago it was a
pedestrian hit by a cyclist. Cyclists, pedestrians, and
everyone else like to point fingers in these moments, but
I see badly behaved folks from all camps out there every
day. I propose we all just go a little slower, and have
some empathy for the more than 100K people who visit the
park each day.
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Poppy and I had an accident on our bike a couple of weeks
ago. There is a spot along 55th coming home that has been
under construction. There is a temporary bike lane that we
usually avoid, but for some reason I decided to go through
it. The edge of the sidecar caught a wooden divider, and
we were going fast enough (6 mph or so) that we were both
ejected as the bike came to a halt. We were both fine.
Poppy was shaken. But the sidecar frame was bent enough
that we couldn't ride anymore. It took about two
weeks, but we procured a new sidecar, and we are back on
our bullshit.
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Medhi, Andrejz, Steve, and I
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I went to London for APIDays last week. It had been a
while since I'd been there. It was a great event.
Nice venue. Good people. I enjoyed most of the talks I sat
in on, and mine were well attended. I had great hallway
conversations. There was a significant increase in the
pushback on AI, despite there being some clearly
AI-generated talks. The API industry is definitely
diminished in the shadow of AI, but it is still there.
I'm thankful that the APIDays folks keep doing what
they do, because I feel like a king at their conferences.
I will be heading to Stockholm next week, and Paris in
December, keeping the API drumbeat going.
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APIs.io APIs
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My work profiling APIs for API Evangelist and APIs.io
continues. I profile about 1,000 APIs a week with the help
of Claude, but also a new open-source model I've been
running locally on my beefy laptop. It's taken me a
couple of weeks to find the right open-source model,
stabilize it, and get it up to the same level as what
Claude does for me. But I've done it. I still have
issues running it overnight, but things are getting
better. It has historically cost me an average of $2.50
per company to profile, which I've now reduced to $0.
That is a big deal for taming the costs of running and
growing my business.
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The rain has disrupted our walks to the Sunday farmers
market on the Upper West Side, but we've still
managed to make the trek a couple of times. We absolutely
love the walk up there, and sitting on the bench on 81st
waiting for the market to open is one of my favorite parts
of the journey. Even in a light rain, I love being there
with my gurls, watching people walk by and thinking about
the week. I know I say it a lot, but I am really thankful
to be living in New York City. Once you've lived here
long enough, it becomes more of a small town than most of
the small towns I've lived in. It is something you
don't get until you experience it.
I am not quite ready for winter. I want to enjoy the fall
a bit more. I'm looking forward to Stockholm next
week after my time in London. I don't like being away
from NYC and my gurls, but I am enjoying building my
business right now. I have a steady drumbeat going, and I
am doing everything I can on the web and with AI. The rest
is human connection, and going to events is an essential
part of this. Honestly, there is more opportunity for what
I do in Europe right now, because there is such a
sovereign response to how fucked we are in the U.S. I
enjoy the conversations, and I enjoy the role I play at
API-related events and in the tech sector doing what I do.
“A fallen leaf is nothing more than a Summer’s wave
goodbye.” – Unknown
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