Incoming links: Ciro Santilli
John Sulston Created 2024-11-26 Updated 2025-07-16
Fun fact, in 2024 Ciro Santilli corrected John's place of birth on hist Nobel Prize page: www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2002/sulston/facts/, details: Getting a list of all currencies from Wikidata with SPARQL.
John von Neumann Updated 2025-07-16
This is the one Ciro Santilli envies the most, because he has such a great overlap with Ciro's interests, e.g.:
John von Neuman - a documentary by the Mathematical Association of America (1966)
Source. Some good testimonies. Some boring. Jundiaí Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli lived there from 1995 to 1997.
Justin Helps Updated 2025-07-16
Creator of Primer
youtube.fandom.com/wiki/Primer gives real identity:Feels exactly the background you'd expect: disilusioned by the educational system, and working to make education better! Great guy! Reminds Ciro Santilli of himself a bit.
- the name is Justin Helps from Minnesota
- dropped out of his PhD that got boring, and used to work at Khan Academy
- LinkedIn gives PhD subject: www.linkedin.com/in/justin-helps/ as materials science
- twitter.com/helpsypoo personal Twitter account
Face reveal at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC91Bf8hQVo
karlcow/markdown-testsuite Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli was contributing to this, when CommonMark left private mode and killed it, thus wasting many hours of Ciro's time.
See also: Ciro Santilli's minor projects.
kenorb Created 2024-11-04 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli feels that this user has a surprisingly similar contribution pattern (one of the top necromancers) and subjects (Python, Bash) to Ciro Santilli.
Ciro tried to contact him to say hi, but it was hard to find a contact. kenorb, feel free to send Ciro a hi one of those days. Ciro knows kenorb knows Ciro exists because kenorb has in the past starred some of Ciro's stuff, e.g. github.com/cirosantilli/bitcoin-inscription-indexer from Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain.
His GitHub github.com/kenorb gives name Rafal W. and links to some trading stuff: github.com/EA31337, especially compatible with his stated location of London.
Rafal is Rafael in Polish: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafał It would normally have the l with a stroke, but ASCII.
His LinkedIn sys the R3 company he works at is actually a blockchain company: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R3_(R3CEV), FOREX appears to be his on-the-side.
Khômiss Updated 2025-07-16
They intentionally projected the idea of a semi scary and cool secret society/cult/Fascist/Gestapo/non-racist Ku Klux Klan-like organization
Khômiss members would wear a face cover whenever they would go out "on duty", notably to break a student's door with a fire axe when some student had fucked up particularly bad.
The Khômiss had an ambivalent character: while on one hand they would punish students that they felt had fucked up, they were actually semi approved by the school's head.
And conversely, they could also play pranks on the school head, e.g. vandalizing their office with funny objects if they had made some decision that was particularly unpopular to the students. This also likely with tacit approval, and as a way to be a "cool independent organization that also represents the students".
As such, the Khômiss aimed to be a sort of a "conscience" of the cohort, punishing the evil deeds of either side.
They were apparently unfortunately disbanded by the school in 2013 it seems, just after Ciro Santilli left. They took some poor student out by car and left him more than 1km outsie of the school for some reason. But he had a cell phone and walked came back, so doesn't feel that serious. Likely the political correctness of the times just caught up with them.
Bibliography:
- fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditions_de_l%27École_polytechnique#La_Khômiss
- 2013 www.leparisien.fr/archives/la-mauvaise-blague-de-trop-a-polytechnique-02-07-2013-2945871.php news about the dissolution of the Khômiss.
- 2012 www.lajauneetlarouge.com/la-khomiss-deux-cents-ans-et-resolument-moderne/ A profile of the Khômiss by the student magazine "La Jeune et la Rouge"
Kinesis Advantage 2 keyboard Updated 2025-07-16
Krusader Updated 2025-07-16
The most powerful GUI file manager ever?? Infinite configurability??
Ciro Santilli wasted some time on it before he gave up on file managers altogether and started using only the CLI with a few aliases.
Kudos Updated 2025-07-16
Ahh, Ciro Santilli was certain this was some slang neologism, but it is actually Greek! So funny. Introduced into English in the 19th century according to: www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kudo.
Kung Fu (1972 TV series) Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli enjoyed watching the temple flashback moments on YouTube.
Combat in the USA is of course terribly ridiculous due to guns Are Worthless.
Largey Brage Updated 2025-07-16
Both of them attended Montessori education at some point. Interesting! Mentioned in a talk by Sergey and highlighted at The Google Story.
They stepped down from leading Google roles in 2019: www.npr.org/2019/12/03/784570156/google-founders-brin-page-step-down-pichai-takes-over-as-alphabet-ceo
As The Google Story puts it about Largey:Ciro Santilli likes that.
Scholarship was not just emphasized in their homes; it was treasured.
Last mile problem Updated 2025-07-16
The exact same problem appears over and over, e.g.:
- transportaion: the last mile of the trip when everyone leaves the train and goes to their different respective offices is the most expensive
- telecommunications: the last mile of wire linking local hubs to actual homes is the most expensive
- electrical grid: same as telecommunications
Ciro Santilli also identified knowledge version of this problem: the missing link between basic and advanced.
Laszlo's pizzas Updated 2025-07-16
On May 19, 2020, Lazlo announced on the Bitcoin Forum at: bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.msg1195Ciro Santilli remembers his father always telling him how when Ciro was small, he would try to grasp the value of money by converting it into how many pizzas he could buy. Well, at least he was not alone.
I'll pay 10,000 Bitcoins for a couple of pizzas.. like maybe 2 large ones so I have some left over for the next day. I like having left over pizza to nibble on later. You can make the pizza yourself and bring it to my house or order it for me from a delivery place, but what I'm aiming for is getting food delivered in exchange for bitcoins where I don't have to order or prepare it myself, kind of like ordering a 'breakfast platter' at a hotel or something, they just bring you something to eat and you're happy!
User bitcoin2paysafe then asks the fundamental practical question:and Lazslo replies:
In which country do you live?
Jacksonville, Florida
zip code 32224
United States
User ender_x then points out afterward:so it is a slightly bad deal even then!
10,000... Thats quite a bit.. you could sell those on www.bitcoinmarket.com/ for $41 USD right now..
Three days later Lazlo's asks again on the thread:and one day later he confirms that the sale was made without naming the buyer:where "jercos" is presumably the Bitcoin Forum username of the buyer. en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Jercos gives his identity as Jeremy Sturdivant.
Pictures: heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/pizza/Thanks jercos!
www.thesun.co.uk/news/15049566/other-bitcoin-pizza-jeremy-sturdivant-fortune-hanyecz/ mentions Jeremy sold too early however:
The cryptocash disappeared when Sturdivant used it to "cover expenses" while travelling the US with his girlfriend.
Laszlo's secondary pizza event
. Source. web.archive.org/web/20210217220810/http://heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/lightning-pizza/ documents another pizza event, as we have different pizza boxes from the most widely known one: web.archive.org/web/20211219130004/http://heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/pizza/ Only image thumbs are archived however. web.archive.org/web/20211016070745/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/15049566/other-bitcoin-pizza-jeremy-sturdivant-fortune-hanyecz/ however shows a large version that The Sun got their hands on before the takedown.
heliacal.net is presumably his personal website? But is was down as of 2023. But we have Wayback Machine archives of course :-) Latest working one of that page 2021: web.archive.org/web/20211219130004/http://heliacal.net/~solar/bitcoin/pizza/ And some other stalking:Laszlo is truly, literally, the nerd who got very very very lucky!!!
- web.archive.org/web/20090812075412/http://heliacal.net/pmwiki
- web.archive.org/web/20091031044500/http://heliacal.net/pmwiki/Main/Cats he's a mega cat owner
- At web.archive.org/web/20091031044606/http://heliacal.net/pmwiki/Main/Jackie we get to stalk his wife a bit:
- web.archive.org/web/20030805153714/http://heliacal.net/~solar/ that home has some files, partly early piracy
On June 12, 2010 Laszlo re-offers:and on August 4 user MoonShadow takes him up:but finally Laszlo withdrawls the offer:so we understand that the sales happened multiple times!!! Also, we understand that he was probably a miner.
This is an open offer by the way.. I will trade 10,000 BTC for 2 of these pizzas any time as long as I have the funds (I usually have plenty). If anyone is interested please let me know. The exchange is favorable for anyone who does it because the 2 pizzas are only about 25 dollars total, maybe 30 if you give the guy a nice tip. If you get me the upgraded extra large ones or something, I can throw in some more bitcoins, just let me know and we'll work something out.
Well I didn't expect this to be so popular but I can't really afford to keep doing it since I can't generate thousands of coins a day anymore. Thanks to everyone who bought me pizza already but I'm kind of holding off on doing any more of these for now.
TODO list all of the potential sales.
Bibliography:
LC circuit Updated 2025-07-16
When Ciro Santilli was studying electronics at the University of São Paulo, the courses, which were heavily inspired from the USA 50's were obsessed by this one! Thinking about it, it is kind of a cool thing though.
That Wikipedia page is the epitome of Wikipedia failure to explain things in a way that is of any interest to any learner. Video 1. "Tutorial on LC resonant circuits by w2aew (2012)" is the opposite.
Tutorial on LC resonant circuits by w2aew (2012)
Source. - youtu.be/hqhV50852jA?t=239 series LC circuit on a breadboard driven by an AC source. Shows behaviour on oscilloscope as source frequency is modified. We clearly see voltage going to zero at resonance. This is why thie circuit can be seen as a filter.
- youtu.be/hqhV50852jA?t=489 shows the parallel LC circuit. We clearly see current reaching a maximum on resonance.
Introduction to LC Oscillators by USAF (1974)
Source. - youtu.be/W31CCN_ZF34?t=740 mentions that LC circuit formation is the root cause for Audio feedback with a quick demo. Not very scientific, but cool.
LC circuit by Eugene Khutoryansky (2016)
Source. Exactly what you would expect from an Eugene Khutoryansky video. The key insight is that the inductor resists to changes in current. So when current is zero, it slows down the current. And when current is high, it tries to keep it going, which recharges the other side of the capacitor. Leanpub Updated 2025-07-16
Founder: Peter Armstrong
ruboss.com/ documents their stack, a somewhat similar choice to OurBigBook.com as of 2021, notably Next.js. But backend in Ruby on Rails. They actually managed Apollo/GraphQL, which Ciro Santilli would have liked, but din't have the patience for.
The founder/CEO Peter Armstrong www.linkedin.com/in/peterburtonarmstrong/ He looks like a nice guy.
Lebesgue integral Updated 2025-07-16
"More complex and general" integral. Matches the Riemann integral for "simple functions", but also works for some "funkier" functions that Riemann does not work for.
Ciro Santilli sometimes wonders how much someone can gain from learning this besides the beauty of mathematics, since we can hand-wave a Lebesgue integral on almost anything that is of practical use. The beauty is good reason enough though.
LessWrong Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli dislikes the fact that they take themselves too seriously. Ciro prefers the jokes and tech approach.
libpng Updated 2025-07-16
PNG reference implementation. Ahh, if feels good to have a dominating open source reference implementation.
Demo of using it by Ciro Santilli: stackoverflow.com/questions/1362945/how-to-decode-a-png-image-to-raw-bytes-from-c-code-with-libpng/36399711#36399711
