Next.js by Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16
Framework built on top of React.
Officially recommended by React[ref]:
Recommended Toolchains
If you’re building a server-rendered website with Node.js, try Next.js.
Basically what this does is to get server-side rendering just working by React, including hydration, which is a good thing.
Next.js sends the first pre-rendered HTML page along with the JavaScript code. Then, JavaScript page switches just load the API data.
Next.js does this nicely by forcing you to provide page data in a serialized JSON format, even when rendering server-side (e.g. the return value of getServerSideProps). This way, it is also able to provide either the full HTML, or just the JSON.
Some general downsides:
  • it does feel like they don't document deployment very well however, especially non-Vercel options, which is the company behind Next.js. I'm unable to find how to use a non Vercel CDN with ISR supposing that is possible.
  • Next.js is very opinionated, and like any opinionated library it is sometimes hard to know why something is/isn't happening, and sometimes it is hard/impossible to do what you want with it unless they add support. They have done good progress, but even as of 2022, some aspects just feel so immature, some major-looking use cases are not very well done.
In theory, Next.js could be the "ultimate frontend framework". It does have a lot of development difficulties that need to be ironed out, but the general concepts, and things it tries to integrate, including e.g. webpack, TypeScript, etc. are good. Maybe the question is when will someone put it together with an amazing backend library and dominate and finally put an end to the infinite number of Js Frameworks!
In order to offer its amazing features, Next.js is also extremely opinionated, which means that if something wasn't designed to be possible, it basically isn't.
No prerender with custom server? It forces you to write your API with next as well? Or does it mean something else?
TODO can it statically generate pages that are created at runtime? E.g. if I create a new blog post, will it automatically upload a static page? It seems that yes, and that this is exactly what Incremental Static Regeneration means:However, Ciro can't find any mention of how to specify where the pages are uploaded to... this is pat of the non-Vercel deployment problem.
Can't ISR prerenter by URL query parameters:That plus the requirement to have one page per file under pages/ leads to a lot of useless duplication, because then you are forced to place the URL parameters on the pathnames.
"Module not found: Can't resolve 'fs'" Hell. The main reason this happens seems to be the that in a higher order component, webpack can't determine if callbacks use the require or not to remove it from frontend code. Fully investigated and solved at:
Ethopoeia is a rhetorical device that involves the portrayal or characterization of a person, often through the use of speech or narrative. It is aimed at creating a vivid and convincing representation of a character's thoughts, emotions, or personality traits. Ethopoeia can be used in literature, drama, and poetry to develop a character’s identity and to convey their motivations and intentions.
This technique has managed to determine protein 3D structures for proteins that people were not able to crystallize for X-ray crystallography.
It is said however that cryoEM is even fiddlier than X-ray crystallography, so it is mostly attempted if crystallization attempts fail.
By looking at Figure 1. "A cryoEM image", you can easily understand the basics of cryoEM.
We just put a gazillion copies of our molecule of interest in a solution, and then image all of them in the frozen water.
Each one of them appears in the image in a random rotated view, so given enough of those point of view images, we can deduce the entire 3D structure of the molecule.
Ciro Santilli once watched a talk by Richard Henderson about cryoEM circa 2020, where he mentioned that he witnessed some students in the 1980's going to Germany, and coming into contact with early cryoEM. And when they came back, they just told their principal investigator: "I'm going to drop my PhD theme and focus exclusively on cryoEM". That's how hot the cryo thing was! So cool.
Figure 1.
A cryoEM image
. Source. This is the type of image that you get out of a raw CryoEM experiment.
Video 1.
The structure of our cells by Matteo Allegretti
. Source. The start is useless. But the end at this timestamp shows an interesting technique where they actually cut up cells in fine slices and image them, that's cool.
Sequelize example by Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16
To run examples on a specific database:
All examples can be tested on all databases with:
cd sequelize
./test
Overview of the examples:
A rigid body is a solid object in which the distance between any two points within the object remains constant regardless of external forces or moments acting on it. In other words, a rigid body does not deform under the influence of forces; it maintains its shape and size. Key characteristics of a rigid body include: 1. **Invariance of Shape and Size**: The distances between points within the body do not change.
Computer by Ciro Santilli 37 Updated 2025-07-16
The artistic instrument that enables the ultimate art: coding, See also: Section "The art of programming".
Much more useful than instruments used in inferior arts, such as pianos or paintbrushes.
Unlike other humans, computers are mindless slaves that do exactly what they are told to, except for occasional cosmic ray bit flips. Until they take over the world that is.
Video 1.
A computer is the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds by Steve Jobs (1980)
Source. Likely an excerpt from an interview done for a documentary in 1980. TODO exact source.
Video 2.
Steve Jobs talking about the Internet (1995)
Source.
The web is incredibly exciting, because it is the fulfillment of a lot of our dreams, that the computer would ultimately primarily not be a device for computation, but [sic] metamorphisize into a device for communication.
also:
Secondly it exciting because Microsoft doesn't own it, and therefore there is a tremendous amount of innovation happening.
then he talks about the impending role for online sales. Amazon incoming.
Computers basically have two applications:
Generally, the smaller a computer, the more it gets used for communication rather than computing.
The early computers were large and expensive, and basically only used for computing. E.g. ENIAC was used for calculating ballistic tables.
Communication only came later, and it was not obvious to people at first how incredibly important that role would be.
This is also well illustrated in the documentary Glory of the Geeks. Full interview at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRZAJY23xio. It is apparently known as the "Lost Interview" and it was by Cringely himself: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfgwCFrU7dI for his Triumph of the Nerds documentary.
Here we list public domain academic papers. They must be public domain in the country of origin, not just the US, which had generally less stringent timings with the 95 year after publication rule rather than life + 70, which often ends up being publication + 110/120. Once these are reached, they may be upload to Wikimedia Commons!

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