Incoming links: GitHub
Check out: OurBigBook.com, the best way to publish your scientific knowledge. It's an open source note taking system that can publish from lightweight markup files in your computer both to a multi-user mind melding dynamic website, or as a static website. It's like Wikipedia + GitHub + Stack Overflow + Obsidian mashed up. Source code: github.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook.
Sponsor me to work on this project: 100k USD = I quit me job and work on it one year full time. Status: ~144k / 200k USD reached: 1st year locked-in, 2nd year stretch goal open at 200k USD. 1M USD = I retire and do it forever. How to donate: Section "Sponsor Ciro Santilli's work on OurBigBook.com".
I reached 100k USD after a 1000 Monero donation, so I quit my job for 1 year starting 1st June 2024 to solve as many STEM courses as I can from a world leading university to try and kickstart The Higher Education Revolution. If I reach 200k USD, then I'll do it for two years instead. A second year greatly improve chances of success: year one I solve a bunch of courses, year two I come guns blazing with the content and expand further.
Mission: to live in a world where you can learn university-level mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and engineering from perfect free open source books that anyone can write to get famous. More rationale: Section "OurBigBook.com"
Explaining things is my superpower, e.g. I was top user #39 on Stack Overflow in 2023[ref][ref] and I have a few 1k+ star educational GitHub repositories[ref][ref][ref][ref]. Now I want to bring that level of awesomeness to masters level Mathematics and Physics. But I can't do it alone! So I created OurBigBook.com to allow everyone to work together towards the perfect book of everything.
My life's goal is to bring hardcore university-level STEM open educational content to all ages. Sponsor me at github.com/sponsors/cirosantilli starting from 1$/month so I can work full time on it. Further information: Section "Sponsor Ciro Santilli's work on OurBigBook.com". Achieving what I call "free gifted education" is my Nirvana.
This website is written in OurBigBook Markup, and it is published on both cirosantilli.com (static website) and outbigbook.om/cirosantilli (multi-user OurBigBook Web instance). Its source code is located at: github.com/cirosantilli/cirosantilli.github.io and also at
cirosantilli.com/_dir and it is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 unless otherwise noted.To contact Ciro, see: Section "How to contact Ciro Santilli". He likes to talk with random people of the Internet.
GitHub | Stack Overflow | LinkedIn | YouTube | Twitter | Wikipedia | Zhihu 知乎 | Weibo 微博 | Other accounts
Besides that, I'm also a freedom of speech slacktivist and recreational cyclist. I like Chinese traditional music and classic Brazilian pop. Opinions are my own, but they could be yours too. Tax the rich.
Let's create an educational system with:
- no distinction between university and high school, students just go as fast as they can to what they really want without stupid university entry exams
- fully open source learning material
- on-demand examinations that anyone can easily take without prerequisites
- granular entry selection only for space in specific laboratories or participation in specific novel research projects
I offer:
- online private tutoring for:
- any STEM university course
- passionate younger STEM students (any age) who want to learn university level material and beyond. Can your kid be the next Fields Medalist or Nobel Prize winner? I'm here to help, especially if you are filthy rich! I focus moving students forward as fast as they want on and on producing useful novel tutorials and results
Let your child be my Emile, and me be their Adolfo Amidei, and let's see how far they can go! I will help take your child:and achieve their ambitious STEM goals!- into the best universities
- into the best PhD programs
- educational consulting for institutions looking to improve their STEM courses
- do you know that course or teacher that consistently gets bad reviews every year? I'll work with the teacher to turn the problem around!
- are you looking to create a consistent open educational resources offering to increase your institutions internationally visibility? I can help with that too.
My approach is to:For minors, parents are welcome to join video calls, and all interactions with the student will be recorded and made available to parents.
- propose interesting research projects. The starting point is always deciding the end goal: Section "Backward design"
- learn what is needed to do the project together with the student(s)
- publish any novel results or tutorials/tools produced freely licensed online, and encourage the student to do the same (Section "Let students learn by teaching", digital garden)
I have a proven track of explaining complex concepts in an interesting and useful way. I work for the learner. Teaching statement at: Section "How to teach". Pricing to be discussed. Contact details at: Section "How to contact Ciro Santilli".
I am particularly excited about pointing people to the potential next big things, my top picks these days are:I am also generally interested in:
- 20th century physics, notably AMO and condensed matter
- the history of science, and in particular trying to look at seminal papers of a field
Ciro Santilli's amazing Stack Overflow profile
. Ciro contributes almost exclusively by answering question he Googles into out of his own need, and never by refreshing the newest question of big tags for low hanging fruit! More information at: Section "Ciro Santilli's Stack Overflow contributions".Introduction to the OurBigBook Project
. Source. OurBigBook Web topics demo
. Source. The OurBigBook topic feature allows users to "merge their minds" in a "sort by upvote"-stack overflow-like manner for each subject. This is the killer feature of OurBigBook Web. More information at: docs.ourbigbook.com/ourbigbook-web-topics.OurBigBook dynamic article tree demo
. Source. The OurBigBook dynamic tree feature allows any of your headers to be the toplevel h1 header of a page, while still displaying its descendants. SEO loves this, and it also allows users to always get their content on the correct granularity. More information at: docs.ourbigbook.com/ourbigbook-web-dynamic-article-tree.OurBigBook local editing and publishing demo
. Source. With OurBigBook you can store your content as plaintext files in a Lightweight markup, and then publish that to either OurBigBook.com to get awesome multi-user features, or as a static website where you are in full control. More information at: docs.ourbigbook.com/publish-your-content.Top Down 2D continuous game with Urho3D C++ SDL and Box2D for Reinforcement learning by Ciro Santilli (2018)
Source. More information: Section "Ciro's 2D reinforcement learning games". This is Ciro's underwhelming stab at the fundamental question: Can AGI be trained in simulations?. This project could be taken much further.
-------------------------------------
| Force of Will 3 U U |
| --------------------------------- |
| | //////////// | |
| | ////() ()\////\ | |
| | ///_\ (--) \///\ | |
| | ) //// \_____///\\ | |
| | ) \ / / / / | |
| | ) / \ | | / _/ | |
| | ) \ ( ( / / / / \ | |
| | / ) ( ) / ( )/( ) \ | |
| | \(_)/(_)/ /UUUU \ \\\/ | | |
| .---------------------------------. |
| Interrupt |
| ,---------------------------------, |
| | You may pay 1 life and remove a | |
| | blue card in your hand from the | |
| | game instead of paying Force of | |
| | Will's casting cost. Effects | |
| | that prevent or redirect damage | |
| | cannot be used to counter this | |
| | loss of life. | |
| | Counter target spell. | |
| `---------------------------------` |
| l
| Illus. Terese Nelsen |
-------------------------------------Code 1. .
Artist unknown, uploaded December 2014. Part of Section "Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain" where Ciro Santilli maintains a curated list of such interesting inscriptions.
This was a small project done by Ciro for artistic purposes that received some attention due to the incredible hype surrounding cryptocurrencies at the time. Ciro Santilli's views on cryptocurrencies are summarized at: Section "Are cryptocurrencies useful?".
YellowRobot.jpgJPG image fully embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain depicting some kind of cut material art depicting a yellow robot, inscribed on January 29, 2017.
Ciro Santilli found this image and others during his research for Section "Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain" by searching for image fingerprints on every transaction payload of the blockchain with a script.
The image was uploaded by EMBII, co-creator of the AtomSea & EMBII upload mechanism, which was responsible for a large part of the image inscriptions in the Bitcoin blockchain.
The associated message reads:This is one of Ciro Santilli's favorite AtomSea & EMBII uploads, as it perfectly encapsules the "medium as an art form" approach to blockchain art, where even non-novel works can be recontextualized into something interesting, here depicting an opposition between the ephemeral and the immutable.
Chiharu [EMBII's Japanese wife] and I found this little yellow robot while exploring Chicago. It will be covered by tar or eventually removed but this tribute will remain. N 41.880778 E -87.629210
At twitter.com/EMBII4U/status/1615389973343268871 EMBII announced that he would be giving off shares of that image on Sup!?, a Bitcoin-backed NFT system he was; making. In December 2023, he gave some shares of the robot to Ciro Santilli.
2010 Wayback Machine archive of starwarsweb.net
. This website was used as one of the CIA 2010 covert communication websites, a covert system the CIA used to communicate with its assets. More details at: Section "CIA 2010 covert communication websites".
Ciro Santilli had some naughty OSINT fun finding some of the websites of this defunct network in 2023 after he heard about the 2022 Reuters report on the matter, which for the first time gave away 7 concrete websites out of a claimed 885 total found. As of November 2023, Ciro had found about 350 of them.
2010 Wayback Machine archive of noticiasmusica.net
. This is another website that was used as one of the CIA 2010 covert communication websites. This website is written in Brazilian Portuguese, and therefore suggests that the CIA had assets in Brazil at the time, and thus was spying on a "fellow democracy".
Although Snowden's revelations made it extremely obvious to the world that the USA spies upon everyone outside of the Five Eyes, including fellow democracies, it is rare to have such a direct a concrete proof of it visible live right on the Wayback Machine. Other targeted democracies include France, Germany, Italy and Spain. More details at: USA spying on its own allies.
Diagram of the fundamental theorem on homomorphisms by Ciro Santilli (2020)
Shows the relationship between group homomorphisms and normal subgroups.
Used in the Stack Exchange answer to What is the intuition behind normal subgroups? One of Section "The best articles by Ciro Santilli".
Spacetime diagram illustrating how faster-than-light travel implies time travel by Ciro Santilli (2021)
Used in the Stack Exchange ansewr to Does faster than light travel imply travelling back in time?. One of Section "The best articles by Ciro Santilli".
Average insertion time into heaps, binary search tree and hash maps of the C++ standard library by Ciro Santilli (2015)
Source. Used in the Stack Overflow answer to Heap vs Binary Search Tree (BST). One of Section "The best articles by Ciro Santilli".
Top view of an open Oxford Nanopore MinION
. Source. This is Ciro Santilli's hand on the Wikipedia article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Nanopore_Technologies. He put it there after working a bit on Section "How to use an Oxford Nanopore MinION to extract DNA from river water and determine which bacteria live in it" :-) And he would love to document more experiments like that one Section "Videos of all key physics experiments", but opportunities are extremely rare.
A quick 2D continuous AI game prototype for reinforcement learning written in Matter.js, you can view it on a separate page at cirosantilli.com/_raw/js/matterjs/examples.html#top-down-asdw-fixed-viewport. This is a for-fun-only prototype for Ciro's 2D reinforcement learning games, C++ or maybe Python (for the deep learning ecosystem) seems inevitable for a serious version of such a project. But it is cute how much you can do with a few lines of Matter.js!
HTML snippet:
<iframe src="_raw/js/matterjs/examples.html#top-down-asdw-fixed-viewport" width="1000" height="850"></iframe>Ciro Santilli controls the following accounts.
With non-trivial activity:
- github.com/cirosantilli on GitHub
- stackoverflow.com/users/895245 on Stack Overflow
- www.linkedin.com/in/cirosantilli on LinkedIn
- www.youtube.com/c/CiroSantilli on YouTube
- Twitter: see Section "Ciro Santilli's Twitter accounts"
- archive.org/details/@cirosantilli2 on the Internet Archive. Was archive.org/details/@cirosantilli but got deleted due to an "admin error" and the old username cannot be restored![ref]
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cirosantilli2 and commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Cirosantilli2: Ciro tries to upload all educational CC content he creates to Wikimedia Commons as an extra backup and sometimes to use in Wikipedia pages
- www.facebook.com/cirosantilli/ Ciro accepts all friend requests there, but expect a few non-technical posts. Unless you look like a massive honeypot account, please send context in advance in that case.
- www.quora.com/profile/Ciro-Santilli
- www.reddit.com/user/cirosantilli/ is Ciro's Reddit account, mostly computer and China topics
- maps.app.goo.gl/npV35XTppSBTmNqC8: Google Maps. Ciro Santilli likes to make additions to certain niche topics that are missing, having reached Local Guide Level 6 as of 2024. He can't do as much as he'd like so as to not reveal his current city however.
Trivial activity only:
- seqanswers.com/forums/member.php?u=90053
- answers.gazebosim.org/users/2289/cirosantilli/
- 4programmers.net/Profile/86786
- 500px.com/p/cirosantilli
- 9gag.com/u/cirosantilli
- addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/user/cirosantilli/
- agoradesk.com/user/cirosantilli
- androidforums.com/members/ciro-santilli.1918307
- app.element.io/#/user/@cirosantilli:matrix.org. Proof: matrix.to/#/!OisxJPszSYdWdwXrrL:matrix.org/$YbrChbGFvlgYiDM5E2OgWXSp0vy7ayLfGkCXftAUyTI?via=matrix.org
- archive.org/details/@ciro_santilli_ourbigbook created during the account deletion mess.
- ask.libreoffice.org/en/users/2352/cirosantilli/
- bbs.archlinux.org/profile.php?id=116270
- bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile
- brilliant.org/profile/ciro-il1uxz/
- bugzilla.gnome.org/page.cgi?id=describeuser.html&login=ciro.santilli@gmail.com
- cirosantilli.blogspot.com/
- cirosantilli.itch.io
- cirosantilli.livejournal.com/profile
- cirosantilli.medium.com/ on Medium
- cirosantilli.substack.com/
- cirosantilli.wordpress.com/ on WordPress
- codeforces.com/profile/cirosantilli reverse proof codeforces.com/blog/entry/98393
- coderwall.com/Ciro%20Santilli Note that space on the username. Beauty.
- community.arm.com/people/cirosantilli
- community.atlassian.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/680821
- community.fandom.com/wiki/User:Cirosantilli
- community.plos.org/people/cirosantilli
- community.skype.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/2646858
- community.zimbra.com/members/cirosantilli
- connect.mozilla.org/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/46889
- del.icio.us/cirosantilli
- dev.to/cirosantilli
- developer.mbed.org/users/cirosantilli/
- devtalk.nvidia.com/member/2118846/
- droit-finances.commentcamarche.net/profile/user/cirosantilli
- en.gravatar.com/cirosantilli
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ciro.santilli also belongs to Ciro, but he lost the password
- eternagame.org/web/player/260828/
- figshare.com/authors/Ciro_Santilli/656781
- forums.developer.nvidia.com/u/cirosantilli
- forum.osdev.org/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=16372
- forum.pine64.org/member.php?action=profile&uid=17386
- forum.videolan.org/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=173503
- forum.xda-developers.com/member.php?u=7116837
- forums.androidcentral.com/members/cirosantilli-2734491
- forums.lenovo.com/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1561639
- framasphere.org/people/78a975c0b6c40133a3032a0000053625 framasphere.org/posts/1519871
- freesound.org/people/cirosantilli
- gitlab.com/u/cirosantilli
- hackaday.io/cirosantilli
- hinative.com/en-US/profiles/5276462
- home.gamer.com.tw/homeindex.php?owner=cirosantilli but can't post anything publicly because cannot verify phone in many countries
- huggingface.co/cirosantilli
- identity.kde.org/index.php?r=people/view&uid=cirosantilli
- imgur.com/user/cirosantilli/about: Proof: imgur.com/gallery/mexv1Bk/comment/1734086983
- jsfiddle.net/user/cirosantilli/
- kiwifarms.net/members/cirosantilli.82011/
- launchpad.net/~cirosantilli
- leanpub.com/u/cirosantilli
- leetcode.com/cirosantilli/
- makandracards.com/ciro-santilli
- mastodon.social/@cirosantilli
- nanohub.org/members/146301/
- next-episode.net/user/cirosantilli/
- openclipart.org/artist/cirosantilli. TODO but not yet able to login after the "first upload". But it did get uploaded: openclipart.org/artist/cirosantilli.
- opencollective.com/ciro-santilli
- open.spotify.com/user/cirosantilli
- orcid.org/0000-0003-2895-7763
- parler.com/profile/cirosantilli/posts
- paypal.me/cirosantilli. United Kingdom account.
- peerj.com/cirosantilli/
- profile.edx.org/u/ciro_santilli
- profiles.3dgames.com.ar/profiles/1002278
- protonmail.uservoice.com/users/6491333990-ciro-santilli
- pypi.org/user/cirosantilli/
- raidforums.com/User-cirosantilli
- rubygems.org/profiles/cirosantilli
- software.intel.com/en-us/user/1090688
- soundcloud.com/cirosantilli
- sourceforge.net/u/cirosantilli/profile/
- stackshare.io/cirosantilli
- steamcommunity.com/id/cirosantilli/
- subreply.com/cirosantilli
- support.discord.com/hc/en-us/profiles/427813342894 on the Discord forum
- support.mozilla.org/en-US/user/cirosantilli
- tabmixplus.org/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=59846
- talk.commonmark.org/users/cirosantilli
- talk.jekyllrb.com/users/cirosantilli
- talks.cam.ac.uk/user/show/81142
- tatoeba.org/eng/user/profile/cirosantilli
- telegram.me/cirosantilli on Telegram
- trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Waveform?action=history username
cirosantilli - tuleap.net/users/cirosantilli
- tuleap.ring.cx/users/cirosantilli
- twittercommunity.com/users/cirosantilli/activity
- wefunder.com/cirosantilli
- wise.com/pay/me/cirod3. The name shows as "Ciro Duran Santilli" and that's correct.
- wiki.qemu.org/User:Cirosantilli
- www.airbnb.com/users/show/45794827
- www.behance.net/cirosantilli
- www.bibsonomy.org/user/cirosantilli
- www.biostars.org/u/50170/
- www.bountysource.com/people/25676-ciro-santilli
- www.bulletphysics.org/Bullet/phpBB3/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=11704
- www.codewars.com/users/cirosantilli
- www.codingame.com/profile/cddd0a711c22d97e8264361f7c8205567563841
- www.coursera.org/user/f65b08c191d792eb809fe2808d771ee7
- www.dailymotion.com/cirosantilli
- www.deviantart.com/cirosantilli
- www.digitalocean.com/community/users/cirosantilli
- www.ebay.com/usr/cirosantilli
- www.edaboard.com/member587087.html
- www.flickr.com/people/cirosantilli/
- www.freecodecamp.org/fcc8f660b91-167c-4b04-a8da-5d50cdb46def
- www.f6s.com/cirosantilli
- www.f6s.com/cirosantilli1
- www.gitbook.com/@cirosantilli
- www.hackerrank.com/cirosantilli
- www.hackster.io/cirosantilli
- www.html5gamedevs.com/profile/30103-cirosantilli/
- www.imdb.com/user/ur59802249 on IMDb
- www.instagram.com/cirosantilli/ Impossible to disable their notifications without removing your email. So all their notifications go to trash.
- www.kaggle.com/cirosantilli
- www.lesswrong.com/users/ciro-santilli on LessWrong
- www.linux.org/members/ciro-santilli.62540/
- www.linuxquestions.org/questions/user/cirosantilli-688439/
- www.meetup.com/members/252568305/
- www.mentebinaria.com.br/profile/1987-ciro-santilli/
- www.metacritic.com/user/cirosantilli
- www.metaculus.com/accounts/profile/163587/
- www.mohu.rocks/people/cirosantilli
- www.mudhut.com/user/1995000
- www.myopportunity.com/en/profile/ciro-santilli
- www.npmjs.com/~cirosantilli
- www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/member.php/40269-cirosantilli
- www.openstreetmap.org/user/Ciro%20Santilli
- www.patreon.com/cirosantilli
- www.physicsforums.com/members/cirosantilli.422056/
- www.pixiv.net/en/users/64347194
- www.plurk.com/cirosantilli
- www.raspberrypi.org/forums/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=273389
- www.shadertoy.com/user/cirosantilli
- www.strava.com/athletes/47913768
- www.tastekid.com/ciro.santilli
- www.ted.com/profiles/5822760
- www.thestudentroom.co.uk/member.php?u=5930160
- www.tiktok.com/@cirosantilli2
- www.transifex.com/user/profile/cirosantilli
- www.tripadvisor.com/members/cirosantilli
- www.twitch.tv/cirosantilli
- www.whatdotheyknow.com/user/ciro_santilli/profile
Profiles without URLs (OMG...):
- Discord: username
cirosantilli, previouslycirosantilli#8921
Accounts in Chinese websites. These accounts might be banned or altered or offer other limitations, so Ciro only communicates briefly through them. All communication through those channels should obviously be assumed to be compromised:
- bbs.nibaedu.com/index.php?m=space&uid=70
- www.renren.com/338003848/profile
- www.tianya.cn/109285544 (can't post, no cell phone)
- hacpai.com/member/cirosantilli unable to login as of 2019-10-12, reason unclear, either ban or website too crappy.
- pincong.rocks/people/cirosantilli Lost account tested as of 2022-11 and likely much earlier. Last existing password not working, and there doesn't seem to be a reset password button. Creating cirosantilli2
- pincong.rocks/people/cirosantilli2
- tieba.baidu.com/home/main?id=5cd56369726f73616e74696c6c69c944
- v2ex.com/member/cirosantilli: Ciro was blocked and or account deleted on 2020-07-23: cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship/v2ex
- v2ex.com/member/cirosantilli2: was created by someone else most likely and cannot be re-registered. Also blocked.
- v2ex.com/member/cirosantilli3: Ciro created this new account November 2023, let's see how long it lasts.
- www.zhihu.com/people/cirosantilli. Ciro was prevented from posting in 2018-06-25, and the account and all content mentioning him were taken down in 2019-11-03.
- www.weibo.com/p/1005055601627311: started requiring a cell phone to login in 2020, and Ciro didn't want to give his cell phone number to the CCP and didn't have the patience to manage a secondary phone number, so he is not logging in for now. The account was blocked in 2021: cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship/ciro-santillis-weibo-block
Accounts in Russian websites:
Dead websites:
- www.citeulike.org/user/cirosantilli (2019-05)
In this project Ciro Santilli extracted (almost) all Git commit emails from GitHub with Google BigQuery! The repo was later taken down by GitHub. Newbs, censoring publicly available data!
Ciro also created a beautifully named variant with one email per commit: github.com/cirosantilli/imagine-all-the-people. True art. It also had the effect of breaking this "what's my first commit tracker": twitter.com/NachoSoto/status/1761873362706698469
GitHub Archive query showing hashed emails
. It was Ciro Santilli that made them hash the emails. They weren't hashed before he published the emails publicly.
All GitHub Commit Emails repo before takedown
. Screenshot from archive.is.Quick facts:
- Nationalities: Italian and Brazilian
- Grew up in: Brazil
- Relationship status 2017-: married
- Given name pronunciation: take your pick from Ciro Santilli's given name
- Chinese name: 三西猴, means "three western monkeys". Phonetic approximation to SANtilli CIRO. More info at: Ciro Santilli's Chinese name. Semi-unintentionally reminds Chinese people of Sun Wukong (孙悟空). This association is further slightly strengthened by the phonetic choice of 三 San, which Ciro later noticed matches the middle character of Tang Sanzang (唐三藏), the monk in Journey to the West. The given name 西猴 was given by Ciro Santilli's wife, then recent girlfriend, as a semi-joke, and he took it up because the best way to take a joke is to play along with the joker. 三 was chosen by Ciro himself.
- laptop: high end Lenovo ThinkPad
- distro: latest Ubuntu release
- Vim or Emacs: vi/vim. But for The Love, will someone please make an open source C++ integrated development environment that actually just works?
- tabs or spaces: spaces
- Mailing list or Git(Hub|Lab>): Git(Hub|Lab), with passion, see Section "Mailing list"
- system or unit tests: system
- programming languages: Python and C++. He'll learn Rust and Haskell once he's rich. As of the 2020s, Rust was picking up some serious steam, so Ciro might end up eating his own words there.
- musical instruments to listen: Chinese Guqin and electric Jazz-fusion guitar
- metric or imperial: metric, for The Love. Science? Standardization? 21st century anyone?
- QWERTY or Dvorak: QWERTY, alas
- birth name: Ciro Duran Santilli
Other people with the same name are listed at Section "Ciro Santilli's homonyms".
19th century illustration of the Journey to the West protagonist Sun Wukong
. Source. 
Sun Wukong (孙悟空) is a playful and obscenely powerful monkey Journey to the West. He protects Buddhist monk Tang Sanzang, and likes eating fruit, just like Ciro. Oh, and Goku from Dragon Ball is based on him. His japanese name is "Sun Wukong" (same Chinese characters with different Japanese pronunciation) for the love. His given name "Wukong" means literally "the one who mastered the void", which is clearly a Dharma name and fucking awesome in multiple ways. This is another sad instance of a Chinese thing better known in the West as Japanese.
It is worth noting however that although Wukong is extremely charming, Ciro's favorite novel of the Four Great Classic Novels is Water Margin. Journey to the West is just a Monster of the Week for kids, but Water Margin is a fight for justice saga. Sorry Wukong!
The photo was taken in an open event organized by the awesome Cambridge Synthetic Biology outreach group, more or less the same people who organize: www.meetup.com/Cambridge-Synthetic-Biology-Meetup/ and who helped organize Section "How to use an Oxford Nanopore MinION to extract DNA from river water and determine which bacteria live in it".
Taking part in such activities is what Ciro tries to do to overcome his lifelong regret of not having done more experimental stuff at university. Would he have had the patience to handle all the bullshit of the physical word without going back to the informational sciences? Maybe, maybe not. But now he will probably never know?!
Notice the orange high visibility cycling jersey under the lab coat, from someone who had just ridden in from work as fast as possible as part of his "lunch break". It is more fun when it is hard.
Scribe Jean Miélot, 15th century
. Ciro Santilli fantasises that he would have make a good scribe in the middle ages, partly due to his self diagnosed graphomania, but also appreciation for foreign languages, and his mild obsession with the natural sciences.
OurBigBook.com is Ciro's view of a modern day scriptorium, except that now the illuminations are YouTube videos.
Chill and eat your bread in peace comes to mind. A scribe, in a library, reading and writing the entire day in peace and quiet. The life!
The job of a Internet-age scribe is basically that of making knowledge more open, legally extracting it from closed copyrighted sources, and explaining your understanding of it to the wider world under Creative Commons licenses on the web. And in the process of greater openess, given a well organized system, we are able combine the knowledge of many diffferent people, and thus make things more understandable than any single/few creator closed source source could ever achieve.
Ciro once saw some cartoon on Wikipedia help pages of a turtle with a book in one hand, and typing into Wikipedia on its computer, TODO find it. That cartoon summarizes well the modern scribe life.
Another analogous version of this fantasy more in touch with Ciro's sinophily is the ideal of the Chinese scholar, notably including their stereotypical attributes such as mastery of the Four arts.
Ciro Santilli piling boxes as a child
. A natural born engineer.Ciro Santilli's fork of PARSEC. This fork was made to improve the build system and better support newer targets, including newer Ubuntu and Buildroot.
After the PARSEC website died in 2023, Ciro Santilli also uploaded the test data to GitHub.
If Ciro Santilli weren't a natural born activist, he chould have made an excellent intelligence analyst! See also: Section "Being naughty and creative are correlated".
- Stack Overflow Vote Fraud Script
- GitHub makes Ciro feel especially naughty:
- All GitHub Commit Emails: he extracted (almost) all Git commit emails from GitHub with Google BigQuery
- A repository with 1 million commits: likely the live repo with the most commits as of 2017
- An 100 year GitHub streak, likely longest ever when that existed. It was consuming too much server resources however, which led to GitHub admins manually turning off his contribution history.
- A repository with a 100k commit Git octopus merge. Now that is a true Cthulhu merge.
- 500 on adoc infinite header xref recursion: that was fun while it lasted
Outside this website:
Disclaimer: closed source vendors tend to be highly secretive, solving small issues without any reply, so I use my best judgement given the lack of feedback.