Field notes from the First Brain.
Page 28 of 38.
The 20-Watt Supercomputer
How much energy does the human brain use? About 20 watts. Here is why that lightbulb-sized budget outthinks a data center, and what it means for you.
The Always-On Mindset: How To Turn Off an AI Wearable
How to turn off an AI wearable, and why the off switch, not the on switch, is where your attention and cognitive sovereignty actually live.
The Autotelic Solopreneur: Staying Motivated When Rich
When AI generates the money, motivation stops coming from cash. The only engine left is autotelic: the intrinsic joy of expanding your own First Brain.
How Fast Can a Brain Chip Transfer Data?
A brain chip can move gigabytes a second, but conscious thought runs near 10 bits per second. The real bandwidth bottleneck is biological, not silicon.
How Fast Can a Brain Computer Interface Transfer Data?
A neural implant can stream gigabytes per second, but human thought runs at about 10 bits per second. The real bottleneck is your biological graph, not the wire.
Can a Brain Chip Transfer Emotion? The Bandwidth of Empathy
Can a brain chip transfer emotion? It can induce a mood in your own brain, but it cannot deposit your felt emotion intact into someone else. Here is why.
The Bilingual Brain and Concept Mapping
Does being bilingual change how you think? Yes: translating between languages natively builds thicker, more resilient edges in your first brain.
How to Work Alongside AI: The Centaur Knowledge Worker
How to work alongside AI: become a centaur. A human plus AI can beat AI alone, but only when the human supplies judgment the machine lacks.
Do Focus Headbands Steal My Data?
Do focus headbands steal my data? Mostly you sign it over. 29 of 30 neurotech firms claim broad access to your neural data. Starve the brokers by building native focus.
How to Prompt AI Video Generators Without Drowning in Slop
AI video generators commoditized rendering, not taste. Learn the shot-brief structure that works across Sora, Kling, and Runway, and why your First Brain is the real prompt.
Can AI Replace Human Connection? The Compute of the Heart
Can AI replace human connection? It can simulate it and even ease loneliness short-term, but heavy reliance makes people lonelier. Connection is reciprocal.
Should I Meditate to Improve Focus? The Calm Trap
Should I meditate to improve focus? Yes. But beware the calm trap: feedback apps reward relaxed alpha waves, not the effortful focus real thinking needs.
How to Find Wonder in the AI Age
How to find wonder in the AI age: seek vastness your mind cannot yet absorb, and resist resolving it into an instant AI summary. Awe is your model expanding.
Can I Consent to AI Data Collection? Not Meaningfully
Can you consent to AI data collection? Legally yes, meaningfully no. Informed consent needs understanding of consequences that are unknowable by design.
How Does AI Know What Is True? The Epistemology of RAG
AI does not know truth, it knows proximity. Here is why Retrieval-Augmented Generation lowers hallucinations but never closes the gap, and what a First Brain fixes.
Is Cognitive Enhancement Ethical? Master the Brain First
Is cognitive enhancement ethical? The mainstream view is regulate, not ban. But the evidence and the ethics both point to mastering your biological mind first.
Can AI Companies Read My Private Notes? The GDPR of the Mind
Can AI companies read your private notes? Often yes, by default, and even deleted chats can be court-preserved. The only unreadable store is your own mind.
Gut-Brain Axis: How Does Diet Affect Focus?
How does diet affect focus? Steady blood sugar and an anti-inflammatory, gut-friendly diet protect the synapses that hold your knowledge graph together.
How to Embrace Difficult Tasks: The Hard Way Wins
How to embrace difficult tasks? Treat the difficulty as the point. Desirable difficulties build the First Brain that AI shortcuts quietly erode.
What Is Human-in-the-Loop AI? The Oversight Fallacy
What is human-in-the-loop AI? A human approving AI decisions. But oversight is theater if the human cannot natively map the system they are meant to check.
The Leverage of the Root Node: Maximizing AI
How to maximize leverage with AI? Define the foundational root node of your work perfectly, then let AI auto-generate the million leaf nodes that branch off it.
The LLM as a Semantic Mirror: AI for Self-Reflection
How to use AI for self-reflection: treat the model as a semantic mirror that surfaces the structural flaws in your own mental models when you explain them.
The Meat-Sack Maintenance Protocol
Optimizing the physical body for knowledge work means treating the brain as a metabolic organ: fuel it, clear it, and condition it before you touch any tool.
Is Mind Uploading Possible? The Copy Problem
Is mind uploading possible? Maybe, but an upload is a copy of your knowledge graph, not a transfer of you. So build the biological original into a masterpiece first.