electrolytic muscle function, and disease

At rest : 

• [ neuron and muscle independently : sodium-potassium pump (slow) : pushes out 3Na+ for every 2K+ pulled in, maintaining negative voltage inside the cell ]

Firing : 

• [ neuron : ( due to upstream stimulation) opens sodium gate, Na+ inflow sends current to calcium gate, Ca2+ enters neuron, triggers acetylcholine release into synaptic cleft ] 
• -> [ muscle : acetylcholine from synaptic cleft, opens sodium gate, Na+ inflow sends current to sarcoplasmic reticulum, which releases calcium, which causes contraction of the cell : (fast) K+ leaves cell to restore negative voltage inside the cell ]

Muscle Diseases, and ordinary states which become diseases if not reversed within ordinary timeframes :

• - Ca2+ : 
• too much outside cells, "overshields" sodium gates of BOTH neurons and muscles, both become "understimulated" ... and subsequent to neuron stimulation, Ca2+ enters neuron slower, dumping acetylcholine slower, furthering muscle "understimulation"; 
• too little outside cells, "undershields" sodium gates of BOTH neurons and muscles, both become "overstimulated" ... and subsequent to neuron stimulation, Ca2+ enters neuron faster, dumping acetylcholine faster, furthering muscle "overstimulation"
• - Mg2+ :
• too much outside cells, block Ca2+ entry to neurons, reducing acetylcholine release, "understimulating" muscles
• too little outside cells, Ca2+ entry is less blocked, increasing acetylcholine release, "overstimulating" muscles
• - K+ : 
• too much outside cell, K+ cannot leave quickly, cell may become "overcontracted" - ditto "overexcitation" of neuron at early stages, but  at later stages, sodium gates fail, neurons and muscles both weaken; 
• too little outside cell, K+ leaves too fast, cell may become "hard to contract"
• - Na+ : 
• too much outside cell, Na+ enters quickly, cell may become "overexcited", ditto for neuron; 
• too little outside cell, Na+ cannot enter quickly, "underexciting" cell, ditto for neuron; nervous system may overcompensate with erratic voltages, causing "erratic excitation"

notes from recovery of running form

Okok, I keep forgetting to jot down these two notes from running ... so before I go on about computer vision, I should do this. These are just operational recoveries of forms lost over the years, so it's a bit of a log of shame, albeit a somewhat technical one.

• 1. Yesterday's study of neural voltage was a good reminder to manage how much sensory data from each limb ( or part of the body ) hits conscious memory ... we consciously control this by activating feedback loops that contract muscles, sometimes colloquially referred to as neural tone. Maintaining a balanced proprioception of the entire body (rather than just legs, while running, for example), (a) allows for more / complete / constant kinesthetic data, as well as (b) simplifies coordination because you are applying similar signal quantities / data rates / effort / voltage / whatnot to all parts of the soma, rather than a discordant array of configurations to be adjusted in-flight.
• 2. Risk-off adjustments to vision memory management : allow one to focus less on the constant visual feed, and to think mainly about checkpoints or lap points along a route.

2026-05-23

• Brief note from yesterday's running. I seem to have forgotten to balance dopamine and adrenaline, on a per-stride basis. Failing to do so in favour of dopamine results in erosion of neural constitution as strides repeat. In other words, the operational boundary of each individual stride should comply with maintaining, or increasing pleasure. 

Calorific timing hypothesis

• - saturate supply ( food ) within waking/W+ 0-to-8 hours
• - saturate demand ( motor load ) within W+ 4-to-10 hours
• - leverage on resulting hormonal yield for desk work within W+ 8-to-16 hours
• - sleep from W+ 16-to-26 hours

nutrition : imidazole dipeptides / IDPs

 This is turning out to be an interesting group of molecules.

• histadine containing : most common in chicken, fish, and then other skeletal muscle meats
• antioxidant and pH buffering : "instant energy" end-user experience
• generally not saturated in humans, so there are benefits to eating it
• also some research linking these to Parkinson's Disease ( neural death in the Substantia Nigra associated with oxidative stress )

There are three of easy interest; only one is a commerciallycommon supplement

• carnosine :
• the common supplement is beta alanine, as carnosine is produced in humans, but beta alanine is usually the rate-limiting input
• anserine : 
• uncommon commercially
• balenine : 
• uncommon commercially

basic comprehension

• Untrained : Reading and Writing are abstract opposites
• Trained : Reading does not affect the medium, Writing affects it
• Retrained : both Reading and Writing affect the storage medium

After all, Reading and Writing are coloured functions ... that is to say, colour is political, so these are political functions. What is a Read or a Write depends on definitions, decided by those who matter, on a per-context basis.

TNF-alpha and IL-1beta

Check out these two pro-inflammatory ( immune-response stimulating ) and somnogenic ( sleep inducing ) cytokines ( signalling molecules ) :

• TNF-a ( tumour necrosis factor-alpha )
• IL-1b ( interleukin-1 beta )

Consider :

• "neurotransmitter interaction with tnf-a and il-1b"
• "insulin interaction with tnf-a and il-1b"
• "dietary mineral impact on tnf-a and il-1b"
• "dietary protein impact on tnf-a and il-1b"

gasotransmitters : more systematic details

Oh fuck, nitric oxide helps sleep. I didn't note this before. I guess citrulline intake should be so-timed.

In parallel, I reviewed hydrogen sulfide (also a gasotransmitter). I have hadyears of allium consumption for therapeutic effect, without studying the mechanisms.

So they both sustains infrastructure for breath control, inflammation, immunity, sleep, and clock genes in muscle ... indicating the link between sleep and hypertrophy.

Fantastic.

GABA : DMN suppression

TIL : the GABA neurotransmitter is greatly involved in suppressing the [ Default Mode Network, DMN ], an operation which is required for control to pass to the [ Executive Control Network, ECN ] ... hence the link between GABA boosters like barbiturates and executive function disorders, such as those of the Autism spectrum.

In college I figured out how to quantify conscious experiences. Now I get to learn about how the experiences are controlled. Fun.

Vitamin D : forms, half-lives, sources

Vitamin D is complicated.

SUMMARY : 

• calcitriol << kidney << calcidiol << liver << calciferol(s) << exposure of fungi, and animal, tissue to  UV

FORMS : 

• Furthest upstream, calciferol(s)
• [ D3 = cholecalciferol ] ... output FROM human skin, and other animal sources subjected to UV 
• Supplementation guidelines ... this is of interest because of the vast range :
• 400-800 iu/day for maintenance
• 2000-6000 iu/day for athletes
• [ D2 = ergocalciferol ] ... output FROM fungi subjected to UV
• There don't seem to be plant sources - some documentation misattributes fungi sources to plants.
• Plasma half-lives are about 1 day, very short, because these are quickly metabolised in the liver.
• But effective somatic half-lives are 15 to 21 days due to storage in and slow release from fat.
• => 3% at 2.5 to 3.3 months
• The most plasma-stable form, [ calcidiol(s) = calcifediol(s) = "25(OH)D" ]
• FROM liver activity upon calciferol(s)
• [ from D3 : 25-hydroxy-cholecalciferol ]
• [ from D2 : ercalcidiol = 25-hydroxy-ergocalciferol ]
• Plasma half-lives are 15-30 days, bound to [ gc-globulin = D-binding protein ]
• => 3% at 2.5-5 months
• THIS IS THE COMMON BLOODWORK
• SUFFICIENT : > [ 30 mg/mL = 75 nmol/L ]
• INSUFFICIENT : [ 20-29 mg/mL ] = [ 52-72.5 nmol/L ]
• DEFICIENT : < [ 20 mg/mL = 50 nmol/L ]
• The active form, [ 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol = calcitriol ]
• FROM kidney activity upon calcidiol(s)
• Plasma half-life 15 hours
• => 3% at 3 days

Structured Daydreaming

 This is an old topic. But it receives review for two reasons :

• I was talking to a friend about how I manage memory for sleeping
• I am in a period of physiological recuperation which benefits from more active management

Again.

Epoch 1. Subtraction of dreams from memory state

So, in college, with the intention of making sleep more energy efficient, and restful, I applied a study of sleeping with minimal dreaming. That is, as much as it is consciously possible, zero the imagination.

It turns out that the motivation for this was that my state of mind at that time was quite [ ( consciously passive, but subconsciously ) active in terms of pushing out concepts from the subconscious, into conscious imagination ], so the antagonistic calibration was [ to actively reduce this ].

This became the norm, and I soon needed to make little effort to live in this mode.

• The sleep period for wakeful productivity was determined to be 10 hours/day
• It would found to possible to function at lower rates of learning with 8 and 6 hours/day 

Epoch 2. Addition of dreams to memory state

12 to 14 years later, when I ran a 24-hour cafe and would sleep irregularly, I found that the opposite state of mind to be true. Due probably to [ a combined absence of semantically stimulating work, and a shortage of dream-stage sleep ], my mind was quite sluggish at pushing out concepts from subconscious, into conscious imagination, so the antagonistic calibration was [ to actively increase this ].

In order to execute that, I found it useful to enforce sleeping for long hours, with hydration and stimulants along the way ... mainly fish oil which may have [ assisted vasodilation ], and methylcobalamin which may have aided both as [ a nerve growth factor and a modifier of melatonin metabolism ].

This required active management, so it would be paid more or less attention tactically, over the years since that project

Epoch 3. More measured approaches

Five more years or so, after the cafe project ended, I find myself on sabbatical, mainly active as a student of quantitative subjects, and working on my physical conditioning, albeit with a budgetarily restricted diet.

• At this point, with minimal physical demands from sedentary studies ... I seem to need to make extra effort to get more daily physical resistance.
• Caffeine, m-B12, multivitamins, creatine, fish oil, have been a mostly continuous protocol, albeit with disciplinary gaps; to these I have added carnosine ( via beta alanine ), and arginine ( via whole foods or citrulline .
• Sleep periods last as short as six hours, but days may be correspondingly poor for learning

So it may be time again to enforce more structure : at least 20% of bedtime should be spent in lucid dreaming of some non-zero level of consciousness. For example if I wake after six hours, and don't feel like lying down more, I may rehydrate, dose protein and or m-B12, and then reinsert myself to bed for another 1.5 hours.

---

After all, without proper lab equipment and a huge budget, it is very difficult to determine rigorous methods for the delineation of factors from results. But a poor man's science ... proceeds throughout one's life.

Factors of Production : Individual Scope

• 1/Nutrition enables 2/exercise,
• which calibrate 3/hormonal cascades,
• which enable 4/sleep recovery,
• which enables 5/a pleasured state of mind,
• which enables 6/intelligence gathering, research, & development.

These may, but do not often, overlap with the chores we do to increase wealth and power. Now you have a design problem, i.e. how to get paid for factors 1-6.

Prosthetics : for Body and Society

• Skin too soft? Wear clothes.
• Hormones piled up? Exercise or masturbate.
• Short of kinesthesia? Get a massage or heavy beddings.

Basic b ...

Capital in Deployment : a map of war

 Things, where I am scratching on a hard surface :

• (1) COMPILER data flow : there are about 5-30 language FAMILIES on one end, 2-3 major architectures on the other, and a L-steps-from-M-to-N set of flows which is rather unparsimonious, like that word; the tool needed here is an LMN mapper; a homomorphic problem is WWW architecture; 
• (2) MATHS & STATS terminology : there are some 5-30 entrypoints to the body of knowledge, each having 3-10 important concepts, each have 0-10 synonyms ... at this point it's the semi-formal synonym spaghetti that's really irking me; the tool needed here is an interface-concept-synonym mapper;

Things, which I feel are decently managed :

• (3) PHYSICS : no time for material science ... but I am edging along with home economics and physiology; of the tiny subset I am working on, the ontology of concern is economicOutput-cellularPathways-physiologicalInputs; no time to get into true details, so I manage this at arm's length, with spreadsheets;
• (4) FINANCE : I'm always fighting the error of being too lazy here; markets are mad, but there is something to be said for infrequent asset allocation;

Things, which I feel are easy :

• (5) SOCIETY : as always, since grade school, people seem like they are easily traversed, and it is just that I don't make the time to traverse this graph frequently;
• (6) MIND : much above seems to pivot on my identity as a phenomenologist, and work previously accomplished.

Case study : quantification and adjustment of anxiety

 I got up this morning to a message in one of my dozen inboxes, from a stranger swearing at my answers to questions they had posted yesterday, about my work.

I found this difficult to accommodate, and told them to go fuck themselves. They continued to chat, so I continued also. After some cursory research into their background, I determined that they were not trying to sell me anything, or threaten me, but that they were very excited about the field of work that was being discussed. However their ability to communicate was somewhat disabled, such that they were essentially yelling at a wall ( me ). I offered my best wishes, and returned to my own thoughts about the actual work.

But the conversation remained on my threat radar for a few hours, so I had to engage specific tactics to clear my memory. First I closed my eyes, to remove live data from optics, then I allocated freed-up computation to an analysis of my neuromuscular posture. Once I had located the muscular tension associated with the earlier threat, I antagonistically adjusted my muscles to neutralise the poor posture. Then I checked that various metrics of my system were now closer to baseline, and I opened my eyes, seeking to continue the day's work.

I made a point to write this down as a case-study, which I will use to refer to others when they ask about how consciousness can be quantified and managed.

club walks

 I could never really figure out how to interleave work and physical conditioning. ( I know lots of people who can. )

- Around 2005/6 when I started work,  bought a 15kg dumbbell set. It worked while I had a routine. But I didn't use it a ton.

- I tried using the gym at a bank where I worked once. Tried cycling to work too. Neither was an optimal experience.

- Later I signed up for a 3-year membership at a gym when those became available in Malaysia ... the gym switched policies on me halfway, so I stopped going.

- At some point, I tried doing manual labour to see if combining work and exercise was better. The exercise was great - the pay, not so much.

- Around 2023 I finally went back to spreadsheets and decided to rebuild my diet from the ground up.

- In 2025 I started walking with weights ... the old dumbbells? Weights on one side only, so they handle like clubs. This feels balanced, and it seems to stimulate the fingers and arms sufficiently. I'll see how long I can keep this up.

Pain in the Hypertrophy Loop

 Physical conditioning review :

• - dopamine correlates with pain ( probably not true for everyone : if it doesn't correlate for you, pain will be more depressing )
• - dopamine without pain is dysfunctional ( causes upstream diversion / cognitive distraction from hypertrophic activities )
• - the conclusion of this study is that I need to use pain as a leading indicator of how much exercise to do, and often the issue is ( not enough pain -> not enough exercise )

Again, it will differ for others. But this appears to be my physiology.

Degendering Sports

• 1. Remove all gender categories from sports.
• 2. Curate a balanced variety of sports which will be dominated by different body types.
• 3. Have fun and stop whinging about gender in sports.

Easy for me to say.

Parallel Fuel Metabolism Pathways

Fat, carbs, and amino acids, have mainly parallel, not inline, metabolic pathways. Power train management therefore must balance THREE macro-fuels in a mix.

Additionally, 

• - mixing carbs and amino acids with fat has the effect of slowing down absorption, thus reducing serum overloading and excretion of the former
• - protein metabolism ( both catabolism and anabolism ) is also governed to a degree by serum concentrations of the other macros, and by non-proteinogenic animo acids

Calcium in Common Beverages

Did a quick check on absorption rates for different calcium salts. Since vinegar is most commonly available, and vitamin C powder has storage concerns, I'm just throwing my foodgrade chalk powder into water with ACV. This seems to work for now. Target dose is 0.4g +/-1 0.1g chalk to match the calcium in a 150ml dose of milk.

So this is promising as a substitute for baking soda in making soda water. Basically less salty due to the absence of sodium, and more immediately energising, due to the calcium content.

Focus Turns to Hormonal Management

Information systems of the human body : all physical and emotional conditioning involves hacking hormonal cascades.

• Sad? Identify the pathway; adjust it.
• Bored? ditto
• Distracted? ditto
• Fearful / Anxious / Angry? ditto
• Tired  / low actions-per-minute? ditto

I have lived a privileged life. Figured out the things I thought were hard problems before I was 21, so next 21 years were mostly just playing games.

As our good doctors (may) testify to : the molecular structure of the body is far more complicated than the handful of data structures available to the software of the conscious mind. So these days my challenges are mainly about figuring out which hormonal cascade to actuate, and how.