John N. Farmer
Menu

Writing / Research / Field Notes

Ideas for people building what comes next.

Essays on AI infrastructure, evidence design, humane products, and creative systems—grounded in work, sources, and shipped experiments.

Complete editorial archive

All articles

Showing all 5 articles

MARGIN wordmark above the phrase One safer next step, framed by two quiet green horizon shapes.

8 min read

Designing MARGIN: Why the Next Safer Step Matters More Than a Streak

I built a private web prototype for the moment when substance-use pressure and emotional distress overlap—and designed it to ask for less.

How a specialist agent team helped me design MARGIN: a no-account, trauma-informed support prototype built around agency, privacy, human connection, and one manageable next decision.

  • Digital Health
  • Product Strategy
  • Human-Centered Design
  • Mental Health

Read article

A dark editorial world map connected by luminous AI infrastructure, compute, energy, and information networks.

4 min read Also on OMIKINA

I Rebuilt Omikina to Show What the AI Arms Race Is Actually Made Of

Omikina now connects global AI competition to companies, countries, chips, data centers, power, capital, policy, communities, and the evidence behind every claim.

How Omikina evolved from a U.S. infrastructure atlas into a global AI intelligence platform with country maps, company profiles, an hourly evidence monitor, and reviewed editorial analysis.

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • AI Infrastructure
  • Global AI
  • Product Strategy

Read article

A dark editorial map of the United States rendered as an interconnected system of AI data centers, grids, power, fuel, and capital.

5 min read

I Built a Website That Explains—and Tracks—the AI Arms Race

OMIKINA is a public atlas for understanding the physical systems beneath American artificial intelligence.

Why the AI race is also a race for chips, data centers, electricity, grids, water, land, equipment, fuel, workers, capital, and public permission—and how OMIKINA makes that system visible.

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • AI Infrastructure
  • Data Centers
  • Energy

Read article

A luminous biological and computational system moving through layered translucent safety thresholds.

5 min read Also on LinkedIn

From Model Pauses to Medicine: AI’s Next Competitive Advantage Is Judgment

This week’s biggest AI stories point to a new phase of competition—one where progress will be measured not only by what models can do, but by where, when, and how responsibly they are deployed.

OpenAI release caution, Anthropic’s work in biology and medicine, and Europe’s transparency rules suggest that judgment—not speed alone—may define the next phase of AI competition.

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • AI Safety
  • Healthcare AI
  • Biotechnology

Read article

Clarapetra's MATRIMONIA release presentation with direct Spotify and Apple Music access.

9 min read

MATRIMONIA: Building an AI-Directed Album Release System

How a remastered album became a connected system for music, visual direction, interactive storytelling, testing, deployment, and release strategy.

A workflow case study on turning an album release into an interactive creative system using music production, AI-assisted art direction, Codex, Firebase, and human creative direction.

  • Workflow
  • Clarapetra
  • MATRIMONIA
  • AI Workflow

Read article