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.
One is reminded of Nick Leeson.
One things must be said: the root cause of all of this is the replication crisis.
This is why he managed to go on for so long.
People felt it was normal to have to try for one or two years to replicate a paper.
I was trying to learn about how some types of quantum computers work, when I came across this pearl:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Paul#Scientific_results Wolfgang Paul, 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics winner, referred to Wolfgang Pauli, 1945 winner, as his "imaginary part".
So that he can work full time on OurBigBook.com and revolutionize advanced university-level science, technology, engineering, and mathematics eduction for all ages.
Donating to Ciro is the most effective donation per dollar that you can make to:
- improve hardcore university-level STEM education for all ages
- help make every child into the next Nobel Prize/Fields Medal/deep tech unicorn co-founder
Ciro's goal in life is to help kids as young as possible to reach, and the push, the frontiers of natural sciences human knowledge, linking it to applications that might be the the next big thing as early as possible. Because nothing is more motivating to students than that feeling of:rather than repeating the same crap that everyone is already learning.
Hey, I can actually do something in this area that has never been done before!
To do this, Ciro wants to work in parallel both on:
- the multi-user website e-learning platform of OurBigBook.com
- creating amazing teaching content that motivates that platform, and that deeply interests Ciro, notably quantum mechanics and its related applications:
- quantum computing
- molecular biology
- condensed matter physics and chemistry
- slightly more theoretical stuff in somewhat related fields of:
- continue to dump his brain/research in areas Ciro has expertise in: software engineering and open source software
Ciro believes that this rare combination of both:produces a virtuous circle, because Ciro:
- proven passion and capability to learn and teach science, technology, engineering, and mathematics subjects
- proven programming skills, including web development
- wants to learn and teach, so he starts to create content
- then he notices the teaching tools are crap
- and since he has the ability to actually improve them, he does
As explained at OurBigBook.com and high flying bird scientist, Ciro is most excited to make contributions at the "missing middle level of specialization" that lies around later undergrad and lower grad education:But on that middle sweet spot, Ciro believes that something can be done, in such as way that delivers:in a way that is:
- at lower undergrad level, there is already a lot of free material out there to learn stuff
- at upper graduate level and beyond, too few people know about each specific subject, that it becomes hard to factor things out
- beauty
- power
- in your face, without requiring you to study for a year
- but also giving enough precision to allow you to truly appreciate the beauty of the subjectCiro's programming skills can also be used to create educational, or actually more production-like, simulations and illustrations.
Ciro believes that today's society just keep saying over and over: "STEM is good", "STEM is good", "STEM is good" as a religious mantra, but fails miserably at providing free learning material and interaction opportunities for people to actually learn it at a deep enough level to truly appreciate why "STEM is good". This is what he wants to fix.
The following quote is ripped from Gwern Branwen's Patreon page, and it perfectly synthesizes how Ciro feels as well:
Omar Khayyam also came to the Vizier... but not to ask for title or office. 'The greatest boon you can confer on me,' he said, 'is to let me live in a corner under the shadow of your fortune, to spread wide the advantages of Science, and pray for your long life and prosperity.'
In addition to all of this, financial support also helps Ciro continue his general community support activities:
- writing and updating his amazing Stack Overflow answers: Section "Ciro Santilli's Stack Overflow contributions"
- saving the world from the CCP: Section "Ciro Santilli's campaign for freedom of speech in China"
More like a "lifetime achievement" though, rather than the Nobel Prize, which tends to be for more specific achievements.
Located in Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Second largest number of Nobel Prize as of 2019, need on say more? en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_university_affiliation&oldid=934987075
Getting a list of all currencies from Wikidata with SPARQL Updated 2024-12-15 +Created 2024-11-18
This one was way harder than my previous fun with "find the oldest people who won a given prize" (Nobel Prize/Oscar) mastodon.social/@cirosantilli/112689376315990248 because unlike those prizes where all the decisions are centralized, countries are much more complicated beasts, with changing currencies and international recognition.
This was a good experience to see a few ways in which Wikidata is inconsistent, with the same concept being expressed in multiple different ways, e.g. "end time" property of the current vs the superior "end time" qualifier.
Particularly bad is the notion of a "deprecated rank", that should really not exist.
This is exactly the type of semi interactive data munching that I like to do, a bit in the same vein as CIA 2010 covert communication websites and Cool data embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain.
As you might imagine, the secret services use exactly this type of knowledge modelling to do their dirty business, e.g. Gaffer by the GCHQ.
If only I weren't such a rebel, I'd be a perfect fit for the intelligence agencies.
This is the best monstrosity I had the patience to come up with:It got quite close to the ISO 4217 list.
SELECT
?currency
(GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT ?currencyIsoCode; SEPARATOR=", ") AS ?currencyIsoCodes)
?currencyLabel
(GROUP_CONCAT(DISTINCT ?countryLabel; SEPARATOR=", ") AS ?countries)
WHERE {
?country wdt:P31/wdt:P279* wd:Q6256. # is country
?country p:P38 ?countryHasCurrency.
?countryHasCurrency ps:P38 ?currency.
?countryHasCurrency wikibase:rank ?countryHasCurrencyRank.
OPTIONAL {
?currency p:P498 ?currencyHasIsoCode.
?currencyHasIsoCode ps:P498 ?currencyIsoCode.
}
FILTER NOT EXISTS {?country wdt:P576 ?countryAbolished}
FILTER NOT EXISTS {?currency wdt:P576 ?currencyAbolished}
FILTER NOT EXISTS {?currency wdt:P582 ?currencyEndTime}
FILTER NOT EXISTS {?countryHasCurrency pq:P582 ?countryHasCurrencyEndtime}
FILTER (?countryHasCurrencyRank != wikibase:DeprecatedRank)
FILTER (!bound(?currencyHasIsoCode) || ?currencyHasIsoCode != wikibase:DeprecatedRank)
# TODO makes query take timeout? Why? Needed to exclude PLZ.
FILTER NOT EXISTS {?currencyHasIsoCode pq:P582 ?currencyHasIsoCodeEndtime}
SERVICE wikibase:label {
bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en".
?currency rdfs:label ?currencyLabel .
?country rdfs:label ?countryLabel .
}
}
GROUP BY ?currency ?currencyLabel
ORDER BY ?currencyIsoCodes ?currencyLabel
I was drawn into this waste of time after I noticed that someone had managed to create the Wikipedia of PsiQuantum which I had tried earlier but got deleted: mastodon.social/@cirosantilli/113488891292906243, and then I made the mistake of having a look at the Wikidata page of PsiQuantum.
Announcements:
I also had one more fun with: opendata.stackexchange.com/questions/15750/structured-data-for-nobel-prizes/21847#21847 getting some basic info about Nobel Prize winners, and noticed one, John Sulston, 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine laureate, who likely has the wrong place of birth on his Nobel Prize profile: www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2002/sulston/facts/ which is funny. I suggested the change now. Edit they fixed it after I pointed it out:
Another highlight was 1913 Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate Alfred Werner who born either in Mulhouse in Alsace, France, or in "Yo no sé qué me pasó" ("I don't know what happened to me" in Spanish), a 1986 song by Mexican singer Juan Gabriel.
Announcements:
Also at opendata.stackexchange.com/questions/21849/how-to-get-a-list-of-all-nobel-prize-winners-who-never-had-a-doctorate-from-wiki/21850#21850 I tried to get the list of Nobel Prize laureates who don't have a PhD. I think the query was correct, but Wikidata data is just too incomplete. Related:
Full channel title: "Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People".
1-2 to hour long interviews, the number of Nobel Prize winners is off-the-charts. The videos have transcripts on the description!
TODO what is their affiliation/who is behind it? There is nothing on the website.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_Stories small wiki with almost no citations.