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🔗 Computing 🔗 Computing/Software 🔗 Computing/Free and open-source software 🔗 Plan 9

Plan 9 from Bell Labs is a distributed operating system, originating in the Computing Science Research Center (CSRC) at Bell Labs in the mid-1980s, and building on UNIX concepts first developed there in the late 1960s. The final official release was in early 2015.

Under Plan 9, UNIX's everything is a file metaphor is extended via a pervasive network-centric filesystem, and graphical user interface is assumed as a basis for almost all functionality, though it retains a heavily text-centric ideology.

The name Plan 9 from Bell Labs is a reference to the Ed Wood 1959 cult science fiction Z-movie Plan 9 from Outer Space. The name of the project's mascot is "Glenda, the Plan 9 Bunny". The system continues to be used and developed by operating system researchers and hobbyists.

🔗 Physics

Magnetocapacitance is a property of some dielectric, insulating materials, and metal–insulator–metal heterostructures that exhibit a change in the value of their capacitance when an external magnetic field is applied to them. Magnetocapacitance can be an intrinsic property of some dielectric materials, such as multiferroic compounds like BiMnO₃, or can be a manifest of properties extrinsic to the dielectric but present in capacitance structures like Pd, Al₂O₃, and Al.

🔗 Astronomy

The Great Debate, also called the Shapley–Curtis Debate, was held on 26 April 1920 at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, between the astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis. It concerned the nature of so-called spiral nebulae and the size of the universe; Shapley believed that distant nebulae were relatively small and lay within the outskirts of Earth's home galaxy, while Curtis held that they were in fact independent galaxies, implying that they were exceedingly large and distant.

The two scientists first presented independent technical papers about "The Scale of the Universe" during the day and then took part in a joint discussion that evening. Much of the lore of the Great Debate grew out of two papers published by Shapley and by Curtis in the May 1921 issue of the Bulletin of the National Research Council. The published papers each included counter arguments to the position advocated by the other scientist at the 1920 meeting.

In the aftermath of the public debate, scientists have been able to verify individual pieces of evidence from both astronomers, but on the main point of the existence of other galaxies, Curtis has been proven correct.

🔗 Languages 🔗 Constructed languages 🔗 Constructed languages/Esperanto

Esperanto () is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. It was created by Polish ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, when he published a book detailing the language, The International Language whose editions in Russian, Polish, German, French and English, under the pseudonym “Doktoro Esperanto” together constitute the “original edition”, usually referred to by Esperantists as “La Unua Libro” (“The First Book”). The word esperanto translates into English as "one who hopes".

Zamenhof's goal was to create an easy and flexible language that would serve as a universal second language to foster world peace and international understanding, and to build a community of speakers, as he believed that one could not have a language without such a community.

His original title for the language was simply "the international language" (lingvo internacia), but early speakers grew fond of the name Esperanto and began to use it as the name for the language just two years after its creation; the name quickly gained prominence and has been used as an official name ever since.

In 1905, Zamenhof published Fundamento de Esperanto as a definitive guide to the language. Later that year, French Esperantists organized with his participation the first World Esperanto Congress, an ongoing annual conference, in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. The first congress ratified the Declaration of Boulogne, which established several foundational premises for the Esperanto movement; one of its pronouncements is that Fundamento de Esperanto is the only obligatory authority over the language; another is that the Esperanto movement is exclusively a linguistic movement and that no further meaning can ever be ascribed to it. Zamenhof also proposed to the first congress that an independent body of linguistic scholars should steward the future evolution of Esperanto, foreshadowing the founding of the Akademio de Esperanto (in part modeled after the Académie française), which was established soon thereafter. Since 1905, the congress has been held in a different country every year, with the exceptions of those years during the World Wars. In 1908, a group of young Esperanto speakers led by the Swiss Hector Hodler established the Universal Esperanto Association in order to provide a central organization for the global Esperanto community.

Esperanto grew throughout the 20th century, both as a language and as a linguistic community. Despite speakers facing persecution in regimes such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under Stalin, Esperanto speakers continued to establish organizations and publish periodicals tailored to specific regions and interests. In 1954, the United Nations granted official support to Esperanto as an international auxiliary language in the Montevideo Resolution. Several writers have contributed to the growing body of Esperanto literature, including William Auld, who received the first nomination for the Nobel Prize in Literature for a literary work in Esperanto in 1999, followed by two more, in 2004 and 2006. Those writing in Esperanto are also officially represented in PEN International, the worldwide writers association, through Esperanto PEN Centro.

The development of Esperanto has continued unabated into the 21st century. The advent of the Internet has had a significant impact on the language, as learning it has become increasingly accessible on platforms such as Duolingo, and as speakers have increasingly networked on platforms such as Amikumu. With approximately two million speakers, a small portion of whom are even native speakers, it is the most widely spoken constructed language in the world. Although no country has adopted Esperanto officially, Esperantujo is the name given to the collection of places where it is spoken, and the language is widely employed in world travel, correspondence, cultural exchange, conventions, literature, language instruction, television, and radio. Some people have chosen to learn Esperanto for its purported help in third language acquisition, like Latin.

While many of its advocates continue to hope for the day that Esperanto becomes officially recognized as the international auxiliary language, an increasing number have stopped focusing on this goal and instead view the Esperanto community as a "stateless diasporic linguistic minority" based on freedom of association, with a culture worthy of preservation, based solely on its own merit.

🔗 United States 🔗 International relations 🔗 Soviet Union 🔗 Agriculture 🔗 Trade 🔗 Soviet Union/economy of Russia

The great grain robbery was the July 1972 purchase of 10 million tons of grain (mainly wheat and corn) from the United States by the Soviet Union at subsidized prices, which caused global grain prices to soar. Crop shortfalls in 1971 and 1972 forced the Soviet Union to look abroad for grain, hoping to prevent famine or crisis. Soviet negotiators worked out a deal to buy grain on credit, but quickly exceeded their credit limit. The American negotiators did not realize that both the Soviets and the world grain market had suffered shortfalls, and thus chose to subsidize the purchase. The strategy backfired and intensified the crisis with global food prices rose at least 30%, and grain stockpiles were decimated.

🔗 Business

A proxy firm (also a proxy advisor, proxy adviser, proxy voting agency, vote service provider or shareholder voting research provider) provides services to shareholders (in most cases an institutional investor of some type) to vote their shares at shareholder meetings of, usually, quoted companies.

The typical services provided include agenda translation, provision of vote management software, voting policy development, company research, and vote administration including vote execution. According to their websites, not all firms provide voting recommendations and those that do may simply execute client voting instructions.

The votes executed are called "Proxy Votes" because the shareholder usually does not attend the meeting and instead sends instructions - a proxy appointment - for a third party, usually the chairman of the meeting to vote shares in accordance with the instructions given on the voting card.

🔗 Philosophy 🔗 Philosophy/Philosophical literature 🔗 Politics 🔗 Philosophy/Ancient philosophy 🔗 Philosophy/Ethics

The Nicomachean Ethics (; Ancient Greek: Ἠθικὰ Νικομάχεια, Ēthika Nikomacheia) is the name normally given to Aristotle's best-known work on ethics. The work, which plays a pre-eminent role in defining Aristotelian ethics, consists of ten books, originally separate scrolls, and is understood to be based on notes from his lectures at the Lyceum. The title is often assumed to refer to his son Nicomachus, to whom the work was dedicated or who may have edited it (although his young age makes this less likely). Alternatively, the work may have been dedicated to his father, who was also called Nicomachus.

The theme of the work is a Socratic question previously explored in the works of Plato, Aristotle's friend and teacher, of how men should best live. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle described how Socrates, the friend and teacher of Plato, had turned philosophy to human questions, whereas pre-Socratic philosophy had only been theoretical. Ethics, as now separated out for discussion by Aristotle, is practical rather than theoretical, in the original Aristotelian senses of these terms. In other words, it is not only a contemplation about good living, because it also aims to create good living. It is therefore connected to Aristotle's other practical work, the Politics, which similarly aims at people becoming good. Ethics is about how individuals should best live, while the study of politics is from the perspective of a law-giver, looking at the good of a whole community.

The Nicomachean Ethics is widely considered one of the most important historical philosophical works, and had an important impact upon the European Middle Ages, becoming one of the core works of medieval philosophy. It therefore indirectly became critical in the development of all modern philosophy as well as European law and theology. Many parts of the Nicomachean Ethics are well known in their own right, within different fields. In the Middle Ages, a synthesis between Aristotelian ethics and Christian theology became widespread, in Europe as introduced by Albertus Magnus. While various philosophers had influenced Christendom since its earliest times, in Western Europe Aristotle became "the Philosopher". The most important version of this synthesis was that of Thomas Aquinas. Other more "Averroist" Aristotelians such as Marsilius of Padua were controversial but also influential. (Marsilius is for example sometimes said to have influenced the controversial English political reformer Thomas Cromwell.)

A critical period in the history of this work's influence is at the end of the Middle Ages, and beginning of modernity, when several authors such as Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, argued forcefully and largely successfully that the medieval Aristotelian tradition in practical thinking had become a great impediment to philosophy in their time. However, in more recent generations, Aristotle's original works (if not those of his medieval followers) have once again become an important source. More recent authors influenced by this work include Alasdair MacIntyre, G. E. M. Anscombe, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Martha Nussbaum and Avital Ronell.

🔗 Companies

This page is an index for lists of some assets owned by large corporations.

🔗 Economics 🔗 London 🔗 Energy

The oil futures drunk-trading incident was an incident in which Stephen Perkins, an employee of London-based PVM Oil Futures, traded 7 million barrels (1.1 million cubic metres) of oil, worth approximately US$520 million (£340 million) in a two-and-half-hour period in the early morning of 30 June 2009 while drunk. These unauthorised trades caused the price of Brent Crude oil to rise by over $1.50 a barrel (equivalent to $1.79 in 2019) within a short period of time, a trend generally associated with major geopolitical events, before dropping rapidly. As a result of the trading, PVM Oil Futures suffered losses of almost $10 million and Perkins was dismissed, later being banned from trading by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

🔗 Archaeology 🔗 Cities 🔗 Dacia

This is a list of present-day cities by the time period over which they have been continuously inhabited as a city. The age claims listed are generally disputed. Differences in opinion can result from different definitions of "city" as well as "continuous habitation" and historical evidence is often disputed. Caveats (and sources) to the validity of each claim are discussed in the "Notes" column.