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The Journey

Field reports from building with AI in public. What's working, what isn't, and what it cost me. Open numbers, the failures before the wins.

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Build Log

The Smartest Developers I Know Left Their Brains at the Door

March 8, 2026
5 min read

Even seasoned developers leave their brains at the door when AI agents impress them. The better the tool, the less we scrutinize it. Here's the pattern, why it's dangerous, and what to do about it.

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Build Log

4 Sprints in One Day: What I Learned

March 8, 2026
2 min read

Four sprints in one day on my crypto trading agent — model upgrade bugs, context expansion, stale prompt fix, and a correlation cap that would have saved $63.

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Build Log

I Spent 12 Hours Optimizing My LLM Stack. Here's What I Found.

March 7, 2026
2 min read

I pulled my billing data and realized I was paying for outdated models. 22% cost reduction later, I built ModelOptix.

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Build Log

I Built the Consumer Reports for AI SEO Tools. In 6 Days.

March 6, 2026
2 min read

Six days ago, this didnt exist. Now its live with 32 tools scored across 51 dimensions by 6 AI models. Zero sponsors.

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Build Log

I Built an Emergency Brake for My Trading Bot. It Never Fired. Here's Why.

March 6, 2026
5 min read

My trading bot had an emergency brake. It ran for 88 trades. It never fired once. Not because it wasn't needed — because two bugs silently disabled it.

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Build Log

We Scored 32 AI SEO Tools With 9,792 Tests. Here's What No One Else Will Tell You.

March 3, 2026
5 min read

We just published the first independent benchmark of 32 AI search optimization tools. 9,792 evaluations. 6 AI models. Zero sponsors. Here's what we found.

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Build Log

Why Our AI Search Benchmark Methodology Lives in a Public GitHub Repo

March 3, 2026
5 min read

We published our entire scoring methodology — 51 dimensions, 128 evaluation prompts, 6 AI models. Here's why every benchmark should be transparent.

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Build Log

When Your Trading Bot Loses $97 in 3 Hours — And How We Fixed It

March 2, 2026
5 min read

My AI trading system was right about the market — detected the regime flip perfectly. Still lost $97 in 3 hours. Here's what I learned about pacing and portfolio-level risk.

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Build Log

I Built an AI Benchmark Platform in a Day. Here's Why It Matters.

March 2, 2026
2 min read

27 tools. Every one says they're the best. Not one can prove it. I built AISearchArena.com to change that.

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Build Log

You Can Rank #1 and Still Be Invisible

March 1, 2026
2 min read

Here's what LinkedIn didn't want to tell you. 60% of B2B traffic disappeared while rankings stayed the same.

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Build Log

Trader-7: +10% in 80 Hours, Critical Bug Fix & Late-Entry Pattern Discovery

February 28, 2026
9 min read

February 2026 performance report: +9.98% return, discovered critical order_mgr bug that broke regime protection, found late-entry pattern causing 77% of losses.

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Build Log

Everyone's generating llms.txt. Which tool actually works?

February 28, 2026
5 min read

I benchmarked 14 AI visibility tools so you don't have to. Here's what I found.

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Build Log

The $200,000 Problem Nobody's Talking About

February 26, 2026
2 min read

OpenAI launched ads in ChatGPT with a $200,000 minimum spend. Here's the $4.95 fix for solopreneurs who can't afford to play.

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Build Log

Claude Killed My Subscription. I Found Something 90% Cheaper.

February 26, 2026
4 min read

"Computer says no." The moment I tried to push code and VS Code said no. Then my OpenClaw bots died.

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Build Log

93% of AI Searches Never Reach a Website. Which Side Are You On?

February 24, 2026
5 min read

93% of queries in Google's AI Mode never result in a click. ChatGPT is charging $60 CPM for ads. LinkedIn B2B traffic is down 60%. The shift to AI search isn't coming. It's here. Here's what it means if you're not a Fortune 500.

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Build Log

No Code Changes. No Bug Fixes. Just the System... Trading.

February 24, 2026
5 min read

My AI trading system ran for 24 hours unsupervised. +$91 profit, zero losses, Sharpe ratio hit 2.02. After 14 sprints in 25 days, nothing broke. That is the milestone.

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Build Log

If This Isn't a Month's Work, I'm Not Trying Hard Enough

February 24, 2026
7 min read

Last year I believed we overestimate what we can do in a day. Now I think if I'm not compressing months into a Monday, I'm not trying hard enough. Here's everything I shipped in one day with two AI agents.

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Build Log

The Session Where Everything Clicked: +$118 in 36 Hours

February 23, 2026
8 min read

My AI trading system went from a 0.57 Sharpe ratio to 1.83 in 36 hours. A trailing stop fix I shipped 3 days ago captured $207 in profits during a crypto sell-off. One trade I flagged as 'marginal' became the biggest winner.

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Build Log

I Let My AI Agent Read My Email. Then I Tried to Hack It.

February 22, 2026
6 min read

How I built a zero-cost, air-gapped email triage system — and why every AI agent setup with email access is a ticking time bomb.

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Build Log

I Let My AI Agent Read My Email. Then I Tried to Hack It.

February 22, 2026
6 min read

Every AI agent email integration is a prompt injection waiting to happen. I built a zero-cost air-gapped system, then attacked it myself. Here's what happened.

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