This example contains a deterministic demo of when postgreSQL serialization failures may happen.
Tested on PostgreSQL 13.5.
This example is similar to nodejs/sequelize/raw/parallel_update_async.js, but now we are doing a separate SELECT, later followed by an update:
  • SELECT FROM to get i
  • update on Js code newI = i + 1
  • UPDATE SET the newI
Although this specific example is useless in itself, as we could just use UPDATE "MyInt" SET i = i + 1 as in nodejs/sequelize/raw/parallel_update_async.js, which automatically solves any concurrency issue, this kind of code could be required for example if the update was a complex function not suitably implemented in SQL, or if the update depends on some external data source.
Sample execution:
node --unhandled-rejections=strict ./parallel_select_and_update.js p 2 10 'READ COMMITTED'
which does:
Another one:
node --unhandled-rejections=strict ./parallel_select_and_update.js p 2 10 'READ COMMITTED' 'FOR UPDATE'
this will run SELECT FOR UPDATE rather than just SELECT
Observed behaviour under different SQL transaction isolation levels:
  • READ COMMITTED: fails. Nothing in this case prevents:
    • thread 1: SELECT, obtains i = 0
    • thread 2: SELECT, obtains i = 0
    • thread 2: newI = 1
    • thread 2: UPDATE i = 1
    • thread 1: newI = 1
    • thread 1: UPDATE i = 1
  • REPEATABLE READ: works. the manual mentions that if multiple concurrent updates would happen, only the first commit succeeds, and the following ones fail and rollback and retry, therefore preventing the loss of an update.
  • READ COMMITTED + SELECT FOR UPDATE: works. And does not do rollbacks, which probably makes it faster. With p 10 100, REPEATABLE READ was about 4.2s and READ COMMITTED + SELECT FOR UPDATE 3.2s on Lenovo ThinkPad P51 (2017).
    SELECT FOR UPDATE should be enough as mentioned at: www.postgresql.org/docs/13/explicit-locking.html#LOCKING-ROWS
    FOR UPDATE causes the rows retrieved by the SELECT statement to be locked as though for update. This prevents them from being locked, modified or deleted by other transactions until the current transaction ends. That is, other transactions that attempt UPDATE, DELETE, SELECT FOR UPDATE, SELECT FOR NO KEY UPDATE, SELECT FOR SHARE or SELECT FOR KEY SHARE of these rows will be blocked until the current transaction ends; conversely, SELECT FOR UPDATE will wait for a concurrent transaction that has run any of those commands on the same row, and will then lock and return the updated row (or no row, if the row was deleted). Within a REPEATABLE READ or SERIALIZABLE transaction, however, an error will be thrown if a row to be locked has changed since the transaction started. For further discussion see Section 13.4.
A non-raw version of this example can be seen at: nodejs/sequelize/parallel_select_and_update.js.
Gibbs free energy Updated 2025-07-16
TODO understand more intuitively how that determines if a reaction happens or not.
At least from the formula we see that:
  • the more exothermic, the more likely it is to occur
  • if the entropy increases, the higher the temperature, the more likely it is to occur
    • otherwise, the lower the temperature the more likely it is to occur
A prototypical example of reaction that is exothermic but does not happen at any temperature is combustion.
Video 1.
Lab 7 - Gibbs Free Energy by MJ Billman (2020)
Source. Shows the shift of equilibrium due to temperature change with a color change in a HCl CoCl reaction. Unfortunately there are no conclusions because its student's homework.
nodejs/sequelize/raw/trigger_count.js Updated 2025-07-16
In this example we cache track the number of posts per user on a cache column.
numpy/fft.py Updated 2025-07-16
Output:
sin(t)
fft
real 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
imag 0 -10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10
rfft
real 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
imag 0 -10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

sin(t) + sin(4t)
fft
real 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
imag 0 -10 0 0 -10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 0 10
rfft
real 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
imag 0 -10 0 0 -10 0 0 0 0 0 0
With our understanding of the discrete Fourier transform we see clearly that:
python/pytorch/matmul.py Updated 2025-07-16
NumPy does not automatically use the GPU for it: stackoverflow.com/questions/49605231/does-numpy-automatically-detect-and-use-gpu, and PyTorch is one of the most notable compatible implementations, as it uses the same memory structure as NumPy arrays.
Sample runs on P51 to observe the GPU speedup:
$ time ./matmul.py g 10000 1000 10000 100
real    0m22.980s
user    0m22.679s
sys     0m1.129s
$ time ./matmul.py c 10000 1000 10000 100
real    1m9.924s
user    4m16.213s
sys     0m17.293s
python/sphinx Updated 2025-07-16
To run each example and see the output run:
./build.sh
xdg-open out/index.html
python/sphinx/class Updated 2025-07-16
Basic class example.
Open source software Updated 2025-07-16
What happens when the underdogs get together and try to factor out their efforts to beat some evil dominant power, sometimes victoriously.
Or when startups use the cheapest stuff available and randomly become the next big thing, and decide to keep maintaining the open stuff to get features for free from other companies, or because they are forced by the Holy GPL.
Open source frees employees. When you change jobs, a large part of the specific knowledge you acquired about closed source a project with your blood and tears goes to the trash. When companies get bought, projects get shut down, and closed source code goes to the trash. What sane non desperate person would sell their life energy into such closed source projects that could die at any moment? Working on open source is the single most important non money perk a company can have to attract the best employees.
Open source is worth more than the mere pragmatic financial value of not having to pay for software or the ability to freely add new features.
Its greatest value is perhaps the fact that it allows people study it, to appreciate the beauty of the code, and feel empowered by being able to add the features that they want.
That is why Ciro Santilli thought:
Life is too short for closed source.
But quoting Ciro's colleague S.:
Every software is open source when you read assembly code.
While software is the most developed open source technology available in the 2010's, due to the "zero cost" of copying it over the Internet, Ciro also believes that the world would benefit enormously from open source knowledge in all areas on science and engineering, for the same reasons as open source.
test_executables.js Updated 2025-07-16
This script tests all executables under a selected directory.
Ciro Santilli has been writing scripts of that type for a long time in order to test his programming self-learning setups with asserts.
The most advanced of those being the test system of Linux Kernel Module Cheat.
But had too much stuff that would be specific to that project, so Ciro decided to start this new one in Node.js, hopefully it will also be the last he ever writes.
A sample usage of the test library can be seen at: nodejs/sequelize/test.
Optical fiber Updated 2025-07-16
Video 1.
The Story of Light by Bell Labs (2015)
Source. Gives some ideas of the history of fiber optics. Features: Herwig Kogelnik.
Video 2.
Fiber optic cables by EngineerGuy
. Source.
Video 3.
Fiber optics fundamentals by Shaoul Ezekiel
. Source. 2008 at MIT. Theory and demonstration.
Optical tweezers Updated 2025-07-16
Sample usages:
Video 1.
Optical Tweezers Experiment by Alexis Bishop
. Source. Setup on a optical table. He drags a 1 micron ball of polystyrene immersed in water around with the laser. You look through the microscope and move the stage. Brownian motion is also clearly visible when the laster is not holding the ball.
Optics Updated 2025-07-16
When dealing more specifically with individual photons, we usually call it photonics.
Oracle Corporation Updated 2025-07-16
Evil company that desecrated the beauty created by Sun Microsystems, and was trying to bury Java once and or all in the 2010's.
Their database is already matched by open source e.g. PostgreSQL, and ERP and CRM specific systems are boring.
Oracle basically grew out of selling one of the first SQL implementations in the late 70's, and notably to the United States Government and particularly the CIA. They did deliver a lot of value in those early pre-internet days, but now open source is and will supplant them entirely.
Ordered pair Updated 2025-07-16
Sets are unordered, but we can use them to create ordered objects, which are of fundamental importance. Notably, they are used in the definition of functions.

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