PinnedMember-onlyPlaying Faster Tetris By Sleeping LessExploring counterintuitive results from my n=1 study. Medical journals, successful people’s biographies, even the alt-nutrition people who eat raw liver: the one thing everyone seems to agree on is that sleeping ~7 hours a night consistently is the best thing you can do for your long-term health. …Data Science10 min readData Science10 min read
Mar 12, 2022Member-onlyIdentifying A Ruby With Lasers, Magnets, and X-raysKings, queens, and rich people everywhere agree: rubies look great. Their clarity and red color make them wonderful, shiny jewelry pieces, and I find them beautiful. But if you’re buying one, there are many similar red, clear gemstones which are much cheaper for the seller to pawn off as ruby…Gemstone8 min readGemstone8 min read
Jan 1, 2022Member-onlyHow Trees Fall ApartHello! You only get to experience 1 fall a year, and by the time you read this you’re probably older than 15. This means you probably have only 65 falls left in you — remember to do your best to enjoy each one. Anyway, this particular fall I took more…Nature2 min readNature2 min read
Published in Better Programming·May 27, 2021Member-onlyFace Tracking With JavaScript on the Browser (Mobile or Desktop)Want to build a website that uses face tracking? Well, you’re in the right place! — Today I’m going to show you how to set up a webpage that does real-time face tracking in any browser, mobile, or desktop. I’m doing everything in HTML and JavaScript to allow for cross-device portability. …Programming14 min readProgramming14 min read
Feb 9, 2021Member-onlyKeyboards vs. Brain-Computer InterfacesHi! Today we’re going to be comparing the usability of various household devices (Microwave, TV remote, keyboard, etc.) against those of research devices (like eye trackers and brain-computer interfaces). Information Transfer Rate and Bits/Min To do this, we’ll be investigating each device’s information transfer rate (ITR), or how fast the user can communicate with the…Brain Computer Interface14 min readBrain Computer Interface14 min read
Jan 16, 2021Member-onlyAccessing Smartphone And Laptop Cameras In The Web With JavascriptHello! Today I’m going to show you how to access the built-in cameras in-browser, on computers and mobile devices using Javascript. In this series, I will show you how to set up a simple HTML page that accesses the front-facing camera, runs MediaPipe Facemesh to detect facial keypoints, and then…Machine Learning5 min readMachine Learning5 min read
Dec 23, 2020Member-onlyArduino Function Generator: Square Wave with Variable Duty CycleHi! Not everyone can afford the $2000 for a beautiful function generator like this Agilent 33210A, but everyone deserves to have basic function generation capabilities. So, today I’m going to show you how to make a basic function generator using everyone’s favorite microcontroller: an Arduino Uno! In this post I’m…Arduino2 min readArduino2 min read
Nov 16, 2020Member-onlyAccessing the iPhone Accelerometer with Javascript in iOS 13+TL;DR: Demo here. Hit the button at the top to start. I recently tried out a bunch of different Javascript accelerometer demos that claimed to access the IMU sensor in-browser. It was usually a simple demo: dots rolling across a screen due to gravity, or perspective shifting a 3D scene…Java Script6 min readJava Script6 min read
Aug 5, 2020Member-onlySaaS, Ads, And The Deadly Sins of SoftwareHi, Andy here. I want to bring your attention to the depressing fact that there are really only two ways to sell software. Well, three, but hardly anybody uses the third. I am, of course, talking of subscription services (SaaS) and advertisement/data driven. Software as a Business Model Before people could write software for a…Software7 min readSoftware7 min read
Dec 17, 2019Member-onlyMathematically Optimal Ways to Escape A Car When It’s Raining And You Forgot The UmbrellaIt happened again. You didn’t notice the gloomy skies as you pulled out of your driveway to go to Home Depot, and now you’re umbrella-less and sitting in their parking lot, watching the raindrops bead up and flow down your windshield. Worse yet, their New Grill November sale has summoned…Mathematics4 min readMathematics4 min read
