Critical examination of how AI systems and software design can unintentionally exclude marginalized communities.

You know those someday maybe projects, that sit in a doom pile in the mind while waiting to finally be discarded or surge in importance? One of my projects was finally consolidating two blogging platforms into one. I had previously built a portfolio site with Gatsby way back in the day—like 7 years ago when I mainly focused on front-end engineering. It had a bunch of technical and human skills posts that had largely been dormant since 2021. However, the posts about TypeScript utility types still drive a lot of traffic to this day. I started writing again last year and wanted something that I could get up and running without having to worry about managing dependencies and fiddling with all of the little things. That was a quick way for me to get stuck in the minutiae, and not actually write. The content was also less technical, so I decided to separate it and spin up a Substack account. ...

A poem about finding strength in community and solidarity when facing life’s painful and incomprehensible moments.

Fiddlehead fern. ©Skyler Lemay 2024 I remember being in a High School youth group, almost always more comfortable talking with the other girls. Then we would break up into gender segregated discussion groups for whatever the topic was at the time. We were reading some religious treatise around gender norms. It was written by a wife and her husband, each writing their own book. Supposedly, it was a call to action of how best to model our gender the “way god intended.” I didn’t get any of the discussions of how to be a man. I remember going up to the leader and asking if I could hang out with the girls, and being told that it wasn’t a possibility. They were my friends. We talked about life. I didn’t like being stuck in a group of boys. It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. ...

A poetic exploration of life’s fluid nature, embracing change and adaptation rather than clinging to rigid assumptions.