Ciro Santilli @cirosantilli 37

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Electronic voting  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

This is a must if the people want to regain control of their society from apathetic politicians.

I would also increase voter percentage due to convenience, and reduce the weight of voting fraud cases, as everyone would be able to check that their own vote was counted correctly.

And then, we would be able to have referendums for basically any important decision being made. No need to go out on the streets and waste your time in a mass protest! Just vote!

It is possible to implement anonymous electronic voting with ring signatures, an algorithm also used by Monero, an anonymity focused cryptocurrency, as mentioned e.g. on this 2004 paper eprint.iacr.org/2004/281.pdf. The system can be set in a way such that you can only deanonymize someone if everyone else, or a very large number of people, conspire against that person.

The same system could also be used to setup forums where only citizens of the country could comment and propose changes and vote on them.

With electronic voting, we could have a system where you can let someone you trust vote for you automatically, or vote automatically for certain subjects alone, a bit like we do by electing senators. But then you would also be able to override specific votes if you wanted to.

In this system therefore, anyone who can proxy vote has to have their vote public, and placed in a decent website that shows clearly who voted for what.

Related:

www.vote-coin.com/ allows you to delegate your voting power to someone else, that's perfect!

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Electroweak interaction  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

Electroweak Theory and the Origin of the Fundamental Forces by PBS Space Time (2020)

Source. Unsatisfactory, as usual.

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Elementary charge  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

Experiments to measure it:

oil drop experiment

The 2019 redefinition of the SI base units defines it precisely and uses it as a measure of charge: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_redefinition_of_the_SI_base_units#Ampere

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Jazz fusion  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

Ciro Santilli's favorite music genre.

Ciro's 2020 perfect Friday evening: jazz fusion + study quantum field theory on an Amazon Kindle. Ahhhhhh.

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ELF Hello World Tutorial / Executable hd  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

Running:

hd hello_world.out

gives:

00000000  7f 45 4c 46 02 01 01 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |.ELF............|
00000010  02 00 3e 00 01 00 00 00  b0 00 40 00 00 00 00 00  |..>.......@.....|
00000020  40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  10 01 00 00 00 00 00 00  |@...............|
00000030  00 00 00 00 40 00 38 00  02 00 40 00 06 00 03 00  |....@.8...@.....|
00000040  01 00 00 00 05 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000050  00 00 40 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 40 00 00 00 00 00  |..@.......@.....|
00000060  d7 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  d7 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000070  00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00  01 00 00 00 06 00 00 00  |.. .............|
00000080  d8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  d8 00 60 00 00 00 00 00  |..........`.....|
00000090  d8 00 60 00 00 00 00 00  0d 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |..`.............|
000000a0  0d 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00  |.......... .....|
000000b0  b8 01 00 00 00 bf 01 00  00 00 48 be d8 00 60 00  |..........H...`.|
000000c0  00 00 00 00 ba 0d 00 00  00 0f 05 b8 3c 00 00 00  |............<...|
000000d0  bf 00 00 00 00 0f 05 00  48 65 6c 6c 6f 20 77 6f  |........Hello wo|
000000e0  72 6c 64 21 0a 00 2e 73  79 6d 74 61 62 00 2e 73  |rld!...symtab..s|
000000f0  74 72 74 61 62 00 2e 73  68 73 74 72 74 61 62 00  |trtab..shstrtab.|
00000100  2e 74 65 78 74 00 2e 64  61 74 61 00 00 00 00 00  |.text..data.....|
00000110  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
00000150  1b 00 00 00 01 00 00 00  06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000160  b0 00 40 00 00 00 00 00  b0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |..@.............|
00000170  27 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |'...............|
00000180  10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000190  21 00 00 00 01 00 00 00  03 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |!...............|
000001a0  d8 00 60 00 00 00 00 00  d8 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |..`.............|
000001b0  0d 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000001c0  04 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000001d0  11 00 00 00 03 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000001e0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  e5 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000001f0  27 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |'...............|
00000200  01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000210  01 00 00 00 02 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000220  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  90 02 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000230  08 01 00 00 00 00 00 00  05 00 00 00 07 00 00 00  |................|
00000240  08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  18 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000250  09 00 00 00 03 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000260  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  98 03 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000270  4c 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |L...............|
00000280  01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000290  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000002a0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 03 00 01 00  |................|
000002b0  b0 00 40 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |..@.............|
000002c0  00 00 00 00 03 00 02 00  d8 00 60 00 00 00 00 00  |..........`.....|
000002d0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  01 00 00 00 04 00 f1 ff  |................|
000002e0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000002f0  11 00 00 00 00 00 02 00  d8 00 60 00 00 00 00 00  |..........`.....|
00000300  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  1d 00 00 00 00 00 f1 ff  |................|
00000310  0d 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000320  00 00 00 00 04 00 f1 ff  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000330  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  2d 00 00 00 10 00 01 00  |........-.......|
00000340  b0 00 40 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |..@.............|
00000350  34 00 00 00 10 00 02 00  e5 00 60 00 00 00 00 00  |4.........`.....|
00000360  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  40 00 00 00 10 00 02 00  |........@.......|
00000370  e5 00 60 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |..`.............|
00000380  47 00 00 00 10 00 02 00  e8 00 60 00 00 00 00 00  |G.........`.....|
00000390  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 68 65 6c 6c 6f 5f 77  |.........hello_w|
000003a0  6f 72 6c 64 2e 61 73 6d  00 68 65 6c 6c 6f 5f 77  |orld.asm.hello_w|
000003b0  6f 72 6c 64 00 68 65 6c  6c 6f 5f 77 6f 72 6c 64  |orld.hello_world|
000003c0  5f 6c 65 6e 00 5f 73 74  61 72 74 00 5f 5f 62 73  |_len._start.__bs|
000003d0  73 5f 73 74 61 72 74 00  5f 65 64 61 74 61 00 5f  |s_start._edata._|
000003e0  65 6e 64 00                                       |end.|
000003e4

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ELF Hello World Tutorial / Generate the example  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

Let's break down a minimal runnable Linux x86-64 example:

hello_world.asm

section .data
    hello_world db "Hello world!", 10
    hello_world_len  equ $ - hello_world
section .text
    global _start
    _start:
        mov rax, 1
        mov rdi, 1
        mov rsi, hello_world
        mov rdx, hello_world_len
        syscall
        mov rax, 60
        mov rdi, 0
        syscall

Compiled with:

nasm -w+all -f elf64 -o 'hello_world.o' 'hello_world.asm'
ld -o 'hello_world.out' 'hello_world.o'

TODO: use a minimal linker script with -T to be more precise and minimal.

Versions:

NASM 2.10.09
Binutils version 2.24 (contains ld)
Ubuntu 14.04

We don't use a C program as that would complicate the analysis, that will be level 2 :-)

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ELF Hello World Tutorial / Index 0 section  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

Contained in bytes 0x40 to 0x7F.

The first section is always magic: www.sco.com/developers/gabi/2003-12-17/ch4.sheader.html says:

If the number of sections is greater than or equal to SHN_LORESERVE (0xff00), e_shnum has the value SHN_UNDEF (0) and the actual number of section header table entries is contained in the sh_size field of the section header at index 0 (otherwise, the sh_size member of the initial entry contains 0).

There are also other magic sections detailed in Figure 4-7: Special Section Indexes.

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ELF Hello World Tutorial / Minimal ELF file  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

It is non-trivial to determine what is the smallest legal ELF file, or the smaller one that will do something trivial in Linux.

Some impressive attempts:

In this example we will consider a saner hello world example that will better capture real life cases.

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ELF Hello World Tutorial / .rel.text  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

Besides sh_type == SHT_RELA, there also exists SHT_REL, which would have section name .text.rel (not present in this object file).

Those represent the same struct, but without the addend, e.g.:

typedef struct {
    Elf64_Addr  r_offset;
    Elf64_Xword r_info;
} Elf64_Rela;

The ELF standard says that in many cases the both can be used, and it is just a matter of convenience.

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Jazz fusion musician  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

Ciro Santilli's favorites, including album when they're more of a one hit wonder:

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JCVI-syn3A  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

essential metabolism for a minimal cell (2019) mentions:

JCVI-syn3A, a robust minimal cell with a 543 kbp genome and 493 genes, provides a versatile platform to study the basics of life.

NCBI: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/CP016816.2

Based on JCVI-syn3.0, they've added a few genes back to give better phenotypes, including slightly faster duplication time. Because the development cycle time is your God is also true in biology.

As of essential metabolism for a minimal cell (2019) it had only 91 genes of unknown function! So funny.

Bibliograpy:

Figure 1.
JCVI-syn3A during cell division by David Goodsell (2022)
Source. A description is present at: cdn.rcsb.org/pdb101/goodsell/2022_JCVI-syn3A.pdf Integrative Illustration of a JCVI-syn3A Minimal Cell by David Goodsell (2022) which describes everything in the picture.

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JCVI-syn3B  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.09.19.508583v1.full

CVI-syn3B strains differ from JCVI-syn3.0 by the presence of 19 additional non-essential genes that result in a more easily manipulated cell. JCVI-syn3B additionally includes a dual loxP landing pad that enables easy Cre recombinase mediated insertion of genes

It is also interesting to see how they are interested in co-culture with HeLa cells, presumably to enable infectious bacterial disease studies.

At biology.indiana.edu/news-events/news/2023/lennon-minimal-cells.html (2023) they let it re-evove to it it would regain some fitness, and it did.

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Jean-Luc Ponty  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

Many good albums, Ciro Santilli's favorites:

Figure 1. Source.

Jean-Luc Ponty Live in Chicago on "Soundstage" (1976)

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Jena SPARQL hello world  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

They have a tutorial at: jena.apache.org/tutorials/sparql.html

Once you've done the Apache Jena CLI tools setup we can query all users with Full Name (FN) "John Smith" directly fom the rdf/vcard.ttl Turtle RDF file with the rdf/vcard.rq SPARQL query:

sparql --data=rdf/vcard.ttl --query=rdf/vcard.rq

and that outputs:

---------------------------------
| x                             |
=================================
| <http://somewhere/JohnSmith/> |
---------------------------------

Bibliography:

stackoverflow.com/questions/41959550/cli-tool-ala-csvsql-for-sparql-and-ttl-n3-files-hello-world-example-for

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Jerry Sanders  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

AMD Founder Jerry Sanders Interview (2002)

Source. Source: exhibits.stanford.edu/silicongenesis/catalog/hr396zc0393. Fun to watch.

youtu.be/HqWWoaA8pIs?t=779 Newton Minow mandated UHF on all television sets in 1961, and the oscillator needed for the tuner was one of the first major non-military products from Fairchild, the 28918 (?).
youtu.be/HqWWoaA8pIs?t=1053 Fairchild had won the first round of a Minuteman contract, but lost the second one due to poor management

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Jimmy Wales  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

One thing to note is that Jimmy was a finance worker before starting wikipdia, e.g. he had capital to hire Larry Sanger.

Maybe that's the way to go about it, make money first, and later on change the world.

Starting just after the beginning of the Internet can't hurt either. Though tooling must have been insane back then.

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Joan Feynman  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

My brother, Richard: How he came to be so smart interview with Joan Feynman by Web of Stories (2019)

Source. Ah, shame to see Joan so old. Some good stories. The tiles game thing was not mentioned in Genius: Richard Feynman and Modern Physics by James Gleick (1994) I think.

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John Bardeen  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

The Story of John Bardeen at the University of Illinois (2010)

youtu.be/OyV8qSwGUHU?t=976 of when Bardeen demoed the transistor in class is particularly memorable
youtu.be/OyV8qSwGUHU?t=1105 some of his golf colleagues didn't know he had won a Nobel Prize!
youtu.be/OyV8qSwGUHU?t=1260 good jokes about receiving the second Nobel Prize
Congratulations on the second prize. With the third you get to keep the king!
The king asked my mother [Bardeen's son speaking]: "Where's he family"? The mother answered: "Well, they're at home or school". And the kind replied: "Well, next time, bring them!"

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Join two images side-by-side  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

stackoverflow.com/questions/20737061/merge-images-side-by-sidehorizontally/63575228#63575228

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Join two SVG side-by-side from the command line  Updated 2025-07-11  +Created 1970-01-01

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