Movies that are very expensive to make tend to be bad, because they have to make returns and thus appeal to a large amorphous population without any specialization, i.e. the lowest common denominator but in TV Tropes terminology rather than mathematics: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LowestCommonDenominator.
Looking down the largest flops of all time list didn't help much, only Heaven's gate appears reasonable from the top 20.
Good film by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Bad film by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Many bad films have good aspects. They just didn't cross the elusive threshold of a good film.
  • Google Maps download offline maps. This works very reliably, you can select the area you want to download. The only downside is that Google maps can't reliably show a route offline, and it does not contain national cycle route routes. Or those features are impossible for a software engineer to get working after trying for about 2 hours.
  • OpenStreetMap on browser with cycling layer: www.openstreetmap.org/#map=5/49.582/1.934&layers=C This is the best visualization of cycling routes I've found so far, contains both National Cycle Network and National Byway and a few others, and they are shown extremely clearly. But as a website it doesn't reliably work offline
  • the OsmAnd app for Android is the best offline free-ish OpenStreetMap viewer I've found so far. You only have to pay after reaching 5 region downloads, and it is very cheap if you want to do so. The cycle route view is not amazing, the routes are not so clearly marked and mixed with very similarly colored big roads, but with a bit of effort you can make them out. No routing though
  • I've heard Komoot can keep a predefined route (possibly auto planed) reliably offline, but haven't used it myself. I was not able to see National Cycle Route clearly marked anywhere on it
Sometimes you get annoyed to death with your bike not breaking or changing gears perfectly as you would like, and the people at the bike shop never do the job well enough.
The problem with bike shops is that the employees are already swamped with work, and they don't get paid any extra for doing more work.
As a result, paradoxically, they are often happier, and respect you more if you are trying to get them to help you to fix your own bike!
Also, for the same reason, they don't have the time to go for a quick test ride after a fix to ensure that the bug was actually fixed.
So they ignore things that would obviously be huge ridability benefits (although they might not be obvious to newbie customers), for which customers would gladly pay more money for.
But you start to learn how to do stuff yourself and it feel amazing when you finally get there (after infinite trial and error).
Ciro dreams of a bike shop that actually calls you for the appointment and then teaches you how to fix the thing.
So the best strategy is to have a backup bicycle, and when your main one breaks, you just try to to the fix yourself. That means:
  • identifying the broken piece
  • watching YouTube videos of how to do the job
  • buying a replacement and any missing tools on Amazon
  • giving it a shot
Then, if you fail to do the fix, that is OK, just take it to the bike shop, with the piece you've bought, and ask them to do it for you. At least this way you did not waste a golden opportunity to learn!
Ciro had a small accident in 2021. It wasn't ultra serious, a few cuts, but could have been worse. Here's a post mortem.
Ciro was going to cycle 120 km between two locations he had never cycled before. Ciro had cycled this distance before many many times, so he thought he could do it.
What went wrong:
  • on both ends were cities, larger than those Ciro is used to
  • on the start, was a port city. You do not want to cycle in port areas, ever! Lots of trucks, narrow side-walks, bad road, danger danger!
  • on both sides, endless suburbia. This means you have to check your map every 3 seconds to know which little stress to turn, which is very hard without a way to attach your map to your bike. Ciro had his on his pocket. You lose a lot of time like that!
  • there wasn't a lot of sunlight at the time of the year. Not critical, but still, less than ideal.
  • during the ride, part of the "well documented and safe cycle route" was closed off for repairs. It was unclear what the best alternative would be. Ciro went down a path, but it turned to be horrendous countryside, he had to pull his bike over fences
  • by then, Ciro was tired and a bit late. He had only eaten sweets all day long. They give you calories, but there's always something missing in them.
  • Ciro arrived at the very very large target city, and it was getting dark, and it was rush hour, lots of cars. This was already back on the official bike path, but even those paths are tortuous in suburbia
  • also, Ciro was meant to meet his wife later, and he was in a rush, worried that she would be worried about him
  • at one point, Ciro took the wrong turn for a few hundred meters
  • he realized, and turned back
  • when coming back, now extra impatient because o the wrong turn, the place he had come from was actually one way street for a very short while until the right turn, so Ciro went against the correct direction...
  • a car came. It was relatively slow, because the road was slight uphill for the car, and a turn. The slight downhill also meant Ciro was going a bit faster than he realized
  • Ciro tried to go into the sidewalk anyways to make sure he was clear off the car (he was already). When he tried, the wheel stuck, and he flew forward, hitting a wall slightly
This was a perfect example of how many small things add up to an accident.
You have to know when you are tired and hungry and impatient. This is where huge danger lies.
Stop at a shop, eat, sit down. Darkness is not that dangerous if you have lights.
Take a train outside of large cities if needed. Crossing large cities is not something to be taken lightly. You need calm and time to do so safely.
Breadboard by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2026-08-21
This is how electronic circuits are normally prototyped!
Once you validate them like this, the next step is usually to move on to printed circuit boards for more reliable production setups.
Breadboards are a thing of beauty and wonder.
Figure 1. . Source. Predecessors to breadboards from where the name came. A thing of beauty, so vintage. You could actually write stuff on those with a pencil!
Video 1.
Breadboards - Trash or Treasure? by Keysight (2020)
Source.
As if Chinese character weren't evil enough, their fast hand written form is even more unintelligible. It is like Hell within Hell.
It is also very beautiful it must be said.
Video 1.
Process Simulation Software FREE Download - Aspen Hysys versus DWSim | COCO by Jeferson Costa (2020)
Source. Jeferson, a Brazilian from Petrobras, is the creator of the open source DWSim software, and in this video he gives a quick demo of his software and compares it briefly to aspen HYSYS, which appears to be the golden paid reference implementation.

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!
We have two killer features:
  1. 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-calculus
    Articles 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/derivative
  2. 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.
    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.
  3. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook-media/master/feature/x/hilbert-space-arrow.png
  4. Infinitely deep tables of contents:
    Figure 6.
    Dynamic article tree with infinitely deep table of contents
    .
    Descendant pages can also show up as toplevel e.g.: ourbigbook.com/cirosantilli/chordate-subclade
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