Software reverse engineering Updated +Created
Object detection Updated +Created
Software reverse engineering tool Updated +Created
Collective intelligence Updated +Created
The side effects of ambitious goals are often the most valuable thing achieved Updated +Created
A quote by Ciro's Teacher R.:
Sometimes, even if our end goals are too far from reality, the side effects of trying to reach them can have meaningful impact.
If the goals are not ambitious enough, you risk not even having useful side effects so show in the end!
By doing the prerequisites of the impossible goal you desire, maybe the next generation will be able to achieve it.
This is basically why Ciro Santilli has contributed to Stack Overflow, which has happened while was doing his overly ambitious projects and notice that all kinds of basic pre-requisites were not well explained anywhere.
This is especially effective when you use backward design, because then you will go "down the dependency graph of prerequisites" and smoothen out any particularly inefficient points that you come across.
Going into such productive procrastination is also known informally as yak shaving.
There are of course countless examples of such events:
  • youtu.be/qrDZhAxpKrQ?t=174 Blitzscaling 11: Patrick Collison on Hiring at Stripe and the Role of a Product-Focused CEO by Greylock (2015)
The danger of this approach is of course spending too much time on stuff that will not be done enough times to be worth it, as highlighted by several xkcds:
Figure 1.
xkcd 974: The general problem
. Source.
Figure 2.
xkcd 1205: Is it worth the time
. Source.
Figure 3.
xkcd 1319: Automation
. Source.
Quote by Ciro Santilli Updated +Created
These are "original" thoughts that Ciro had which at some point in the past amused him. Some would call them pieces of wisdom, others self delusion. All have likely been thought by others in the past, and some of them Ciro thinks to himself after a few years: "why did I like this back then??".
After Ciro's colleague was doing that in a project:
Chuck Norris can parse pseudocode.
On the theory vs practice of computer science:
Whereas Turing completeness is enough for mathematicians, humans need "run-on-Debian-complete".
On how human perception of media is completely unrelated to the computer's transmission mechanism:
Media for humans is not byte streams. It is magic.
On how you make the best friends in life when dealing with hardships together.
The bond between men is like the bond between two metals: it is better made under fire.
In Ciro's case, this in particular means going through high school/universities studies and work projects, though of course war would apply particularly well. Perhaps inspired by as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.
This is of course just another version of one picture is worth a thousand words.
Ciro Santilli's love advice Updated +Created
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.
Ciro Santilli's mother Updated +Created
Baby hardware Updated +Created
Ciro Santilli's body Updated +Created
UK shirt size: L.
UNIQLO leggings size: L.
Shoe size 30 year old, as in 2017-04 Nike Flex Experience RN 6 Grey running shoes:
  • US: 11
  • UK: 10
  • EUR: 45
  • cm: 29
31 year old:
  • Height:
  • Weight:
  • Chest: 94cm
  • Waist: 81.5cm
  • Hip: 85.5cm
  • Inner leg: 92.0cm
    • Inseam: 95.0cm TODO vs inner leg. This was a separate measure from crotch to ground with help of wife.
  • Length of back: 71cm (from base of neck to knuckle height)
  • Collar: 38cm
  • Sitbone distance (ischial tuberosity):
  • Arm sleeve length: 61.5 cm
  • Head circumference: 58.5 cm
  • Hand:
    • circumference: 19.8 cm around open hand knuckle
    • Tip Of Middle Finger To Crease Under Palm: 20 cm
    • Circunference around closed knuckle: 25 cm
    • Hand great span en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Span_(unit): 0.22m
  • Erect penis length: just kidding, just kidding. Ciro Santilli's wife would kill him.
  • rest heart rate: 60 BPM
Sight:
  • 32 yo:
    • R SPH -1.50, CYL -0.5, AXIS 150
    • R SPH -1.25, CYL -0.5, AXIS 3
Underwear:
  • L from Mark & Spener in UK was humongous. Lets felt tight at first fitting, but it quickly expands to normal size after wearing once.
Sticker Album Updated +Created
Guqin piece Updated +Created
Physics Updated +Created
Physics (like all well done science) is the art of predicting the future by modelling the world with mathematics.
And predicting the future is the first step towards controlling it, i.e.: engineering.
Ciro Santilli doesn't know physics. He writes about it partly to start playing with some scientific content for: OurBigBook.com, partly because this stuff is just amazingly beautiful.
Ciro's main intellectual physics fetishes are to learn quantum electrodynamics (understanding the point of Lie groups being a subpart of that) and condensed matter physics.
Every science is Physics in disguise, but the number of objects in the real world is so large that we can't solve the real equations in practice.
Luckily, due to emergence, we can use uglier higher level approximations of the world to solve many problems, with the complex limits of applicability of those approximations.
Therefore, such higher level approximations are highly specialized, and given different names such as:
As of 2019, all known physics can be described by two theories:
Unifying those two into the theory of everything one of the major goals of modern physics.
Figure 1.
xkcd 435: Fields arranged by purity
. Source. Reductionism comes to mind.
Figure 2.
Physically accurate genie by Psychomic
. Source. This sane square composition from: www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/u08dw3/nice_guy_genie/.
Reductionism Updated +Created
Particle accelerator Updated +Created
Classical group Updated +Created
City in Taiwan Updated +Created
Ciro Santilli's naughty projects Updated +Created
If Ciro Santilli weren't a natural born activist, he chould have made an excellent intelligence analyst! See also: Section "Being naughty and creative are correlated".
Why Ciro Santilli refers to himself in the third person Updated +Created
Because when this gets converted to a OurBigBook.com page, it will be easier for people to copy paragraphs/fork and write a canonical page about Ciro.
What do you do when creating a pull request? Do you say "I", which is not true because Ciro did not say that, or do you say "John Doe thinks" bla bla?
And because his name is awesome! :-) Just kidding.
This became a micro-meme in 4chan:
Correction: cirosantilli.com is not Ciro Santili's resume. It is your life.
The eye in Ciro Santilli's website banner Updated +Created
Ciro was trying to make his face fit on the banner. But it is hard because faces are square and text is long.
Then at one point, the CSS was a bit broken and the eye stuck out just left of Ciro Santilli.
At this moment, Ciro knew what to do.
This produced a "continuous image symbol to text" effect that felt so right.
The concept, like any other, is not in itself new and has been used by others, Ciro just independently rediscovered it again:

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