I have long noticed an interesting feature. You practice a piece on the piano and when progress seems to stall, you quit, but the next day when you sit down at the keyboard, suddenly, the difference from yesterday is like night and day, even though all you did was sleep.
I found a study (Journal of Neuroscience) suggesting that the proximity of sleep to practice plays a significant role. The researchers hypothesized that motor memories – the brain’s way of preserving skills and actions – not only consolidate over time, but can significantly improve if sleep follows soon after practice.
This hypothesis was tested through a series of experiments involving 290 right-handed individuals. Participants had to move a cursor on a computer screen to hit targets using a joystick. The complexity arose because sometimes the movement of the cursor was altered by optical rotation, which forced participants to adjust their hand movements to accurately hit the target. Different groups of subjects underwent this at different times, and those who did it before sleep showed the best progress.
It turns out that engaging in activities involving a significant portion of motor memories—like playing the piano or participating in complex-coordinated sports—right before sleep is beneficial. You could either adjust your sleep or the timing of these activities.
Who won the Second World War? Interestingly, notice that nobody paid attention to Trump’s words about the Second World War in his recent tweet-ultimatum. He writes “Russia helped us win the Second World War” — “Russia helped the USA to win the Second World War.” Everyone focused on the incorrect casualty figure of 60 million, but not on this.
I found an interesting study from 2017. It’s a study on how people (survey, 1338 participants) from 11 countries remember the war, including 8 Allied nations and 3 Axis countries.
It showed significant differences in how the former Soviet Union and 10 other countries recall the war.
The events highlighted by representatives of the Soviet Union almost completely differed from those mentioned in other countries. Moreover, Russians declared a greater responsibility for victory in the war (75% of military efforts) than representatives of any other nation (although the USA and UK also rated their contributions at over 50%).
However, when people from each country evaluated the contributions of other nations to the war, they attributed a greater contribution to the USA than to the former Soviet Union.
Another interesting finding is that when asked why the USA dropped atomic bombs on Japan, most residents of the ten countries said it was to win the war, except for the Russians.
Additionally, the older the respondents in 7 of these countries, the more often they agreed with the statement that the USA dropped the bombs to end the war.
Russia (USSR) in the survey results demonstrates a unique narrative, focused on the Eastern Front, unlike Western countries.
Most countries (including former Axis countries) focus on events related to the USA and UK, such as Pearl Harbor, the Normandy landings, the atomic bombings of Japan, and the Holocaust.
The USSR holds a central place in the Russian narrative (75% contribution to victory). The USA and UK also inflate their estimates, stating that their contribution exceeds 50%, focusing on the Western Front and the Pacific campaign. The total contribution assessments of the eight Allied nations amount to 309%, which demonstrates the effect of “national narcissism.” Most countries prioritize the USA (27%), while the USSR is at 20%.
Four events achieved “key” status (mentioned by more than 50% of respondents): the Attack on Pearl Harbor, the Atomic bombings of Japan, the Normandy landings, the Holocaust. The Russian narrative concentrates on events that are called the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945) in Soviet and contemporary Russian historiography. Russians highlighted unique events: the battles of Stalingrad, Kursk, Moscow, Berlin, and the Leningrad blockade. Thus, despite the fact that the USA and Russia fought together as allies, studies show that there is virtually no overlap in the events remembered as most significant. Members of each group primarily remembered those events that were associated with their own country. However, this is not surprising.
About the atomic bombings, most respondents believe that the bombing aim was to end the war. Russians view this event as an act of intimidation against the USSR. Opinions within countries vary by age: older generations more often support the official version of ending the war.
In France, in 1945, 57% of the population considered the USSR the main victor. By 2004, this figure had dropped to 20%, while the share of the USA increased to 58%.
The reasons are clear: history textbooks and popular culture reinforce national emphasis. In the USA and UK, films and books that praise their role in the war predominate. The USSR and the USA fought on different fronts and represent different ideological systems, which defined narratives. And of course, all countries exaggerate their role in historical events.
Alright, cooking up a soup. Business as usual. Because the first thing they do in our diet-conscious family is scarf down the lamb chunks and broth from the soup. And when you dig into the fridge, at the bottom of the pot, there’s potato and beans winking at me. Now, just need to fry up some sausages, and dinner’s set.
I am listening to the opera Cosi fan tutte, half-watching the libretto in another window. Suddenly, I notice a whole section isn’t translated. And they completely skip it in the opera. That is, after “O ciel”, it jumps straight to “Ei parte”. I go to Google to figure out what’s going on. Seems there were many cuts, but in the entire libretto, only this aria is untranslated. Everything else is translated. I find another version of the libretto with a side-by-side translation, and there, Aria No. 24 by Ferrando “Ah, lo veggio, quell’anima bella” is missing altogether. That’s precisely why it is also missing from the parallel translation—because the translation is from the booklets of various productions, and in them, the aria is omitted.
I started digging deeper, it turns out that Aria No. 24 is feared and not included in most productions and even studio recordings because it is very difficult to perform. “Ah, lo veggio, quell’anima bella”. However, of course, if you wish, you can find a few performances from different theaters on YouTube.
UPDATE: Suddenly, ChatGPT has developed a sense of humor. It replies to me, “Although Mozart can no longer participate in the staging 😄, his music is sometimes subject to adaptation”. It even added a smiley face! And this was a reply to the third question with no Personalization message, and all the questions were serious.
Well, I finally finished reading Yuval Harari’s “Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI.” Quite interesting, although I was expecting more controversy, especially from a historian who likely doesn’t quite understand what’s under AI’s hood. But it turned out to be quite good. The theses extracted from the book without context sound quite odd. For example, Harari writes that it would be more accurate to call AI Alien Intelligence—not because it possesses consciousness, but because its methods of thinking and problem-solving are completely alien to our human experience.
It’s particularly fascinating how he views political systems as information structures: democracy with its decentralized flow of information and autocracy with its drive for control. An attempt to understand how information governs us, our choices, and our societies.
Overall, the parallels drawn between the AI revolution and past historical events are quite intriguing. Harari cites examples of how social network algorithms aimed at increasing engagement have contributed (and continue to contribute) to the spread of misinformation and the fomenting of hatred. He references real cases, such as the tragic events in Myanmar, where Facebook was used to spread falsehoods that led to violence. Because falsehoods positively affected engagement—they simply got more clicks—and this function was optimized by Facebook for better advertising metrics. Ultimately, a relatively simple AI behind the newsfeed led to bloodshed.
I liked Harari’s example from Nick Bostrom’s book “Superintelligence,” which is a thought experiment. Bostrom suggests imagining a paperclip factory acquiring a superintelligent AI, and the factory manager assigns the AI, seemingly simple, the task of producing as many paperclips as possible. In pursuit of this goal, the computer takes over the Earth, destroys all humans, sends expeditions to capture additional planets, and uses vast resources to fill the entire galaxy with paperclip factories. The essence of the thought experiment is that the computer did exactly what it was instructed to do.
Of course, it’s hard not to notice that Harari sometimes succumbs too much to alarmism. For example, he describes AI as something already spiraling out of control, though there are many technical constraints that inhibit its development. Nevertheless, his book is not a prediction, but an invitation to a discussion. A discussion about how technologies change our understanding of truth, freedom, and even reality.
P.S. I also liked this fragment:
“…It’s no wonder that politicians around the world spend a lot of time and effort recounting historical narratives. The aforementioned example with Vladimir Putin is hardly an exception. In 2005, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan first met with General Than Shwe, the then-dictator of Myanmar. Annan was advised to start the conversation first to prevent the general from monopolizing the talk, as the meeting was supposed to last only twenty minutes. But Than Shwe spoke first and almost for an hour about the history of Myanmar, leaving almost no opportunity for the UN Secretary-General to speak.”
Surprisingly, Harari did not include interviews with Tucker Carlson 🙂
“How many Romans or Jews in the time of Tiberius could have predicted that a small Jewish sect would ultimately conquer the Roman empire, and emperors would forsake the old Roman gods to worship a crucified Jewish rabbi?”
Indeed, a good question. As far as I am aware, at present, there is no religion that continues the traditions of ancient Roman or ancient Greek polytheism in their original form. Curiously, why is that?
I think that religions without centralized power simply stand no chance. On the other hand, what about Hinduism and Taoism? I’m not well-versed in this subject, but it’s interesting. I had never contemplated how it turned out that a dominant religion across a vast territory was completely obliterated.
Reading an article in Wired, the link will be in the comments. It’s fascinating to see how people from the past envisioned 2024.
In 2002, Kevin Kelly, one of the founders of Wired, attended a small party organized by Google, which at that time had not yet gone public and was solely engaged in search technologies. At this event, he struck up a conversation with Larry Page, Google’s co-founder, who later, in 2011, became the CEO of the company (and left the position in 2015).
Kelly asked Page a question that seemed sensible at the time:
— Larry, I still don’t understand. There are so many companies doing search. Free web search? Where is this going?
At that time, Google had not yet implemented its advertising sales scheme through auctions and had not made major acquisitions like YouTube. Many, including Kelly, doubted that Google would last long.
Page then replied:
— Oh, actually, we are making AI!
Years later, when Google had acquired 14 companies working in the fields of AI and robotics, Kelly often reflected back on that conversation. At first glance, it might seem that Google uses its AI resources to improve search, because search then generated 80% of the company’s revenue. However, Kelly wrote in his 2014 article that the opposite is true: Google uses search to enhance its AI.
Every time a user enters a query, clicks on a link or creates a link on the internet, they train Google’s AI. For example, by searching for “Easter bunny images and selecting the most appropriate one, a person teaches the system what an Easter bunny looks like. As of 10 years ago, when the article was written, 1.2 billion users made 12.1 billion queries daily, continuously training AI.
Interestingly, in that 2914 article Kelly was confident that by 2024, Google would create AI and it would gradually become the main product.
Well, here we are in 2024, and as of today 82% still comes from the same advertising. But still, 2024 became the year of AI and Google is among the key players (along with a dozen others).
Interestingly, the Larry-predicted formula from the article – add AI to everything indiscriminately and you get a new startup – worked out
“…In fact, the business plans of the next 10,000 startups are easy to forecast: Take X and add AI…”
He writes in 2024 that for AI, progress in three areas is critical:
1) GPU/parallel computation for training models
2) Big Data for training models
3) Algorithms that we have yet to conceive
“… This perfect storm of parallel computation, bigger data, and deeper algorithms generated the 60-years-in-the-making overnight success of AI.”
Discovered a plethora of interesting facts about SQLite. For those unaware — it is likely the most widespread database in the world. It’s utilized everywhere: from smartphones to cars and rockets. The scale of deployment — over _a trillion_ instances, billions of active copies worldwide. In your phone, dozens of applications use it.
Initially, SQLite emerged from the need to ensure reliable database operations on the USS Oscar Austin destroyer.
It is supported by _three people_. They do not admit external contributors. You can’t just send a pull request and hope the patch will be approved. SQLite’s development is backed by the company Hwaci. Interestingly, they seem to be involved in music too. Their website is extremely succinct. Office in a private house.
For each line of SQLite code, there are over 600 lines of test code. Tests cover 100% of branches (and 100% MC/DC) of the library. The test suite is highly diverse, including fuzzing tests, boundary value tests, regression tests, and tests simulating operating system crashes, power failures, I/O errors, and out-of-memory errors. Originally, SQLite was an extension of Tcl, and its main test suite is written in Tcl.
Interestingly, some SQLite tests are proprietary. The TH3 (Test Harness 3) test suite, which provides one hundred percent code branch coverage, is proprietary, and access to it is restricted.
I know of no other project that is open-source yet has paid tests.
To gain access, one must join the SQLite Consortium with an annual membership fee of 120 thousand dollars.
This is an interesting business model. Developers generate profit through licenses, paid support, service maintenance, consortium membership, and commercial extensions.
SQLite does not have a Code of Conduct (CoC); instead, they use a Code of Ethics derived from the “kinds of good deeds” from chapter 4 of the Rule of Saint Benedict. Google SQLite Code of Ethics, it’s a very intriguing document.
At the beginning of all source files, instead of legal notices, there is a blessing: “In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing: May you do good and not evil…”
SQLite creator Richard Hipp (D. Richard Hipp, DRH) couldn’t find any version control system that suited him, so he created his own called Fossil. Of course, Fossil is based on SQLite.
It reminded me of how Linus wrote Git.
DRH also wrote his own parser generator called Lemon.
All the above is described in more interesting details (and expanded) in an article on Habr, which is a translation into Russian of an article by Avinash Sajjanshetty. For originals — check the comments
Excellent! Why haven’t I heard of Ivan before? Such a cool interview. There’s so much that I want to quote. Here’s almost a random excerpt that I liked:
“…I like to give the example of a ‘startuper’ named Johann Gutenberg. Yes, by today’s standards, he would be a CTO. He invented the printing press, he invented printing technology, which is a technology that made it possible to disseminate information on a scale that was previously impossible. Then radio became that kind of technology, then television, then the internet. There he made the printing press, but he wouldn’t have ‘gone far’ with his press alone. There are examples of people who made similar printing presses but didn’t become as famous.
So what was the trick? He found himself a good CEO. This CEO lived nearby. Martin Luther. He came to Gutenberg, looked at the press and said: ‘We’ll print the Bible because it’s unclear what else to print.’ And Gutenberg says, ‘Fire, what an idea!’ They started printing the Bible in Latin, but people didn’t read it, it was unclear what was written. Let’s translate it, – yes, the CEO says: ‘We need to print the Bible in German, then it will sell well.’ You know, wait, people are illiterate. The CEO thinks we need pictures, so they went to a designer. What was the designer’s name? His name was Dürer, he also lived nearby in the same city. He drew engravings, the engravings in the Bible went down well with those who couldn’t read, and the texts went down well with those who could. And then Luther went to sell it. Well, to give out, to sell, here the story varies, but one way or another – boom, just an explosion, a new technology! People started to think on top of it: ‘Okay, the Bible is cool, but everyone has already bought the Bible, what will be our next theme?’ Yeah, kind of, and then someone gets carried away and says: ‘Ho, a book ‘How to recognize a witch’. That’s a theme that really takes off. A lot of people died because the books ‘How to recognize a witch’ spread mass. Essentially, fake news’.”
This is certainly a beautiful story, but Luther and Dürer were born several years after Gutenberg’s death, which Ivan definitely knows, but with this fact, the beautiful story just doesn’t hold up.
UPDATE: Ivan replied to my comment on YouTube: “…I actually got it mixed up. Lisa and the team added a clarification, and I wrote about this in response to another comment. I meant Hans Lufft and Cranach. They worked with Luther. The first printed, the second illustrated.”
Also, I can’t remember whether it was him or Ilia Strebulaev from a recent ‘Editors’ video, mentioned that in the early years of Google as a startup, there were already search engines on the market, but Google eventually displaced them all and now holds 93% of the market. I tried to recall what these search engines were, and besides AltaVista and Yahoo, nothing much came to mind. Guess I’m not old enough yet. Started researching. Besides altavista (1995-2013), these were lycos, excite (1994), infoseek (1995), hotbot (1996), webcrawler (1994-2001), ask jeeves (1996), yahoo (1994).
Definitely listen to Ilia Strebulaev too. He talks about venture in the Valley.
Some novelties for me. Sharing, as they’re likely new for you too. About bulbous bows on ships, about how the body of water under the Paris Opera from “The Phantom of the Opera” actually exists, about how 70% of all global internet traffic passes by my house, and about how no one really knows how general anesthesia or paracetamol works.
= First Discovery =. Large ships may have this thing in front, called a bulbous bow. I didn’t understand what it was for, it seems to disrupt hydrodynamics. Turns out, it’s quite the opposite. It improves it. It creates a counter wave that partially offsets the main bow wave occurring when the ship is moving — especially at high speeds and for large vessels. Each ship’s bulb is designed individually.
= Second Discovery =. Remember “The Phantom of the Opera”? There was a body of water under the Paris Opera where Erik and Christine sailed. Well, it’s not fictional. There really is a body of water beneath the Paris Opera House.
The opera house required a much deeper basement space beneath the stage than other types of buildings, but the groundwater level turned out to be unexpectedly high. In February 1862, wells were drilled and in March eight steam pumps were installed, which operated around the clock, yet the site remained damp. To solve this problem, Garnier designed a double foundation to protect the structure from moisture. The design included waterways and a huge concrete tank (cuve), meant to reduce the pressure of the external groundwater on the basement walls and to serve as a reservoir in case of fire. The construction contract was signed on June 20. Soon, a persistent legend arose that the opera house was built over an underground lake, inspiring Gaston Leroux to include this idea in his novel “The Phantom of the Opera”.
= Third Discovery = Of course I knew it was a lot, but today I saw the number — 70% of internet traffic passes through a place just about 10 minutes from where I live. Around me, more than 130 data centers have been built covering an area of three million square meters. Quite a thrilling neighborhood. I hope no ill-wishers will mark this place on the map with a cross. This cluster specifically consumes about 150 TWh, which by my estimates is like ___THREE MOSCOWS___.
= Fourth Discovery = It turns out that no one really knows how general anesthesia works. There are theories in Wikipedia on how anesthesia functions. But though they exist, none of them is completely convincing. In 2019, it was found that human-like anesthesia even works on plants, like on a mimosa and on a venus flytrap—they stop responding to touch under it. Not to mention, as everyone knows, plants don’t have a central nervous system at all. Not a brain, not even neurons. There’s also xenon anesthesia. Meaning, it’s fundamentally an inert substance, doesn’t react with anything, but somehow works. They recently figured out how aspirin works, but there’s still no full understanding of paracetamol.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 