Proton VPN Updated 2025-07-16
Conda Updated 2025-07-16
Conda is like pip, except that it also manages shared library dependencies, including providing prebuilts.
This has made Conda very popular in the deep learning community around 2020, where using Python frontends like PyTorch to configure faster precompiled backends was extremely common.
It also means that it is a full package manager and extremely overbloated and blows up all the time. People should just use Docker instead for that kind of stuff: www.reddit.com/r/learnmachinelearning/comments/kd88p8/comment/keco07k/
You also have to buy a license to use their repos if you are part of a large-enough organization: stackoverflow.com/questions/74762863/are-conda-miniconda-and-anaconda-free-to-use-and-open-source
Python
ast Updated 2025-07-16 Star Trek character Updated 2025-07-16
Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain Taproot Wizards Updated 2025-07-16
www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/01/12/taproot-wizards-bitcoin-ordinals-project-that-raised-75m-to-sell-quantum-cats-collection/:OMG if only the worlds wouldn't invest in such useless crap... it would probably be a better and more boring world.
Silk Road (film) Updated 2025-09-09
We need a mini-series, this just doesn't have enough time. Notably, too much focus on dob, and not enough on the development of Silk Road iteslf. Though it is cool to see what his motivations might have been like. One wonders how realistic the character is. Though him meeting Ross Ulbricht personally sounds exceptionally unlikely.
Department of Stanford University Updated 2025-07-16
Exams at the University of Oxford Updated 2025-07-16
nvidia-smi Updated 2025-07-16
Shaun Bridges Updated 2025-07-16
Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain Largest ordinal inscription Updated 2025-07-16
We can get a list of the ordinals at: archive.org/details/bitcoin-ordinal-inscriptions.csv and then sort them by payload size with:
sort -k6 -n -t, ordinals.csv -o ordinals-sort-size.csvThis shows to us that as of block ~831k, there are 4 ordinals which are far far larger than any other between 3 MiB and 4 MiB, at about 10x larger than then 5th one d115a6e689086fd587e5032f24ba2a8c01f2f87cba758c9d5eb8cf7f6e9a816a
In those cases, a single inscription takes almost the entire block, and the inscribers must have had direct dealings with their mining pool:
- ordinals.com/inscription/4af9047d8b4b6ffffaa5c74ee36d0506a6741ba6fc6b39fe20e4e08df799cf99i0: 3,946,469 bytes (image/jpeg). Bitcoin Magazine cover showing the face of Julian Assange. tx 4af9047d8b4b6ffffaa5c74ee36d0506a6741ba6fc6b39fe20e4e08df799cf99 block 786501 (2023-04-22). Mined by Terra Pool.
- ordinals.com/inscription/0301e0480b374b32851a9462db29dc19fe830a7f7d7a88b81612b9d42099c0aei0: 3,915,537 bytes (image/jpeg). Taproot Wizards ad. This was apparently the largest block ever mined at the time: www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/10r6t1l/the_first_4_mb_block_in_bitcoin_history_mined_by/ and received some notice. tx 0301e0480b374b32851a9462db29dc19fe830a7f7d7a88b81612b9d42099c0ae block 774628 (2023-02-01). Mined by Luxor pool.
- ordinals.com/inscription/79b91e594c03c8f06d70c44a288a88a413c540abca007829ca119686a7f979dai0: 3,878,842 bytes (image/webp). "Bitcoin War Bonds". A spoof of something. No time to understand now. tx 79b91e594c03c8f06d70c44a288a88a413c540abca007829ca119686a7f979da block 777945 (2023-02-23). Mined by Terra Pool.
- ordinals.com/inscription/b5a7e05f28d00e4a791759ad7b6bd6799d856693293ceeaad9b0bb93c8851f7fi0: 3,379,682 bytes (video/mp4). Short looping video of a "purple frog drinking from a glass with a straw". Yes you heard that right. TODO context? tx b5a7e05f28d00e4a791759ad7b6bd6799d856693293ceeaad9b0bb93c8851f7f block 776884 (2023-02-16 ) Despite being huge, this received very little attention, the only Google mention is at An overview of recent non-standard Bitcoin transactions by 0xB10C. Mined by Terra Pool.
Ciro Santilli's open source contributions Not verified Updated 2025-07-16
The following contributions where not immediately verified by others, but they were not reverted either and I think they are good.
| Date | Project | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-12 | plasticboy/vim-markdown | Review patch | Add tilde-fenced code blocks |
Stacks Project Updated 2025-07-16
- Renders: stacks.math.columbia.edu/. HTML is one tiny section per page, making it unreadable.
- LaTeX source: github.com/stacks/stacks-project
The book is very dry, extremelly boring unfortunately. Definition and theorem only for the most part.
Book of Genesis Updated 2025-07-16
Vulcan salute Updated 2025-07-16
qiskit/qft.py Updated 2025-07-16
This is an example of the
qiskit.circuit.library.QFT implementation of the Quantum Fourier transform function which is documented at: docs.quantum.ibm.com/api/qiskit/0.44/qiskit.circuit.library.QFTOutput:So this also serves as a more interesting example of quantum compilation, mapping the
init: [1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]
qc
┌──────────────────────────────┐┌──────┐
q_0: ┤0 ├┤0 ├
│ ││ │
q_1: ┤1 Initialize(1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0) ├┤1 QFT ├
│ ││ │
q_2: ┤2 ├┤2 ├
└──────────────────────────────┘└──────┘
transpiled qc
┌──────────────────────────────┐ ┌───┐
q_0: ┤0 ├────────────────────■────────■───────┤ H ├─X─
│ │ ┌───┐ │ │P(π/2) └───┘ │
q_1: ┤1 Initialize(1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0) ├──────■───────┤ H ├─┼────────■─────────────┼─
│ │┌───┐ │P(π/2) └───┘ │P(π/4) │
q_2: ┤2 ├┤ H ├─■─────────────■──────────────────────X─
└──────────────────────────────┘└───┘
Statevector([0.35355339+0.j, 0.35355339+0.j, 0.35355339+0.j,
0.35355339+0.j, 0.35355339+0.j, 0.35355339+0.j,
0.35355339+0.j, 0.35355339+0.j],
dims=(2, 2, 2))
init: [0.0, 0.35355339059327373, 0.5, 0.3535533905932738, 6.123233995736766e-17, -0.35355339059327373, -0.5, -0.35355339059327384]
Statevector([ 7.71600526e-17+5.22650714e-17j,
1.86749130e-16+7.07106781e-01j,
-6.10667421e-18+6.10667421e-18j,
1.13711443e-16-1.11022302e-16j,
2.16489014e-17-8.96726857e-18j,
-5.68557215e-17-1.11022302e-16j,
-6.10667421e-18-4.94044770e-17j,
-3.30200457e-16-7.07106781e-01j],
dims=(2, 2, 2))QFT gate to Qiskit Aer primitives.If we don't
transpile in this example, then running blows up with:qiskit_aer.aererror.AerError: 'unknown instruction: QFT'The second input is:and the output of that approximately:which can be defined simply as the normalized DFT of the input quantum state vector.
[0, 1j/sqrt(2), 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1j/sqrt(2)]From this we see that the Quantum Fourier transform is equivalent to a direct discrete Fourier transform on the quantum state vector, related: physics.stackexchange.com/questions/110073/how-to-derive-quantum-fourier-transform-from-discrete-fourier-transform-dft
Ciro Santilli's hardware SanDisk Ultra Flair 64 GB Updated 2025-07-16
College of the University of Oxford Updated 2025-07-16
A good explanation of how this insane system came up is given at Video "History of Oxford University by Chris Day (2018)".
The colleges are controlled by its fellows, a small self-electing body of highly successful scholars, usually in the dozens per college number it seems. Each college also usually has different types of fellows, e.g. see he university college page: www.univ.ox.ac.uk/about/college-fellowships/ (archive)
The college system does has its merits though, as it instates a certain sense of Hogwarts "belonging" to a certain group, so it might help students get better support for their learning projects from older students, or through the tutoring system. Of course, all such "belonging" feelings are bad, the correct thing would be to make great online tutorials for all, and answer questions in the open. But oh well, humans are dumb.
The college you are in impacts the quality of your courses, because tutorials are per-college. As of 2023, Ciro Santilli spoke to some students of the Computer science course of the University of Oxford, and was told that in some cases where you don't have anyone who can give the tutorial, you instead get a "class", i.e. a P.h.D. student going through question sheets with no interaction in the C.S. department, rather than a deep interactive discussion over the college fire. How can this system be so broken, it is beyond belief
Wayland Updated 2025-07-16
They've been trying to get it to work forever, and it's beeen buggy forever:
Became the default on Ubuntu 21.04: www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/01/ubuntu-21-04-will-use-wayland-by-default
There are unlisted articles, also show them or only show them.