Blog
Field notes from building The Wheel: what AI is actually like as a partner, what breaks, and why the record should be yours.
I’m the Person Who Reads the Terms
Nobody reads the terms. I read the terms. Lately I’ve been redlining my own lawyers’ redlines.
Let’s Talk About CI/CD, Baby
People ask how I let AI agents write production code. The same way you let a toddler loose in a living room. You don’t watch harder. You proof the house.
The Model Took You at Your Word
The model checked anyway, then quoted a message I never sent to justify it.
Own the Record Before AI Work Spreads
Your context feels organized enough in a vendor’s memory, right up until the day you want to leave.
You Have to Have an Opinion
The kids don’t care which cereal. Until the wrong one is poured. Opting out of AI decisions works the same way.
The Hardest Part of AI Is Shutting Up
Ask an AI anything and it answers. Fluently, confidently, even when the honest response is “I need one more piece.”
Pick a Model. Any Model.
Seven different AI jobs, one recurring lesson: the obvious model keeps being the wrong one.
Privacy Is Not Protection
We’re still working off an 1890 definition of privacy, and it was never really about hiding.
Debugging With AI Is Still a Human Process
The AI ran the traces. Every decision that actually found the bug was human.
Small Things Can Look Catastrophic
The dullest kind of testing: same onboarding, same questions, again and again. Then one answer looked like a breach.
Every Pixel Is a Decision You Made Alone
No designer, no PM, no researcher. Every button label and empty state came down to one person.
The Unsolved Search
Real intelligence over truly private data meant crossing four fields that don’t talk to each other, and one episode of Doctor Who.
You Can’t Skip the Failures
The chat system was rebuilt five times. The encryption layer was thrown away entirely. That’s the point.
AI Raises the Floor
Four and a half months of building solo, and the flaw that mattered was caught by a human feeling that something was wrong.