life
Libertarianism
Libertarianism or why the stationary bandit is starting to die There is one very uncomfortable thought. The state was never necessary. It was **technically inevitable**. These are two completely different things. When you have no energy of your own, no communication of your own, no money of your own, and no production of your own—you are forced to feed the state. Not because you love it. Not because it is effective. But because you have no alternatives. It is roughly…
Warm Tube WWW
The Internet of the 2000s was warm The 2000s were a strange time. The Internet back then hadn't turned into a giant shopping mall where around every corner someone is trying to sell you something, subscribe you to another service, or push ads for success courses. It was more like a small provincial town. You visit a site built by a single person and literally feel the presence of the author. Crooked design, terrible HTML, animated GIFs, guestbook, hit counter,…
Home server system
My system consists of servers completely isolated from the network (these are simply passively cooled mini PCs), I have 12 such boxes, each responsible for its own part of the system: 1. Web server 2. Security and video surveillance 3. Communications 4. Virtualization 5. Backup server 6. LLM 7. Statistics and monitoring 8. Firewall 9. Automation and smart home management 10. Server for apps working with external traffic 11. Game server 12. Private services 13. Infrastructure support systems 14. Torrent…
Large Language Models
Modern LLMs do not think in words. They operate with vectors, probability distributions, and weight matrices. Any text for the model is simply a sequence of tokens transformed through billions of parameters into a probability distribution for the next token. Yet it is precisely this mathematical abstraction that gives rise to the phenomenon we call understanding. ### Context Window One of the key characteristics of an LLM is the size of its context window. This is the working memory capacity…
Quantum Superposition
Quantum superposition is one of those things that sound like esoteric gibberish after the third bottle of cognac, but at the same time lie at the foundation of all modern electronics. Yes, literally all of it. Your processor, SSD, lasers, MRI, GPS — all of this works because nature at a fundamental level behaves probabilistically. ### Classical Bit vs Qubit In classical physics and computing, a bit is strictly binary: either 0 or 1. In quantum mechanics, a qubit exists…
See
An incredible TV series, I haven't seen anything like this in a very long time — best of the best, simply top tier. Of course, as in any fictional work, there are goofs and plot inconsistencies, but the show is made so well and the concept is executed so originally that you simply pay no attention to minor details, or even major ones for that matter. The global community of critics rated this series as "meh," but I believe nobody…
Qubits and Blockchain
Every time news comes out about Google, IBM, or some new superconducting qubit, experts start crawling out of every corner claiming: "Bitcoin is doomed." "Blockchain will be hacked." "Crypto will die." Nonsense. And nonsense on multiple levels simultaneously. First, most people do not understand what in a blockchain can actually be attacked by quantum computing. Hash functions like SHA-256 and Keccak are not "broken" by Shor's algorithm. For them, only Grover's algorithm applies, which gives a quadratic speedup of brute-force…
Net Homeless
I first got on the Internet back in 1997. It was a completely different place. No social networks, no smartphones, no corporations controlling most of the traffic. The Internet back then looked more like a giant unstructured network of enthusiasts. From the late nineties, I observed almost the entire evolution of the Web: from homepages on Geocities and Narod.ru to standalone blogs, web forums, RSS feeds, and finally to modern platform monopoly. ### Digital Tenancy vs Digital Sovereignty Today, most…
Stargate
A series with a wonderful warm atmosphere, against which various scientific hypotheses are artistically played out. Yes, of course, the screenwriters disregarded many scientific fields: archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, biology — indeed, strictly speaking, almost all scientific fields mentioned in the series — but at the same time, undoubtedly inspired a huge number of young (growing up) scientists and others to understand how the Universe functions deeper. Also, one should not forget that the first part of the series "SG-1" was…
Dissidence
Every social system is not just a collection of people united by common interests. It is a living organism, a complex network of connections and interactions governed by its own laws. And like a biological organism, this system is capable of self-organization. It develops, adapts, fights threats, and can even get sick. Imagine an anthill or a beehive. Each individual ant or bee seems to act independently, but in reality they follow a single set of rules, a common code.…
Reading
I read quite a lot, but I never set a goal to read as many books as possible. The quantity read in itself does not make much sense. It is much more important what ideas remain in your head afterwards and whether they change your perception of the world. For entertainment: — Science fiction and space operas. Probably one of my most favorite genres. I've always been interested not so much in the adventure itself, but in trying to imagine…
Battlestar Galactica
«Battlestar Galactica» is one of the most unusual examples of science fiction, where space is not just a setting for adventures, but a huge laboratory for studying human civilization. On the surface, it is a story about the last remnants of humanity who, after the destruction of the twelve colonies, try to save themselves from the Cylons — artificial beings created by humans themselves. But if you remove the spaceships, battles, and technologies, what remains is a much older plot:…
St. Matthew Island
A very instructive story: In 1944, 29 reindeer were left on the uninhabited St. Matthew Island. Mosses and lichens, the main food of reindeer, were excellent. The thickness of the moss reached 10 cm. There were no predators or hunters on the island, and the number of animals over the next 19 years increased at a rate of 32% per year, reaching 6,000 heads in 1963. Over the next three years, almost all animals died out, leaving a pathetic herd…
Compound Interest Calculator
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Commandments
A well-known radio host spoke out in support of Bush, noting that homosexuality is a perversion: "So it is said in the Bible, Leviticus, chapter 18".A few days later, this radio editorial received an open letter from one of the listeners: "Thank you for your concern about teaching people the Law of God. I learned a lot listening to your program, and I always share the knowledge gained with people around me.But I still have some questions about several biblical…
Harry Potter for Adults
I would even call it Harry Potter for entrepreneurs — a naive utopia about ideal entrepreneurs passionate about their craft, who possess incredible superpowers in intelligence and persistence. Everyone would like to be an Elon Musk, and I probably more than most. And the book gives you the opportunity to feel like part of a community of modern-day superheroes (set in another time). At the same time, the book contains quite a few female sexual fantasies, which sometimes cause slight…
Motivational Books
I was reading all those cult bestsellers like Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad" or Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich." Listen, every page just reeks of the same low-grade brain porn. It sounds pathetic: *"Believe in yourself! You can do it! You're awesome, everything will work out! Here are the secret magic rules!"* — plus a ton of primitive, banal advice. All this pink bubblegum is a short-term substitute. And it doesn't work for one pretty obvious reason: in the real world,…
My Game
In my childhood, I used to play a game very frequently, which I thought was interesting only to me. It consisted of a very simple and repetitive action: I would turn off the light in my room, lie down on the bed, close my eyes, and try to stop thinking. To stop thinking meant not just remaining silent inside my head, but stopping the flow of words, images, memories, and fantasies. I tried to reach absolute internal silence. At first,…
Diablo II
Diablo II is one of Blizzard's finest creations and probably one of those games that shaped an entire genre. At first glance, it's just an action-RPG: run through dungeons, kill monsters, collect loot, level up your character. But in Diablo II, Blizzard somehow managed to create the perfect balance between simplicity and depth. The game doesn't explain half the things to you. It simply throws you into this dark world where somewhere out there in the shadows an ancient evil…
First Blog Post
Finally, I decided to rebuild this blog after all. And I actually did it... About the blog/website: Mainly, this place will feature materials on science, technology, engineering, cryptography, big data analysis, and artificial intelligence. But it doesn't end there. Occasionally, I'll write about gaming, books, TV series, life, and sometimes even a little history and philosophy. In short, about anything I find interesting and worthy of keeping in memory. This blog is intended primarily for myself. By writing down and…