Kenneth Reitz
Creator of Requests, Certifi, Pipenv, Records, Maya & more.
I'm best known for Requests, the Python HTTP library. Most of what I write these days lives at the intersection of technology and consciousness — what we owe each other when we build things people think through. I live openly with schizoaffective disorder; I'm a husband and father. Tech used to be my identity; now it's craft, not lifestyle.
Current projects: RhymePad, a scratchpad for poets & rappers that hears the rhymes as you write · Interpretations, an album composed in Python · kjvstudy.org · PyTheory · Responder.
Recent Writing (archive)
Eighteen years of thinking out loud, written the way I actually write now. Browse the full archive, or subscribe via RSS.
Now
Reading: The Becoming by Sarah L. Reitz — my wife's poetry collection, tracing a journey from darkness through self-discovery to love. Free at poemsbysarah.com, or in paperback & Kindle. I built the publishing pipeline; she wrote every word.
Playing: Interpretations — a 24-track album composed entirely in Python. Sitar ragas, acid bass, ambient drones, trap beats — every sound generated from code. Listen on the web, or on Spotify / Apple Music.
Threads
A few threads run through everything here. The "for humans" philosophy — that technology should serve human mental models, not the other way around. A growing body of algorithmic critique, tracing how engagement optimization consumes virtue, language, love, democracy, reality, time, and lately diagnosis. Writing about mental health, consciousness and AI, fifteen years of open source, and programming as contemplative practice. Newer threads: personal infrastructure — moving a digital life off rented land — and music as code.
Thank you for your attention — it's the only currency that actually matters. If anything here resonated, I'm glad. If you're curious about what drives the work, my values are the closest thing to a map I've got.