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🔗 Computing 🔗 Economics 🔗 Systems 🔗 Systems/Cybernetics 🔗 Chile

Project Cybersyn was a Chilean project from 1971–1973 during the presidency of Salvador Allende aimed at constructing a distributed decision support system to aid in the management of the national economy. The project consisted of four modules: an economic simulator, custom software to check factory performance, an operations room, and a national network of telex machines that were linked to one mainframe computer.

Project Cybersyn was based on viable system model theory approach to organizational design, and featured innovative technology for its time: it included a network of telex machines (Cybernet) in state-run enterprises that would transmit and receive information with the government in Santiago. Information from the field would be fed into statistical modeling software (Cyberstride) that would monitor production indicators, such as raw material supplies or high rates of worker absenteeism, in "almost" real time, alerting the workers in the first case and, in abnormal situations, if those parameters fell outside acceptable ranges by a very large degree, also the central government. The information would also be input into economic simulation software (CHECO, for CHilean ECOnomic simulator) that the government could use to forecast the possible outcome of economic decisions. Finally, a sophisticated operations room (Opsroom) would provide a space where managers could see relevant economic data, formulate feasible responses to emergencies, and transmit advice and directives to enterprises and factories in alarm situations by using the telex network.

The principal architect of the system was British operations research scientist Stafford Beer, and the system embodied his notions of organisational cybernetics in industrial management. One of its main objectives was to devolve decision-making power within industrial enterprises to their workforce in order to develop self-regulation of factories.

🔗 United States 🔗 Film 🔗 Film/American cinema 🔗 United States/Film - American cinema 🔗 Science Fiction 🔗 Comedy 🔗 20th Century Studios

Idiocracy is a 2006 American science fiction comedy film co-produced and directed by Mike Judge from a screenplay written by Judge and Etan Cohen based on a story written by Judge. The plot follows United States Army librarian Joe Bauers and prostitute Rita, who undergo a government hibernation experiment. Joe and Rita awake five hundred years later in a dystopian anti-intellectual society. The cast includes Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard, Terry Crews, David Herman, Justin Long, Andrew Wilson, and Brad Jordan.

The concept of Idiocracy dates back to a concept Judge envisioned in 1996. Judge finished a script with the working title 3001 in 2001, rewriting the film a year later. Filming took place throughout 2004 at Austin Studios and other cities in Texas. Idiocracy serves as a social satire that touches on issues including anti-intellectualism, commercialism, consumerism, dysgenics, voluntary childlessness, and overpopulation. 20th Century Fox was hesitant to promote the film, refusing to grant it a wide release, and did not screen the film for critics. The decision not to market Idiocracy was seen as unexpected, following the success of Office Space (1999), and led to speculation. According to Crews, the film's satirical depiction of corporations made the film financially unviable, while Judge attributed 20th Century Fox's decision to negative test screenings; Judge stated that 20th Century Fox believed that the film would develop a cult following through its DVD release, similar to Office Space.

The film was released in the United States on September 1, 2006. Despite its lack of a major theatrical release, which resulted in a $495,000 gross at the box office, the film received positive reviews from critics and has since become a cult film.

Welcome to WikiProject AI Cleanup—a collaboration to combat the increasing problem of unsourced, poorly written AI-generated content on Wikipedia. If you would like to help, add yourself as a participant in the project, inquire on the talk page, and see the to-do list.

🔗 Internet 🔗 Websites 🔗 Websites/Computing

A captive portal is a web page accessed with a web browser that is displayed to newly connected users of a Wi-Fi or wired network before they are granted broader access to network resources. Captive portals are commonly used to present a landing or log-in page which may require authentication, payment, acceptance of an end-user license agreement/acceptable use policy, or survey completion. Captive portals are used for a broad range of mobile and pedestrian broadband services – including cable and both commercially provided Wi-Fi and home hotspots. A captive portal can also be used to provide access to enterprise or residential wired networks, such as apartment houses, hotel rooms, and business centers.

The captive portal is presented to the client and is stored either at the gateway or on a web server hosting the web page. Depending on the feature set of the gateway, websites or TCP ports can be allow-listed so that the user would not have to interact with the captive portal in order to use them. The MAC address of attached clients can also be used to bypass the login process for specified devices.

WISPr refers to this web-browser–based authentication method as the Universal Access Method (UAM).

🔗 Computing

In markup languages and the digital humanities, overlap occurs when a document has two or more structures that interact in a non-hierarchical manner. A document with overlapping markup cannot be represented as a tree. This is also known as concurrent markup. Overlap happens, for instance, in poetry, where there may be a metrical structure of feet and lines; a linguistic structure of sentences and quotations; and a physical structure of volumes and pages and editorial annotations.

🔗 Italy

Umarell (Italian pronunciation: [umaˈrɛl]; modern revisitation of the Bolognese dialect word umarèl [umaˈrɛːl]) is a term in the Italo-Romance variety of Bologna referring specifically to men of retirement age who spend their time watching construction sites, especially roadworks – stereotypically with hands clasped behind their back and offering unwanted advice. Its literal meaning is "little man" (also umarèin). The term is employed as lighthearted mockery or self-deprecation.

The modern term was popularised in 2005 by local writer Danilo Masotti through two books and an associated blog. In December 2020, the word was included in the Zingarelli dictionary.

🔗 United States 🔗 Biography 🔗 Computer science 🔗 Women scientists 🔗 Biography/science and academia 🔗 Virginia

Gladys Brown West (née Gladys Mae Brown; October 27, 1930 – January 17, 2026) was an African American mathematician. She was known for her contributions to mathematical modeling of the shape of the Earth, and her work on the development of satellite geodesy models, which were later incorporated into the Global Positioning System (GPS).

West was inducted into the United States Air Force Hall of Fame in 2018. She was awarded the Webby Lifetime Achievement Award for the development of satellite geodesy models.

🔗 Germany 🔗 Socialism 🔗 Cold War 🔗 Germany/GDR

On 16 September 1979, eight people from two families escaped from East Germany by crossing the border into West Germany at night in a homemade hot air balloon. The unique feat was the result of over a year and a half of preparations involving three different balloons, various modifications, and a first, unsuccessful attempt. The failed attempt alerted the East German authorities to the plot, but the police were unable to identify the escapees before their second, successful flight two months later.

🔗 Lists 🔗 Plants 🔗 Forestry

The following is a list of individual trees. Trees listed here are regarded as important or specific by their historical, national, locational, natural or mythological context. The list includes actual trees located throughout the world, as well as trees from myths and religions.

🔗 Board and table games

1000 Blank White Cards is a party card game played with cards in which the deck is created as part of the game. Though it has been played by adults in organized groups worldwide, 1000 Blank White Cards is also described as well-suited for children in Hoyle's Rules of Games. Since any game rules are contained on the cards (rather than existing as all-encompassing rules or in a rule book), 1000 Blank White Cards can be considered a sort of nomic. It can be played by any number of players and provides the opportunity for card creation and gameplay outside the scope of a single sitting. Creating new cards during the game, dealing with previous cards' effects, is allowed, and rule modification is encouraged as an integral part of gameplay.