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🔗 Video games 🔗 Computing

Nuclear Gandhi is an Internet meme and an urban legend about the video game Civilization. According to the legend, there was a bug in Civilization that eventually forced the pacifist leader Mahatma Gandhi to be extremely aggressive and to use nuclear weapons heavily.

The bug was first mentioned in 2012, two years after the release of Civilization V, and eventually became one of the most recognizable video game glitches; it has been used as an example of integer overflow in computer science and was included in other Civilization games as an easter egg.

In 2020, Sid Meier contradicted the urban legend, stating there had never been a bug of this sort in the original 1991 game. Nuclear Gandhi was first implemented in Civilization V (2010) as a joke.

🔗 Technology 🔗 Computing 🔗 Computing/Computer hardware 🔗 Business 🔗 Computing/Software

In big organizations, shadow IT refers to information technology (IT) systems deployed by departments other than the central IT department, to work around the shortcomings of the central information systems.

Shadow IT systems are an important source of innovation, and shadow systems may become prototypes for future central IT solutions.

🔗 Books 🔗 Automobiles

Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile is a non-fiction book by consumer advocate Ralph Nader, first published in 1965. Its central theme is that car manufacturers resisted the introduction of safety features (such as seat belts), and that they were generally reluctant to spend money on improving safety. This work contains substantial references and material from industry insiders. It was a best seller in non-fiction in 1966.

🔗 Philosophy 🔗 Philosophy/Logic 🔗 Business 🔗 Politics 🔗 Psychology 🔗 Marketing & Advertising

Serial-position effect is the tendency of a person to recall the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items worst. The term was coined by Hermann Ebbinghaus through studies he performed on himself, and refers to the finding that recall accuracy varies as a function of an item's position within a study list. When asked to recall a list of items in any order (free recall), people tend to begin recall with the end of the list, recalling those items best (the recency effect). Among earlier list items, the first few items are recalled more frequently than the middle items (the primacy effect).

One suggested reason for the primacy effect is that the initial items presented are most effectively stored in long-term memory because of the greater amount of processing devoted to them. (The first list item can be rehearsed by itself; the second must be rehearsed along with the first, the third along with the first and second, and so on.) The primacy effect is reduced when items are presented quickly and is enhanced when presented slowly (factors that reduce and enhance processing of each item and thus permanent storage). Longer presentation lists have been found to reduce the primacy effect.

One theorised reason for the recency effect is that these items are still present in working memory when recall is solicited. Items that benefit from neither (the middle items) are recalled most poorly. An additional explanation for the recency effect is related to temporal context: if tested immediately after rehearsal, the current temporal context can serve as a retrieval cue, which would predict more recent items to have a higher likelihood of recall than items that were studied in a different temporal context (earlier in the list). The recency effect is reduced when an interfering task is given. Intervening tasks involve working memory, as the distractor activity, if exceeding 15 to 30 seconds in duration, can cancel out the recency effect. Additionally, if recall comes immediately after the test, the recency effect is consistent regardless of the length of the studied list, or presentation rate.

Amnesiacs with poor ability to form permanent long-term memories do not show a primacy effect, but do show a recency effect if recall comes immediately after study. People with Alzheimer's disease exhibit a reduced primacy effect but do not produce a recency effect in recall.

🔗 Trains 🔗 Trains/Operations

Signalling block systems enable the safe and efficient operation of railways by preventing collisions between trains. The basic principle is that a route is broken up into a series of sections or "blocks". Only one train may occupy a block at a time, and the blocks are sized to allow a train to stop within them. That ensures that a train always has time to stop before getting dangerously close to another train on the same line. The block system is referred to in the UK as the method of working, in the US as the method of operation, and in Australia as safeworking.

In most situations, a system of signals is used to control the passage of trains between the blocks. When a train enters a block, signals at both ends change to indicate that the block is occupied, typically using red lamps or indicator flags. When a train first enters a block, the rear of the same train has not yet left the previous block, so both blocks are marked as occupied. That ensures there is slightly less than one block length on either end of the train that is marked as occupied, so any other train approaching that section will have enough room to stop in time, even if the first train has stopped dead on the tracks. The previously-occupied block will only be marked unoccupied when the end of the train has entirely left it, leaving the entire block clear.

Block systems have the disadvantage that they limit the number of trains on a particular route to something fewer than the number of blocks. Since the route has a fixed length, increasing the number of trains requires the creation of more blocks, which means the blocks are shorter and trains have to operate at lower speeds in order to stop safely. As a result, the number and size of blocks are closely related to the overall route capacity, and cannot be changed easily because expensive alterations to the signals along the line would be required.

Block systems are used to control trains between stations and yards, but not normally within the yards, where some other method is used. Any block system is defined by its associated physical equipment and by the application of a relevant set of rules. Some systems involve the use of signals while others do not. Some systems are specifically designed for single track railways, on which there is a danger of both head-on and rear-end collision, as opposed to double track, on which the main danger is rear-end collisions.

🔗 Video games 🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/Military science, technology, and theory 🔗 Board and table games

The fog of war (German: Nebel des Krieges) is the uncertainty in situational awareness experienced by participants in military operations. The term seeks to capture the uncertainty regarding one's own capability, adversary capability, and adversary intent during an engagement, operation, or campaign. Military forces try to reduce the fog of war through military intelligence and friendly force tracking systems. The term has become commonly used to define uncertainty mechanics in wargames.

🔗 Spaceflight 🔗 Astronomy 🔗 Engineering 🔗 Astronomy/Astronomical objects

A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output. The concept is a thought experiment that attempts to explain how a spacefaring civilization would meet its energy requirements once those requirements exceed what can be generated from the home planet's resources alone. Only a tiny fraction of a star's energy emissions reach the surface of any orbiting planet. Building structures encircling a star would enable a civilization to harvest far more energy.

The first contemporary description of the structure was by Olaf Stapledon in his science fiction novel Star Maker (1937), in which he described "every solar system... surrounded by a gauze of light traps, which focused the escaping solar energy for intelligent use." The concept was later popularized by Freeman Dyson in his 1960 paper "Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation." Dyson speculated that such structures would be the logical consequence of the escalating energy needs of a technological civilization and would be a necessity for its long-term survival. He proposed that searching for such structures could lead to the detection of advanced, intelligent extraterrestrial life. Different types of Dyson spheres and their energy-harvesting ability would correspond to levels of technological advancement on the Kardashev scale.

Since then, other variant designs involving building an artificial structure or series of structures to encompass a star have been proposed in exploratory engineering or described in science fiction under the name "Dyson sphere". These later proposals have not been limited to solar-power stations, with many involving habitation or industrial elements. Most fictional depictions describe a solid shell of matter enclosing a star, which was considered by Dyson himself the least plausible variant of the idea. In May 2013, at the Starship Century Symposium in San Diego, Dyson repeated his comments that he wished the concept had not been named after him.

🔗 Film 🔗 Television 🔗 BBC 🔗 Film/British cinema

Can't Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World is a six-part BBC documentary television series created by Adam Curtis. It was released on BBC iPlayer on 11 February 2021.