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Ciro like to interpret this as him having "a creative personality" with the tradeoff of generally not being amazing at his well defined jobs.
Ciro is obsessed by that which is "quirky". This also often has a parallel with "naughty". He often fantasizes about an imaginary parallel between that feeling and Jobs and Wozniak's blue box.
Ciro's natural fight-or-flight response is to hide in a little corner, and try to solve the problem out. Then get distracted and start procrastinating. And then he tries to solve the unsolvable. Someone Ciro barely new once told him quite correctly:This is also perhaps why Ciro likes prison decks in Magic: The Gathering. You just sit on your corner, making yourself safer and safer, until the opponent can't do you any harm and concedes.
In the event of war, you would be the type that hides away and makes the bombs.
There are of course infinitely many videos on the "entrepreneurial mindset" online, and it is impossible to know if they are bullshit, or if everyone just feels like that, but OK, just let Ciro feels that he is specially creative will you?
Creative people continuously step outside of the domain of evaluation structures
If you are creative and you go off on tangents all the time, there's some probability that one of those tangents is going to be exactly what is needed at the time, and you are going to become hyper-successful as a consequence[but the probability of that being the right time and place for the idea is extraordinarily low]The sensible thing to tell anybody is "you shouldn't do it, your probability of success is so low, that its better to just to something sensible".
Ciro also one heard a story, likely apocryphal, but still nonetheless resonated with him, that went something like this (TODO find source, Google wasn't helping, stuff that happened before website as usual):
The newly hired manager of some subsection of DuPont (or some other gigantic chemical company) came into the office, and found a chemical engineer, completely drunk in the middle of the day.Outraged, the manager searched for this colleagues who explained.Ah, don't mind John (or some other name), the guy invented Teflon (or some other substance) which accounted for 20% of our revenue last year. Even if he does not do anything else in his entire career, his salary won't make any difference compared to those gains, and we take the chance that he might invent something else later.
Ciro likes this story because although he does not drink, he feels his work mind works in a related way. Often, when there is something really hard he knows needs doing he hides, and distracts himself with less important tasks, or by watching crap on YouTube, because he knows that the hard task will hurt his mind. Then one day he wakes up and says: OK, fuck it, let's do it, and does it.
Once Ciro got a performance review from a colleague that said:This is closely related to effortless effort.
If Ciro spent as much effort on his job as he does on side projects, he'd be the most amazing worker.
Yes, low conscientiousness, give it to me.
And I am not and never have been 'familiar' scene from The Big Short (2015)
. Source. Ciro Santilli fantasizes that he is more compassionate than average.
He feels that this manifests itself notably through his desire/ability to create amazing documentation content and notably for free.
Also related is Ciro's worry about social inequality and how to reduce it.
In school, especially before university, Ciro felt that he always treated "the ugly/unpopular" (it is horrifying that such perception of a person exists! but true) girls really well, which led some of them to like him romantically. In part this was de to Ciro Santilli's self perceived compassionate personality and enter through the narrow gate approach to life. But was also partly Ciro's fault, he should have been clearer that he was not truly interested, but he was also lonely, curious about how it was like having girlfriend, and it feels good to have someone like you. This was a sin.
He also feels like he treated working class employees (and don't forget, this is Brazil, e.g. his building janitors in São Paulo lived in the nearby favela!) with extreme equality, sometimes even better, than other richer people.
One thing Ciro does not do however is give money to beggars on the street. Those beggars do make Ciro feel extremely bad for not giving, but he feels that they must be drug addicts to be out on the street like that, and that this money would be better invested in OurBigBook.com. But maybe this is just wrong. How fucked up the world is, how far away are we from unconditional basic income???
Once Ciro was hanging out with one of his father's on a group tourist, and she was a lesbian borderline/actually activist social reform person, and she promptly gave to a beggar without batting an eye, and that made a big impression on Ciro, making him feel even worse about himself.
It must be said that at times this compassion can be a weakness see Ciro's trip to the Municipal Market of São Paulo.
Ciro Santilli feels that all really important and productive activities come spontaneously, without being internally forced upon people.
You may say that this is because Ciro is lazy and irresponsible, but Bill thinks this isn't necessarily always bad:This is yet another manifestation of YAGNI.
I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.
As another way to put it, Ciro has very little "self-discipline", and acts very heavily based on small passions that take hold of him. Related: high flying bird vs gophers.
You may also say that Ciro is an idealist, because what to do when the food will run out and you have to hunt? To which Jesus replies at Matthew 6:25-34 "Do Not Worry" (archive):Also closely related: man shall not live by bread alone.
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you - you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?" For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Ciro is also fond of the description of the work method of Yukio Mishima presented in Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (TODO based on Mishima's self descriptions?). Ciro Santilli's father highlighted this to him, and Ciro had already watched that movie and thought it was amazing:
This is perfectly complemented by him making tea, as if suggesting:
Don't rush the work. Just let it happen. Every day at midnight, I would boil a teapot of tea. I would watch the steam rise, and with it feel my consciousness deepen. Everything was pure silence. When the hand was ready, it would, by itself, pick up the brush, and writing would start.
Ciro generally feels that many major developments in his life happened "by miracle", beyond his control. So when he saw the quote by Carl Jung:Ciro tends to do major decisions in his life due to uncontrollable passion rather than logic.
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
Ciro believes that this is linked to his self perceived creative personality, Because Ciro gives in to such uncontrollable passions, this leads him to do things which are more unusual/creative, because other more logical people would write such options off as weird.
Another type of laziness Ciro is to blame for is passionately seeking instrumental goals rather than hard end goals, in order to reach the hard goals more effectively. This is well put in the quote apocryphallyref attribute to Abraham Lincoln:For example, whenever joining a new company, Ciro would first try to improve any exceedingly shitty systems, like the build system or test system, rather than doing whatever random task the manager felt like doing that week. He was somewhat fired for that actually. But in the end, if your infrastructure sucks, your project will fail, so better be fired early and go work on something that might succeed than later when the enterprise goes bankrupt.
Related:
Alan Watts' wuwei talk
. Source. During this talk, Alan quotes Jesus: Matthew 18:3 "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.".Alan Watts' "How to turn work into play" talk
. Source. We work too hard. We try too hard. Don’t try. Don’t work. It’s there. It’s been looking right at us, aching to kick out of the closed womb. There’s been too much direction. It’s all free, we needn’t be told. Classes? Classes are for asses. Writing a poem is as easy as beating your meat or drinking a bottle of beer.
Charles Bukowski Scandanavian TV interviews
. Source. Just enough money to raise 3 kids in a rich country without having to work (so he can focus on whatever project he wants) and no more. Then maximize fame.
Fame is slightly convertible into money with generally little liquidity, but is more valuable if money becomes useless in a TEOTWAWKI.
Of course, in the end, one just does whatever seems cool and useful, and the Gods decide what proportion of fame/money/power they will get. Due to Ciro's love of open source software however, a higher fame percentage seems more likely than money.
Searching just for just "Santilli" on Google does not give any Ciro Santilli hits. The name appears to be a minor variation of the much more common "Santini". Since the name is not that common, it is possible to go over all noteworthy hits. Some relevant ones are shown at: interesting members of the Santilli family.
Searching just for just "Ciro" on Google does not give any Ciro Santilli hits, mostly some smaller brands that could be beaten, this is Ciro's main initial fame metric goal. Reaching it would require doing things known much beyond the programming community however, as Ciro has done until of 2019. ciro.com is from an electromechanics consultancy as of 2019, so it's not bad, let them be.
At the next useless gamified level, an honorary OBE and more ambitiously ForMemRS from the Royal Society post nominal letters would be nice.
The ultimate dream however would be to beat Cyrus the Great himself on Google searches ("Ciro" == "Cyrus" in Portuguese), maybe becoming "Cyrus the Greater"? That one will be a bit harder though. Maybe if Falung Gong becomes the dominant religion in 2000 years like Christianism did, catapulting the Judaism benefactor Cyrus into greater fame, then there is some hope for Ciro as well.
Ciro Santilli's hardware Miele C2 Complete PowerLine vacuum cleaner by 
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16Similar to: www.miele.co.uk/e/cylinder-vacuum-cleaner-compact-c2-powerline-sdrf4-10931670-p but slightly different from image. Indistinguishable from: www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/home-appliances/floorcare/vacuum-cleaners/miele-complete-c2-pure-power-powerline-cylinder-vacuum-cleaner-graphite-grey-10208570-pdt.html
Power symbol meanings: images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/A14OZ5TuwGS.pdf
2020-12: buying Miele SF AP 50 AirClean Plus filter www.miele.co.uk/e/airclean-plus-filter-sf-ap-50-10107860-p. Once it arrived, changed the filter, which fit comes with plastic casing and accordion shaped filter. Also changed bag. But the bag full meter still goes to red on carpet even with everything new while vacuuming. Is it supposed to be checked while not vacuuming?
Ciro Santilli's hardware Philips Dust Mite Hand Held Vacuum Cleaner by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16Bought 2021-11, light brown, size EUR 44.5, 190$, waterproof: www.timberland.co.uk/shop/en/tbl-uk/larchmont-chukka-for-men-in-brown-a12es210
Bought 2021-11, grey, size EUR 44.5, 80$ (later found cheaper online): www.sportsdirect.com/nike-run-swift-2-running-shoes-mens-121052 (archive)
Ciro Santilli's hardware 2017-04 Nike Flex Experience RN 6 Grey running shoes by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16Likely came in a bundle: www.gak.co.uk/en/yamaha-p45-digital-piano-bundle/908294
Ciro Santilli's hardware Panasonic NN-SF464M microwave (2017) by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16 Ciro Santilli's hardware Prestige 7.5L Stainless Stell Pressure Cooker (2020) by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16Primarily bought to make borlotti beans!!!
Bought: 2017-09
Impossible to open to properly clean.
Bought around: 2017-09.
TEFAL Multicook 8in1 RK302E15 MultiCooker - 4 Portions / 5L.
Likely bought from: www.johnlewis.com/tefal-rk302e15-8-in-1-multi-cooker/p231378165
How to open videos: can't find any, but the hard part (remove top lid) was the same as the video for joyoung rice cooker (2014), can be done by inserting a thin metal and going around it.
Bottom opens by taking off a single screw on the bottom and pulling it out (not obvious, a little bit of force).
2021-01: while making congee it overflowed without us noticing it, and next time we were going to cook something, it started to burn bits of congee that stuck to the heat plate. Opened it up and tried to clean everything.
2020-03: E01 error, looked up on manual and it is a top wire broken, opened up and confirmed one of the three wires going up broken, exactly like the previous one joyoung rice cooker (2014). Managed to fix easily with heat gun and Solder Seal Heat Shrink, no soldering iron, that thing is amazing: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B085415G8N Let's see how long it lasts.
Similar to: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B013AV45IS
How to open: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lf68mAB0Vk
Fridge: Lamona LAM6800 fridge freezer.
Washing machine: Lamona, someting along LAM8603: www.manualslib.com/manual/1049371/Lamona-Lam8603.html
- display lights meaning: www.coftonholidays.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Dishwasher-Instructions.pdf
- using: finish powerball quantum ultimate all in one tablests
- www.finish.co.uk/detergents-help but you also need salt and rinse, e.g. www.finish.co.uk/detergents-help
Specs:
Identifiers:
- Ethernet MAC address: 54:e1:ad:b5:5b:08
- Wi-Fi MAC address: 44:03:2c:a2:27:81
Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project
Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
Intro to OurBigBook
. Source. We have two killer features:
- topics: topics group articles by different users with the same title, e.g. here is the topic for the "Fundamental Theorem of Calculus" ourbigbook.com/go/topic/fundamental-theorem-of-calculusArticles of different users are sorted by upvote within each article page. This feature is a bit like:
- a Wikipedia where each user can have their own version of each article
- a Q&A website like Stack Overflow, where multiple people can give their views on a given topic, and the best ones are sorted by upvote. Except you don't need to wait for someone to ask first, and any topic goes, no matter how narrow or broad
This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.
Figure 1. Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page. View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivativeVideo 2. OurBigBook Web topics demo. Source. - local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
- to OurBigBook.com to get awesome multi-user features like topics and likes
- as HTML files to a static website, which you can host yourself for free on many external providers like GitHub Pages, and remain in full control
Figure 2. You can publish local OurBigBook lightweight markup files to either OurBigBook.com or as a static website.
Figure 3. Visual Studio Code extension installation.
Figure 5. . You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally. Video 3. Edit locally and publish demo. Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension. 
- Infinitely deep tables of contents:
All our software is open source and hosted at: github.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook
Further documentation can be found at: docs.ourbigbook.com
Feel free to reach our to us for any help or suggestions: docs.ourbigbook.com/#contact