graphviz/hello.dot Updated 2025-07-16
Genetics company Updated 2025-07-16
Gravitational constant Updated 2025-07-16
Historical correspondence between Latin and Greek Updated 2025-07-16
Personal computer Updated 2025-07-16
Synthetic data Updated 2025-07-16
Telephone-based system Updated 2025-07-16
This section is about telecommunication systems that are based on top of telephone lines.
Telephone lines were ubiquitous from early on, and many technologies used them to send data, including much after regular phone calls became obsolete with VoIP.
These market forces tended to eventually crush non-telephone-based systems such as telex. Maybe in that case it was just that the name sounded like a thing of the 50's. But still. Dead.
Positrons are electrons travelling back in time Updated 2025-07-16
Stockfish CLI Updated 2025-10-14
Most of what follows is part of the Universal Chess Interface. Tested on Ubuntu 22.10, Stockfish 14.1.
After starting Sweet ASCII art. where:
stockfish on the command line, d (presumably display) contains: +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| r | n | b | q | k | b | n | r | 8
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| p | p | p | p | p | p | p | p | 7
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| | | | | | | | | 6
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| | | | | | | | | 5
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| | | | | | | | | 4
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| | | | | | | | | 3
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| P | P | P | P | P | P | P | P | 2
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| R | N | B | Q | K | B | N | R | 1
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
a b c d e f g h
Fen: rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1
Key: 8F8F01D4562F59FBFen: FEN notationKey: TODO
Move white king's pawn from e2 to e4:Then display again:gives:so we see that the pawn moved.
position startpos moves e2e4d +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| r | n | b | q | k | b | n | r | 8
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| p | p | p | p | p | p | p | p | 7
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| | | | | | | | | 6
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| | | | | | | | | 5
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| | | | | P | | | | 4
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| | | | | | | | | 3
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| P | P | P | P | | P | P | P | 2
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| R | N | B | Q | K | B | N | R | 1
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
a b c d e f g h
Fen: rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 1
Key: B46022469E3DD31BNow let's make Stockfish think for one second what is the next best move for black:gives as the last line:TODO:
go movetime 1000bestmove c7c5 ponder g1f3- what is ponder? Something to do with thinking on the opponent's turn: permanent brain.
- understand the previous lines
To make the move it as suggested for black, we have to either repeat the entire sequence of movements:or alternatively we could also use the previous FEN notation as a starting point;Note how the Universal Chess Interface interface is very simple: we just load a state and then decide what to do next for that one state. The engine holds only one and exactly one state at a time, and you can't even modify it differentially without loading new one from scratch.
position startpos moves e2e4 c7c5d: +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| r | n | b | q | k | b | n | r | 8
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| p | p | | p | p | p | p | p | 7
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| | | | | | | | | 6
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| | | p | | | | | | 5
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| | | | | P | | | | 4
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| | | | | | | | | 3
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| P | P | P | P | | P | P | P | 2
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| R | N | B | Q | K | B | N | R | 1
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
a b c d e f g h
Fen: rnbqkbnr/pp1ppppp/8/2p5/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 2
Key: 4CA78BCE9C2980B0position fen rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq - 0 1 moves c7c5 Primate Updated 2025-07-16
Street reclamation Updated 2025-07-16
Only people who need to drive a car should be allowed to drive a car anywhere near a city, e.g. people who work door to door, people who are disabled, etc.
Countryside driving is fine. If going to a city, you just have to drive to a parking outside of the city where you then take the public transport. And those who live in cities must leave their cars there too.
Everyone else must walk or cycle from home to public transport.
Cars just destroy everything, they make everything ugly:
- this was extremely clear to Ciro Santilli as a cyclist. He previously lived in a place with few cars and the countryside was so pleasant. Then he moved to a place with more cars and it was shocking. It's a mixture of pollution, noise, and the fact that roads cut up the countryside that just make things not pleasant at all. Dual lane roads in particular are just a terrible thing. You can hear them from afar, much before you see them.
- even within cities, cars completely dehumanize the streets. For example, Ciro once lived in a small dead end street, and he would have gladly opened his front window more often to meet the neighbours. But just the noise of cars passing by every so often makes it impractical to work like that.
The Zatoichi effect applies well to the problem of cyclists:This is the main drama faced by cyclists.
- they are not really pedestrians, and pedestrian paths are not suitable to them because they are too narrow, of not smooth, or curved. But pedestrians will always have enough political power to have their paths, because they live around the paths
- they are not really motor vehicles, because motor vehicle paths are too wide and too fast for them. But motor vehicles will always have enough political power to have their paths, because people are lazy and stupid, and because as the world stands, individually you just don't have any reasonable choice to go anywhere.
Lobbying groups:
Program optimization Updated 2025-07-16
String polarization Updated 2025-07-16
This is about the polarization of a string in 3D space. That is the first concept of polarization you must have in mind!
Structure of Hen Egg-White Lysozyme: A Three-dimensional Fourier Synthesis at 2 Å Resolution (1965) Updated 2025-07-16
www.nature.com/articles/206757a0 on Nature 181, 662-666. Paywalled as of 2022. Has some nice pictures in it.
Student Friendly Quantum Field Theory by Robert D Klauber (2013) Updated 2025-07-16
Students must have a flexible choice of what to learn Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro believes that the only thing students must be forced to learn is to speak read and write English and that a teacher's main job after that is to help students find their next big goals and also ties into the backward design philosophy.
Everything else, the student must choose.
This idea is generally known as self-directed learning.
This is most notable in University entry examinations of poor countries, where students often have to waste one extra year of their lives to go through preparation for the useless university entry exams. And then, surprise surprise, if they actually get in, they find that this is not what they really wanted to do, and they just go through to the end miserably because they understandably they don't want to risk another year of their lives.
And importantly: It must be easy to change your area of study.
Steve Jobs's university dropout stories from Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address also come to mind.
Interesting projects:
The Purpose of Education by Noam Chomsky (2012)
Source. - 0:00 discusses Education as a system of indoctrination: indoctrination for people to comply with the Establishment and pass tests, vs the Age of Enlightenment in which education should help you achieve your own intellectual/life goals. He suggests without specific evidence that after the 60's there was explicit intervention in the US to increase the indoctrination aspect, of which debt is a part.
- 15.45: assessment vs autonomy: exams are useless, except as a tool to help improve teaching and self assess. Tells anecdote about little girl who wanted to learn more about a subject, asked teacher how to learn more, teacher said you can't, you have to study for this useless national exam instead which will determine your future, and if I'm rehired or not.
Godfrey Hounsfield, 1979 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine:[ref]
They tried hard to educate me but I responded only to physics and mathematics
Subtle is the Lord by Abraham Pais (1982) Updated 2025-07-16
Sulfur compound Updated 2025-07-16
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