New Articles (Page 29)
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๐ Philosophus Autodidactus
แธคayy ibn Yaqแบฤn (Arabic: ุญู ุจู ููุธุงู, lit.โ'Alive son of Awake'; also known as Hai Eb'n Yockdan) is an Arabic philosophical novel and an allegorical tale written by Ibn Tufail (c.โ1105 โ 1185) in the early 12th century in Al-Andalus. Names by which the book is also known include the Latin: Philosophus Autodidactus ('The Self-Taught Philosopher'); and English: The Improvement of Human Reason: Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan. แธคayy ibn Yaqแบฤn was named after an earlier Arabic philosophical romance of the same name, written by Avicenna during his imprisonment in the early 11th century, even though both tales had different stories. The novel greatly inspired Islamic philosophy as well as major Enlightenment thinkers. It is the third most translated text from Arabic, after the Quran and the One Thousand and One Nights.
Discussed on
- "Philosophus Autodidactus" | 2024-04-25 | 73 Upvotes 29 Comments
๐ Aramaic original New Testament theory
The Aramaic original New Testament theory is the belief that the Christian New Testament was originally written in Aramaic.
There are several versions of the New Testament in Aramaic languages:
- the Vetus Syra (Old Syriac), a translation from Greek into early Classical Syriac, containing mostโbut not allโof the text of the 4 Gospels, and represented in the Curetonian Gospels and the Sinaitic Palimpsest
- the Christian Palestinian Aramaic Lectionary fragments represented in such manuscripts as Codex Climaci Rescriptus, Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus, and later lectionary codices (Vatican sir. 19 [A]; St Catherineโs Monastery B, C, D)
- the Classical Syriac Peshitta, a rendering in Aramaic of the Hebrew (and some Aramaic, e.g. in Daniel and Ezra) Old Testament, plus the New Testament purportedly in its original Aramaic, and still the standard in most Syriac churches
- the Harklean, a strictly literal translation by Thomas of Harqel into Classical Syriac from Greek
- the Assyrian Modern Version, a new translation into Assyrian Neo-Aramaic from the Greek published in 1997 and mainly in use among Protestants
- and a number of other scattered versions in various dialects
The traditional New Testament of the Peshitta has 22 books, lacking the Second Epistle of John, the Third Epistle of John, the Second Epistle of Peter, the Epistle of Jude and the Book of Revelation, which are books of the Antilegomena. Closure of the Church of the East's New Testament Canon occurred before the 'Western Five' books could be incorporated. Its Gospels text also lacks the verses known as Jesus and the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53โ8:11) and Luke 22:17โ18, but does have the 'long ending of Mark.'
Discussed on
- "Aramaic original New Testament theory" | 2024-04-23 | 10 Upvotes 3 Comments
๐ Segal's Law
Segal's law is an adage that states:
A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.
At surface level, the adage emphasizes the consistency that arises when information comes from a single source and points out the potential pitfalls of having too much conflicting information. However, the underlying message is to question the apparent certainty of anyone who only has one source of information. The man with one watch has no way to identify error or uncertainty.
Discussed on
- "Segal's Law" | 2024-04-23 | 43 Upvotes 41 Comments
๐ Custom of the Sea
A custom of the sea is a custom said to be practiced by the officers and crew of ships and boats in the open sea, as distinguished from maritime law, which is a distinct and coherent body of law governing maritime questions and offenses.
Among these customs was the practice of cannibalism among shipwrecked survivors, by the drawing of lots to decide who would be killed and eaten so that the others might survive.
Discussed on
- "Custom of the Sea" | 2024-04-20 | 15 Upvotes 1 Comments
๐ Hierarchical Clustering
In data mining and statistics, hierarchical clustering (also called hierarchical cluster analysis or HCA) is a method of cluster analysis that seeks to build a hierarchy of clusters. Strategies for hierarchical clustering generally fall into two categories:
- Agglomerative: This is a "bottom-up" approach: Each observation starts in its own cluster, and pairs of clusters are merged as one moves up the hierarchy.
- Divisive: This is a "top-down" approach: All observations start in one cluster, and splits are performed recursively as one moves down the hierarchy.
In general, the merges and splits are determined in a greedy manner. The results of hierarchical clustering are usually presented in a dendrogram.
Hierarchical clustering has the distinct advantage that any valid measure of distance can be used. In fact, the observations themselves are not required: all that is used is a matrix of distances. On the other hand, except for the special case of single-linkage distance, none of the algorithms (except exhaustive search in ) can be guaranteed to find the optimum solution.
Discussed on
- "Hierarchical Clustering" | 2024-04-20 | 28 Upvotes 6 Comments
๐ Squarial
The Squarial (a portmanteau of the words square and aerial) was a satellite antenna used for reception of the now defunct British Satellite Broadcasting television service (BSB). The Squarial was a flat plate satellite antenna, built to be unobtrusive and unique. BSB were counting on the form factor of the antenna to clearly differentiate themselves from their competitors at the time. At the time of development, satellite installations usually required a 90ย cm dish in order to receive a clear signal from the transmitting satellite. The smaller antenna was BSB's unique selling point and was heavily advertised in order to attract customers to their service.
๐ Francisco Varela
Francisco Javier Varela Garcรญa (September 7, 1946 โ May 28, 2001) was a Chilean biologist, philosopher, cybernetician, and neuroscientist who, together with his mentor Humberto Maturana, is best known for introducing the concept of autopoiesis to biology, and for co-founding the Mind and Life Institute to promote dialog between science and Buddhism.
Discussed on
- "Francisco Varela" | 2024-04-19 | 63 Upvotes 10 Comments
๐ Bicycle Day (Psychedelic Holiday)
Bicycle Day is a global holiday on April 19th celebrating the psychedelic revolution and commemorating the first psychedelic trip on LSD by Dr. Albert Hofmann in 1943, in tandem with his famous bicycle ride home from Sandoz Labs. It is commonly celebrated by ingesting psychedelics and riding a bike, sometimes in a parade, and often with psychedelic-themed festivities. The holiday was first named and declared in 1985 by Thomas Roberts, a psychology professor at Northern Illinois University, but has likely been celebrated by psychedelic enthusiasts since the begining of the psychedelic era, and celebrated in popular culture since at least 2004.
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- "Bicycle Day (Psychedelic Holiday)" | 2024-04-19 | 92 Upvotes 16 Comments
๐ Flรขneur
Flรขneur (French: [flษnลส]) is a French term popularized in the nineteenth-century for a type of urban male "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", or "loafer". The word has some nuanced additional meanings (including as a loanword into English). Traditionally depicted as male, a flรขneur is an ambivalent figure of urban affluence and modernity, representing the ability to wander detached from society with no other purpose than to be an acute observer of industrialized, contemporary life. Flรขnerie is the act of strolling, with all of its accompanying associations. A near-synonym of the noun is boulevardier.
The flรขneur was first a literary type from 19th-century France, essential to any picture of the streets of Paris. The word carried a set of rich associations: the man of leisure, the idler, the urban explorer, the connoisseur of the street. However, the flรขneur's origins are to be found in journalism of the Restoration, and the politics of post-revolutionary public space. Drawing on the work of Charles Baudelaire who described the flรขneur in his poetry and 1863 essay "The Painter of Modern Life", Walter Benjamin promoted 20th-century scholarly interest in the flรขneur as an emblematic archetype of urban, modern (even modernist) experience. Following Benjamin, the flรขneur has become an important symbol for scholars, artists, and writers. The classic French female counterpart is the passante, dating to the works of Marcel Proust, though a 21st-century academic coinage is flรขneuse, and some English-language writers simply apply the masculine flรขneur also to women. The term has acquired an additional architecture and urban planning sense, referring to passers-by who experience incidental or intentional psychological effects from the design of a structure.
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- "Flรขneur" | 2024-04-17 | 30 Upvotes 12 Comments
๐ Charge of the Savoia Cavalleria at Izbushensky
The Charge of the "Savoia Cavalleria" at Izbushensky was a clash between the Italian cavalry Regiment "Savoia Cavalleria" (3rd) and the Soviet 812th Rifle Regiment (304th Rifle Division) that took place on August 24, 1942, near the hamlet (khutor) of Izbushensky (ะะทะฑััะตะฝัะบะธะน), close to the junction between the Don and Khopyor rivers. Though a minor skirmish in the theatre of operation of the Eastern Front, the Izbushensky charge had great propaganda resonance in Italy and it is still remembered as one of the last significant cavalry charges in history.
Discussed on
- "Charge of the Savoia Cavalleria at Izbushensky" | 2024-04-15 | 22 Upvotes 6 Comments