Graham's How-To Guides

Lately I've been captivated by an idea:   electromagnetic theories of consciousness , which hypothesise that conscious experiences are identical with certain electromagnetic (EM) patterns generated by the brain ( Pockett, 2012 ). The central claim of these theories is that spatiotemporally integrated information in an electromagnetic field  feels like something. Dr Mostyn W. Jones , a philosopher of mind at University of Manchester, provides a good summary and comparison of EM theories of consciousness ( 2013 ), which come in a range of flavors: computationalist, reductionist, dualist, realist, interactionist, epiphenomenalist, globalist, or localist.   What's the physical basis? Each neuron when firing generates an electric dipole field, and the overlap of these fields from the firing of many neurons across the brain produces an ever-changing and unified brain-wide electromagnetic field of extraordinary complexity. That much is known. EM field theories of consciousness take th

Taken me a while to get into it, but I've started a fermentation hobby with the latest lock-downs. With the latest round of lockdowns I've finally gotten into home fermentation.  Not beer, sadly. Kombucha:  My wife started it off by ordering a Kombucha kit for us from allaboutkombucha.ie .  That was fun to set up with the brewing tea with the sugar and watching it ferment over days. We've made about 10 liters so far. Here is my kombucha recipe on copymethat .  Sourdough : Next I ordered a sourdough starter from kefirgrains.ie , and have been making small boules and pizzas. First attempts had issues of course, but I like the sense progress as each bake gets better. Still nowhere near YouTube quality though.  Here is my sourdough recipe on copymethat . Yogurt : Then I figured, why not yogurt? I always run out before the next delivery. I started by extending a Glenisk live yogurt (S. thermophilus + L. casei), and have been trying various ways to maintain temperature without a

Here are ways I found to clean up a Blogger blog. I've found and fixed many things with content, images, navigation, theme, descriptions, and analytics. [4 minutes]

Here are some tips on preserving your clothes! Ways to make the wash easier on the clothes, and increase the number of wears one can get between washes. [3 minutes]

Here are some key ingredients for full-length improvised plays known as Narrative Improv. Providing tips on story structure, normalcy, the protagonist, consequences and clarity. [4 minutes]

Here are some easy ways to reduce the clutter at home by means of an "Outbox". It's a box for things that you think you might not need, that you then periodically empty. [4 minutes]

My review and summary of the The Blue Zones: Lessons for living longer from the people who've lived the longest. The best advice is having strong relationships and purpose in life. [5 minutes]

My summary of the book Time Management for System Administrators . Good advice for people who otherwise get interrupted a lot to make time for project work. Works for SRE and DevOps too. [5 minutes]

Presenting a comparison a wide range of free software for local file synchronization. In my case, for synchronization between a PC and an external hard drive. [5 minutes]

In which I show how to optimize Wordpress on Apache to handle a reasonable continuous load on a tiny free tier virtual machines, with only standard Ubuntu packages. [6 minutes]

This is how I got my waterproof jacket to smell fresh without losing the waterproofing, after it was infused with campfire smoke on the Cape Point overnight trail. [2 minutes]

This is my solution to make Apache HTTP Server log the actual remote client IP address from behind the Amazon Elastic Load Balancer (ELB), with a little help from SetEnvIf. [2 minutes]

This is my solution for modifying the Bash prompt (PS1) to show the branch name. It works for any working directory in a Git, Mercurial, Subversion or Bazaar branch. [2 minutes]

Presenting a faster way to grow large copper sulphate crystals! The pictured 4cm crystal took me 5 days by cooling, instead of the 3-6 weeks it would take by evaporation. [4 minute read]

These are my tips for minimizing the data usage of your PC. It's handy in cases where you have to tether your mobile phone but mobile data is expensive. [3 minutes]

What follows is my review and advice on the 2010 Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS5 "Super-Zoom" camera that I recently bought in Cape Town recently. Also known as DMC-TZ8 in Asia/Europe. [5 minutes]

Here is how to sync files from Windows to Linux with rsync. Specifically, using cwRsync server (a Cygwin + rsync package) on the Windows server, and rsnapshot on the Linux backup server. [3 minutes]

Here are my tips on learning the Colemak keyboard layout to reduce finger joint pain. From my experience I also compare it to the regular QWERTY layout. [3 minutes]

A controversial post about bad code that I observed on an unnamed Python project, in which I describe outdated idioms, Java-style code, and bad programming practices. [3 minutes]

Here I share my optimized autoexec.cfg configuration for Quake 3. Compared to the defaults it offers several clear advantages for LAN gaming. [2 minutes]