The Unexpected Joy of Using Paper

Ever since I got an iPad with a digital pen around eight years ago, I have continuously been trying to stay away from paper. I thought paper was old-fashioned and outdated. They take up a lot of space, are heavy, and cannot be organized easily without tools like folders. Even when they can, they cannot be nested infinitely and very logically like I can with files on a computer. Moreover, I can do everything I can do on paper on an iPad and more. More importantly, I think technology is the future so why should I use something that is literally thousands of years old, and seemingly used only by old people who don’t understand new technology, when I can use an iPad that is only a few decades old?

ChatGPT frequent requests refusals

Recently, I was trying to investigate printing works at my university. I know it sends files with some protocol over https because I had to input some http url into a system dialogue to add the printer, as well as my university email and password, but I was not sure how it works exactly.

Applications of First Principles

We often overlook first principles due to their self-evident nature, as our focus lies in uncovering less apparent truths. In mathematical contexts, while clear first principles, such as the definition of differentiation, exist, their direct application may not lead us far in practical derivations. Instead, we leverage a multitude of clever methods devised by brilliant minds over centuries, allowing us to work efficiently without constant contemplation of the foundational principles.

First Principles

That is the difference between mathematics and physics. Mathematicians, or people who have very mathematical minds, are often led astray when “studying” physics because they lose sight of the physics. They say: “Look, these differential equations—the Maxwell equations—are all there is to electrodynamics; it is admitted by the physicists that there is nothing which is not contained in the equations. The equations are complicated, but after all they are only mathematical equations and if I understand them mathematically inside out, I will understand the physics inside out.” Only it doesn’t work that way. Mathematicians who study physics with that point of view—and there have been many of them—usually make little contribution to physics and, in fact, little to mathematics. They fail because the actual physical situations in the real world are so complicated that it is necessary to have a much broader understanding of the equations. — Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics

Single points of failure in IPv4

In my previous blog post, I made the bold claim that like NAT and HTTP’s Host Header, was sufficient for our current internet needs, perfect enough to work around the limited number of IPv4 addresses. However, a recent revelation about government surveillance through Apple’s and Google’s notification servers has led me to reconsider. These IPv4 workarounds, I’ve realized, introduce critical vulnerabilities: they create centralized points of failure, starkly contrasting the decentralized ethos of the Internet Protocol.