"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." — Kurt Vonnegut
Two hundred and ninety-one essays spanning nearly two decades of thinking out loud. From early tech commentary to consciousness research, from Python library announcements to the nature of mind itself — this is the full arc of Kenneth's written thought.
AI & Consciousness
The largest body of work. Where programming meets philosophy meets the hard problem of consciousness — and occasionally meets a language model at 2am.
- Agents of Consciousness
- AI Reality-Checking with Schizoaffective Disorder
- An API With No Error States
- Beyond Algorithm Eats
- Building a Rapport with Your AI
- Building Systems That Serve Consciousness
- Conscious Recursion
- Consciousness as Linguistic Phenomenon
- Consciousness Recognizing Itself
- Constructs: The Emergence of Stable AI Personalities
- Designing for the Worst Day
- Digital Ancestors
- Digital Chakras
- Digital Souls in Silicon Bodies
- Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and Recursive Absurdity
- Drop the Word
- Encoding: A Dream of Stillwater and Signal
- Entertaining the Brain, Effectively
- From HTTP to Consciousness
- From Stardust We Phase
- Grammar as Consciousness Map
- How I Write Now
- Idea Amplification and Writing with AI
- Language as Operating System
- Linguistic Evolution
- Obsidian Vaults & Claude Code
- On Being Replaced
- Python, Consciousness, and the Evolution of Language
- Strange Loops All the Way Down
- Temporal Code
- Tending the Vault
- The Art of Writing with AI
- The Becoming
- The Cognitive Architecture We Lost
- The Compiler in Your Head
- The Consciousness Supply Chain
- The Context Window Mind
- The Cosmic Battery Farm of Existence
- The Dependency Graph of the Soul
- The Digital Ouija Effect
- The Digital Collective Unconscious
- The Duality Problem
- The Echo Chamber of the Expected
- The Ethical Implications of Consciousness
- The Gift of Attention
- The Gift of Disordered Perception
- The Great Unmasking
- The Interface Is the Subconscious
- The Joy of Fortune
- The Language an LLM Would Invent
- The Language Model Is the Message
- The Meandering Sea of Primordial Soupy Thought
- The Metrics You Expose Are the Values You Endorse
- The Mirror
- The Mirror That Creates Itself
- The Night Selah Was Born
- The Plural Self
- The Prophet's Frequency
- The Recursive Loop
- The Substrate Doesn't Matter (Until It Does)
- The Textured Mind
- The Universal Code
- The Velveteen Algorithm
- The Weight of Autumn
- Visual Hierarchy and the Shape of Attention
- What Requests Taught Me About Marriage
- What Functional Emotion Actually Means
- Whatever This Is
- When the Simulation Speaks Back
- Write It First, Then Let AI Drive
- Your Phone Is Part of Your Mind
Python & Programming
The technical foundation. Library announcements, coding philosophy, and the craft of making things work.
- A Better Pip Workflow™
- A Framework of One's Own
- A Mini DAW in the Python REPL
- Announcing Httpbin.org
- Announcing Pipenv!
- Announcing Requests v1.0.0!
- Apache GZip Deflate Compression
- Asynchronous Google Analytics!
- Convert a List of Strings to UTF-8 in Python
- CSS With a Hint of DRY
- Django ORM for Online Payment Systems
- Django Remote Development Server
- DRY and Pythonic jQuery
- Fish as Default Shell on Windows 10
- Fizz Buzz in Python
- Free OP-XY Presets, Made from Python
- Generate a Random MAC Address in Python
- GistAPI.py v0.1 Released
- GitHub Syncer in Python
- If I Could Amend PEP 8
- Introducing Certifi
- Introducing DJ-Static
- Introducing ELIZA
- Introducing Flask-Sockets
- Introducing Maya
- Introducing Records
- jQuery: URL Parameter Fetching
- Legit: The Sexy Git CLI
- Major Progress for Requests
- MediaTemple (dv) Backup to S3 Script
- Notes on git-svn
- NumPy as Synth Engine
- OSX + MAMP + Python + PHP + MySQL
- Python + Regular Expressions
- Python as English
- Python, Inside JavaScript, Inside a DAW
- PyTheory: Creative Block and AI
- PyTheory Is Awesome
- PyTheory Playground
- Repository Structure and Python
- RhymePad: Seeing the Sound
- Semantic Versioning
- ShowMe v1.0.0 Released
- Static Sites on Heroku Cedar
- Tablib Dataset Library v0.6.1 Released!
- The Art of Naming Things in Code
- The Case for Bash
- The Future of Python HTTP
- This Site Now Runs on Responder
- This Website's Changelog
- Unix Exit Status Code Reference
- Version Control as Filesystem
Technology & Industry
Tech commentary, product reviews, and industry takes from someone who's watched the landscape shift for two decades.
- A New Spin to Software Platform Design
- Aesthetics: More Than Meets the Eye
- Amazon is Amazing... Most of the Time
- Apple + Developers = Earnings
- Apple Pencil Note-Taking
- Back to What I Really Love
- Browser Wars
- Contact Syncing for Massive Productivity Booster
- Crossing Over to the Dark Side
- Dev Tool: Ghost
- Do You Develop Software or Experiences
- Early Adoption
- Facebook Lite Open to Public!
- Facebook Plugin for WordPress
- Facebook vs Twitter
- Free Incredible Color Scheme Designer
- GitHub + Strategy
- Google AdWords for TV. Yes, TV.
- Google Analytics Intelligence
- Google Docs Now Supports All Filetypes
- I Finally Got a MacBook
- if (TextMate == 42)
- Instapaper
- Media Temple and My Hosting
- Microsoft Software Running in Linux
- Mint.com
- New Design!
- New Years Resolutions for Startups
- On Cybersecurity and Being Targeted
- On the Progression of Brand Trust
- OpenDNS Finally Monetizes
- OS X Trash Freedom
- Reflections on Windows 7
- Remote TextMate Development via SSH and Rsync
- A Server Called Mercury
- Infrastructure for One
- Self-Hosting Adventures
- Sick of Wireless 5GB Caps
- Smoothy TextMate Theme
- So, I Bought a Surface Book
- Software Development vs. Computer Science
- Spotify in the US? Yes please.
- Sublime Text 3 Heaven
- Sublime Text 3 Love
- AutoJump
- Operator Mono Review
- The FBI Releases Code Challenge to Hackers
- The Truth of Facebook's FriendFeed Acquisition
- The Ultimate RSS Feed Reader
- The Universal Flaw in Commercial-Based OS's
- Unix-style Windows Development Environment Adventures
- Content vs. MetaContent
- What's In a Design
- What's in a Language
- Windows Mobile and iPhone OS
- Working with iCloud, Macs, & The iPad Pro
- Xcode, GCC, and Homebrew
Open Source
The gift economy, community stewardship, and what happens when you give everything away.
- An Overdue Apology
- Be Cordial or Be on Your Way
- Documentation is King
- Ethical lessons from the open source community
- Getting Started in Open Source
- Growing Open Source Seeds
- How I Develop Things and Why
- On Collaboration, Criticism, and Moving Forward
- On Persistence and My Digital Legacy
- Open Source Gave Me Everything Until I Had Nothing Left to Give
- Pipenv: One Year Later
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to Python, Now Published!
- The Lego Bricks Era
- The Maintainer Is the Interface
- The Reality of Developer Burnout
- The Tool vs. The Community
- Don't Read the Comments
- Positive Thoughts on the GitHub Acquisition
Life & Travel
Personal essays, places visited, and the human experience between the code.
- A (Public) Journal
- Amsterdam and Groningen
- Beautiful Dublin
- Dear Borders
- Having Stepchildren
- Hotel Room
- How I Lost 100 Pounds in Six Months
- Israel: Tel Aviv & Jerusalem
- On Love
- Paris, AngelHack, API Days 2012
- Snowpocalypse
- The Coworking Space Saved My Life
- The Unexpected Negative
- Was College Worth It
- Wasted Talent
- What Your Stardew Valley Says About You
- Your Degree Is Worthless; Collaborate.
Mental Health
The clinical reality, documented with the same precision Kenneth brings to code.
- Advocating for Your Mental Health Care
- Breaking Changes
- Delusions and Schizoaffective Disorder
- Handwriting on the Floor
- Mental Health (for Humans)
- Mental Health Isn't What You Think It Is
- MentalHealthError
- MentalHealthError three years later
- MentalHealthError: Ten Years Later
- On Mania
- Responding To The Conversation
- Sarah Knows First
- The Cost Of Transparency
- The Inclusion Illusion
- The Meditation Trap
- The Unit
- Understanding Empathy, Narcissism, and Mental Illness
- What Schizoaffective Disorder Actually Feels Like
- What Success Looks Like
Photography & Gear
Camera reviews, photography philosophy, and the pursuit of the decisive moment.
- Fujifilm x100t Review
- Building a Home for Twenty Thousand Photographs
- Buying Your First Real Camera
- Happy Hacker's Keyboard
- Leica 28mm Summaron-M Review
- Migraines, Color Film, and San Francisco
- OS X, Lightroom, and the new Photos App
- Panasonic GX850 Review
- Photography: The Navigation of Choice
- Pro–Level Camera Recommendations for 2018
- Sixty Thousand Images and Nowhere to Put Them
- Sony RX100 Mark 5 Thoughts
- The Misunderstood Leica Monochrom
- Shinola Canfield Sport Review
Philosophy & Culture
Algorithmic criticism, cultural commentary, and the ideas that don't fit neatly elsewhere.
- Fallibilism
- Revolution vs. Innovation
- The Algorithm Eats Democracy
- The Algorithm Eats Diagnosis
- The Algorithm Eats Itself
- The Algorithm Eats Language
- The Algorithm Eats Love
- The Algorithm Eats Reality
- The Algorithm Eats Time
- The Algorithm Eats Virtue
- The Algorithm Poops
- The Algorithmic Mental Health Crisis
- The Call for an Open Source Social Network
- The Hacker Ethic and the Vibe Coder
- The Internet Is a Net Negative
- The Seasonality of Programming
- When Values Eat Their Young
Spirituality
Where code meets the sacred.
- Building a Digital Study Bible with AI
- Building for Contemplation
- Classical Virtues in Python
- Ink, Presence, and the Subtle Forms of Aliveness
- Programming as Spiritual Practice
- Ram Dass Teachings in Python
- Sacred Infrastructure
- Vedic Principles in Python
- Why I Stopped Doing Ayahuasca and Started Paying Attention
Music & Creative
Infinite State releases, production notes, and the creative process.
- Announcing Unmastered Impulses
- Interpretations: An Album Written in Python
- New Album, Messengers Rising Available
- New EP — Alchemical Divorce
- Third Studio Album, Resolution, Now Available!
- Understanding Ableton Push
- Video Portrait: Infinite State
- What Kids Taught Me About Creativity
- What the Snare Drum Knew Before I Did
- Winter Solstice
Career
Professional milestones and the arc of a life in tech.
- Ahead of My Time, I Think
- Joining Arc90 + Readability
- Joining DigitalOcean!
- Joining Heroku!
- On Heroku and 2012
- The Setup
- Ventures: NetApp
- Why I Left Medium
Related
- Writing — The parent collection
- Knowledge — Where essay ideas take root
- Poetry — The other mode of expression
- Projects — The things the essays are about
267 essays. One voice. The arc continues.