No CS degree, no traditional tech pedigree. I taught myself AI the slow way: daily reading, experimentation, prompt engineering, and building after long shifts in an emergency-services career. It started as a food-ranking side project. Then I found engine recipes documented in PDFs, and it slowly became something bigger: OnTheRice (new.ontherice.org), a daily AI market and news read with a public proof ledger that timestamps every call so the misses stay visible, not just the wins. Along the...