This Site Is For You If...
- Your AI vendor promised 95% accuracy and you're getting 60% on your data
- Your architecture is killing you — too many services, too few people who understand them
- You're tired of conference wisdom that doesn't survive contact with production
- You want patterns, not platitudes from someone who's watched the same mistakes repeat for 45 years
Who's Behind This
Cisco Caceres — 45+ years building software
Navy veteran. Dot-com crash survivor. I ran a 60-server data center in my basement before AWS existed. I've built systems that scaled to 30 million connections. I know the cost of heat, latency, and electricity because I paid the bills.
This blog is the uncomfortable truths I've collected — the patterns that repeat, the mistakes that compound, and the vendors who lie. No certification. No consulting framework. Just scar tissue.
Read the full story →The Essential Ten
Read these in order. Each one builds on the last.
Grace Hopper's Nanosecond
Why your "cloud architecture" is losing a fight with the speed of light.
Agile Is a Cargo Cult
Stop performing rituals. Start shipping software.
The Microservices Mistake
You're not Google. You don't need Google's complexity.
Why Postgres Wins
Boring is profitable. Stop chasing the database of the week.
Computers Are Cheap, Developers Are Expensive
The economic formula that proves you're optimizing the wrong thing.
The Demo-to-Production Gap
Why 95% of AI projects die the moment they hit real-world data.
LLMs Have No Intent
Treat every AI output like code written by a drunk intern.
Inside the Dot-Com Crash
I was there. I watched the smart people cry. The patterns are repeating.
The Shadow Side of Founder Burnout
What nobody talks about until it's too late.
Assembly Never Left
Why the "Layer Tax" is bankrupting your startup. Understanding the machine is the only moat left.
Choose Your Path
Pick a track based on what you're trying to figure out:
The AI Skeptic's Path
For leaders who are tired of losing money on chatbots.
- When Your AI Vendor Is Lying to You How to spot the gap between demos and reality
- AI Hallucinations in the Enterprise Why "good enough" accuracy isn't good enough
- Why Most AI Pilots Fail The 95% that never make it to production
- The Coming Collapse of AI Coding Assistants Quality plateaued. Technical debt exploded.
The Startup Founder Path
For those who want to survive, not just raise.
- Founder Ego Kills Startups The most dangerous person in the room
- The Founder Self-Awareness Advantage The habits that separate builders from burnouts
- Architecture Decisions That Kill Startups Technical choices with existential consequences
- Bootstrap vs VC in 2026 The math that changed this year
The Architecture Skeptic Path
For engineers who know that complexity is a sales tactic.
- The Layer Tax Every abstraction has a cost
- Serverless Was a Lie The hidden complexity we traded for
- SQLite: Software Done Right What simplicity actually looks like
- Users Don't Care About Your Architecture What actually matters
The Tech History Path
For those who know the cloud is just a mainframe someone else owns.
- 45 Years in Tech What I've learned that still applies
- The BBS Culture Silicon Valley Forgot Community before venture capital
- FidoNet: Before the Internet Global networking with phone lines and patience
- Programming Before Google How we solved problems without Stack Overflow
The CTO's Resilience Path
For technical leaders who want systems that survive contact with production.
- Grace Hopper's Nanosecond Physics sets the rules. Learn them.
- Computers Are Cheap, Developers Are Expensive The economic formula for technical decisions
- Tech Debt Is Rot Compound interest on bad decisions
- The Rewrite Trap Why starting over rarely works
The Hardware-Aware Dev Path
For programmers who want to understand the machine they're actually coding for.
- Assembly Never Left The layer that's always running
- C Was the Last Good Language Why portability came at a cost
- Make Over Modern Build Systems Simplicity has value
- The Local-First Renaissance Network latency is the new disk I/O
How I Can Help
Beyond the blog, RoamingPigs offers hands-on consulting:
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Whether it's about an article, a technical challenge, or potential consulting work — I read every message.
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