Ciro Santilli (@cirosantilli) - New articles

Power, Sex, Suicide by Nick Lane (2006)  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

All pages below are from the second edition from 2018. It seems that there weren't any changes in the text, the updated preface mentions

As it happens, nearly 15 years have passed since the 1st edition of Power, Sex, Suicide was published, and I am resisting the temptation to make any lame revisions. Some say that even Darwin lessened the power of his arguments in the Origin of Species through his multiple revisions, in which he dealt with criticisms and sometimes shifted his views in the wrong direction. I prefer my original to speak for itself, even if it turns out to be wrong.

This is partly addressed in the preface of the second edition from 2018.

Central thesis:

there are two sexes because of mitochondria
the acquisition of mitochondria was one of the most important steps in the evolution of eukaryotes.
There are no known eukaryotes which never had mitochondria. Having mitochondria appears to be a requisite for being an eukaryote.
Contrast this for example with multicellularity, which is highly polyphyletic.
Apoptosis is largely regulated by mitochondria
there are two main theories for how the mitochondria endosymbiosis started:
- parsitic hypothesis of mitochondrial endosymbiosis: a parasitic option rather than cooperative
- hydrogen hypothesis: a cooperative option rather than parasitic

Smaller points:

10% of our body weight (dry presumably?) is mitochondria. Also quoted at: www.nature.com/scitable/blog/student-voices/mighty_mitochondria. TODO confirm.
eukaryotes can do phatocytosis due to their cytoskeleton
paints a colorful picture of Peter Mitchell. Some Wikipedia edits are warranted!
it is hard for complex organisms to evolve because longer DNA means longer replication time
cancer is natural selection gone wrong
multicellular organisms are not utopias where every cell lives happily. Rather, they are dictatorships, where any dissident is forced to commit seppuku. Lu Xun's petition quote comes to mind.

Nitpicks:

the book calls ATP synthase "ATPase" in several points, which is confusing because -ase means "something that breaks", and in 2020 parlance, there are ATPases which actually break ATP: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATPase. The book itself acknowledges that on page 135:
The ATPase is freely reversible. Under some circumstances it can go into reverse, whereupon it splits ATP, and uses the energy released to pump protons up the drive shaft, back across the membrane against the pressure of the reservoir. In fact the very name ATPase (rather than ATP synthase) signifies this action, which was discovered first. This bizarre trait hides a deep secret of life, and we’ll return to it in a moment.

Some criticisms:

some of the later chapters are a bit more boring, like the stuff about warm-blooded animals. Perhaps is it that Ciro Santilli is more interested in the molecular aspects than macro
the author talks about some very recent research at the time. While this does highlight his expertise, some of the points mentioned might still be in a state of flow. This is acknowledged by the author himself on the 2018 updated preface however.

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SoundFont  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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Contains instructions on how to synthesize MIDI.

Extension: sf2.

Can be imported for example by:

vmpk
Csound with sfload: www.csounds.com/manual/html/sfload.html

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What does it mean that photons are force carriers for electromagnetism?  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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physics.stackexchange.com/questions/61095/photon-as-the-carrier-of-the-electromagnetic-force

TODO find/create decent answer.

I think the best answer is something along:

local symmetries of the Lagrangian imply conserved currents. $U (1)$ gives conserved charges.
OK now. We want a local $U (1)$ symmetry. And we also want:
- Dirac equation: quantum relativistic Newton's laws that specify what forces do to the fields
- electromagnetism: specifies what causes forces based on currents. But not what it does to masses.
Given all of that, the most obvious and direct thing we reach a guess at the quantum electrodynamics Lagrangian is Video "Deriving the qED Lagrangian by Dietterich Labs (2018)"

A basic non-precise intuition is that a good model of reality is that electrons do not "interact with one another directly via the electromagnetic field".

A better model happens to be the quantum field theory view that the electromagnetic field interacts with the photon field but not directly with itself, and then the photon field interacts with parts of the electromagnetic field further away.

The more precise statement is that the photon field is a gauge field of the electromagnetic force under local U(1) symmetry, which is described by a Lie group. TODO understand.

This idea was first applied in general relativity, where Einstein understood that the "force of gravity" can be understood just in terms of symmetry and curvature of space. This was later applied o quantum electrodynamics and the entire Standard Model.

From Video "Lorenzo Sadun on the "Yang-Mills and Mass Gap" Millennium problem":

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCQ9GIqpGBI&t=1663s mentions this idea first came about from Hermann Weyl.
youtu.be/pCQ9GIqpGBI?t=2827 mentions that in that case the curvature is given by the electromagnetic tensor.

Bibliography:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtf6U3FfDNQ Symmetry and Quantum Electrodynamics (The Standard Model Part 1) by ZAP Physics (2021)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQF7kkWjVWM The Symmetry and Simplicity of the Laws of Nature and the Higgs Boson by Juan Maldacena (2012). Meh, also too basic.

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Zen of Python  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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Neutral atom quantum computer  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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quantumtech.blog/2023/01/17/quantum-computing-with-neutral-atoms/

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Chart type  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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QuTech  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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Step busy beaver  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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The step busy beaver is a variant of the busy beaver game counts the number of steps before halt, instead of the number of 1's written to the tape.

As of 2023, it appears that BB(5) the same machine, , will win both for 5 states. But this is not always necessarily the case.

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Year On  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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Video 1.

Learning Approach Uncollege by Dale Stephens (2011)

Source.

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Deep learning benchmark  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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Join two SVG side-by-side from the command line  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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TODO:

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Michael J. Saylor  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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twitter.com/saylor 2.6 M followers as of 2022. Because of Bitcoin? Or was he famous before that?
www.michael.com/ yes, he is Michael.com lol. When did he get the domain, and at what price? He's mildlly obsessed with domain names it seems: www.domainsherpa.com/saylor/. He also bought frank.com, mike.com. emma.com. This was between 1994 and 2000. He mentions that his email is saylor@strategy.com. strategy.com redirects to microstrategy.com as of 2022, so seems still valid.
We actually got a backlink from tvt.phishlabs.com to this page in August 2022, a phising security provider, presumably for showing his email here. This reminds Ciro of the All GitHub Commit Emails event!
A quick google for that address also leads to www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/00/business/saylor0621.htm, a year 2000 profile page by the Washington Post, followed by a Q&A. In the Q&A, Michael himself gives his email in relation to Saylor Academy:
Kensington, Maryland: What has happened to your vision of an internet university? I believe it is an important initiative and it doesn't require $100 million to get started. We at the Rockefeller Foundation would like to become involved. How can we do this?
Michael Saylor: The internet university is alive and well. My goal is to initially roll out a cyber-libary of digital video that can be used by any for-profit or non-profit organization in order to accelerate the free education initiative. Eventually, people may just go direct to the web site.
I think the entire thing will unfold over about 10 years.
Send me an email if you would like to get involved. (saylor@strategy.com)
so it was already beyond leaked. Ciro did hit that email address seeking funding for OurBigBook.com, but no reply unfortunately. Maybe you gotta be part of the Rockefeller family to get a reply from these people? Well, at least this led to Ciro learning about the Rockefeller Foundation.

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Optical component  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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Quantum electrodynamics bibliography  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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fafnir.phyast.pitt.edu/py3765/ Phys3765 Advanced Quantum Mechanics -- QFT-I Fall 2012 by E.S. Swanson mentions several milestone texts including:

Advanced quantum mechanics by Freeman Dyson (1951)

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Qiskit  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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Python library, claims multiple backends, including simulation and real IBM quantum computer.

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Year 3 of the mathematics course of the University of Oxford  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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SARS-CoV-2 protein  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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CIA 2010 covert communication websites / Backlinks  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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Announcements and updates by self:

2023-06-10: initial announcements
- twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1667532991315230720. Follow up when more domains were found: twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1717445686214504830
- www.reddit.com/r/OSINT/comments/146185r/i_found_16_new_cia_covert_communication_websites/. Marked as SPAM 5 by mods days later. After reaching 92 votes, a very positive reply for that niche sub, and being obviously on topic. Weird. Anyways, did its job and likely kicked off hackernews.
- www.facebook.com/cirosantilli/posts/pfbid04KvRbEXghJakcD4AQz4379L5oVjPZ6vrBF1Eak3p81VnqRSXuXdvvYonCWPhGfQXl
2023-10-26 twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1717445686214504830: announcement by self after finding 75 more sites
- Shared by others soo after:
- news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36279375#36280220 (212 points). Shame that this was published when we only had about 20 websites. As of writing we had 240. Might have been a greater hit then.
  Figure 1. Source.
- www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/14705gp/cia_2010_covert_communication_websites/ failed attempt with bad link unfortunately
2024-01-15: twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1747742453778559165 Oleg Shakirov's findings
2024-01-23: mastodon.social/@cirosantilli/111807480628392615 ipinf.ru gives 4 hits and 4 new suspects, announced at:
2024-09 Aratu Week 2024 Talk by Ciro Santilli: My Best Random Projects
2025-03-13: 44 new domains found: Section "44 new CIA websites"
2025-04-14: cqcounter screenshots used to confirm many new hits: Section "60 new CIA website screenshots discovered on CQ Counter"
2025-05-23: Section "Backing up CIA website archives for research and posterity"

Pings by self:

2025-03-13:
- x.com/cirosantilli/status/1900278353065894324 pings x.com/JackRhysider Jack Rhysider, host of the Darkent Diaries podcast
- x.com/cirosantilli/status/1900828210578727276 pings x.com/JennaMC_Laugh Jenna McLaughlin and x.com/zachsdorfman Zach Dorfman, authors of the 2018 Yahoo articles
2025-03-31 going to find random interested people on Twitter:
2025-05-05:
- inteltoday.org/2021/07/31/us-national-whistleblower-day-july-30-2021-i-john-reidy-declare-cia-debacle-in-iran-china/#comment-46375 pings the author Dr. Ludwig De Braeckeleer. Besides his interest in intelligence, the dude actually also won a Breakthrough Prize in Physics, holy fuck it's mind boggling.
- x.com/cirosantilli/status/1919391488422662245 pings x.com/marisaataylor Marisa Taylor, author of the 2014, McClathy DC article
- x.com/cirosantilli/status/1919859345593880812 and x.com/cirosantilli/status/1919846838850499002 pings x.com/billmarczak Bill Marczak and x.com/thezedwards Zach Edwards, technical analysts for the Reuters article
- x.com/cirosantilli/status/1919860643408007644 pings x.com/joel_schectman Joel Schectman and x.com/bozorgmehr Bozorgmehr Sharafedin authors of the Reuters article
- x.com/cirosantilli/status/1919870831758365113 pings x.com/zachsdorfman Zach Dorfman (protected account) author of the Foreign Policy article
- x.com/cirosantilli/status/1920073080363241727 pings x.com/markmazzettinyt Mark Mazzetti, x.com/nytmike Michael S. Schmidt and x.com/mattapuzzo Matt Apuzzo authors of the 2017 New York Times article. Could not find a Twitter for the fourth author Adam Goldman.
- x.com/PeteWilliamsNBC Pete Williams author of the 2018 NCB News artricle: he's retired and not active on Twitter, not going to bother pinging

Reactions by others:

2023-06-19: www.reddit.com/r/numberstations/comments/14dexiu/after_numbers_stations_vanished/ (30 points) off topic on that sub, but thankfully was not deleted, interesting sub topic
2023-10-26: Google Analytics backlink from lms.fh-wedel.de/ path unknown. Some shitty German university: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fachhochschule_Wedel_University_of_Applied_Sciences LMS stands for Learning management system, apparently a Moodle instance. Maybe they have some Open educational resources, but all in German so pointless
Second wave:
- 2023-12-01: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38492304 (65 points). Second submission but pointing to OurBigBook.com rather than cirosantilli.com: ourbigbook.com/cirosantilli/cia-2010-covert-communication-websites We take those. Reached only 65 points as of January 2024.
- 2023-12-02: buttondown.email/grugq/archive/december-2-2023/. "grugq" is the handle of a zero day dealer whose received some scrutiny in 2012 after a Forbes protile was written about him: archive.ph/7mUG5. He comments:
  I don’t think anyone anticipated that databases leaked by hackers would enable OSINT researchers to conduct counterintelligence investigations that rival the state security services.
  presumably referring to DNS Census 2013.
2024-01-12: twitter.com/jeremy_wokka/status/1745657801584656564 (40k followers, mid of thread)
2025-04-02: www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/comments/1kd7rzo/comment/mqoocu7/?context=3 user Gilda1234_ mentions this project in a comment to "Between 2010 and 2012, China identified and killed at least 30 CIA informants in the country" by idlikebab
2025-05-26 www.404media.co/the-cia-secretly-ran-a-star-wars-fan-site/ "The CIA Secretly Ran a Star Wars Fan Site" by Joseph Cox from 404 media, an upstart publication covering edgy digital subjects. This was likely a result of Ciro publicly pinging x.com/zachsdorfman Zach Edwards, one of the analysts for the Reuters article, at x.com/cirosantilli/status/1919846838850499002, as he is cited in the article as having done a technical review. This had a massive knowdown effect and several other media picked the story up. Ciro announcing it at:
Forum threads spawned from it:
- Reddit
  - www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/1kvtzwm/the_cia_secretly_ran_a_star_wars_fan_site/
  - www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsEU/comments/1kvu5g8/the_cia_secretly_ran_a_star_wars_fan_site/
  - www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/1kxtpw4/the_cia_secretly_ran_a_star_wars_fan_site/
    www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/1kxtpw4/comment/muu531n/
    They aren’t the only ones who do stuff like this, Russian agents were using Ronaldo highlight vids on YouTube to communicate 😭
    A source: www.thesun.co.uk/sport/33904606/putin-spies-cristiano-ronaldo-youtube-videos-messages/
  - www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1kye0pj/the_cia_operated_a_network_of_gaming_sites_and/
    www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1kye0pj/comment/mv0rxcv/
    In one case in Iran, somebody from the US embassy would take a big stack of envelopes, to to the same post office every time, and mail them all in one big batch... That didn't end well.
    In another case in Iraq, somebody got ahold of a ton of old soviet satellite phones and they were distributed among this particular group of people in Iraq. The same model sat phone. That didn't end well.
  - www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1kvvx48/the_cia_secretly_ran_a_star_wars_fan_site_the/
  - www.reddit.com/r/realtech/comments/1kvwigb/the_cia_secretly_ran_a_star_wars_fan_site_the/
  - www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1kw991t/the_cia_secretly_ran_a_star_wars_fan_site/
  - www.reddit.com/r/LowStakesConspiracies/comments/1kwbf2y/the_cia_run_a_star_wars_fansite/
  - www.reddit.com/r/andor/comments/1kw587c/very_andor_the_cia_secretly_ran_a_star_wars_fan/
  - www.reddit.com/r/BrasildoB/comments/1kw6qah/um_brasileiro_acaba_de_publicar_detalhes_sobre_os/
  - www.reddit.com/r/mexico/comments/1kwhuqg/la_incre%C3%ADble_web_de_star_wars_que_us%C3%B3_la_cia_para/
  - www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/1kwoch5/the_cia_ran_a_star_wars_fan_site_to_secretly/
  - www.reddit.com/r/starwarscanon/comments/1kwoxoq/til_the_cia_secretly_ran_a_star_wars_fan_site/
  - www.reddit.com/r/TrueAnon/comments/1kwhxmj/cia_ran_star_wars_fan_site/
  - www.reddit.com/r/MauLer/comments/1kxqim9/figures/
  - www.reddit.com/r/Intelligence/comments/1kwybso/cia_uses_star_wars_website_to_communicate_with/
  - www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsCirclejerk/comments/1kwzeto/in_my_mind_all_last_jedi_haters_are_feds/
  - www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/1kw5x9n/the_cia_really_gets_creative_sometimes/
  - www.reddit.com/r/BurnNotice/comments/1kw4b5k/the_cia_secretly_ran_a_star_wars_fan_site_for/
    www.reddit.com/r/BurnNotice/comments/1kw4b5k/comment/muemkhk/ brings up europeangoldfinch.net
    Europeangoldfinch.net was a website used by Michael Scofield that allowed the Fox River Eight to communicate with each other on its online message board
    first described in Season 2 of Prison Break in 2007.
- Decent tweets:
  - x.com/CultureCrave/status/1927119278047727908 600k followers
  - x.com/val_reloaded/status/1927349417306161165 Argentinian Twitcher 400k followers
- news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44098274 failed unfortunately
- knockout.chat/thread/72492/1
- YouTube
  Video 1.
  The Cia Runs A Star Wars Fanpage by PeepIsAwesome
  . Source. 180k subs. This one focuses on talking about the games and uses this article as the mainreference. He makes that nice note that the game Star Wars Battlefront II reached all time highs in the days following the CIA releasej
  www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/battlefront-2s-huge-steam-resurgence-isnt-a-mystery-when-you-realize-its-just-really-good/
  The articles apparenty coincided with the reelase of Star Wars Battlefront III alpha to lukewarm reception.
  Video 2.
  The CIA's Secret Star Wars Blog Got People Killed by Seytonic
  . Source.
  Video 3.
  Star Wars Fan Sites Are Run by THE FEDS?! by Clownfish TV
  . Source. 600k subs. Video didn't take off however. The channel seems to be semi dead. But it is cool to see an American with YouTube-worth eloquence going over it.
  Video 4.
  CIA Used Star Wars Fan Sites to SECRETLY Communicate with SPIES by Tyrone Magnus
  . Source. He's basically reading the techspot article: www.techspot.com/news/108062-cia-used-star-wars-fan-site-secretly-communicate.html.
- other voice media:
  - www.smashingsecurity.com/419-star-wars-the-cia-and-a-whatsapp-malware-mirage/
Other media that picked it up:
Starting on that same day someone made starwarsweb.net redirect to cia.gov at 2025-05-26T13:28:02Z: www.whois.com/whois/starwarsweb.net

Notable reactions to the websites themselves:

2022-09-29 www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/xrgua4/the_cia_used_a_message_board_on_a_fake_soccer/ "The CIA used a message board on a fake soccer website called "Iraniangoals.com" to communicate with Iranian spies, dozens of whom were arrested after the website was discovered." by user Carlos-Dangerzone

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XY sex-determination system  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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Biology  Updated 2025-07-01  +Created 1970-01-01

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Ciro Santilli @cirosantilli 37