--- type: "article" title: "A Week of Being Kin Lane - October 7th, 2026" summary: "Fall in NYC is a beautiful time and place." newsletter: "Kin Lane" newsletter_handle: "kinlane" newsletter_url: "https://usecommune.com/n/kinlane" author: "Kin Lane (@kinlane)" published: "2026-10-07T13:32:34.038Z" canonical_url: "https://usecommune.com/n/kinlane/a/DQdNFFng" markdown_url: "https://usecommune.com/n/kinlane/a/DQdNFFng.md" chat_url: "https://usecommune.com/n/kinlane/a/DQdNFFng/chat" body_source: "native" likes: 1 replies: 0 body_words: 1150 --- # A Week of Being Kin Lane - October 7th, 2026 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. ![Audrey, Poppy, and I](https://fmxorstnlyoqpqdftivs.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/b5b20b52-814d-4df4-b9cd-8194e82ae3b2/bcbdc126-5867-4cba-82ad-88d110117030/1791379493642-iw3vlc5v.jpg) 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. ![Reading a book on bench in park.](https://fmxorstnlyoqpqdftivs.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/b5b20b52-814d-4df4-b9cd-8194e82ae3b2/bcbdc126-5867-4cba-82ad-88d110117030/1791379511801-h1bkeiiy.jpg) 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. [![How Our Days Became Numbered](https://fmxorstnlyoqpqdftivs.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/b5b20b52-814d-4df4-b9cd-8194e82ae3b2/bcbdc126-5867-4cba-82ad-88d110117030/1791379543715-kjyyhgeo.jpg)](https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo20298894.html) 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. ![](https://fmxorstnlyoqpqdftivs.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/b5b20b52-814d-4df4-b9cd-8194e82ae3b2/bcbdc126-5867-4cba-82ad-88d110117030/1791379594594-3xhgitdl.jpg) 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. ![](https://fmxorstnlyoqpqdftivs.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/b5b20b52-814d-4df4-b9cd-8194e82ae3b2/bcbdc126-5867-4cba-82ad-88d110117030/1791379624541-i0m735mj.jpg) 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. ![Medhi, Andrejz, Steve, and I](https://fmxorstnlyoqpqdftivs.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/b5b20b52-814d-4df4-b9cd-8194e82ae3b2/bcbdc126-5867-4cba-82ad-88d110117030/1791379640113-9mf63nv3.jpg) 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. [![APIs.io APIs](https://fmxorstnlyoqpqdftivs.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/b5b20b52-814d-4df4-b9cd-8194e82ae3b2/bcbdc126-5867-4cba-82ad-88d110117030/1791379712107-ne1dn8xo.png)](https://apis.io/) 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. ![](https://fmxorstnlyoqpqdftivs.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/b5b20b52-814d-4df4-b9cd-8194e82ae3b2/bcbdc126-5867-4cba-82ad-88d110117030/1791379736890-cs6fvp3m.jpg) 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* *** ## Discussion No replies yet.