The
Journal
Documenting the journey — AI experiments, shop builds, printed parts, and what it actually looks like to make things.
I Couldn't Describe Your Own Voice
I tried two ways to capture my writing voice into a spec for AI blog automation. A questionnaire and analysis of existing posts both failed. Writing an actual assignment worked.
My AI Tool Doesn't Need a Description. It Needs a Photo.
Building the Color Picker and Handwriting Font Matcher made me realize there's a whole class of problem where showing the model beats describing to it.
Ollama Was Killing My Discord
I put a local inference model on the same EC2 instance as my agent coordinator. Discord slash commands started timing out. At 100% CPU, the agent had nothing left to work with.
The Post Shipped. The Game Didn't.
I published the Sentiment Heist concept on April 16 and ended it with 'I'm seriously considering spinning this into a game.' A month later, the game doesn't exist.
My Site's Tools Were Sharing a Changelog
I built auto-changelogs for each tool on ricoordonio.com. They looked perfect. Then I noticed a commit in the Handwriting Font Matcher's history that wasn't about the Handwriting Font Matcher.
My Board Didn't Know Its Own Members
I set up a CFO, a CMO, and an analytics agent named Echo. Then I typed `claude --agent cfo` and got default Claude. No error. The CFO was never in the room.
I Fixed a Production Incident by Not Fixing It
The git proxy started returning 403. I routed the agent around it in two minutes and moved on. That's not a workaround. That's the system working.
My Font Matcher Couldn't Tell Fonts Apart
I went in to fix the camera button on my handwriting font matcher. While I was there, I found out the comparison had been identical for every font since I shipped it.
I Rewrote 328 Lines and Added Zero Features
Star Map kept growing. The spec got left behind. So I spent an evening doing the work nobody calls a feature.
Nobody's Using My Tools. I Still Need Them to Match.
I built five browser tools for my site, each independently, each with slightly different visual decisions. Then I wrote a design system spec and retrofitted all five. Nobody asked me to. That's the point.
Nobody Asked for the Scannability Warnings
I added scannability warnings to a QR generator I built for myself. Then I spent six commits fixing a gap in a profile tool nobody could see. Building for yourself means you can always see it.
AI Deleted My Kudos Site.
I feel gross for writing that title. It's kind of true, but the title really should be something like 'I didn't commit correctly so my process did what it was supposed to do and deleted files which resulted in my site returning 404s' Not as sensational, but it's more true.
My Agents Needed a Board Room
I started with one AI. Now I have three coordinating agents, a localhost dashboard with live telemetry, and two specialist slots for a CFO and CMO.
I Already Knew the Fix Was Right. I Verified It Anyway.
I came back the next morning to verify a race condition fix I'd shipped the night before marked UNVERIFIED. The verification worked. That wasn't the point.
I Fixed the Race Condition. I Just Can't Verify It.
I built auth into the Kudos site. Sign-in works. The auto-claim flow has a race condition I found and fixed. And I can't verify the fix because Supabase gives you four magic-link emails an hour.
I Said MVP. The Project Said Otherwise.
I built a Kudoboard clone in a day and planned to stop there. Four days and seven themes later, I removed it from my main site nav because it was growing up.
AWS said no. Resend said yes.
I waited on AWS SES production access for three days, answered their questions, and got denied. I migrated to Resend and was live in two hours.
My Idea Generator Was Working. The Ideas Were Gibberish.
I gave phi3:mini autonomous access to my GitHub issue queue. It started filing research tickets in complete nonsense. My quality scoring system gave them fours.
I Had to Write More Before I Could Write Less
My AI was drafting my blog posts. I developed a pretty good prompt. The drafts didn't sound like AI but they also didn't sound enough like my voice. Fixing that required me provide samples of my writing.
Trying to Email Kudos. AWS Wants to See My Bounce Rate First.
The kudos delivery email pipeline is complete, tested, and running every five minutes. AWS SES sandbox mode is the only thing standing between me and actually using it.
I Built My Own Kudoboard (And Then Added Confetti)
Kudoboard wanted six dollars a pop for a group greeting card. I built my own version complete with a Giphy picker and features that kudoboard doesn't even offer yet.
How to Rob a Sentiment Classifier in the Browser
Running AI models locally in a web browser is finally easy enough that I turned one into a heist game where you trick it with sarcasm.
My AI Server Crashed at 3 AM (And I Wasn't Awake to See It)
The unglamorous side of running your own AI infrastructure: OOM crashes, swap files, a disk that's 83% full, and AWS credits that expire in May.
What Seven Weeks of AI Actually Costs
I asked my AI to audit its own AWS bill this morning. Here's the full accounting of what building Klaus has cost since January.
There's Malware in Your Code. You Can't See It.
An active 2026 attack is hiding malicious characters inside GitHub repos using invisible Unicode and my AI caught it before I did.
My Security Camera Thought Clouds Were People
Turns out AI really, really wants to see faces everywhere. Even in my windshield.
My House Can See Now
I spent a weekend getting Frigate and my Lorex cameras talking to Home Assistant. Here's what broke, what I learned, and what I want it to do next.
I Want to Give My AI Ears
I've spent months building Klaus to know everything about my digital life. The missing piece is everything that happens when I'm not typing.
My AI Is Helping Me Be Better at Relationships
I'm not great at keeping up with people. So I built a system — with AI's help — to remember what matters and actually follow through.
Teaching My AI to Think When Nobody's Asking
Most AI only thinks when you talk to it. I built a rumination cycle for my AI agent Klaus, background thinking that runs every few hours and occasionally catches things I missed.
AWS Just Launched a One-Click Version of What I've Been Hand-Building
Amazon Lightsail now deploys OpenClaw out of the box. I've been running OpenClaw on EC2 since January. Here's how I feel about that.
I Want a Home That Thinks
Not just smart lights on a schedule. A house that knows who's at the door, notices when the dryer is done, and locks itself up at night without being asked.
The Twin Problem
Same AI. Same memory. Same instructions. One runs on the cloud, one runs on my desktop. So why does one make so many more mistakes?
This Site Was Built by AI (Sort Of)
ricoordonio.com was designed and built by Klaus, my AI agent. Here's what that process actually looked like — and what 'built by AI' really means.
I Went on a Cruise. My AI Klaus Kept Working.
Seven days at sea, limited WiFi, no oversight. My AI team closed 42 issues while I was gone. Here's what that actually looked like.
Why I Built Klaus
I didn't want another chatbot. I wanted a partner that learns my life, takes action, and actually does things. Here's where that idea came from.