The paper learning station I shared earlier had “Quality” and “Content” buttons, but I didn’t release the backend implementation back then. It was basically a platform with a frontend web page, but you still had to organize the backend yourself. But for my own setup, of course the backend still had to be wired to AI to reduce the cognitive load. So here I’m sharing those two backend skills to help speed up everyone’s learning! ...

While prepping for the PM&R board examination, I used an engineer’s approach to solve an old problem for myself: how exactly should I practice past exam questions so I don’t forget them right after? I ended up building a small tool called “Exam Navigator,” and figured I’d tidy it up and open it up to share with anyone who needs it. 🔗 Live Demo (built-in demo account, ready to play): https://exam-demo.drpwchen.com 🔗 Source code: https://github.com/drpwchen/exam-practice ...

A while back, I shared the paper reading site I built for myself, and I got quite a few messages asking, “Can I use this too?” and “How exactly does it work?” I’ll explain it clearly in this post, and while I’m at it, I’ll let you know that I’ve organized it into an open-source version and put it on GitHub. First, the problem I wanted to solve. As a physiatrist, there are dozens of journals I want to track, along with a few authors I really want to follow and a couple of topics I’m always keeping an eye on. The traditional approach is to dump a bunch of RSS subscriptions into a reader or a notes app. As a result, hundreds of papers pile up every day, and it quickly turns into a garbage dump of “I’ll never finish reading this, and I don’t even know where to start.” In the end, you either get anxious or just give up reading altogether. ...

📖 Saving Tokens series (four parts): Part 1: Why your AI gets dumber the more you chat · Part 2: Don’t boot up a supercomputer if an abacus will do · Part 3: Setting up a clean desk for your AI · Part 4 (this post, the finale) We’ve arrived at the final post of the series. Over the first three parts, we went from “why your AI gets dumber the more you chat” all the way to “when not to use AI” and “how to clean up its desk.” This post is about the moment you actually spend the money: how to make every penny count. ...

📖 Token Saving Series (4 parts): Part 1: Why your AI gets dumber the longer you chat · Part 2 (This post) · Part 3: Clearing a clean desk for your AI · Part 4: I built a budget dashboard for my AI In the previous post, we talked about how longer AI chats get more expensive and dumber, along with three ways to save right now. This post takes it a step further to discuss a more fundamental divide: ...

📖 The Token Saving Series (4 parts): Part 1: Why your AI gets dumber the more you chat · Part 2: If an abacus works, don’t boot up a supercomputer · Part 3 (This post) · Part 4: I built a budget dashboard for my AI The first two posts were still at the “everyone can use this” level. Starting with this one, I’ll show you the setup on my computer that I’ve endlessly tinkered with. ...

📖 Token Saving Series (4 parts in total): Part 1 (this post) · Part 2: If an Abacus Works, Don’t Boot Up a Supercomputer · Part 3: Organizing a Clean Desk for AI · Part 4: I Installed a Budget Dashboard for AI You’ve definitely had this experience: you chat with ChatGPT or Claude for an afternoon, and the longer it goes, the more sluggish it gets. It replies slower, suddenly “forgets” what you said earlier, or even starts talking in circles. ...

Lately I’ve been relying more and more on Claude Code to manage my digital life. From organizing my Obsidian notes to maintaining a bunch of self-hosted services at home (OpenWrt router, AdGuard Home, Synology NAS, Oracle cloud instance, Home Assistant), down to the various automations running themselves in the middle of the night, I hand almost everything over to it. He can do more and more, and I seriously thought about something the other day that I hadn’t thought through before: I’ve given an AI assistant that can read files on my computer, execute commands, and connect to the internet such vast permissions. If something goes wrong one day, how wrong could it go? ...

Last December, I took Neurodynamic Solutions (NDS) Level 1 and Level 2, taught by Michael Shacklock himself in Taiwan. Shacklock is the founder of the clinical neurodynamics system, and having him walk us through demonstrations step-by-step was a rare opportunity. After finishing both levels, I had taken over a hundred pages of notes, and it completely changed the way I look at “nerve pain.” To be honest, very few courses out there truly target nerves for treatment, which is one of the reasons I went out of my way to take NDS. ...

Ever since becoming a resident, looking for continuing education courses has hit the same pain point every time: ultrasound, manual therapy, foot and ankle, neuro, pediatric rehab… The courses are scattered across a dozen society and institution websites. I’d have to refresh the sites every few days, and I was never sure if I’d actually seen a particular post before. Later on, I set up web scrapers for these course pages in my Home Assistant at home to automatically notify me of new courses, and things finally got a lot easier. But realizing I’d be completing residency soon, this little tool sitting at home wouldn’t be able to keep reminding the junior residents. Figuring I had Claude anyway, I just asked it to scrape all the courses and announcements from these 17 rehab-related societies and institutions, aggregate them in one place, update automatically every 3 hours, and put it on the web for everyone to use. ...