PiSquared Blog
Blog about geeky stuff, computers, physics and life.
Tag opinions
The Third World War is coming. What to do about it?
Tags: English, opinionsCreated on Thu, 28 Jul 2016
The Third World War is coming. Everything is set in place for the war to unlock at any moment now. ISIS are the most powerful and cunning terrorist organisation the world has ever seen. There is nothing that can stop it. The Islam religion is so powerful, they want to kill people and they will do it over and over, more and more often. Because they are promised salvation. It is always the Islam. It is the wrong religion. 9/11. And we now let them in our own lands because they want asylum? Ontario, France, Belgium and Germany. But they are different. They are not like us. We let them kill our children. How long? Who do you fight with? There are the lone wolves that are impossible to track. Or so they tell us. Maybe they know. The more powerful, the people at the top, they know. Putin has been the worst dictator humanity has known yet his country is not attacked by ISIS. Why? Because he is part of the plan. He will be more manipulative and hungry for more power until the war breaks out.
...moreFacebook (and the rest) - wait a minute - this way is wrong!
Tags: English, technology, opinionsCreated on Thu, 19 Jul 2018
This is not the way we wanted computers to work. We don't want people addicted to their phones all the time, looking like zombies, internally feeling depressed and anxious and always trying to outcompete everybody in the world; trying to show off to get a few more likes, to get a few more comments. We don't want this poisonous competition of individuals for meaningless virtual points. And all the while these same people are being exploited by Facebook to click on things so that advertisers can show them ads to things they probably don't even want. We don't want people reading shallow automatically generated articles of confirmation bias, which are being promoted by Facebook to get even more clicks for more ads for more things you don't want.
We wanted to connect with the people we care about. It's our intrinsic desire in this more and more isolated society. We wanted to know what is going on in the lives of the people we cared about but not to compete with them in this ugly jelaous
...moreBullsh8t, Episode #1 - Astrology
Tags: English, opinionsCreated on Sat, 29 Sep 2018
This episode of bulls8t is sponsored by my own desire to limit some of the bullsh8t in the world
Horoscopes are the worst thing since the invention of God(s). The stupid idea that planets and stars somehow influence your day to day life is idiotic and should have died pretty much whenever it was conceived. Like most of humanity. Or at least ever since we know that it doesn't influence your life. Which in all practical terms has been forever.
Hey babeee, Which sign are you?
Astrology, a.k.a. horoscopes, a.k.a. these things in the websites you read "just for fun but you actually don't really believe" (but deep down you actually do believe them because you think there is a grand scheme of things, but deeper, deeper down you know you don't know anything) revolves around an idea called a sign. Signs are twelve words that sound funny in English so that's why we stick with much hipster Latin.
ACKCHYUALLY. Signs are constellat
...moreWhy I got vaccinated? (part 1)
Tags: English, opinions, essays, personal, learning, lifeCreated on Fri, 04 Jun 2021
Edit: see part 2: what is True and part 3 - what would convince me NOT to vaccinate for progress on opinions in this article.
TL;DR: Because I care about myself, my parents and friends and I believe vaccination is the best way to protect myself and them, in order to resume any kind of "normality". I believe the risk of vaccination outweights the risk of not vaccinating, I trust the process of vaccination approval and testing by the various national and supra-national organizations, I trust the scientists and (even though I don't have to) I understood the relative simplicity of the idea of the vaccine and immune response generated by it. I find it unlikely that there is a larger conspiratorial picture for control, even if the vaccine has not naturally occured but it turns out it has been produced artifically on purpose for some geo-game or by accident by l
...moreWhat is true? (part 2)
Tags: English, opinions, essays, lifeCreated on Sun, 13 Jun 2021
Edit: see part 1 - Why I got vaccinated and part 3 - what would convince me NOT to vaccinate for progress on opinions in this article.
I want to continue talking in this blog about truth, facts, miss- and disinformation, propaganda. Today - a YouTube video from New York Times, talking about "Operation InfeKtion":
... which is NOT about the Corona (video is from 2018). It's rather about an operation back in the 80s sponsored by the Russian KGB aiming to spread a story that the HIV virus was secretly created by the US, starting at a single newspaper story in India.
The video is extremely worth watching in this day and age where misinformati
...moreWhat would convince me to NOT vaccinate? (part 3)
Tags: English, politics, opinions, essays, lifeCreated on Thu, 17 Jun 2021
So, part 1 - Why I got vaccinated and part 2 - What is True are my attempts to figure out how to find truth in this day and age. My conclusion: it's hard.
Today, I play the devil's advocate. My usual conversation when someone presents me with a conspiracy theory is to ask "What would convince you otherwise?". So, let's play this game on me today - what would convince me that the vaccine is NOT safe?
My response is that first, I trust the World Health Organization (WHO), European Medicines Agency (EMA), the [US's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2
...moreGoogle that I used to love
Tags: English, opinionsCreated on Mon, 18 Mar 2013
For those who know me, they are used to the idea that I am one of the biggest Google-fan boys. Thus, this post will be long. It's my life. I use not only the trivial Google search which everybody uses, I write my reports on Google Drive/Docs, organise my schedule on Calendar, correspond with Gmail (I even redirect the University email, which uses some 50-year old MS mailbox) and listen to YouTube. Of course the list goes on - Blogger, Chrome, Picasa, News, Music, Maps, Plus... Basically almost every tab I open comes from Google (or its search).
The Reader is Dead
One of these services is Google Reader - many probably haven't even heard of it, but for me it was one of the daily tabs. It aggregates RSS feeds (mainly blogs) that I love to read if there is something new. That's because I don't want to visit everyday xkcd, the Oatmeal or the blogs of my [friends](https:
...moreCan YouTube be wrong?
Tags: English, technology, opinions, life, politicsCreated on Tue, 29 Jun 2021
No. This is simply, mathematically impossible.
YouTube (Google/Alphabet) is not made of people. It's made of omniscient gods. I am one of them, therefore it must be true.
So when YouTube puts this in their guidelines:
It is impossible that they (we) are wrong.
"OK, " - a mere mortal might ask - "Why are they (you) claiming this? Joe Rogan invited that guy that you talked about the other week and this new doctor dude to talk about some medicine. They seem calm, rational and calmly talking about evidence-based research, just look:"
Ah, so you are watching this outside of the exclusive deal [that Rogan
...moreConspiracies
Tags: English, politics, opinions, essays, lifeCreated on Thu, 19 Aug 2021
I've been listening to a lot of arguments lately about the "safety of the vaccine", "the lie about the Corona". My last five or so blog posts (since about 3 months ago) are all about me going as deep as I can tolerate into some conspiracies and questioning truth, reality and authority. Now, I am spending my summer vacation in the worst country in EU regarding vaccination rate (~15% fully vaccinated as of writing of this post in August 2021) but also one of most corrupt - 69th/180, and with least press freedom - 112th. Correlation doesn't imply causation of course. So let me causate it using my observations.
In my view there are three types of conspiracists. Take "The Earth is Flat" conspiracy:
- The first group might be schizophrenics and other categorically mentally ill people for whom is hard to discern reality. This is not a small group of pe
What are ads (potentially) good for?
Tags: English, technology, opinionsCreated on Wed, 26 Nov 2014
When I was small, I've always hated the ads on TV that would interrupt my favorite movie or show. And they would do this 5 times in an hour, sometimes for so long that I would forget what I was watching. I didn't see the point of them at all. Well, unless I wanted to go pee - and I actually thought for quite a while that this is the reason for ads.
Then someone told me that this is how the channels are supporting themselves and that without the ads, TV would not exist. I thought this is stupid.
But as I grew up, I accepted the fact. I still hated them though and me and my family would have the desperate "Argh!" whenever we heard the famous jingle of the ad block beginning. And they would of course do it in the most interesting part of the movie. This is supposed to be entertaining?!
Are all ads evil though? Isn't there some value in them? I would like to spend some time to rethink the advertisement model in the world.
To start of, I believe the model is currently very corru
...moreDiscuss the argument that hackers do public service by finding and publicising computer security weaknesses
Tags: English, opinions, essays, universityCreated on Tue, 10 Feb 2015
context: We have to write an essay for a course at University. But first, we have to submit a draft, then be assigned to read drafts of other people and mark them. Which in the end doesn't matter at all.
BTW, Честит рожден ден, тати!
Number 1. Oh my Random, not another essay!
Of course they do. Is there really an argument for the other side?
Let's first define hacker – a highly controversial term for the regular dumb man/woman/unidentified (henceforth referred to as a “cuggle” – a computer muggle. Muggle, in the Harry Potter universe, is someone who lacks any magical abilities and was not born in the magical world, often denying the existence of magic itself [1]). Now, cuggles believe that a hacker is bad word. They see it as someone who does bad things with the aid of computers like stealing money, blackmailing or lunching rockets by getting hold of NASA computers. While this is not unseen in real life [2] (IRL [3]), it is rarely the case when the term is u
...moreBig Game - score 10 of a Murica movie
Tags: English, opinionsCreated on Fri, 08 May 2015
I fell victim to another brainwash called Big Game, an american movie featuring Samuel Jackson's face and the Bratislava Radio Orchestra (epic music guys, worth it!). At the time of writing the movie had 80% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Spoiler alert obviously, although I advise you to save your precious hours on this planet and skip the movie. Unless you have murican flag on your wall, murican pants and tatooed one or more presidents on any parts of your body. Then you will probably like it but just please, stay in your southern state.
The movie starts okay - a boy in some far away, wild country, is to become a man by proving he can hunt on his 13 birthday. The country we later understand is Finland - a country with un
...moreOn windows and software development
Tags: English, technology, opinionsCreated on Mon, 26 Mar 2018
There are worker guys now in the office just changing a window. And I am thinking... I so wish it was this way with software development - they have a task, there is a due time, it is clear and there are standard tools to do the job. And even if their clothing is dirty, because that's what their line of work is, they look oh so professional. They know what they do, how much time it is going to take them, what to use and the job is done perfectly and even integration tested it by opening closing the window and then stress tested it by hanging on it to see it holds.
If he was a software developer... You never know... They may have a very new incompatible window, so they will have to stick with duck tape where there are some holes, do a unit test of the handle and the glass and say it has 99% coverage but actually opening and closing it crashes the window next to it and the stability of the whole building is under question. Then they would explain that it worked when they tried it on t
...moreLearning through participation as the rule rather than the exception
Tags: English, opinions, essays, university, learningCreated on Wed, 18 Feb 2015
School has never been only about learning stuff.
For few years I believed it’s the things happening in the breaks that matter. Relationships, doing stupid things and talking about crazy ideas. But that’s not completely true. I believed that because just my last memories from school are that things in the break matter. But it didn’t use to be the case. I loved learning things when I was younger.
Oh my, I would read like crazy - Encyclopedias, science books, I would draw the planets of the cosmos and remember the map of Europe. For 16 years of education, school and later University were trying really, really hard to kill this in me. My love and passions, my curiosities. I (almost completely) stopped going to school in the last couple of years. I was having my own projects and I didn’t care about the things in the breaks so nothing could keep me there. There were a few subjects like Physics that were interesting to me but by the last couple of years I started slowly falling out of
...moreI want to walk naked!
Tags: English, politics, opinions, essays, lifeCreated on Fri, 24 Sep 2021
Walking naked is natural. Putting clothes on a person is a form of fascism. Today if I try to just walk naked, outside of my bathroom, my flat (if I live with roomates) or some very small beaches - I will be told off and potentially arrested. How come?
Clothes have an obvious primary purpose - the human body is not too well adapted to live in the extreme colds in some areas of the world. But for some complicated historical, theological, anthropological and/or societal reason almost all of the world's people and civilisations have decided that wearing clothes has at least the secondary purpose to cover mainly our primary and almost always - secondary reproductive organs.
It has reached a stage where not wearing clothes in public space is a sign of some sort of craziness or activism for some cause. Even though it can be argued that not wearing clothes is the more natural way of handling the human body, especially on the summer hot days. (I will ignore the issue with sunb
...morePrivacy is over: Everyone's chats on Facebook and Instagram have leaked online
Tags: English, technology, opinionsCreated on Thu, 14 Oct 2021
A massive trove of data has leaked online in one of the most exhaustive data dumps in the last decades. Facebook's chat application Messenger and image sharing service Instagram have been breached this Monday following multiple worldwide outages and controversies brought forward by whistleblowers in the past month.
More than 2.6 billion people's conversations, including the text, photos, videos and voice messages for the past two years are organized in a collection of torrents that are circling dark web forums such as 4chan and reddit.
The Guarrdian has verified that chat history seems to end a week before the accident - namely until 28 Septmber 2021. The leak data frame spawns between September 2019 and end of September 2021. Chats between journalists, political officials, celebretie
...moreI change my mind all the time
Tags: English, Български, политика, politics, мнения, opinions, лични, personal, life, животCreated on Thu, 21 Oct 2021
I believe you should have the freedom to change your mind as often as you would like, especially when new facts come your way. But also if you would like to experiment with something, even if you think it's bad or wrong. That's part of the reason I now have an instagram.
Yesterday I wrote a blog post in Bulgarian that I deleted less than an hour after publishing. It regarded the situation around the certificates of vaccination becoming a requirement for certain amenities in my home country. It was quite emotional and I decided that it's not worth it to put more fuel in the already fiery situation (although IRL I usually like doing that).
But I also removed it because I realized I disagree with my statements. More accurately - I was pointed out by a friend that my argument may require a bit more thought about some aspects that my monkey brain didn't remember when initially writing the post. I usually don't delet
...more1984
Tags: English, politics, technology, opinions, essays, lifeCreated on Tue, 22 Mar 2022
Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.
I think of this blog sometimes as Winston's diary. One day I will probably pay the price of having it and pouring my thoughts here. I can hide it but should I?
I censor myself to think thoughts that may matter. I don't talk about ideas with people around me, other than some very close circle of people that I trust are not the secret police. I'm not paranoid (yet). I enjoy and must be thankful of the freedoms I have in "THE WEST". I must feel the privilege of being a young white male. Some days I do actually feel it now.
I'm a member of the Outer party, working for one of the Biggest Brothers humanity has known. As such, I get almost daily reminder what I should support and what I should oppose. Today I must support Ukraine and hate Russia. Yesterday I shouted that people should get vaccines and raged that the ones who don't are why we still don't have our freedoms. It was so sad indeed
...moreWho wants to be conscious?
Tags: English, technology, opinions, essays, lifeCreated on Tue, 05 Jul 2022
We don't have a device that measures consciousness. That's it. Until we figure out how to make a consciousness-scale, it's useless to argue whether something is or isn't conscious. A dog can be conscious. But so can a rock. A virus, a star, the rainbow can be conscious until we figure out what the F consciousness is and how we could measure it. All other arguments would be religion for me and I'm slowly starting to get used to saying that you are "free to believe in whatever you want" but as every religion goes - I may not agree with your conclusions.
Imagine it's the day before we figured out how to measure radiation. Our human senses can't detect radiation. Perhaps some radioactive elements glow or if you wait enough time, the long-term effects are that you get a nasty disease. But, without a Geiger counter or such similar device that amplifies the nano-scopic radiation, you would not be able to weed out the materials that exhibit some characteristics of radiation but are not rea
...moreState of AI
Tags: English, technology, opinions, essays, lifeCreated on Sun, 30 Apr 2023
Human in a box
It is NOT going to be an argument that AI is sentient or have emotions. Certainly not in its current form. I will go to that point later in the essay.
However, I will be putting a human in a box as a thought experiment in learning, not consciousness. It will remind some people of the Chinese room but this will be a more cruel version so that we take away any possible learning that the human has acquired in "the real world" before being put in the room.
The following description may be difficult and emotional to follow.
Imagine a human child is put in a latex suit in a dark box in space right after birth without a possibility to interact with the world in any way, other than the described below. The latex suit limits their touch perception, space removes orientation, it's dark so vision is impaired and there is no sound. The basic physiological needs are provided to them - clean air, food, and water are gi
...more