Recents Posts
2024
Beyond #NeuroAI, we need #AI4Neuro—and we’re going to suck at it (at first). [Part 2]
For starters, I sort of assumed NeuroAI was, well, the intersection of neuroscience and AI. I think that’s pretty reasonable? And while that’s technically tr...
Beyond #NeuroAI, we need #AI4Neuro—and we’re going to suck at it (at first). [Part 1]
Are NeuroAI and AI4Neuro the new Computational Neuroscience and Computational Neuroscience?
2022
COSYNE22: Reporting on Main Conference and Timescales Workshop, and Some Reflections.
I accidentally wrote a small book about a conference I went to. Again.
2021
What I learned as a PhD application evaluator.
So why the hell did I write this thing? Let me re-iterate: this post isn’t about being a good PhD student or being competent at research, it’s about how to o...
Neuronal Timescales - the Director’s Cut: Third Research Paper Published (Part 3/3)
Not only was I lucky to meet the right people at the right time, I was lucky to be in those situations in the first place, which means having the privilege t...
Neuronal Timescales - the Director’s Cut: Third Research Paper Published (Part 2/3)
I guess I’m writing this because this kind of stuff really gets me thinking about how amazingly weird life is. Sure, it was great that the collaboration ende...
Neuronal Timescales - the Director’s Cut: Third Research Paper Published (Part 1/3)
How this project started had nothing to do with science, we didn’t set out to measure timescale in humans because we inferred that it was an open question. L...
2020
NMA2020: (Late) Thoughts on NMA, Higher Education, and Computational Neuroscience [11/52]
It’s like one of those movie scenes, where you get invited to Charlie’s chocolate factory, and somebody opens the front gate and all of a sudden what looks l...
Fear. [10/52]
Black lives matter. Or, they should matter, but currently, they don’t. That’s it. You can stop reading here. If you do go on, please note that there are some...
Fear and perfectionism in creating, and a horse is a hand. [9/52]
Fear, and the fear of wanting and working hard to try to be good but failing, on the other hand, is just as great of an enemy of good, of even starting, as p...
Climate of Uncertainty: COVID-19 & the Unquantifiable [8/52]
Why am I occupying my consciousness (and yours) if I’m already filled to the brim with grim projections and never-ending bad news? Well, in part, it’s therap...
A Semi-Serious (Half-Assed) Solution to the Data Sharing Crisis [7/52]
Seems to me like there’s a pretty obvious solution then: forget uploading your data when you publish, because there is a very high likelihood that it will no...
On Mental Fantasies, Perspective, Meditation, and Dreams [6/52]
The fundamental takeaway is that every single mental thought we have is a fantasy constructed on sensory stimuli, we just don’t know it. But just because you...
On Meditation and Some Musings as a Neuroscientist [5/52]
But others, mostly internal and transient emotional responses to things, require just that moment of clarity for it to pass in order for us to more effective...
This Shit was Hard: Thoughts from Teaching My First College Course [4/52]
I used to think there are professors that gave a shit, and those who don’t. I think that’s still largely true, but I realized that just giving a shit, while ...
Legends are Forever. Rest In Peace. [3/52]
I guess that’s why it feels so devastating. This person who has - unbeknownst to me - been a continued teacher and inspiration for not only basketball, but m...
Framing Your Research: Selling Pens and Laying Stones [2/52]
The truth of the matter is that the notion of a natural sequence of deductions leading to exactly why a piece of work should be done is simply a fantasy. In ...
Challenge Accepted (Round 2) [1/52]
3 years ago, I challenged myself to post something on the blog every week for a year. I failed, ending up with only half that total. But it had the intended ...
2019
After SfN19: Existential Dread, Beers & Whitecastle, and Hairy Neurons
As a result, I find myself with this attitude of “fuck it none of this matter anyway.” But they do. They matter to the people presenting, and to the people c...
Oscillating Organoids: Second Research Paper Published!
In hindsight, there was some bad luck, and also mistakes on our part. But by and large, and only because it is now officially over, I can say that it was a g...
COSYNE19: Neural & Behavioral #MANIFOLDS, Embodied & Embedded Brains, Coding & Causality
From all this, I gather that systems neuroscience might be converging onto one huge canonical correlation analysis: on the one end, you can measure latent be...
The (Epi)Phenomenal Oscillation, Spike, and LFP
The one where I write down all in the same place why oscillations and LFPs are not epiphenomenal because I’m tired of having the same damn argument over and ...
2018
Roemer Has It: The Hilbert Transform, Instantaneous Power/Phase/Frequency, and Negative Frequencies in Neuroscience
The one where I find out scipy has been lying to me this whole time.
Reference Manager Showdown: a full review of Papers 3, Zotero, F1000, and Paperpile (+ ReadCube)
Naturally, I flipped through the internet to see if there exists a comparison of the more recent tools available to help me make a decision. To my extreme su...
CCN2018: Thoughts and Hot-Takes
Great, diverse talks; Loved the mind-matching; Panel discussion question was too unconstrained; Could use more non-deep learning stuff as a whole.
New (static) website with Jekyll and GitHub Pages
I felt that I wanted my website to reflect my new-found skillset and “values”, if that’s not too strong of a word? That also means having a fuller control of...
Year 3 (and a half): TIL my PhD is Flappy Bird.
Year 3 is done! Here’s to half a PhD.
2017
Our thin layer of existence. (26/52)
Hawaii was truly an eye-opening and life-changing experience.
First research paper published! (25/52)
Publishing a paper is most definitely a non-linear path.
Holy sh*t I swam with a manta ray: the most incredible and awe-inspiring thing I’ve seen. (24/52)
I am the uninvited guest of this magnificent and playful host.
What is the hardest scientific endeavor of all? (23/52)
We cannot study what we cannot truly see, and can we truly see ourselves?
The Disease of Productivity & Mindful Dishwashing (22/52)
I was depending on the activity itself to relax me, but the truth is that relaxation comes from the conscious decision to do this thing - anything - instead ...
Combatting bias in science. (21/52)
However, to say that quotas simultaneously select for the best candidates and try to equalize existing disparities is, if not disingenuous, then completely m...
On the reproducibility crisis and how theory in neuroscience can help to avert it. (20/52)
Once the community at large accepts and values works that falsify theories or reproduce existing evidence, then we can move towards a sustainable incentive s...
On Arrival, Sapir-Whorf, and Reading Fiction. (19/52)
I realized that reading works of literature and seeing how words can be combined in different ways to describe feelings has literally changed the way I exper...
Should all science have implications? (18/52)
Here, I would argue that searching and tacking on implications for a planned project much earlier than when we know what it could possibly imply has two seri...
March for Science? (16/52)
No, we were marching for the existence of science in this world, its value in our current society, and the potential impact this anti-science sentiment will ...
Climate of Complete Certainty. (17/52)
After all, the fact that science is not 100% Truth and Certainty is nothing new. However, by omitting the danger of inaction, as well as the relatively stron...
Language: beetles, Bruce Lee, & All the Light We Cannot See. (15/52)
The point is, my new-found awareness of my inadequate command of language feels like if I was trying to practice martial arts underwater - the body does not ...
The life of a TA. (14/52)
By the end of the 10 weeks, I learned something about prepping for big classes like these: don’t do anything at the beginning that will make you hate yoursel...
Do we need a (better) functional description of the brain? (13/52)
Currently, my personal opinion is that cognition is a functional metaphor that we, humans, have imposed on natural systems all around us, kind of like an ant...
GET OUT. (12/52)
Nonetheless, it shocked me to realize that a lot of things that I thought were ‘normal’ not because they were, but because of the environment I was in. I’ll ...
Cycles and Subline (11/52)
Am I rooting for the immaculately shaped fireball to disappear, or to stay? When it does quietly sneak away, though, I feel an even stranger sense of satisfa...
“Scientists discover how to upload knowledge to your brain.” (10/52)
For all I know, somebody could’ve read this and thought we can plug into the Matrix now, and that’s where I swoop in and save the day from bad science journa...
Don’t compare your Mile 1 to someone else’s finish line. (9/52)
But in general, I think, for every scientific discovery worth disseminating, there is a personal story that’s just as, if not more, inspiring.
Science as a belief system. (8/52)
Science education in schools and popular media largely ignore the philosophy of science and how the process itself is a process of elimination. At best, when...
How many clipping actions do you require to complete one fingernail-clipping session? (7/52)
Addendum: this weekly blog post thing basically serves as a reminder that I can write about anything.
On CogSci, humility, and brain in a vat. (6/52)
Since neuroscience has taken over as the flag-bearer of mind-mapping, we don’t often hear about these philosophical brain twisters anymore. But that’s not be...
My 5 butt words. (5/52)
“Basically, I was like, can we just go see the clowns and stuff, they’re definitely really cool.”
Rome is not built in a day, but it sure falls quickly. (4/52)
To end on a good note, I think Donald Trump will make America great again, just not in the way he thought he would.
Can we ever accomplish non-consensual brain-reading? [Part 2] (3/52)
All this is to say, there is some non-zero correlation between the brain activity of two different people describing similar things, but it is definitely not...
Can we ever accomplish non-consensual brain-reading? [Part 1] (2/52)
In other words, in order to read my thoughts from my brain activity, you would need to make a whole new dictionary, just for me, which requires my active par...
Challenge Accepted. (1/52)
Jan 5, 2017
2016
Year 2
So positive or negative, as long as we keep doing what we believe is right, there really is no bad outcomes, because science, more or less, is the business o...
Prayers and love to the victims and their family, but only after you get these assault rifles off the streets.
Like I said before, people die all the time, and it sucks, but most of the time I don’t get too worked up because you can conjure up some high-level explanat...
On Doing-Nothing: At the Dentists
Doing-nothing has been losing ground to doing-something at a very fast pace, with the pervasiveness of the interwebs and hand-held entertainment steadily per...
LSD, Neuroscience, and Science Communication for the Armed and Dangerous.
Basically, armed and dangerous means that you are educated enough to understand the information, perhaps because you have an education in sciences or a relat...
It’s just a game: Goodnight Mr. Bryant
Thank you, for taking the world by its throat, when it mattered a lot and when it didn’t. Thank you, for creating storylines after storylines that we can rel...
Wise Words
Since I haven’t written any toilet humor in a while and this might take more than 140 characters:
How to be funny on Yelp: My wife and I hate this place.
In general, though, it seems that the least funny words are rarely descriptive (adjectives), which by nature makes them neutral (with the exception of, possi...
Keeping the wolf from the door.
an excerpt from The Terrible Beauty of Brain Surgery:
2015
In a situation like this, words, let alone hashtags, truly cannot capture how you feel.
Nobody likes a social justice warrior no matter what you’re fighting for. Instead, just stop and think for a moment, process our own emotions, and console ev...
Neuroscience: Watching the World Series in a Room Behind Tall People.
Yes, I am, once again, shamelessly pasting homework assignments onto the blog, but this one I’m rather happy with. Plus, it’s in the spirit of the World Seri...
Year 1 (Part II)
It is now technically 10 minutes into the first day of second year, which means that, surprisingly, I finished this on time.
Year 1 (Part I)
I am now in the 52nd week of being in San Diego, so this marks an excellent opportunity to document my first year of graduate school. I’d also just realized,...
See no evil.
In reality, it’s just a bunch of regular Joes and Janes sitting on the (extremely) long end of a seesaw, catapulting the world across from them - not by mali...
untitled
In my experience, rabbits don’t notice you unless you notice them first.
You don’t know what foodporn is.
Well, if you are too lazy to make lunch everyday, too sane to eat shit lunch everyday, or are too poor to purchase “healthy” lunches everyday, Soylent is for...
So long, robo-rat overlord. I hardly knew ye.
If you’re looking for a TL;DR, here it is: it’s not as crazy as it sounds, not even close, it certainly isn’t forecasting weather in any meaningful way. That...
Redesigning the TP.
In other words, we NEED to decouple the two functional components of toilet paper - soft contact and rigid support - such that prioritizing for one does not ...
Getting Back On the Horse.
Is “Perfect is the enemy of good” too cliche of a tattoo?
2014
Don’t Worry, Be Being Happy
Instead of saying “I am sad”, sometimes it feels better to say “I am being sad”, as stupid as that might sound.
Who came first: the chicken or the egg?
Is similarity the basis of categorization? Or does categorization inevitably lead to similarity? Will we ever know? Is this even a good question? In addressi...
Questions drive science. Why not science class?
We should encourage students to ask questions about science, just like how scientists ask questions about science. Not just questions in the sense of “I don’...
The importance of language in reasoning.
In reality, much of our reasoning, especially in the context of everyday life, occurs subconsciously, far removed from explicit representations through langu...
Is human reasoning rational?
Shamelessly plugging course work into the blog. Why not, right? Since I have to write once a week, might as well get my blog back up to healthy numbers.
Seminar Reflection - Complementary Learning Systems
Yesterday over lunch, I was lamenting over the fact that all these damn papers I read seem to not go anywhere permanent in my brain. I mean, I can recall one...
3 Essential Apps for Backpacking Europe (and more)
This post is exactly as the title says: 3 tremendously helpful apps (plus a few honorable mentions) that I used on a daily basis throughout my journey in Eur...
RGAO|EU2014: Prologue
After it’s all over, the first and only question that crosses your mind is:
RGAO|EU2014: Aftermath
Well, to avoid further delays, I’m just going to start with the easiest: the quantifiable.
RGAO|EU2014: Packing List & Pre-Departures
I’ll be on the plane heading for Barcelona tonight, and so begins my month long backpacking trip through Western Europe. My plan is to continue writing once ...
San Antonio: A Tale of Two Spurs.
Honestly though: the Spurs getting too old 6 seasons ago was the reason why the Spurs won the title this year. Isn’t that something?
Creative Serendipity: Death by Googling.
I’m just going to end today’s segment with this: we often applaud the innovators of every generation for their massive creativity/intellect/ingenuity, but wh...
The Fault In Our Stars.
Reading TFIOS as a 23-year old male is like watching the Dark Knight trilogy but not knowing who the fuck Batman is and not caring about the action, while ap...
The Danger of Rationality.
Rationality is a tool to express yourself, to organize yourself, and to improve yourself. It is not a boulder behind which to hide yourself and your choices,...
We are our 10%.
To put it crudely, you probably recruit more than 10% of your brain when you try to take a poop (uncited, though this will make an awesome xkcd what-if segme...
It’s Getting Hot In Here.
All in all, what I’ve managed to learn through this little excursion is that 1) people hate hot and humid temperatures, 2) cognitive performance does not act...
Cause and Effect.
Correlation neither is nor implies causation- it’s simply more useful.
My Biggest Fear Realized
So here I am, scared shitless about finding what I value in myself, and consequently, what values I can bring to the people and society around me. But I do k...
Moving Forward.
And so, it is on this day- a day of ending and beginning in every sense, but a day unceremoniously residing in its square on the calendar, preceded and prece...