Kiril Piskunov

Developer at @ConfluentInc. Previously @MongoDB.

[Kiril Piskunov @ciudilo]

@felixprehn AI

[Nature is Amazing ☘️ @AMAZlNGNATURE]

Ants making a smart maneuver

[Kiril Piskunov @ciudilo]

@ChaponaBike123 @RBKingston @MPSKingston The road is significantly improved now that it has been converted to a one-way street for cars, with a contraflow bike lane. Previously, when the narrow road accommodated two-way car traffic, vehicles often got stuck while trying to pass each other
cc @RichmondPkCycle

[Kiril Piskunov @ciudilo]

@JoseBeenTV @aimzbradley Maybe they are afraid that if bag stays on the wheels then it will roll off

[Cllr Anna Railton 🌹 is on 🦋 @rail_guns]

This isn't just good leaflet copy, this is why politics matters and different parties aren't all "just the same".

Here's a collection of similarly devastating graphs

🧵 (1/11)

[Kiril Piskunov @ciudilo]

@gwenshap Relying on a database sharding for data residency is a sure way to get in trouble. Always one database rebalance away from a massive fine

[Jonathan Blow @Jonathan_Blow]

This is a pretty cool image.

https://t.co/AjGMoAqE9W

[Chamath Palihapitiya @chamath]

US Congress members by age, %

[Kiril Piskunov @ciudilo]

@cyclingreporter Switched to Polar H10 recently, seems to be solid

[Alaric The Barbarian @0xAlaric]

One aspect of historical life that most misunderstand is the degree to which things could just... happen, without any possibility of averting them.

We live in an administrative state, with Lovecraftian levels of bureaucracy dedicated to dealing with every possible occurrence. This hasn't always been the case.

For example, take it back a few centuries and people could just... walk into your village with swords and say you're now their slave. What are you going to do, call the police? The men of the village *are* the police, and if they're overpowered there's no recourse.

For women, being taken as a war bride was a non-zero possibility in life. That was just a possibility you had to live with.

Even more recently (18th, 19th centuries) sailors could be "recruited" by press gangs. Kidnapped, often from a tavern or similar, and forcibly interred in the Navy. That's just your life now. Got too drunk and woke up on the HMS Victory as a deckhand.

There are dozens more examples. This sort of randomness is a more primordial way of life, one that we've done our best to excise from modern society.

But in reality, it is still the base form of life - we just do our best to work around it, to make such actions undesirable in the long run.

However, this is a double-edged sword. While you're unlikely to be pressed into military service or taken as plunder... alienation from such risks creates a false sense of control. A sort of false belief that because these things are disincentivized, they can't happen.

After a lifetime exposed to such an environment, you begin to believe that everything in your life is under your control, that nothing can happen without your approval. This manifests as anxiety, neuroticism, fear of loss of control.

At the same time, it disincentivizes action in the moment; everything should be planned long-term, played prudently and slowly.

Because everything becomes a long-term game, we build an unfamiliarity with intense, life-changing situations. Emergencies, acts of violence. People freeze up, think "this can't be happening"... "this isn't allowed to happen."

Very dangerous, and distinctly modern, way of thinking.

[The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor]

This painting has no brush strokes — it is made from over 2,000,000 individual dots of colour.

And though this may look like nothing more than a sunny afternoon in Paris, it has a much darker hidden meaning...

[Kiril Piskunov @ciudilo]

@levelsio £3000 at Heathrow in London

[Kiril Piskunov @ciudilo]

@InvestiAnalyst Turns out "Fitness" is Chronic Training Load (CTL). CTL makes much more sense but it's a trademarked term so it's not being used on Strava.

https://t.co/1oZp1aMKgr

[Tim (still totally unremarkable) @forwardnotback]

Some quotes about the National Minimum Wage from 1997 and earlier:
Tory Philip Hammond told parliament; “I predict that, at the margins, the result of minimum wage legislation, set at any effective level, will be to drive some small businesses into the black economy.”

[Kiril Piskunov @ciudilo]

@david_whitney Corbyn ideas made Labour unelectable, the further they distance themselves from him the better.

[Kiril Piskunov @ciudilo]

@kozlovski Isn’t this the promise of the GitHub X?

[Kiril Piskunov @ciudilo]

@reachvaldo 👋

[Gary Bernhardt @garybernhardt]

1960s: "COBOL will let non-programmers make the software!"

1980s: "4GLs will let non-programmers make the software!"

2000s: "UML will let non-programmers make the software!"

2020s: "AI will let non-programmers make the software!"

[Emma Fildes @emmafildes]

“It’s likely that we are currently living in the lag – a delay between Wile E Coyote running off the cliff & gravity starting to take effect.” With many in the property industry “trying to convince themselves & everyone else that we haven’t run out of rd” https://t.co/EmYB4VO6ae

[Kiril Piskunov @ciudilo]

@MakrOfAdventure Does not look like there is anybody around to see you