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🔗 Politics

A kakistocracy [kækɪ'stɑkrəsi] is a system of government that is run by the worst, least qualified, and/or most unscrupulous citizens. The word was coined as early as the seventeenth century, but gained significant use in the first decades of the 20th century to criticize populist governments emerging in different democracies around the world.

🔗 Computing 🔗 Computing/Computer hardware 🔗 Collections Care

M-DISC (Millennial Disc) is a write-once optical disc technology introduced in 2009 by Millenniata, Inc. and available as DVD and Blu-ray discs.

🔗 Aviation 🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/Military aviation 🔗 Aviation/Aviation accident 🔗 Wiltshire 🔗 Military history/European military history 🔗 Military history/British military history

On 22 July 1966 Walter "Taffy" Holden, an engineer in command of No. 33 Maintenance Unit RAF with limited experience flying small single-engine trainer aircraft, inadvertently engaged the afterburner of a Mach 2.0-capable English Electric Lightning during ground testing. Unable to disengage the afterburner, Holden ran down the runway, narrowly missing a crossing fuel bowser and a de Havilland Comet taking off, before taking off himself. Flying without a helmet or canopy, the ejection seat disabled, and the landing gear locked down, Holden aborted his first two landing attempts. He landed on his third approach, striking the runway with the aircraft's tail as he adopted in his flare the attitude of a taildragger aircraft. The aircraft returned to service, and was subsequently acquired by the Imperial War Museum Duxford.

🔗 Architecture 🔗 Brazil 🔗 Paranormal

The Parque Arqueológico do Solstício (Solstice Archaeological Park), referred to in academic sources as AP-CA-18, is an archaeological park located in Amapá state, Brazil, near the city of Calçoene. It contains a megalithic stone circle, colloquially known as the Amazon Stonehenge, consisting of 127 blocks of granite, each up to 4 meters tall, standing upright in a circle measuring over 30 meters in diameter at the bank of the Rego Grande river on a hilltop. Archaeologists believe that this site was built by indigenous peoples for astronomical, ceremonial, or burial purposes, and likely a combination. The function of this megalithic site is unknown, much like other sites such as Stonehenge, a much older site in Great Britain.

🔗 Netherlands 🔗 Highways 🔗 Caribbean 🔗 Highways/Road transport 🔗 Caribbean/Caribbean Netherlands 🔗 Highways/Latin American Highways

The Road is the unofficial name for the cement road that connects the villages of Saba, Netherlands, a Caribbean island. It is nicknamed "The Road That Couldn't Be Built". It is the primary road on the island, spanning 8.7 miles (14.0 km). It was constructed by local Sabans between 1938 and 1963, without the use of machines.

🔗 Germany 🔗 Religion 🔗 Cats 🔗 Archaeology 🔗 Visual arts 🔗 European history 🔗 Sculpture 🔗 Furry

The Löwenmensch figurine or Lion-man of the Hohlenstein-Stadel is a prehistoric ivory sculpture discovered in the Hohlenstein-Stadel, a German cave in 1939. The German name, Löwenmensch, meaning "lion-human", is used most frequently because it was discovered and is exhibited in Germany.

The lion-headed figurine is the oldest-known zoomorphic (animal-shaped) sculpture in the world, and the oldest-known uncontested example of figurative art. It has been determined by carbon dating of the layer in which it was found to be between 35,000 and 40,000 years old, and therefore is associated with the archaeological Aurignacian culture of the Upper Paleolithic. It was carved out of mammoth ivory using a flint stone knife. Seven parallel, transverse, carved gouges are on the left arm.

After several reconstructions that have incorporated newly found fragments, the figurine stands 31.1 cm (12.2 in) tall, 5.6 cm (2.2 in) wide, and 5.9 cm (2.3 in) thick. It currently is displayed in the Museum Ulm, Germany.

🔗 Electronics

A magic eye tube or tuning indicator, in technical literature called an electron-ray indicator tube, is a vacuum tube which gives a visual indication of the amplitude of an electronic signal, such as an audio output, radio-frequency signal strength, or other functions. The magic eye (also called a cat's eye, or tuning eye in North America) is a specific type of such a tube with a circular display similar to the EM34 illustrated. Its first broad application was as a tuning indicator in radio receivers, to give an indication of the relative strength of the received radio signal, to show when a radio station was properly tuned in.

The magic eye tube was the first in a line of development of cathode ray type tuning indicators developed as a cheaper alternative to the needle movement meters. It was not until the 1960s that needle meters were made economically enough in Japan to displace indicator tubes. Tuning indicator tubes were used in vacuum tube receivers from around 1936 to 1980 before vacuum tubes were replaced by transistors in radios. An earlier tuning aid which the magic eye replaced was the "tuneon" neon lamp.

🔗 Electronic music 🔗 Classical music

I am sitting in a room is a sound art piece composed in 1969 and one of composer Alvin Lucier's best known works.

The piece features Lucier recording himself narrating a text, and then playing the tape recording back into the room, re-recording it. The new recording is then played back and re-recorded, and this process is repeated. Due to the room's particular size and geometry, certain frequencies of the recording are emphasized while others are attenuated. Eventually the words become unintelligible, replaced by the characteristic resonant frequencies of the room itself.

In his book on the origins of minimalism, Edward Strickland wrote that "In its repetition and limited means, I am sitting in a room ranks with the finest achievements of Minimal tape music. Furthermore, in its ambient conversion of speech modules into drone frequencies, it unites the two principal structural components of Minimal music in general."

🔗 Companies 🔗 Business 🔗 Japan 🔗 Japan/Business and economy

Zaibatsu (Japanese: 財閥; IPA: [d͡za̠iba̠t͡sɨ]; lit. 'asset clique') is a Japanese term referring to industrial and financial vertically integrated business conglomerates in the Empire of Japan, whose influence and size allowed control over significant parts of the Japanese economy from the Meiji era to World War II. A zaibatsu's general structure included a family-owned holding company on top, and a bank which financed the other, mostly industrial subsidiaries within them. Although the zaibatsu played an important role in the Japanese economy beginning in 1868, they especially increased in number and importance following the Russo-Japanese War, World War I, and Japan's subsequent attempt to conquer East Asia and the Pacific Rim during the interwar period and World War II. After World War II, they were dissolved by the Allied occupation forces and succeeded by the keiretsu (groups of banks, manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors). Equivalents to the zaibatsu can still be found in other countries, such as the chaebol conglomerates of South Korea.

🔗 Biography 🔗 Cheshire 🔗 Animation 🔗 Biography/Actors and Filmmakers 🔗 Biography/Musicians 🔗 Musical Theatre 🔗 Animation/Animation people

Timothy James Curry (19 April 1946 – 25 August 2026) was an English actor and singer. Known for his villainous roles on stage and screen, he received an Emmy Award as well as nominations for a Grammy Award, two Olivier Awards and three Tony Awards. He was best known for portraying Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the musical The Rocky Horror Show (1973–1975) as well as in the musical film The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975).

Curry started his career in the West End production of the musical Hair (1968–1969). He went on to be nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his roles as The Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance (1982) and King Arthur in Spamalot (2007). On Broadway, he earned three Tony Award nominations, his first for Best Actor in a Play for his role as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Amadeus (1980) and followed by two nominations for Best Featured Actor in a Play for My Favorite Year (1992) and Spamalot (2005).

Curry received acclaim for his onscreen roles, Rooster Hannigan in Annie (1982), Darkness in Legend (1985), Wadsworth in Clue (1985), Hector, the Plaza front desk receptionist in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers (1993), Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island (1996), and Gomez Addams in Addams Family Reunion (1998). He also took roles in The Worst Witch (1986), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Loaded Weapon 1 (1993), Congo (1995), Charlie's Angels (2000), Scary Movie 2 (2001), and Kinsey (2004).

On television, Curry portrayed Pennywise in the miniseries It (1990) and acted in Oliver Twist (1982), Tales from the Crypt (1992), Will & Grace (2004), and Return to Cranford (2009). He voiced numerous roles including his Daytime Emmy Award-winning performance as Captain Hook on Peter Pan & the Pirates (1990–1991), Hexxus in Ferngully: The Last Rainforest (1992), Drake in The Pebble and the Penguin (1995), Sir Nigel Thornberry in The Wild Thornberrys (1998–2004), and Chancellor Palpatine / Darth Sidious in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2012–2014).

As a singer, Curry released three rock-focused studio albums: Read My Lips (1978), Fearless (1979), and Simplicity (1981). He was nominated for the Grammy Award for his reading of A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning (2002). He released his memoir Vagabond in 2025.