Recent content on Stanislaw Baranski
I recently joined Dani’s podcast for a conversation about love, relationships, and personal growth. For most of my life, I approached relationships in a very pragmatic way. I didn’t really believe in love. It felt like something exaggerated, like a story people tell themselves to feel better. At some point, that stopped working. In this conversation, we talk about a few ideas that changed my…
--> Our understanding of humanity is far from a complete picture. However, there are theories that have been strengthening their position in the worldview marketplace for many years. In this essay, we look through the lenses of these theories to answer the question “What makes us more human?” The first set of lenses comes from Darwin’s theory of evolution. Humanity’s position at…
The 11th edition of the Zero Knowledge Summit took place in Athens on April 10th, 2024, at the Eugenides Planetarium. The event hosted 500 attendees, including researchers, cryptographers, practitioners, founders, and developers working on zero knowledge topics. --> The topics discussed at the zkSummit included zkVM, proving networks, hardware acceleration, data provenance, privacy-preserving…
My notes What do I want to get out of the book? (Shopping list): [ ] What is a fact that forms a science? [ ] What distinguishes science from pseudoscience [ ] How to distinguish scam from intuition [ ] What does science say about believing [ ] Where is a place for believing [ ] What is theory? [ ] What is a statement? [ ] What does make a good experiment? [ ] What is inductivism? [ ] How do we…
A few years ago, if someone had told me I’d go on an Erasmus, I would’ve ignored them at best. It seemed so unlike me—unexciting and, more importantly, a waste of time. But everywhere I looked, people spoke how it changed their lives. The only regrets I saw were from people who wished but didn’t go. I didn’t want to be one of them. My life was stable, full of close friends…
My notes Writing paper step by step Fleeting notes. These are the place to dump your ideas out of your head, once they are on paper, you release cache of your brain, letting it find new ideas. Don't worry how your write them. You will amend them later. Make literature notes. Whenever you read something, make notes about the content. Everything you found interesting, insightful. Use your own words,…
My notes A great book about Distributed Systems. From the programmer's (not the mathematician's) point of view. I love the approach to abstractions and modelling. The great rationale behind different models and abstraction levels. Difference between CAP and FLP impossibilities. Excellent conceptualisation, and great metaphors. Great discussion about different types of consistency, strong, weak,…
My notes My thinking is as bad as [[Rodion Raskolnikov]]. He also believed that there are two types of people, "normies" and "special". Normies can be compared because they have nothing unique, they are nothing more than animals. "Special" people like Napoleon can kill people, can change rules and norms, for the greater good. The same as he could kill the old lady [[Utilitarism — for the greater…
I always considered dancing stupid. A pastime for those unable to engage in more intellectual conversations. We, the intellectuals, holding drinks, contemplating politics, religion, economics, technology and other “important things” are the ones playing the real game, solving problems so that others can dance. We have been fooled into thinking that, in the long run, we will be the most…
Have you ever wondered what causes two people to meet each other and feel an instant vibe? Why do some people seem to be your people , while others seem to be different species ? You meet those people repeatedly and probably developed a stereotypical persona in your mind for those kinds of people . Personality types are a scientific approach to naming and measuring those kinds of people . Naming…
Feelings are the unconditional source of truth. Trust them and use them to build authentic opinions . Speak with the intention of inspiring, not bragging. Listen with the intention of understanding, not responding. Write with the intention of being useful, not to look smart. If you haven’t learned anything by writing, don’t publish. Do not expect others to act according to your values…
Revenue is a measure of objective usefulness to people. Happiness is a measure of subjective valuing of what we do. Self-esteem is a measure of subjective usefulness to other people. Gratitude is a measure of valuing what others do for me. Let’s bring some formalisation and define a notation: Revenue equals how others value what I do. Symbolically: Happiness equals how I value what I do.…
My notes Our first endeavors are purely instinctive, promptings of an imagination vivid and undisciplined. As we grow older reason asserts itself and we become more and more systematic and designing. We all start with intuitive and imaginative mind, unrestricted by any rules. Over years we learn rules that we consider unbreakable. We become more systematic and rigid.
My notes We can't say that our past is the only source of our future, because it would mean determinism. in Adlerian psychology, we don't focus on previous causes but rather on future goals. Aetiology is a stufy about cause, we focus on past to explain present. In contrast, teleology is a study about purpose of a given phenomena. We are not determined by our experiences, but by the meaning we give…
Optimising life can be represented as an optimisation function over your time spend on all areas of your life. Finding the optimal amount of hours to spend on each part of your life to achieve the optimum can be expressed as mathematical equation: $$(t_g, t_h, t_w, t_l) = \underset{{ {t_g, t_h, t_w, t_l \in [0,24]\ |\ t_g + t_h + t_w + t_l = 24} }}{argmax} g(t_g) * h(t_h) * w(t_w) * l(t_l)$$
Having no opinions is hiding. Having opinions is showing yourself to others—it’s being authentic. Develop authentic opinions on everything, using your feelings. When topics and ideas show up, ask yourself “How do I feel about that?” Even if your opinion is that “I don’t care”, ask yourself why you don’t care, how do you feel about people that care? Write…
My notes The book is written in a neat and succinct way which I love. It's not too long, not too short. It covers everything you would want to know about interpersonal situations. Takeaway directives: Men talk in the language of facts and things. Women talk in a language of feelings and emotions. Learn to recognize feelings and emotions to understand women better. Learn to express feelings and…
Virtue and happiness, diligence and luckiness, self-reliance and freedom, openness and wisdom, doubt and novelty, courage and longevity, ignorance and rebellion, understanding and appreciation, change and growth, usefulness and wealth, commitment and confidence, in-dependence and inter-dependence, honesty and peace, mistake and expertise, obedience and leadership, engagement and friendship,…
No one value what you value. People care only about their values. If you want to be valuable, convince people of your values or give them what they value. People in academia value knowledge, they are annoyed the fact that their knowledge is not rewarded as they believe it should be. They believe that doing what requires more time and focus is more valuable, yet someone who just entered a…
My notes If you lack a grand goal in living, you lack a coherent philosophy of life. When you are on your deathbed, you will look back and realize that you wasted your one chance at living. Instead of spending your life pursuing something genuinely valuable, you squandered it because you allowed yourself to be distracted.
When we want to brag about our wealth , we buy expensive items, lease cars, spend more than we earn. The problem arises when we do it merely to impress others—and even worse—people who don’t care. When we want to brag about our social status , we show up in prestigious places and hang out with famous people. The problem arises when we become so considerate about our status that we stop expressing…
Cryptocurrencies are hard to understand because they sit at the intersection of topics that are hard to understand by themselves — the banking system, cryptography, and game theory. The banking system is probably the most familiar, but the mere fact that you use a credit card or do wire transfers doesn’t enlighten you on how the whole system works. Cryptography, in short, is a branch of…
We were beaten by our parents and humiliated by our teachers for not executing commands. We were humiliated by people who were supposed to be our support. We were ridiculed by peers for having unique opinions. We were cheated by our closest. We were left alone when we needed to be surrounded. It is appealing to be thankful for this period of life. Thinking that it toughened your character, that,…
We tend to think that formalization and theories are unnecessary or even harmful as they try to constrain nature, which is (and should be) unconstrained 1 . The idea of infinite possibilities can be charming; in practice, however, it is overwhelming, thus limiting creativity. It is counterintuitive that the creative process is possible once we introduce some limits. When two people are looking for…
My notes "When you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they’ve given up on you" When I screw something up, and no one tells me anything, that means they don't care about me.
Making a profitable app is the Holy Grail of the 21st century. The importance of an idea Non-technical people think that a good idea is half of a successful app. Technical people think that if they only had a good idea, they would have built it successfully. Neither is true. An idea is just a multiplication of an implementation. An average idea with a great implementation produces good results. A…
My notes At first, I thought that the book is about extremes, and the author's intention is to convince readers that no "way of life" is superior to another. There were some "ways to live" that entirely resonated with me. Others don't. So I thought that maybe the book will help me find my way of life from all possible and stick with it. As if everyone should choose one set of clothes and wear them…
It was somewhere five o’clock in the morning. Outside the window, the rising sun. For most, this might be the time to get out of bed. For me, it was just an indication to maybe stop working and go to sleep. I set my alarm for 5h of sleep, not because I didn’t want to sleep more, but because Arnold Schwarzenegger once said “if you don’t have time, sleep faster”. Silly,…
People often say, “I don’t know what people see in this,” thinking they are naive. But what if the answer is right there, in the first clause, “I don’t know”? When you see a sports car or motorcycle and say it is entirely impractical, uncomfortable, expensive, dangerous, and loud. It’s a sign you don’t understand it. You don’t understand the…
Blind signature is a cryptographic scheme, which allows for a signature creation on an encrypted message that is also valid on the decrypted message. This powerful scheme enables many anonymous schemes to exist. The process of a blind signature can be visualized as follows: Alice prepares a letter. Alice place it into an envelope along with carbon paper. Bob signs the envelope. Alice takes out the…
Blockchain technology has become popular mainly because of its openness, neutrality, censorship-resistant, and permissionless. We can think of open blockchains as a pure democracy, where developers are legislators, miners are deputy, and end-users are electoral. Each group is incentivised to act honesty by the other two. If developers (legislators) do not do their best to improve the ecosystem,…
Although I had never smoked cigarettes before, I got interested in e-cigarettes. I was intrigued by the concept of DIY electronics and the competition of chasing the biggest cloud. E-cigarettes are straightforward devices. In the simplest mechanical form, they consist of a high-ampere battery, button, heating coil, and cotton inside it; everything connected and packed into a housing. Pressing a…
My notes “Whatever excites you, go do it. Whatever drains you, stop doing it. You have to pay close attention to that compass, even in little day-to-day decisions.” Whatever excited you, do it, whatever drains you, stop doing it “You’re going to hear a lot of advice. Listen to it all, but pay close attention to what it does to your energy and focus. If it makes you jump into action, it’s good…
My notes Ideas are worthless unless executed. Ideas are just multiplier of a execution. You must be careful of executing bad ideas, and not executing great ideas, because they can bring the same poor outcome. Also be careful of executing awful ideas, because they multiplier can be negative. There is nothing wrong with not growing big (like in bodybuilding, there is nothing wrong if you don't…
My notes