Ciro Santilli @cirosantilli 40

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Ciro Santilli's love advice Updated 2025-07-16

In the field of Love and Friendship, Ciro is a big believer in the merciless application of tit for tat. Never desire someone's love if you give and what comes back is not proportional. Cut your attempts to reach out immediately in such cases.

Never tell a woman you like her before she is in your bed.

If someone likes you and you don't like them as much, make that clear to them. Don't put this off, be it for compassion, curiosity, loneliness, or narcissism.

youtu.be/Sb0VHGnhX4M?t=174 from Video "Charles Bukowski Scandanavian TV interviews":

The way to get a woman is not to have money, not to look nice, not to have a nice personality. The way to get a woman, is to always be available, night or day. Any time you phone, you're there, or you're at the bar. They know that you are available at all times. It is very, very important to a woman.

See also: Section "Ciro Santilli's wife".

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Ciro Santilli's natural languages skills Updated 2025-07-16

English: Cambridge CPE grade B in 2004. Proficient, with minor defects in collocation/pronunciation. Learned from formal courses and from living in the UK for a few months when he was 10.
French: TCF grade C2 in 2011. Proficient, with a bit more defects than English. Studied and lived in France.
Brazilian Portuguese: Native speaker
Chinese: see github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/tree/df0852b22e585785d734ec69719eddf63f9676a5#do-you-speak-chinese

When asked, Ciro likes to say that he speaks something between 1.5 and 3.5 languages in total, depending on how you count, because Portuguese, French and English are 99.99% the same, and Chinese is completely different but Ciro only knows about 50% of it if counted optimistically.

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Memento mori Updated 2025-07-16

Figure 1.
Braque Family Triptych
. Source.

Figure 2.
"Vanitas" by Philippe de Champaigne (c. 1671)
Source.

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Memory semantics Updated 2025-07-16

These are the rules which specify what different concurrent read/write memory accesses from different threads/processes can or cannot see.

Notable such set of rules include:

C++ memory model. These are also reflected on the semantics of memory of the corresponding instruction set architecture
SQL transaction isolation level

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High temperature superconductor superconducting magnet Updated 2025-07-16

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History Updated 2025-07-16

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Messaging software that force you to have a mobile phone Updated 2025-07-16

Chat programs that don't have a proper web-only operation and force you to have a mobile phone, e.g. WhatsApp.

Heck, even Signal, which is supposed to be super secure and good for your privacy, forces you to disclose your freaking cell phone to all contacts! lifehacker.com/how-to-use-signal-without-revealing-your-private-phone-1818996580

What is my phone breaks? What if I don't want to have a fucking phone? What if I move countries and have to change the fucking number? Also evil but less because done by all: chat programs that can't send you an email if you don't see the message in X minutes.

European Union, time to force those evil companies to use support open standards like XMPP?

The solution to "how to prevent spam" is simple: your ID is a public key that you own the private key for. If you start getting spammed, generate a new public key, and send it to all contacts, and dump the previous ID.

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Meta breaking glitch Updated 2025-07-16

A meta breaking glitch of a video game is a glitch that when discovered significantly breaks the meta.

In non-video game-game, it does sometimes happen that a meta is broken as well, but these events tend to be rarer and less dramatic than meta-breaking due to computer program glitches.

In PvP games, those glitches are generally forbidden by existing rules, and quickly patched after discovered.

In speedrunning however, they are either incorporated in the existing strategy, or may lead to the creation of a new run category for particularly significant glitches.

The Controversial Olofboost by theScore esports (2018)

Source. Descries the boost used by CS:GO pro-team Fnatic during the DreamHack Winter 2014 quarterfinals.

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Ciro Santilli's psychology Updated 2025-07-16

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Ciro Santilli's skills Updated 2025-07-16

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Ciro Santilli's software engineering wisdom Updated 2025-07-16

Of course, "Ciro Santilli" with quotes, since all of those are either taken directly from others, or had been previously formulated by others.

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Metagenomics Updated 2025-07-16

Experiments that involve sequencing bulk DNA found in a sample to determine what species are present, as opposed to sequencing just a single specific specimen. Examples of samples that are often used:

river water to determine which bacteria are present, notably to determine if the water is free of dangerous bacteria. A concrete example is shown at: Section "How to use an Oxford Nanopore MinION to extract DNA from river water and determine which bacteria live in it".
sea water biodiversity: ocean-microbiome.embl.de/companion.html
food, including searching for desirable microorganisms such as in cheese or bread yeast
poo, e.g. to study how the human microbiome influences health. There are companies actively working on this, e.g.: www.microbiotica.com/

One related application which most people would not consider metagenomics, is that of finding circulating tumor DNA in blood to detect tumors.

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Metric (mathematics) Updated 2025-07-16

A metric is a function that give the distance, i.e. a real number, between any two elements of a space.

A metric may be induced from a norm as shown at: Section "Metric induced by a norm".

Because a norm can be induced by an inner product, and the inner product given by the matrix representation of a positive definite symmetric bilinear form, in simple cases metrics can also be represented by a matrix.

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History of DNA methylation research Updated 2025-07-16

Incredible that there hasn't been a Nobel Prize for it as of 2022, e.g. as mentioned at: theconversation.com/no-nobel-but-epigenetics-finally-gets-the-recognition-it-deserves-18970

Some old dudes getting another prize in 2016: www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/pioneers-epigenetics-awarded-horwitz-prize

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Michelson-Morley experiment Updated 2025-07-16

Published as On the Relative Motion of the Earth and the Luminiferous Ether.

Michelson Interferometer by Amrita Vlab (2013)

Source. Shows the optical controls and alignment in more detail.

Michelson Interferometer by TSG Physics (2012)

Source. TSG PHysiQuantum electrodynamics bibliographycs is the channel from the MIT Department of Physics Technical Services Group. In the video they produce a very clear round interference pattern.

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Michigan State University Updated 2025-07-16

Not to be confused with the University of Michigan. Not confusing at all right!

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Micro Bit getting started Updated 2025-07-16

When plugged into Ubuntu 22.04 via the USB Micro-B the Micro Bit mounts as:

/media/$USER/MICROBIT/

e.g.:

/media/ciro/MICROBIT/

for username ciro.

Loading the program is done by simply copying a .hex binary into the image e.g. with:

cp ~/Downloads/microbit_program.hex /media/$USER/MICROBIT/

The file name does not matter, only the .hex extension.

The back power light flashes while upload is happening.

Flashing takes about 10-15 seconds for the 1.8 MB scroll display hello world from microbit-micropython.readthedocs.io/en/v1.0.1/tutorials/hello.html:

from microbit import *
display.scroll("Hello, World!")

and the program starts executing immediately after flash ends.

You can restart the program by clicking the reset button near the USB. When you push down the program dies, and it restarts as soon as you release the button.

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Ciro Santilli's Twitter accounts Updated 2025-07-16

Accounts controlled by Ciro Santilli on Twitter:

twitter.com/cirosantilli primary channel, contains only updates on Ciro's best technical content. Low volume.
twitter.com/cirosantilli2 secondary channel, contains smaller technical updates that didn't make it to the primary channel, and some China fun. Higher volume.

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Ciro Santilli's wife Updated 2025-07-16

For more china-related stuff see: cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship/wife

Excerpt of For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (1940), slightly adapted for brevity:

"The earth moved," Maria said, not looking at Pilar. "Truly. It was a thing I cannot tell thee."
"It never moves more than three times in a lifetime. Did it really move?" Pilar Said.
"Yes," the girl said. "Truly."
"For you, Inglés?" Pilar looked at Robert Jordan. "Don't lie."
"Yes," he said. "Truly."

Related: www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/hj7bfq/comment/fwkik5v/

Teresinha performed by Maria Bethânia

Composed and previously performed by Chico Buarque in 1987: Video "Teresinha by Chico Buarque".

This video has English subtitles, click CC to enable them. This is one of the the best popular Brazilian music (MPB) of all time. A transcribed English translation adapted slightly by Ciro Santilli to be a bit less literal:

The first one came to me as if coming from the flower shop
Brought a stuffed toy, brought an amethyst pin
He told me about his journey and the perks he had
He showed me his watch and called me 'queen'
He found me so undefended that he touched my heart
But he denied me nothing, so, frightened, I said 'no'
The second came to me as if coming back from the bar
Brought a bottle of brandy too bitter to swallow
He asked me about my past and sniffed my food
He searched through my drawer and called me 'the lost one'
He found me so undefended that he scratched my heart
But he gave me nothing, so, frightened, I said 'no'
The third one arrived like he was arriving from nowhere
He brought me nothing and also asked me nothing
I barely know his name but I understand what he wants
He laid on my bed and called me 'woman'
He arrived very sneakily and before I could say 'no'
He settled inside my heart as its owner

Song of pig by Xiangxiang (2005)

Source. Chinese: 猪之歌 by 香香. Baidu Baike page: baike.baidu.com/item/猪之歌/16181836. A dude wrote the lyrics though: 毛慧 (Mao Hui), but wouldn't have been a hit if he had performed it given the insane gender imbalance in China. Chinese lyrics on mojim: mojim.com/cny104491x1x1.htm. A quick translation:

Pig, you have two holes in your nose, and they have snot when you catch a cold
Pig, you have dark eyes, you can't see the edge
Pig, your ears are so big, you can't hear me calling you stupid
Pig, your tail is curled and curled. It turns out that you can't live without it when you run and jump.
Pig head, pig brain, pig body, pig tail, a wise toy who is never picky about food
Every day sleep until after three in the afternoon, you never brush your teeth, and you never fight
Pig, your belly is so bulging, you can tell at a glance that you can't stand the hardships of life
Pig, your skin is so white, you must have been from a rich family in your past life, oh
Legend has it that your ancestor had eight rakes, and it hit a peach blossom criminal.
When you see a beautiful girl, you chuckle, won't blush, and isn't afraid

Some people in the West are quite amused by the usage of "pig" as a term of endearment.

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Ciro's ASCII art circuit diagram notation Updated 2025-08-08

This notation is designed to be relatively easy to write. This is achieved by not drawing ultra complex ASCII art boxes of every component. It would be slightly more readable if we did that, but prioritizing the writer here.

Two wires are only joined if + is given. E.g. the following two wires are not joined:

  |
--|--
  |

but the following are:

  |
--+--
  |

Simple symmetric components:

-, + and |: wire
AC: AC source. Parameters:
- Hz: frequency
- V: peak voltage
e.g.:
```
AC_1Hz_2V
```
If only one side is given, the other is assumed to be at a ground G.
C: capacitor
G: ground. Often used together with DC, e.g.:
```
DC_10---R_10---G
```
means applying a voltage of 10 V across a 10 Ohm resistor, which would lead to a current of 1 A
L: inductor
MICROPHONE. As a multi-letter symmetric component, you can connect the two wires anywhere, e.g.
```
---MICROPHONE---
```
or:
```
|
MICROPHONE
    |
```
SPEAKER
R: resistor
SQUID: SQUID device
X: Josephson junction

Asymmetric components have multiple letters indicating different ports. The capital letter indicates the device, and lower case letters the ports. The wires then go into the ports:

D: diode
- a: anode (where electrons can come in from)
- c: cathode
Sample usage in a circuit:
```
--aDc--
```
Can also be used vertically like aany other circuit:
```
|
a
D
c
|
```
We can also change the port order, the device is still the same due to capital D:
```
--cDa--

 |
Dac--

 |
Dca--

   |
--caD
```
DC DC source. Ports:
- p: positive
- n: negative
E.g. a 10 V source with a 10 Ohm resistor would be:
```
+---pDC_10_n---+
|              |
+----R_10------+
```
If only one side is given, the other is assumed to be at a the ground G. We can also omit p and m in that case and assume that p is the one used, e.g. the above would be equivalent to:
```
DC_10---R_10---G
```
If the voltage is not given, it is assumed to be a variable voltage power supply.
LED: same as diode
I: electric current source. Ports:
- s: electron source
- d: electron destination
P: potentiometer source. Ports:
- 1: one of the sides
- 2: the middle
- 3: the other side
T: transistor. The ports are sgTd:
- s: source
- g: gate
- d: gate
Sample usage in a circuit:
```
---+
   |
--sgTd--
```
All the following are also equivalent:
```
   |
   g
--sTd--

    |
--Tsgd--
   |
```
V: Voltmeter. Ports:
- p: positive
- n: negative
If we don't need to specify explicit positive and negative sides, we can just use:
```
---V---
```
without any ports. This is notably often the case for AC circuits.
Optionally, we can also add the sides as in:
ports can also be separated by double underscores from the component names to increase readability. Single underscores can also be used to increase readability of longer multi-word component names e.g.:
```
RPI_PICO_W__1gp0__3gnd
            |       |
            R_2k    |
            |       |
            +-aLEDc-+
```
which is the same as:
```
RPI_PICO_W
1gp0  3gnd
|       |
R_2k    |
|       |
+-aLEDc-+
```
represents a circuit linking port 1 of a Raspberry Pi Pico W, which is GPIO pin 0, through a resistor and an LED, back to pin 3 of the board, which is ground.

Numbers characterizing components are put just next to each component with an underscore. When there is only one parameter, standard units are assumed, e.g.:

+-----+
|     |
C_1p  R_2k
|     |
+-----+

a capacitor with 1 pico Faraday
a resistor with 2 k Ohms

Micro is denoted as u.

Wires can just freely come in and out of specs of a component, they are then just connected to the component, e.g.:

DC_10---R_10---G

means applying a voltage of 10 V across a 10 Ohm resistor, which would lead to a current of 1 A

If a component has more than two parameters, units are used to distinguish them when possible, e.g.:

AC_1kV_2MHz

means an AC source with:

1 kV voltage
1 MHz frequency

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