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πŸ”— Zaum

πŸ”— Philosophy πŸ”— Philosophy/Aesthetics πŸ”— Constructed languages

Zaum (Russian: Π·Π°ΜΡƒΠΌΡŒ, lit. 'transrational') are the linguistic experiments in sound symbolism and language creation of Russian Cubo-Futurist poets such as Velimir Khlebnikov and Aleksei Kruchenykh. Zaum is a non-referential phonetic entity with its own ontology. The language consists of neologisms that mean nothing. Zaum is a language organized through phonetic analogy and rhythm. Zaum literature cannot contain any onomatopoeia or psychopathological states.

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  • "Zaum" | 2023-08-18 | 160 Upvotes 46 Comments

πŸ”— Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies

πŸ”— London πŸ”— Books πŸ”— Sexology and sexuality πŸ”— Sexology and sexuality/Sex work

Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies, published from 1757Β toΒ 1795, was an annual directory of prostitutes then working in Georgian London. A small pocketbook, it was printed and published in Covent Garden, and sold for two shillings and sixpence. A contemporary report of 1791 estimates its circulation at about 8,000Β copies annually.

Each edition contains entries describing the physical appearance and sexual specialities of about 120–190Β prostitutes who worked in and around Covent Garden. Through their erotic prose, the list's entries review some of these women in lurid detail. While most compliment their subjects, some are critical of bad habits, and a few women are even treated as pariahs, perhaps having fallen out of favour with the list's authors, who are never revealed.

Samuel Derrick is the man normally credited for the design of Harris's List, possibly having been inspired by the activities of a Covent Garden pimp, Jack Harris. A Grub Street hack, Derrick may have written the lists from 1757 until his death in 1769; thereafter, the annual's authors are unknown. Throughout its print run it was published pseudonymously by H. Ranger, although from the late 1780s it was printed by three men: John and James Roach, and John Aitkin.

As the public's opinion began to turn against London's sex trade, and with reformers petitioning the authorities to take action, those involved in the release of Harris's List were in 1795 fined and imprisoned. That year's edition was the last to be published. By then, its content was cruder, lacking the originality of earlier editions. Modern writers tend to view Harris's List as erotica; in the words of one author, it was designed for "solitary sexual enjoyment".

πŸ”— Foldering

πŸ”— Internet πŸ”— Computer Security πŸ”— Computer Security/Computing

Foldering is the practice of communicating via messages saved to the "drafts" folder of an email or other electronic messaging account that is accessible by multiple people. The messages are never actually sent.

Foldering has been described as a digital equivalent of a dead drop.

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πŸ”— Fred Fish (Fish Disks)

πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Computing πŸ”— Biography/science and academia πŸ”— Computing/Software πŸ”— Computing/Free and open-source software πŸ”— Computing/Amiga πŸ”— Open

Fred Fish (November 4, 1952 – April 20, 2007) was a computer programmer notable for work on the GNU Debugger and his series of freeware disks for the Amiga.

The Amiga Library Disks – colloquially referred to as Fish Disks (a term coined by Perry Kivolowitz at a Jersey Amiga User Group meeting) – became the first national rallying point, a sort of early postal system. Fish would distribute his disks around the world in time for regional and local user group meetings, which in turn duplicated them for local distribution. Typically, only the cost of materials changed hands. The Fish Disk series ran from 1986 to 1994. In it, one can chart the growing sophistication of Amiga software and see the emergence of many software trends.

The Fish Disks were distributed at computer stores and Amiga enthusiast clubs. Contributors submitted applications and source code and the best of these each month were assembled and released as a diskette. Since the Internet was not yet in popular usage outside military and university circles, this was a primary way for enthusiasts to share work and ideas. He also initiated the "GeekGadgets" project, a GNU standard environment for AmigaOS and BeOS.

Fish worked for Cygnus Solutions in the 1990s before he left for Be Inc. in 1998.

In 1978, he self-published User Survival Guide for TI-58/59 Master Library, which was advertised in enthusiast newsletters covering the TI-59 programmable calculator.

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πŸ”— Core War

πŸ”— Video games

Core War is a 1984 programming game created by D. G. Jones and A. K. Dewdney in which two or more battle programs (called "warriors") compete for control of a virtual computer. These battle programs are written in an abstract assembly language called Redcode.

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πŸ”— Smoke point of cooking oils

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