Why can't you collimate incoherent light as well as a laser? Updated +Created
You could put an LED in a cavity with a thin long hole but then, most rays, which are not aligned with the hole, will just bounce inside forever producing heat.
So you would have a very hot device, and very little efficiency on the light output. This heat might also behave like a black-body radiation source, so you would not have a single frequency.
The beauty of lasers is the laser cavity (two parallel mirrors around the medium) selects parallel motion preferentially, see e.g.: youtu.be/_JOchLyNO_w?t=832 from Video "How Lasers Work by Scientized (2017)"
Ciro Santilli's bicycle wisdom Updated +Created
Sometimes, these are more than just mechanics, but also have deeper life analogues. The title of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance comes to mind. Sometimes they are just mechanics.
With more philosophical metaphors:
  • when your bike breaks, that provides an unique opportunity to learn how to fix it: try to fix your own bike before taking it to the shop
  • if the wind is blowing against you on the way out, it will likely blow behind you on the way back. But remember that the other way around also applies.
  • always take one extra clothing layer than what you think you will need in your back pocket or sport bag, especially when time is changing fast in Sprint and Autumn. The weather on the road outside of town can change very quickly!
  • if you took a turn, and it feels wrong, stop to check the map, and possibly backtrack to safety. When it feels wrong, it usually is a bad idea, e.g. roads where cars are too fast/too many. But if you take a wrong turn and it feels right, then follow it without fear and see what it leads to!
  • don't carry a speedometer on your bike. Analysis can be done afterwards on Strava. The only measurement that matters is "how awesome am I feeling right now?". Live in the moment instead of checking your speedometer every 10 seconds.
  • cycle when you body calls it out of addiction, not out a goal that you've made up that must be reached
With less philosophical metaphors:
  • learn how much water and food you need to take for a trip. Otherwise, you will bonk at some time, when you least expect, it happens very suddenly.
    And then you better hope to God that you can find a food shop nearby. Luckily this was the case for Ciro's first and only bonk so far.
    And besides bonking all out, being tired and hungry makes you make stupid decision, especially where traffic is involved!
    Food is safety. Light is safety. Time is safety. Calm is safety. Chocolate bars and candy cannot count as lunch food, only delay lunch. A sandwich with ham cheese and salad is food. A bag of M&M's with a can of soda can bring you back from the dead.
    When you are not in familiar grounds, take twice as much as you think you might possibly ever need. Hofstadter's law.
    You will also learn that, surprise surprise, carbohydrates that you ate one or two days before a ride stay stored in your liver and muscles, and also greatly affect how quickly you will bonk, thus the concept of carbohydrate loading.
    Video 1.
    How Not To 'Hit The Wall' Or 'Bonk' – GCN's Guide To Fuelling While Cycling by Global Cycling Network (2016)
    Source.
    And surprise surprise: heat can also make you bonk! Who would have thought!
  • correct saddle hight is fundamental, your legs must be almost fully stretched at the bottom position
  • it is impossible to reach the correct tire pressure with (cheap?) hand pumps, their only purpose is to fill up a flat tire so you can get home after a long ride. But a track pump.
  • clean and lube your chain. The speed benefit is instantaneous and mind blowing. It also greatly improves gear shifting.
    This also prevents the chain from rusting, because the lube takes up the place where water would stay, and the muck makes it harder for water to evaporate.
    This is the most common bike maintenance mistake you see on the streets: people with that high pitched overly dry chain noise.
    Video 2.
    How To Get A Perfectly Clean Chain by GCN (2016)
    Source.
  • when a piece on your bike breaks and has no clear name written on it, you can try to identify it Google images
  • the more you watch YouTube maintenance videos without haste, the more you end up learn random new stuff that unexpectedly saves you later
  • if you took a turn, and it feels wrong, stop to check the map, and possibly backtrack to safety. When it feels wrong, it usually is a bad idea, e.g. roads where cars are too fast/too many
  • public place with lots of people are bicycle parking Hell, because due to anonymity and the large number of distractions, it becomes exponentially more likely that someone will fuck you bike somehow, e.g. by dropping it on the ground. Always search a bit for a reasonable place to park, and avoid overcrowded parking spaces at all costs.
  • gear change matters
    • when you get on your bike to start riding, start riding slowly and gradually switch up pedal forces and gears. Things may have shifted in a weird position as it gets kicked around in parking. Ciro managed to bend his derailleur like that!
    • spin to win, AKA learn to user your gears
    • it is not shameful to ride on your lower gears on a hill. You can actually go surprisingly fast with them, and conserve energy for later. Learn when to use each gear ratio.
  • learn to identify your suppliers:
  • always take your lights off the bike into your bag when you park, anywhere, and for any amount of time, even if a quick stop. Drug addicts are everywhere, always ready love to steal and resell them.
  • sometimes you do something stupid like going into a really muddy path, and it is really fun, because you've never been there in your life. But then your bike gets really dirty, and your feet are wet and freezing, and you promise yourself you will never do something that stupid again. But then you do it again in a different location, because it was too much fun. Once more unto the breach just comes to Ciro's mind every such time. Embrace this.
CPLEX Updated +Created
GHDL Updated +Created
Examples under vhdl.
First install GHDL. On Ubuntu:
sudo apt install verilator
Tested on Verilator 1.0.0, Ubuntu 22.04.
Run all examples, which have assertions in them:
cd vhdl
./run
Khronos Group Updated +Created
The fact that they kept the standard open source makes them huge heroes, see also: closed standard.
Shame that many (most?) of their proposals just die out.
Odd permutation Updated +Created
Ordered tree Updated +Created
Gilberto Gil Updated +Created
Gilberto is definitely the most psychedelic/tribal one of the The Holy Trinity of popular Brazilian music, though he also has a boyish quality to his soul.
He is also perhaps the one that impresses Ciro Santilli the most, at times he can't help but feel:
OMG how the hell did he come up with that?!
Figure 2.
Gilberto Gil in the cover of his 1977 album Refavela
. Source.
GitHub's replacement of master branch with main (2020) Updated +Created
By GitHub around Black Lives Matter, due to a possible ludicrous relationship with slavery of black people:For the love of God, the word "master" is much more general than black slavery. If you are going to ban it, you might as well ban the word "evil".
Several software projects followed the purge from their codebases, maybe GitHub followed someone else's lead, it's hard to say.
The words "whitelist" and "blacklist" were also targeted.
HAVING (SQL) Updated +Created
Los Alamos From Below by Richard Feynman (1975) Updated +Created
Amazing talk by Richard Feynman that describes his experiences at Los Alamos National Laboratory while developing the first nuclear weapons.
Video 1.
Los Alamos From Below by Richard Feynman (1975)
Source.
Luke Dashjr Updated +Created
Author of the prayer side of the Prayer wars.
According to LinkedIn he studied at the Benedictine College in Kansas.
TODO is his real birthname "Luke Dash Jr."?
Apparently he had his coins stolen in January 2023, then worth $3.5m: blog.cryptostars.is/luke-dashjr-an-original-bitcoin-developer-loses-all-his-btc-88421c395ce5p...
www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/4936kw/lukejr_is_a_seriously_a_super_crazy_person_quotes/ "Luke-Jr is a seriously a super crazy person quotes gigathread." (2016) on Reddit. Apparently he has some fun views of life.
Pipeline stall Updated +Created
WebRISC-V Updated +Created
Faraday effect Updated +Created
nodejs/sequelize/raw/trigger_count.js Updated +Created
In this example we cache track the number of posts per user on a cache column.
Golden (wiki) Updated +Created
April 2024: merged with some fraud protection thing, is it sill a Wiki? Unclear, seem sto have lost that aspect: twitter.com/judegomila/status/1783028847983956430
techcrunch.com/2019/04/30/golden-launch/
Quote 1.
Golden wiki vs Deletionism on Wikipedia
.
To state the obvious: Wikipedia is an incredibly useful website, but Gomila pointed out that notable companies and technologies like SV Angel, Benchling, Lisk and Urbit don’t currently have entries. Part of the problem is what he called Wikipedia’s “arbitrary notability threshold,” where pages are deleted for not being notable enough. (This is also what happened years ago to the Wikipedia page about yours truly — which I swear I didn’t write myself.)
Exactly! Deletionism on Wikipedia is so sad, and especially for companies. In particular e.g. Ciro Santilli tried to create a page for PsiQuantum, and it got reverted... and now golden has one of the largest Google hits for it: golden.com/wiki/PsiQuantum-PBDGXRA
TODO how do they do moderation?
As of April 2024
Login is currently disabled.
Asked at: twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1777250258235302233 Their last tweets were from August 2023, so maybe they just silently shutdown? Their name is too generic and hard to search for efficiently...
They do have knowledge graph built-in which is cool.
Madelung energy ordering rule Updated +Created
Looking at the energy level of the Schrödinger equation solution for the hydrogen atom, you would guess that for multi-electron atoms that only the principal quantum number would matter, azimuthal quantum number getting filled randomly.
However, orbitals energies for large atoms don't increase in energy like those of hydrogen due to electron-electron interactions.
In particular, the following would not be naively expected:
Magazine Updated +Created
Magic Aids Updated +Created
His combination of politically incorrect dirt talk with amazing quirky decks captures Ciro's imagination.
Anonymous no face-reveal.
The videos are heavily edited with all pauses cut out, which makes them very quick to watch and saves viewer time.
Modern focused, with some occasional newer formats mixed in.
When Wizards publishes several useless sets in a row without a single modern playable card, he's just forced into Standard.
Video 1.
Magic Aids vs. Magic Rainbows by Magic Aids (2018)
Source. In this amazing video Magic Aids makes fun of Wizards for forcing him to change is Magic Online handle from Magic Aids to something else due to the AIDS part. He claims the Aids is not meant as a reference to the disease, but just as in "memory aid". Ciro doubts this wasn't intentional. But the video is still amazing, and happens to involve a sex doll dressed as Liliana Vess squirting glitter from her vagina. Wizards must love this guy. It is also a good criticism of political correctness in general. This is a work of art.

Unlisted articles are being shown, click here to show only listed articles.