Incoming links: Ciro Santilli's sport practice
Where most of Ciro Santilli's ancestors came from, and why Ciro has the Italian nationality as well as Brazilian.
More specifically his paternal line comes from Gissi in the Abruzzo region.
Ciro feels really bad by the fact that he does not speak Italian and has never visited Gissi as of 2020.
He would likely be able to learn Italian in like 3 months because it is so similar to Portuguese and French which he already speaks.
And a cycling visit maybe? That would be amazing! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giro_d'Abruzzo | www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW7wqa3vNU8&list=UU35qUU5iZPvuzcre43EV8bA&index=25
For what it is worth though, Ciro Santilli does honestly love Europe, and feels a strong desire to make it even awesomer, along with the rest of the world. Despite this being a hopeless attempt due to having more than one natural language is bad for the world.
Ciro Santilli never did any illegal drugs, because he:so don't expect any amazing stories here.
- doesn't want to help fund organized crime. Notably, Ciro is for complete legalization of drugs of all drugs
- already has better more sustainable drugs like love, cycling, learning the natural sciences and fame. He (or more realistically, the world) chose life for him.
Like LDS believers, Ciro never drinks coffee nor smokes, and only drinks alcohol and tea sparingly, because they are all addictive drugs and bring no net increase of energy and concentration.
Ciro prefers to only enjoy a glass of tea when going out cycling on a cold day (Earl gray, with milk, no sugar), or get a half pint of beer when going out with friends to a pub.
Ciro only got reasonably drunk twice on his life:
- once when he was quite young, likely pre-10 years old, while visiting an uncle's home, and adults were having a very nice sweet and thick type of alcoholic cocktail, and Ciro drank a bit too much and that made him really really stupid
- once while studying at University of São Paulo, somehow someone was giving free beers at one of the parties (at which Ciro practiced Cirodance). And since Ciro had always been a cheap-ass, he thought, hey, this is a good chance to try it out. Ciro remembers that this made him a bit euphoric, active, very stupid, and a bit horny (though of course, he got no pussy as usual).
Later in life, around the time of his wedding, there were guests around all the time, and he was drinking beer with them all the time. Then one day, during lunch, Ciro felt a weirdly strong desire to drink one more pint. It was at this point that Ciro realised first-hand what mild, but real, alcohol addiction felt like, and he didn't get that drink, and swore from then on to never drink more than one glass a week, and only with friends at a bar after work. Richard Feynman tells a very similar story on his book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman chapter O Americano, Outra Vez!, see: Section "Richard Feynman's drug use".
If any of you ever read this, do send me an email to Ciro Santilli saying hi and we can agree on a clear separation of usernames.
Although if you are just starting out, maybe you should just go from scratch with a unique Internet alias.
A younger unrelated Argentinian homonym who likes soccer that can be found through Google:
Ciro used to like playing soccer too! :-)
www.ancestry.com.au/genealogy/records/ciro-santilli-24-bkmssg documents a "Ciro Santilli" born 31 Jan 1887 at Castelvécchio in Subéquo, L'Aquila, in the Abruzzo region, just like Ciro Santilli's ancestors. Parents Francesco Santilli and Anna Silveri. The page also mentions:
- Ciro Santilli found in New York, Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957
- Ciro Santilli found in Oregon, Naturalization Records 1865-1991
If Achilles' had his heel, Ciro had his knee.
First during University in Brazil while trying a kick up during the development of Cirodance his knee went a bit weird for a few weeks.
Then, just after arriving in France for École Polytechnique, the boys were playing indoor soccer, and to impress the girls Ciro was playing really hard, even took off his shirt, and suddenly when he was running by himself his knee snapped, he fell and it hurt like hell.
Ciro was on crutches for a few weeks, but the inflammation went away, but then he tried to play more soccer, but the knee was not as stable as before, and once he tried to run full speed, it slipped and hurt him a bit more (less severely) and so he gave up. For some reason it was not visible on the tomography made at the hospital.
Maybe Ciro should have investigated more though, certainly an experienced doctor could have done a hand pressure exam to determine which joint was damaged manually even. That was a medical failure.
So from this day on Ciro gave up on all interesting sports, and confined himself to more repetitive stuff like gym weights and cycling: Section "Ciro Santilli's sport practice". At Polytechnique he was forced to take up swimming as his mandatory sport, that was unbearably boring.
This defect is likely genetic since a close relative had similar problems.
But oh well, his then not-even girlfriend was impressed enough by the soccer or sorry enough for the sucker to marry him, so it worked out.
Ciro Santilli has an undiagnozed condition where his upper legs and lower torso often start to itch when he runs, to the point of being extremely annoying and removing all pleasure form the activity.
If some doctor knows why this could be, please tell him!!!
The problem is a bit hard to reproduce however, and Ciro hasn't been able to determine which exact condition triggers it: temperature, nutrition, something else?
Ciro believes that this is not chiefly due to transpiration, but rather to the impact motion that running does on the muscles, as he has felt something similar on his arms some times while cycling in very rough terrain, which made his arms shake in a similar fashion. or for example if he has a water bottle on a tightly tied backpack that rubs his back, then the back itches at that point.
Also, running on a threadmill is not a problem at all. Ciro believes that this is because the threadmill is better amortized, and therefore does not cause the same mechanical stress required to create the itching as running on pavement.
Interestingly, Ciro didn't feel that at all when he played soccer enthusiastically as a child, and he was one of the fastest runners of the group for sure at that time. So he's not sure if it started when he got older, or if it is just because the difference in workloads between soccer and running.
Found: www.healthline.com/health/fitness/runners-itch which names "runner's itch".
youtu.be/PNgYW5N95z8?t=945 "My back itches" after riding on a bumpy makeshift motorcycle.
- kimchi
- reverse debugging
- E Ink
- web archiving
- Buildroot
- integrated development environments
- degreaser
- UML: while it might seem like a over-thought thing and likely is, the basic idea that understanding "one to one vs one to many vs many to many" relationships between objects and which object can see which object, is a fantastic approach towards understanding complex object oriented code
- open source software, including open source scientific computing consultancies
- computer
- FOSDEM. Ciro Santilli attended in 2016, and felt extremely good together with all those amazingly smart open source hackers: www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-open-source-conferences/answer/Ciro-Santilli
- Sass
- vimium
- bisection
- vector graphics, notably scalable Vector Graphics
- ASCII art
- OAuth
- command-line interface
- virtualization
- Anusol
- autodidacticism and self-directed learning
- end-to-end encryption
- The Criterion Collection
- version control
- SQLite
- Guerrilla Mail
- POSIX
- static website
- Freeman Dyson
- open access academic publishers
- unconditional basic income
- transhumanism
- 2FA, and notably 2FA apps
- human-readable formats
- wealth tax
- Reproducible builds
- F-Droid
- Can't get you out of my head by Adam Curtis (2021)
- drug liberalization
- Wiki-binge
- molecular Sciences Course of the University of São Paulo
- meal deal
- clade, as opposed to taxonomic ranks
- lingua franca, see also: having more than one natural language is bad for the world
- rsync
- zip hoodies
Since Ciro Santilli is Brazilian, this is understandably a common conversation opener.
And rightly so, since soccer in particular is truly ridiculously popular in Brazil, where "what is your local soccer team?" is just as valid a conversation starter as "Which city are you from?".
So here goes Ciro's 2020 cynic answer:
I currently root actively against Brazil.
The ironic reason is simple: maybe is Brazil loses more on this useless art, then maybe people will get tired of it, and instead invest on more useful and beautiful arts.
Notably, what Ciro really wants people to root for are:
- the number of Brazilian Nobel Prizes, which is zero, yes, zero, as of 2020, despite a population of 210 million people. But thank God for our one Field Medal, what an epic start, even though Mathematics is useless.
- the number of high tech companies that have a global impact, which is likely extremely low as of 2020, and must contain only a few mammoths that dominate some local commodity market and therefore got enough money from that to expand a bit of technology worldwide. But they were mostly not classic tech startups that did world innovation from the start.
- how low your country's Gini coefficient is
Don't get Ciro wrong.
Observing professionals who do it amazingly can be beautiful.
But why the F do you have to root for a team unless your wife or children are playing in it (and even then..., how will that help?)?
What will you get from that?
Even if it is your national team, why does it matter if they win or lose?
Hooliganism just takes that uselessness to a hole new level.
Now some confessions.
A five year old Ciro will never forget when the feeling of Brazil won the 1994 World Cup on the penalties and everyone went mad that evening.
A nine year old Ciro stopped watching the 1998 World Cup Final of Brazil vs France half way during the 3-0 massacre and went to his front garden to kick his soccer ball on the metallic fence gate which represented a goal.
After that, Ciro went through puberty he guesses, and noticed that the natural sciences are just cooler than this soccer watching bullshit.
Football, Football, Football by Mitchell and Webb
. Source. Why football is the most popular sport in the world by Desmond Morris
. Source. Interview by Web of Stories. His thesis is that football is the sport that looks most like a hunt, the scoring of a goal being the kill of the prey, and thus appeals to people's Paleolithic hunting habits the most. He feels it is more like hunting than war, and that the opposing team is just there to add some difficulty to scoring. He mentions that soccer has all the fundamental aspects of hunting: running after something, aiming, and hunting in a pack of allies. Ciro agrees with this dude. Ciro also adds that the fact that each soccer match has few goals, e.g. as opposed to basketball, makes it much more like a hunt, where you score few large kills per hunt.
Ciro Santilli lived in Santos from about the year 1998 to 2007, with a 10 month hiatus in Coventry, UK, until he went to the University of São Paulo.
Santos is the nearest beach city to São Paulo City, and for this reason:
- the largest port of Latin America in 2018, through which large chunks of the precious coffee export exited Brazil in the 19th century. There is a Coffee museum in Santos.This importance is also linked to the fact that Santos is one of the oldest european cities in Brazil, being founded in 1546. From this you can infer that it was a good port. One reason for this is obvious if you look at the map of the city: the neighbouring towns of Praia Grande and Guarujá form a large protected bay where ships may safely dock.
- a popular local tourist destination that gets crowded on hot weekends, with the beach line being fully built with tall buildings from the 60's, many of which became incredibly bent due to the inadequate technology used on such soft soil
Ciro idolizes Santos as the perfect location to live nature-wise due to its amazing wide sandy beach, in which Ciro spent endless hours walking on the sand and on the largest beachfront garden in the world (archive), meditating, and playing some soccer after school was over. Santos is also the city where Pelé first played professionally.
Ciro has visited Santos several times after leaving Brazil. Doing this gives him a weird feeling of having a separate life, in which time passes 2 weeks every few years. Of course, as your family grows, it gets harder and harder to go back home, and your family members might want to just go travel to more interesting places than just stay at your wonderful beach which you love in part due to nostalgia.
Ciro is also fond of the concept of the small public buildings near the beach garden (postos de praia), which serve different cultural activities: library, comic book store, art cinema, surf school. It is such a shame that the library and comic book ones are in such bad shape as of 2020, old books and poor people who go there to sleep a bit in the barely working air conditioning. Ciro fantasizes how those could instead be cultural hubs for the gathering of the brightest artists, and scientists, of town. Maybe they are just too small. Maybe it is not within the realm of possibility of public service. Maybe, we should focus instead in the poorer regions, far form the beach. But the dream remains.
Santos only has one natural defect: mosquitoes. By the sea it is fine because the wind is strong, and they don't like salt water. But anywhere else, you will be eaten alive, and maybe get dengue, Ciro got it once. Gene drive, please.
This instagram page has several drone videos of the region: www.instagram.com/malta.drone
Canal 5 on the beach by VicTrindade (2017)
Source. This is one of Santos 7 old canals, which are still in use and serve to reduce floodings in the city, which are caused by the strong tropical rains that fall on the city. This is particularly important to keep the mosquito population under some control. All canals were built in the first third of the 20th century, except canal 7 which is from 1968[ref]. The canals have normally very shallow water when it is not raining, and since it is rain water they are basically clean. There are other canals which are/were used for sewage, but then are not open air. The canals now serve as handy reference points and practical avenues in town, as well as being surrounded with nice trees that provide shade and drop small inedible purple fruit that will stain your car for all eternity. They do scar the beach line a bit it must be said, but it's part of the charm of the city, and they serve as good reference points for runners.