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🔗 Portugal 🔗 Craft

Azulejo (Portuguese: [ɐzuˈle(j)ʒu, ɐzuˈlɐjʒu], Spanish: [aθuˈlexo]; from the Arabic الزليج, al-zillīj) is a form of Iberian painted tin-glazed ceramic tilework. They are an ornamental art form, but also had a specific function, such as aiding temperature control in homes. There is also a tradition of their production in former Portuguese and Spanish colonies in North America, South America, the Philippines, Goa, Lusophone Africa, East Timor, and Macau. Azulejos constitute a major aspect of Portuguese and Spanish architecture to this day, and are found on buildings across Portugal, Spain and their former territories. Many azulejos chronicle major historical and cultural aspects of Portuguese and Spanish history.

In Spanish and Portuguese, azulejo is the everyday word for (any) tile.

🔗 France 🔗 Economics 🔗 Cooperatives 🔗 Basque 🔗 Spain

The Mondragon Corporation is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives based in the Basque region of Spain. It was founded in the town of Mondragon in 1956 by graduates of a local technical college. Its first product was paraffin heaters. It is the tenth-largest Spanish company in terms of asset turnover and the leading business group in the Basque Country. At the end of 2014, it employed 74,117 people in 257 companies and organizations in four areas of activity: finance, industry, retail and knowledge. By 2015, 74,335 people were employed. Mondragon cooperatives operate in accordance with the Statement on the Co-operative Identity maintained by the International Co-operative Alliance.

🔗 Cryptography 🔗 Cryptography/Computer science

Nyctography (in Nyctography: ) is a form of substitution cipher writing created by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) in 1891. It is written with a nyctograph (a device invented by Carroll) and uses a system of dots and strokes all based on a dot placed in the upper left corner. Using the Nyctograph, one could quickly jot down ideas or notes without the aid of light. Carroll invented the Nyctograph and Nyctography as he was often awakened during the night with thoughts that needed to be written down at once, and didn't want to go through the lengthy process of lighting a lamp only to have to then extinguish it.

🔗 Technology 🔗 Computing 🔗 Economics

The productivity paradox refers to the slowdown in productivity growth in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s despite rapid development in the field of information technology (IT) over the same period. The term was coined by Erik Brynjolfsson in a 1993 paper ("The Productivity Paradox of IT") inspired by a quip by Nobel Laureate Robert Solow "You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics." For this reason, it is also sometimes referred to as the Solow paradox.

The productivity paradox inspired many research efforts at explaining the slowdown, only for the paradox to disappear with renewed productivity growth in the developed countries in the 1990s. However, issues raised by those research efforts remain important in the study of productivity growth in general, and became important again when productivity growth slowed around the world again from the 2000s to the present day. Thus the term "productivity paradox" can also refer to the more general disconnect between powerful computer technologies and weak productivity growth.

🔗 Computing

The law of conservation of complexity, also known as Tesler's Law, or Waterbed Theory, is an adage in human–computer interaction stating that every application has an inherent amount of complexity that cannot be removed or hidden. Instead, it must be dealt with, either in product development or in user interaction.

This poses the question of who should be exposed to the complexity. For example, should a software developer add complexity to the software code to make the interaction simpler for the user or should the user deal with a complex interface so that the software code can be simple?

🔗 Library of Congress 🔗 Electronic music 🔗 Rock music 🔗 R&B and Soul Music 🔗 Pop music 🔗 Hip-hop

The Amen break is a drum break that has been widely sampled in popular music. It comes from the 1969 track "Amen, Brother" by the American soul group the Winstons, released as the B-side of the 1969 single "Color Him Father". The drum break lasts seven seconds and was performed by Gregory Coleman.

With the rise of hip-hop in the 1980s, the Amen break was used in hits including "Straight Outta Compton" by N.W.A and "Keep It Going Now" by Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock. In the 1990s, it became a staple of drum and bass and jungle music. It has been used in thousands of tracks of various genres, making it one of the most sampled recordings in music history.

The Winstons received no royalties for the sample. The bandleader, Richard Lewis Spencer, was not aware of its use until 1996, after the statute of limitations for copyright infringement had passed. He condemned its use as plagiarism, but later said it was flattering. He said it was unlikely that Coleman, who died homeless and destitute in 2006, realized the impact he had made on music. In 2026, "Amen, Brother" was selected by the US Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry.

🔗 Chemicals 🔗 Brands 🔗 Polymers

Bakelite ( BAY-kə-lyte) was the first plastic made from synthetic components. It was developed by chemist Leo Baekeland in Yonkers, New York, in 1907, and patented on December 7, 1909.

Bakelite was a commercial success because it could be molded into any shape. It was used for such diverse products as kitchenware, jewelry, pipe stems, children's toys, and firearms. Because Bakelite is heat-resistant and electrically nonconductive, it was also used to make products such as electrical insulators and casings for radios and telephones.

The creation of a synthetic plastic was revolutionary for the chemical industry, which at the time was mostly focused on cloth dyes and explosives. Bakelite's commercial success led to other synthetic plastics. As the world's first commercial synthetic plastic, Bakelite was named a National Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society.

Formally, Bakelite is poly­oxy­benzyl­methylene­glycol­anhydride, a thermosetting phenol formaldehyde resin, formed from a condensation reaction of phenol with formaldehyde.

The retro appeal of old Bakelite products has made them collectible.

🔗 Germany 🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/Early Modern warfare 🔗 Guild of Copy Editors 🔗 Military history/German military history 🔗 Christianity 🔗 Christianity/Anabaptist 🔗 Military history/European military history

The German Peasants' War, Great Peasants' War or Great Peasants' Revolt (German: Deutscher Bauernkrieg) was a widespread popular revolt in some German-speaking areas in Central Europe from 1524 to 1525. It was Europe's largest and most widespread popular uprising before the French Revolution in 1789. The revolt failed because of intense opposition from the aristocracy, who slaughtered up to 100,000 of the 300,000 poorly armed peasants and farmers. The survivors were fined and achieved few, if any, of their goals. Like the preceding Bundschuh movement and the Hussite Wars, the war consisted of a series of both economic and religious revolts involving peasants and farmers, sometimes supported by radical clergy like Thomas Müntzer. The fighting was at its height in the middle of 1525.

The war began with separate insurrections, beginning in the southwestern part of what is now Germany and Alsace, and spread in subsequent insurrections to the central and eastern areas of Germany and present-day Austria. After the uprising in Germany was suppressed, it flared up briefly in several cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy.

In mounting their insurrection, peasants faced insurmountable obstacles. The democratic nature of their movement left them without a command structure and they lacked artillery and cavalry. Most of them had little, if any, military experience. Their opposition had experienced military leaders, well-equipped and disciplined armies, and ample funding.

The revolt incorporated some principles and rhetoric from the emerging Protestant Reformation, through which the peasants sought influence and freedom. Some Radical Reformers, most famously Thomas Müntzer, instigated and supported the revolt. In contrast, Martin Luther and other Magisterial Reformers condemned it and sided with the aristocrats. In Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants, Luther condemned the violence as the devil's work and called for the aristocrats to put down the rebels like mad dogs. The movement was supported by Huldrych Zwingli, but the condemnation by Luther contributed to its defeat. While around 20 veterans of the war went on to become leading figures in the Anabaptist movement, James Stayer notes that "no large number of known Anabaptists can be identified by name as participants in the 1525 upheaveal".

🔗 United States 🔗 Visual arts 🔗 Sculpture 🔗 United States/New Mexico 🔗 Visual arts/public art

Star Axis is an earthwork by American sculptor Charles Ross designed for observing the stars and considered to be a defining example of land art. The roughly eleven-story architectonic sculpture and naked-eye observatory is situated on a mesa in the eastern plains of the New Mexico desert. It incorporates five main elements that include apertures framing several earth-to-star alignments, which allow a visitor to experience them in human scale. Ross conceived the project in 1971, began construction in 1976, and as of fall 2022, had targeted 2025 for its completion. Art historian Thomas McEvilley places the work in the lineage of monuments of archaeoastronomy such as the Great Pyramids, Stonehenge, El Caracol, Chichen Itza and the 15th-century Ulugh Beg Observatory. Curator and writer Klaus Ottmann has described Star Axis as "a summary of Ross's lifelong pursuit of the dynamics of human interaction with light and the cosmos."

🔗 Germany 🔗 Mountains

Monte Kali and Kalimanjaro are local colloquial names for the spoil heap or spoil tip that towers over the town of Heringen, Hesse, Germany. It is one of a number of sites where the K+S chemical company dumps sodium chloride (common table salt), a byproduct of potash mining and processing, a major industry in the area.

The names are puns of Kali (shorthand for Kalisalz, German for "potash") on "Monte Carlo" and "Kilimanjaro." The heap is near to the border with the state of Thuringia, and hence next to the former inner German border with what was once East Germany.

The heap rises over 250 metres (820 ft) above the surrounding land, its summit reaching 520 metres (1,710 ft) above sea level. According to the Werra Potash Mining Museum in Heringen, Monte Kali has been in operation since 1976; as of August 2016, it covered 98 hectares (240 acres) and contained approximately 201 million tonnes of salt, with another 900 tonnes being added every hour and 7.2 million tonnes a year.

The mountain is open for visitation, usually on the weekends and a ticket costs €8. Yoga courses and special tours on the mountain are also possible.