Floating-point arithmetic Updated +Created
OurBigBook feature Updated +Created
System of units Updated +Created
The key thing in a good system of units is to define units in a way that depends only on physical properties of nature.
Ideally (or basically necessarily?) the starting point generally has to be discrete phenomena, e.g.
What we don't want is to have macroscopic measurement artifacts, (or even worse, the size of body parts! Inset dick joke) as you can always make a bar slightly more or less wide. And even metals evaporate over time! Though the mad people of the Avogadro project still attempted otherwise well into the 2010s!
Standards of measure that don't depend on artifacts are known as intrinsic standards.
Animation of molecular biology processes Updated +Created
Nothing makes the fact that your life is an illusion clearer than animations of molecular biology processes. You just have no idea what is going on inside your own body right now!
And don't get Ciro Santilli started on the brain and the impossibility of free will.
And yet, we live, oblivious to all of it.
Video 1.
ATP synthase in action by HarvardX (2017)
Source.
Video 3.
The Inner Life of the Cell by XVIVO Scientific Animation (2011)
Source. Also created for BioVisions from Harvard University apparently like other amazing videos. It also has the best music.
Video 4.
DNA animations by wehi.tv for Science-Art exhibition by WEHImovies (2018)
Source.
Video 5.
Dengue virus Invades a Cell by XVIVO Scientific Animation (2008)
Source. Reupload by the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, which was reuploaded from www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/den08.sci.life.stru.dengue/dengue-virus-invades-a-cell/ which was reuploaded from wherever crazy place XVIVO put it.
Scientific American Updated +Created
Emergence Updated +Created
Basically the opposite of reductionism.
Computer science Updated +Created
A branch of mathematics that attempts to prove stuff about computers.
Unfortunately, all software engineers already know the answer to the useful theorems though (except perhaps notably for cryptography), e.g. all programmers obviously know that iehter P != NP or that this is unprovable or some other "for all practical purposes practice P != NP", even though they don't have proof.
And 99% of their time, software engineers are not dealing with mathematically formulatable problems anyways, which is sad.
The only useful "computer science" subset every programmer ever needs to know is:
Funnily, due to the formalization of mathematics, mathematics can be seen as a branch of computer science, just like computer science can be seen as a branch of Mathematics!
Physicist Updated +Created
Figure 1.
xkcd 435: Fields arranged by purity
. Source.
2020-04 DECARETA Pedal Spanner Updated +Created
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07VL2MLYY DECARETA Pedal Spanner Bike Pedal Wrench Three-in-one Function Bicycle Pedal Spanner 24mm Front and Rear Axle Spanner Pedal Install Spanner Repair Tool with Anti-Skidding Long Handle (Silver) £10.99.
Got dented the first time I tried to use it in the Kross bicycle (2017). All Amazon reviews say the same thing, should have read first, and bought instead known brand like Park And Tool which is the same price. Material advertized on Amazon: "Steel alloy and rubber".
It must be easy to change your area of study Updated +Created
If the choice of what to learn depend on a years long dependency graph of other obligations, which currently are the increasingly interlinked:
you end up without much choice at all.
The lock-in periods must be much more fluid and shorter term than those, otherwise it makes the almost inevitable pivots to success impossible.
This is something that Ciro Santilli has heard from several people at the end of their undergrad/PhD degrees. Some online mentions:
When I realized the biggest reason to continue my pdh was to be dr helps, that's when decided I should probably leave.
Meta breaking glitch Updated +Created
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.
Video 1.
The Controversial Olofboost by theScore esports (2018)
Source. Descries the boost used by CS:GO pro-team Fnatic during the DreamHack Winter 2014 quarterfinals.
Epic Rap Battles of History Updated +Created
Monty Python has a few precursors to the "random famous people mixed together compting" format, although not in the rap fight format:
Video 3.
Philosophers' Football Match by Monty Python (1972)
Source. If you can understand the jokes, your philosophy level is pretty good. Like more than zero. Wiki page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosophers%27_Football_Match. Ciro loves how that page currently uses a standard footbal match template to describe the match!
Insanely active poster on Stack Overflow 4chan post (2023-07-03) Updated +Created
archive.ph/Dd3aC web.archive.org/web/20230709141533/https://desuarchive.org/g/thread/94445084/#94448535 desuarchive.org/g/thread/94445084/#94448535
Title reply because they can't Ctrl+F: How Ciro Santilli manages to write so much
Most of the thread went into pro/anti gay trashtalk due to Ciro using Gay Putin at the time on his Stack Overflow profile as a useless way to protest the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Some comments:
How does this guy manage to be so active on Stack Overflow? I feel like this disgusting avatar is on at least a quarter of all the active posts.
The answers are always pretty good though.
I came across this schizo's github once, but I had forgotten his name
Obviously severe autism. Also racism homophobia Looks like everything is ok if it's Russia/Chinese...
Reply: it is publicly known that Putin is homophobic as fuck and hates that picture. Therefore we use it. If Putin were heterophobic, we'd post him as hetero.
The only new information:
Reminds me of Xah Lee.
Elliptic curve Updated +Created
An elliptic curve is defined by numbers and . The curve is the set of all points of the real plane that satisfy the Equation 1. "Definition of the elliptic curves"
Equation 1.
Definition of the elliptic curves
.
Figure 1.
Plots of real elliptic curves for various values of and
. Source.
Equation 1. "Definition of the elliptic curves" definies elliptic curves over any field, it doesn't have to the real numbers. Notably, the definition also works for finite fields, leading to elliptic curve over a finite fields, which are the ones used in Elliptic-curve Diffie-Hellman cyprotgraphy.
Quantum mechanics Updated +Created
Quantum mechanics is quite a broad term. Perhaps it is best to start approaching it from the division into:
Key experiments that could not work without quantum mechanics: Section "Quantum mechanics experiment".
Mathematics: there are a few models of increasing precision which could all be called "quantum mechanics":
Ciro Santilli feels that the largest technological revolutions since the 1950's have been quantum related, and will continue to be for a while, from deeper understanding of chemistry and materials to quantum computing, understanding and controlling quantum systems is where the most interesting frontier of technology lies.
Shelter Island Conference Updated +Created
Sponsored by National Academy of Sciences, located in Long Island.
This is where Isidor Rabi exposed experiments carried out on the anomalous magnetic dipole moment and Willis Lamb presented his work on the Lamb shift.
It was a very private and intimate conference, that gathered the best physicists of the area, one is reminded of the style of the Solvay Conference.
ELEGOO Upgraded Electronics Fun Kit Updated +Created
2022-10 ELEGOO Upgraded Electronics Fun Kit www.elegoo.com/products/elegoo-electronics-fun-kits-4-versions Manuals:
Breadboard power supply module MB‐V2:
  • Input voltage: 6.5-9v (DC) via 5.5mm x 2.1mm plug
  • Output voltage: 3.3V/5v
  • Maximum output current: 700 mA
TODO center positive or center negative?
Does not come with AC adapter, getting this one: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08ZN476FW output: DC 9V 1A Power Supply Adapter, Plug 5.5mm x 2.1mm, Center Positive,B rand: Security-01, input: AC 100-240V 50/60 Hz, Cable length: 1.8m
LEDs:
  • maximum Continuous Forward Current: 50 mA
  • under 20 mA
    • Forward Voltage: 2.0 V typical, 2.5 V max
20 mA appears to be the typical operation. So with the 2.0 V drop on 5 V power we want a resistor such that:
for the max 50 mA we would instead have 60 Ohms
Light bulbs Updated +Created
2021-01: kitchen extractor right lamp burnt. Replaced with another Eveready.
2021-01: left back bulb burnt, put in another LE GU10 LED Bulbs
2020-11: kitchen extractor left lamp burnt again. Did I forget to report a right side burn earlier, or is there something wrong with the left one? Also can't find the second bulb that was likely bought last time, so likely the right one burnt and the other bulb was used for it. Buying www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00LOBUDSS "4 x Eveready 20 W 12 V G4 Dimmable Halogen Capsule Light Bulbs Pack of 4" for 3.66 pounds. Worked, felt a bit more yellow than the previous one. Packet documents 2000 hours, 2800K color, 8000+ switches.
2020-08: kitchen right back had been out for a while, bought: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00LN0RPA4 LE GU10 LED Bulbs, Warm White 2700K, 50W Halogen Lamp Equivalent, 4W 350lm, 120° Wide Beam Angle, Recessed or Track Light Bulb, Pack of 5 (Energy Class A++), 5 for 10 pounds.
2019-11: front right kitchen lamp burnt, Sylvania GU10 50W. 50W was likely some useless "incandescent equivalent" measure. Replaced: GE LED 5W 345 lumens 2700K Warm 15k hours, which looks exactly the same.
2019-05: kitchen extractor left lamp burnt. Was: DURA G4 12V20W: www.amazon.co.uk/Halogen-Light-Bulbs-Lamps-5watt/dp/B003IVP12A Replaced: Sainsbury's halogen G4 20W12V.
Toilet mirror lamps Updated +Created
When I came, two Bell GU4 (MR11) 20W 12v.
One burnt. Put in an ASDA halogen one.
ASDA burnt, put in TopLux on right, old Bell left.
2019-01-24, right one burnt a few days ago, old Bell still works. Inner part black, and black dot on the wire. Putting new TopLux again, but this time on the left, old bell on right.
2019-01-24 toilet top lamp also burnt a few days ago, but not at the same time as mirror. Diall, 240V 40W, GU10. Putting in IKEA 240V 35W.
2019-02-02 toilet mirror lamp left (TopLux) burnt. Don't know what to do anymore. Only the magic Bell lamp works.
2019-03-06 toilet top lamp left burnt, IKEA 240V 35W GU10. Putting in another one.
2019-03-28 toilet top lamp right burnt, IKEA 240V 35W GU10. Waiting for people to come to look at transformer, there is definitely something wrong.
2019-04-03 top lamps: replaced with LED (LAP GU10 3W) since lower power, transformer not changed. Mirror lamps: transformer changed, left one replaced with Homebase Halogen 20W 12V. When I came back lamps flickering badly and sometimes not turning on, recalled technician.
2019-04-12 mirror lamp: it was just he connector that was bad, it was changed, also put LEDs there to make it less warm and hopefully have less tear on connector.

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