Chris Chinchilla

I am a technical communicator with a love of explaining technical concepts in documentation, blog posts, videos, books and more. I run a small agency called Gregarious Mammal if you’re interested in hiring me for that kind of thing.

This website is a home for all my blog posts, podcasts, newsletters and creative projects.

It’s also new and in development, so watch this space. 👀

Next events

May 27 2020 to May 28 2020

JAMStack London to hear about your ideas and projects

The Brewery, London

A two day celebration of the next generation of web apps.

Presentation | Presentation File

August 13 2020 to August 16 2020

KubeCon and CloudNativeCon to hear about your ideas and projects

RAI, Amsterdam

I travel to Amsterdam to report on the latest updates and best practices for Kubernetes and Clound-native computing.

Presentation | Presentation File

Latest posts

- more

Measuring Metrics in Open-Source Projects

for dzone

As open-source projects grow in use and popularity, many of their maintainers face a challenge to understand how and how many people use their tools.

OpenStack Ussuri - Intelligent Automation

for dzone

OpenStack has a new release and it’s big. Let’s take a look at what Ussuri, the 21st release, has to offer.

GitHub Satellite 2020- Gone Remote, but Not Forgotten

for dzone

Another remote event for 2020, but GitHub Satellite still managed to pack some impressive feature announcements, and a good dose of humor in these trying times.

Grafana- The Open Observability Platform

for dzone

Chris speaks with Raj Dutt, CEO, and co-founder of Grafana Labs, the company behind the Grafana open source project to find out more about the project and their plans.

How to get started with Parent-child pipelines

for gitlab

We introduced improvements to pipelines to help scale applications and their repo structures more effectively. Here’s how they work.

Latest podcasts

In-memory computing with Dale Kim of Hazelcast

for The Weekly Squeak

This week I speak about in-memory computing with Dale Kim of Hazelcast. I also look at the changing world of in-person trade shows, offices, and restaurants.

Kubernetes as a Service with Spectro Cloud

for The Weekly Squeak

This week I speak with Spectro Cloud about their new Kubernetes as a service offering, and also take a look at operating system market share changes, Skype just isn’t cool, Apple’s T2 chip woes, gaming, and Stephen Wolfram’s theory of everything.

Scalable Graph databases with TigerGraph

for The Weekly Squeak

I speak with Gaurav Deshpande of TigerGraph about their highly scalable graph database. Also features GDPR 2 years later, Flutter, JavaScript, grounded airplanes, cats, and more.

Decentralized entertainment with Breaker.io

for The Weekly Squeak

In this episode I speak with Troy Murray of breaker.io, a decentralized ecosystem that empowers creators and delivers fans classic and original content. Also features news items on technology in a time of crisis, self-editing, the bans before musicians were famous, and much more!

Transcript

Augmented AI with Chris Longstaff of Mindtech

for The Weekly Squeak

This week I speak with Chris Longstaff of Mindtech about their curious plan to help machine learning by augmenting datasets with synthetic data.

Transcript

Recommendations and Newsletters

I currently curate 4 newsletters on Ethics (mostly in technology), Blockchain, Language and Linguistics, see my latest recommendations and join those newsletters below.

The Weekly Squeak Newsletter

My general newsletter "The Weekly Squeak" draws content from all these sources and a couple more, sign up to that below.

Latest ethics posts

Newsletter coming soon, for now enjoy the posts below.

Is your start-up sexist?

from

What springs to mind when you think “Berlin start-up”? Probably not the clichéd ‘old boy’s club’ culture of 1960s ad agencies.

If a novel was good, would you care if it was created by artificial intelligence?

from The Guardian

Roland Barthes was speaking metaphorically when he suggested in 1967 that “the birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the author”.

How hard will the robots make us work?

from The Verge

On conference stages and at campaign rallies, tech executives and politicians warn of a looming automation crisis — one where workers are gradually, then all at once, replaced by intelligent machines. But their warnings mask the fact that an automation crisis has already arrived.

Emotion AI researchers say overblown claims give their work a bad name

from MIT Technology Review

Perhaps you’ve heard of AI conducting interviews. Or maybe you’ve been interviewed by one yourself. Companies like HireVue claim their software can analyze video interviews to figure out a candidate’s “employability score.

Ethical Maturity in User Research

from

Summary: How ethically mature are your user-research practices? Assess your current state of ethical maturity by answering these simple questions. Many organizations have flourishing design teams who conduct user research on a regular basis.

Latest language posts

Newsletter coming soon, for now enjoy the posts below.

The many languages missing from the internet

from BBC

Imagine your favourite social media platform does not let you post in English. Now think of a keyboard that won’t allow you to type in your own words. You would have two options: either switch to another language or remain digitally silent.

How to Edit Your Own Writing

from The New York Times

Writing is hard, but don’t overlook the difficulty — and the importance — of editing your own work before letting others see it. Here’s how. The secret to good writing is good editing.

How to Edit Your Own Writing

from The New York Times

Writing is hard, but don’t overlook the difficulty — and the importance — of editing your own work before letting others see it. Here’s how. The secret to good writing is good editing.

If a novel was good, would you care if it was created by artificial intelligence?

from The Guardian

Roland Barthes was speaking metaphorically when he suggested in 1967 that “the birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the author”.

Roberta Williams Is the World’s First Graphic Computer Game Designer—But She’s Famous for All the Wrong Reasons

from

YOU ARE IN THE FRONT YARD OF A LARGE ABANDONED VICTORIAN HOUSE. STONE STEPS LEAD UP TO A WIDE PORCH. If you’re a computer programmer or digital designer over the age of 40, this is probably how the future began for you.

Latest blockchain posts

Newsletter coming soon, for now enjoy the posts below.

Who the f*ck is Going to Build Enterprise Blockchain Solutions?

from Hacker Noon

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash Here’s the deal: 1. There is a shortage of blockchain developers, this means web developers will need to learn blockchain development.

A Practical Guide To Building Zero Knowledge dApps

from

Grab the source code for the blogpost here. For the past few months, I've been building a couple of toy dApp projects on Ethereum that ultilize zero knowledge proofs, specifically zk-SNARKs.

Better Solidity debugging: console.log is finally here

from Medium

It’s happening. Building smart contracts on Ethereum is slowly distancing itself from being a task better suited for Elon Musk’s friends on Mars, and looking more and more like something maybe doable by human beings.

4 Factors We Considered Before Choosing Ethereum

from

When we started out designing the Orchid privacy network, we faced the fundamental decision of which blockchain Layer 1 platform to build on. Deciding on the best solution required us to take a hard look at multiple options in the market, and the tradeoffs involved with each one.

Introducing Embark 5

from

If you’ve been following the development of Embark you’re probably aware that we regularly put out alpha and beta releases for upcoming major or feature versions of Embark.