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Book review of Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, by Ben Goldfarb

Mar 11, 2025 • book-reviews

Although I don’t work in road ecology or traffic engineering, the author somehow pulled me through 300 pages on this topic. He managed this not just through vivid language and diction, but by personally visiting places and telling stories about the specific challenges that animals, “carers,” forest service workers, and others faced as freeways and highways bisected and dissected their environments.

Countering AGI with superintelligent docs?

Mar 9, 2025 • ai

Barista analogy

To use an analogy, suppose you’re a barista making espresso coffee. An AGI-capable robot trained as a barista is able to make all the coffee that a regular barista can make but twice as fast. Further, the Android barista can create exquisite espresso art in any shape that humans request, wowing them and making the experience novel. Soon the human barista is replaced. After all, the paying customer would rather pay $2.50 for a robot to make a latte instead of $5.00, especially when it tastes the same.

Do developers need code samples in API documentation?

Mar 2, 2025 • ai, api-doc, technical-writing

Most code samples in documentation are fairly basic, which is by design. Documentation tries to show the most common use of the API, not advanced scenarios for an enterprise-grade app whose complexity would easily overwhelm developers. (At that point, you end up with a sample app.)

Links from around the web: vibecoding, 60-hour work weeks, smaller internet communities, ethical compromises, and expertise

Mar 2, 2025 • ai, technical-writing, writing

Vibecoding

Not a Coder? With A.I., Just Having an Idea Can Be Enough. By Kevin Roose, New York Times, Feb 27, 2025.

Fixing bugs without thinking, Recursive Self-Improvement, and the shift towards more complex tech comm tasks

Feb 24, 2025 • ai, writing

Fixing bugs without thinking

With AI tools built directly into your authoring tool or IDE (such as VS Code), fixing simple doc bugs can become a mechanical, click-button task. Here’s the approach to fixing simple doc bugs:

Review of Divided Highways, by Tom Lewis — and some thoughts on techno-utopian disillusionment

Feb 22, 2025 • ai

(Note: The fact that I’m writing a book review on this topic might seem odd given that I usually focus on tech comm topics. However, I document APIs for getting map data into cars, so I sometimes read books related to the automotive and transportation domain. I also run a book club at work focused on these books.)

Rethinking traditional approaches to release notes -- recording of WTD Australia presentation

Feb 17, 2025 • ai, api-doc, wtd-podcasts, writing, podcasts

Listen here:

Is AI eroding slow mode? Push-button solutions versus thought partners, and approaches to challenging writing tasks

Feb 9, 2025 • ai, writing

Is AI eroding slow mode?

During the past few weeks, I’ve felt like my brain’s RPMs have been in the red zone. Granted, the constant stream of chaotic political news hasn’t helped—but regardless of current political events, I’m frequently checking the news, my email, and chat messages and operating in a mode that isn’t great. Reading long-form books has proven to be difficult. I run a book club at work focused on automotive and transportation books, and it took me two months to make it through a single book (granted, it was a 300-page historically dense book, but still).

Using AI with issue tracking systems (prompt engineering series)

Jan 26, 2025 • ai

Read the full article here: Using AI with issue tracking systems.

My 2025 trends predictions for tech comm

Jan 5, 2025 • ai, podcasts

This post is also available as an AI-generated podcast from NotebookLM:

Using AI to mine log messages from reference doc builds (Prompt engineering series)

Dec 19, 2024 • ai

Read the post: Using AI to mine log messages from reference doc builds.

Biohacking your glucose with AI

Dec 17, 2024 • ai

Biohacking experiment

“Biohacking” might be a pretentious cyber term for what is otherwise a straightforward experiment. For 10 days, I tracked my food and exercise levels while also wearing a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) to track my glucose levels. I then used AI to pair up the food + exercise with the glucose readings and perform an analysis about triggers for glucose spikes and recommendations to avoid them.

AI stream journaling experiment

Dec 17, 2024 • ai

The prompt

I want you to act as my AI stream journal (similar to a bullet journal), for the day. In this chat session, I’ll log 3 kinds of notes: tasks, thoughts, and events. Tasks are to-do list items. Thoughts are random ideas or notes I have. Events consist of food eaten, exercise, or descriptions of my internal states. The point is to have an easy way to dump all the scattered information in my head into a central log that you organize and analyze on my behalf.

Q&A about adoc Studio, with Frank Blome

Dec 16, 2024 • technical-writing

Note: This is a sponsored post.

Q&A about Paligo -- modern CCMS -- with VP of Product Rasmus Petersson

Dec 1, 2024 • technical-writing

Note: This is a sponsored post.

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Appearing on The Forge Show from TechSmith Today at 2pm EST

by David CHEN on Oct 13, 2011 •
categories: technical-writing • screencasting

I'm going to be on The Forge show today at 2pm EST. The Forge is a monthly web show put on by TechSmith, posted on their Visual Lounge blog. Here's their description of The Forge:

New to The Forge? Wonder what it's all about? It's TechSmith's monthly webshow where we talk about screencapture, screencasting, visual communication and more. We share our tips and tricks and chat with interesting guests about a variety of topics to help and inspire you. Sometimes we even have prizes. You never know what will happen on a live show. You can view the archives and past recordings here.

I was looking over the past archives this morning, and it looks like an incredible resource of content for screencasters and visual designers. I'm not actually in person in a studio or anything -- just connecting virtually. And there are a number of other guests on the show, so my segment will only be 15 minutes. Still, if you're around in the afternoon, check it out.

Oct 14 Update: Here's the recording of the web show:

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