Engineering Thinking
Cairn Blog
Ideas on systems engineering, AI-assisted design, and the craft of building things that work.
The Dead Paths Are the Point
What dendrites teach us about designing complex systems — and why the most important engineering decisions are the ones you didn't make
GregMarch 20268 min read
ArchitectureYour Engineering Deserves a Pipeline, Not a Chatbot
Why the five-stage AI pipeline in Cairn exists — and what it replaces
GregMarch 202610 min read
FrameworksEvery System Has a Pyramid
How the Pyramid of Causality reveals why your system works — or why it doesn't
GregMarch 202612 min read
ThesisThe Thirty-Year Inversion
For three decades, value moved from atoms to bits. That era is ending. What happens when the arrow reverses — and why the bottleneck nobody invested in is about to matter more than anything else.
GregApril 20269 min read
ProductFour Questions Your Model Can't Answer
Every systems engineer asks them instinctively. No tool surfaces them. Here's what changes when the model is smart enough to answer back.
GregApril 20268 min read