The Autodidacts

Exploring the universe from the inside out


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The Autodidacts

Exploring the universe from the inside out


Hello. You’ve found the blog of three thing-building, self-educating, perpetually-experimenting brothers. It includes reports from the world of DIY neuroscience and Brain-Computer Interfaces, posts about some things we’ve built and programmed, and occasional philosophical musings on life and happiness. ¡Bienvenidos!
What Counts as an Iteration?

What Counts as an Iteration?

The blogosphere abounds with free advice, and one of the more frequently-repeated morsels is to “be prolific”, and quality will naturally follow. The following story, from Art & Fear by David Bayles and … »

I can haz knowledgebase

I’ve often felt sheepish about my personal knowledgebase: it’s just a pile of text files. Everyone else has their own self-hosted MediaWiki or Obsidian or Digital Garden and mine is stuck … »

My Favourite Ways to Avoid Spending Money

My Favourite Ways to Avoid Spending Money

The other day I happened across a pair of Lululemon shorts on Facebook marketplace. They were beautiful, they were my size, and they were a deal: only $35! I wanted to buy them. I left the tab open for a while, then I closed it. … »

Tortoise Mode vs Hare Mode

When I was a boy, I had a ride-on lawnmower with no blades. I’d wanted a ride-on lawnmower for years, ever since my brothers and I found and restored-to-life a John Deere … »

On Troubleshooting

On Troubleshooting

Much of what I do, in multiple fields, could be reduced to one skill: troubleshooting. I’ll define troubleshooting as systematically determining the cause of unwanted behaviour in a system, and fixing it. … »

Scroll-to-text fragment bookmarklet

Scroll-to-text fragment bookmarklet

TL;DR I made a thing and think it’s cool. Have you ever wanted to send someone a link, not to a huge and confusingly-laid-out webpage, but to the one sentence that’ … »

How to Migrate a Discourse Forum from DigitalOcean to Linveo

How to Migrate a Discourse Forum from DigitalOcean to Linveo

When we launched NeuroBB in 2015, as the first (and only) independent EEG, BCI, and neurofeedback discussion forum, we chose the forum software Discourse. We chose Discourse not because it is easy, but … »

Days Are Easily Made

Days Are Easily Made

Days, it turns out, are rather easily made. The time required varies, but trends closer to making the bed, or making a cup of tea, than to making Ravioli. (If you are crazy … »

How to Get the Most Out of a Conference

Conferences can be hit-and-miss. It’s easy to go through the motions on autopilot and find the experience lacklustre. Earlier on this summer, I attended one that started out lacklustre, but then became … »

Implementing Elegant Timing

Implementing Elegant Timing

This morning I got stuck in the slow lane behind an old man when I was walking down the sidewalk on my way to a Zoom meeting at my neighbourhood coffee shop. Rather … »

How to use an Aeropress without it blowing up in your face

How to use an Aeropress without it blowing up in your face

If you’ve ever splattered your face, shirt, counter, and ceiling with coffee and grounds when trying to operate an Aeropress coffee maker, this is how to prevent it. Blowouts happen when it … »

Treating Everything as Practice

Treating Everything as Practice

No matter our position or situation, life will throw challenges our way. These can either knock us off our stride and make us sulk, or be an opportunity to grow. Depending on my … »