frontpage eng on Kiko's Personal Site

Conceptual Blindspots

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Blind - Paul Strand

Within our minds, there seem to be a set of conceptual primitives that we each possess that instruct our thinking and model-making of the world. These include, for example, concepts like space, time, numbers up to five, length, distinction between the continuous and the discrete, distinction between the general and particular of a thing, and so on. From these primitives, using analogies and metaphors, we derive all our conceptual understanding of the world. This is why analogies and metaphors are so central to language and thought – they allow us to construct brand new objects isomorphic to structures we’ve built from these primitives.

Gen-Z will Probably Succumb to Mind Control

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Unfortunately, the CIA’s (public) attempts at developing mind control were a success and we’re starting to recognize it’s fruits now. Every day, more and more content online is generated by large language models controlled by the most deplorable people in American (and Chinese) society. We’ve already seen how powerful of propaganda machines these things are. TikTok, X, Instagram have all become personalized propaganda machines not only meant to control your mind but meanwhile gripping your attention so hard you think you love it.

Why 'Gonna' Works

Sat, 25 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Living in Europe you’ll meet plenty of English learners ill-adopting certain informal speech patterns from fluent speakers. This leads a native speaker to hear these funny dialectical differences used ungrammatically, which leads me to wonder: If they can be used ungrammatically, what’s the underlying grammar like?? Today, I wanted look at the following family of contractions:

Going to    -> Gonna
Got to      -> Gotta
Want to     -> Wanna
Need to     -> Needa
Have to     -> Hafta

At first glance one might assume that these are the results of lazy speech, that the pattern of verb + to prompts speakers to glob those sounds together into one word. However, if this were truly the case, we’d expect this contraction to appear wherever we find verb + to. Interestingly enough, this is not what we find.

The True Dangers of AI

Mon, 21 Aug 2023 18:03:15 +0200

The Trinity test, 15 seconds after detonation

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Manhattan Project (probably since I just watched the new Oppenheimer movie) and the inevitability of the atomic bomb. This bomb was going to get built no matter what. If the physics exists, someone was going to make the bomb eventually. No doubt about it. The reason this part lingers with me, I think, is due to the paralells that one can draw here between physics and intelligence sciences (AI, neuroscience, psych, etc). Addictive software that harvests information for social control already exists. This data can easily be exploited in a myriad of ways using AI to cause harm for political or financial gain. We have all the uranium we need; the atom just needs splitting.

Social media has failed. Get a website

Fri, 09 Jun 2023 17:14:31 -0500

In today’s digital landscape, where government-sized social media platforms dictate so much of our lives, it’s becoming ever so clear that having your own website is no longer just a luxury for the successful. Getting a personal website is the most important thing for your online presence.

The internet is currently owned by some 3 major megacorporations. Not that this is any secret; visit any of the major social media sites and you’ll notice a massive chunk of the content is just screenshots from the other sites. Aside from the annoyance it is, this system threatens individuals’ ownership and privacy. These mega-sites have complete ownership over everything you’re posting. You may pretend that you technically own everything. The copyright is still in your hands. The real owner, however, is the one who decides where it gets seen, whether it gets deleted, whether you get paid for it, etc. Social media platforms can, and have, deleted posts they simply don’t like. All these social media sites have vague rules that could, with some mild twisting, apply to anything.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Note prima di pubblicare

Usa la sostantivazione per tono formale (es. “L’amore per la libertà” invece di “La gente ama la libertà”), ma senza appesantire.
Sfrutta il congiuntivo e il condizionale dove servono per sfumare o precisare ipotesi e valutazioni.
Periodo ipotattico: una proposizione principale con più subordinate chiarisce relazioni logiche ed è tipico del registro alto. Esempio: “Poiché il progetto è stato rivisto, benché i tempi siano stretti, possiamo procedere se il budget verrà confermato.”

About me

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

As you probably can tell I go by Kiko. I’m Italian born and American raised. I am pursuing a degree in mathematics at the University of Pavia (Università di Pavia). My interests include mathematics (obviously), technology, linux, linguistics, classic literature, and stuff of the sorts.

On this site I write about things that I like and sometimes things I dislike, but always stuff I find interesting. If you’re honestly curious in what I think I’d just go read some posts.

Links to other sites

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Here I keep an assortment of pages/resources I find interesting enough to share.

I try and stay as far from the corporate, “social media” web as I can, everything here is of a libre, open-source, minimalist-adjacent flavor. If any links are broken lmk.

Meta
wiby.me | Search engine for minimalist/retro websites
ooh.directory | Directory of non-commercial blogs
neocities.org | Site hosting for static websites

Software (all libre)
newsboat.org | Terminal based RSS reader
suckless.org | Open-source, hackable software
searxng | Free internet metasearch engine

Linguistics & Philosophy
plato.stanford.edu | Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
LGPSI | Lingua Graeca Per Se Illustrata
Perseus Library | The Perseus Hopper
ocw.mit.edu | MIT open courseware; free class materials and lectures

Misc
apod.nasa.gov | NASA’s official pic-of-the-day
italianpoetry.it | Translations of famous Italian poetry
libraryofbabel.info | Digital recreation of Borges’ Library of Babel