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🔗 Australia 🔗 Animals 🔗 Australia/Australian biota 🔗 Cephalopods

Octopolis and Octlantis are two separate non-human underwater settlements built by the gloomy octopuses. The first settlement, named Octopolis by biologists, was found in 2009. The individual structures in Octopolis consist of burrows around a piece of scrap metal. In 2016, a second settlement was found, named Octlantis, which instead of burrows, has dens and is built with seashells.

🔗 Writing systems

Sütterlinschrift (German pronunciation: [ˈzʏtɐliːnˌʃʁɪft], "Sütterlin script") is the last widely used form of Kurrent, the historical form of German handwriting that evolved alongside German blackletter (most notably Fraktur) typefaces. Graphic artist Ludwig Sütterlin was commissioned by the Prussian Ministry of Science, Art and Culture (Preußisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Volksbildung) to create a modern handwriting script in 1911. His handwriting scheme gradually replaced the older cursive scripts that had developed in the 16th century at the same time that letters in books had developed into Fraktur. The name Sütterlin is nowadays often used to refer to all varieties of old German handwriting, although only this specific script was taught in all German schools from 1915 to 1941.

🔗 Germany 🔗 Africa 🔗 Birds 🔗 European history

The term Pfeilstorch (German for "arrow stork") is given to storks injured by an arrow while wintering in Africa, before returning to Europe with the arrow stuck in their bodies. To date, around 25 Pfeilstörche have been documented.

The first and most famous Pfeilstorch was a white stork found in 1822 near the German village of Klütz, in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It was carrying a 30-inch (76 cm) spear from central Africa in its neck. The specimen was stuffed and can be seen today in the zoological collection of the University of Rostock. It is therefore referred to as the Rostocker Pfeilstorch.

This Pfeilstorch was crucial in understanding the migration of European birds. Before migration was understood, people struggled to explain the sudden annual disappearance of birds like the white stork and barn swallow. Besides migration, some theories of the time held that they turned into other kinds of birds, mice, or hibernated underwater during the winter, and such theories were even propagated by zoologists of the time. The Rostocker Pfeilstorch in particular proved that birds migrate long distances to wintering grounds.

🔗 Plants

Cyclanthera brachystachya, the exploding cucumber (but not to be confused with Ecballium elaterium), in the cucurbit or gourd family (Cucurbitaceae), is a herbaceous vine usually grown for its curiosity value, but the fruit is also edible.

🔗 Sociology

In sociology and economics, the precariat () is a social class formed by people suffering from precarity, which means existing without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. The term is a portmanteau merging precarious with proletariat.

Unlike the proletariat class of industrial workers in the 20th century who lacked their own means of production and hence sold their labor to live, members of the precariat are only partially involved in labor and must undertake extensive unremunerated activities that are essential if they are to retain access to jobs and to decent earnings. Classic examples of such unpaid activities include continually having to search for work (including preparing for and attending job interviews), as well as being expected to be perpetually responsive to calls for "gig" work (yet without being paid an actual wage for being "on call").

The hallmark of the precariat class is the condition of lack of job security, including intermittent employment or underemployment and the resultant precarious existence. The emergence of this class has been ascribed to the entrenchment of neoliberal capitalism.

🔗 France 🔗 Military history 🔗 Architecture 🔗 Military history/Fortifications 🔗 Military history/French military history 🔗 Archaeology 🔗 Military history/Medieval warfare 🔗 Metalworking 🔗 Military history/European military history 🔗 Woodworking

Guédelon Castle (Château de Guédelon) is a castle currently under construction near Treigny, France. The castle is the focus of an experimental archaeology project aimed at recreating a 13th-century castle and its environment using period technique, dress, and material.

In order to fully investigate the technology required in the past, the project is using only period construction techniques, tools, and costumes. Materials, including wood and stone, are all obtained locally. Jacques Moulin, chief architect for the project, designed the castle according to the architectural model developed during the 12th and 13th centuries by Philip II of France.

Construction started in 1997 under Michel Guyot, owner of Château de Saint-Fargeau, a castle in Saint-Fargeau 13 kilometres away. The site was chosen according to the availability of construction materials: an abandoned stone quarry, in a large forest, with a nearby pond. The site is in a rural woodland area and the nearest town is Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) to the northeast.

🔗 Statistics 🔗 Books

How to Lie with Statistics is a book written by Darrell Huff in 1954, presenting an introduction to statistics for the general reader. Not a statistician, Huff was a journalist who wrote many how-to articles as a freelancer.

The book is a brief, breezy illustrated volume outlining the misuse of statistics and errors in the interpretation of statistics, and how errors create incorrect conclusions.

In the 1960s and 1970s, it became a standard textbook introduction to the subject of statistics for many college students. It has become one of the best-selling statistics books in history, with over one and a half million copies sold in the English-language edition. It has also been widely translated.

Themes of the book include "Correlation does not imply causation" and "Using random sampling." It also shows how statistical graphs can be used to distort reality. For example, by truncating the bottom of a line or bar chart so that differences seem larger than they are. Or, by representing one-dimensional quantities on a pictogram by two- or three-dimensional objects to compare their sizes so that the reader forgets that the images do not scale the same way the quantities do.

The original edition contained illustrations by artist Irving Geis. In a UK edition, Geis' illustrations were replaced by cartoons by Mel Calman.

🔗 United States 🔗 California 🔗 Companies 🔗 California/San Francisco Bay Area 🔗 Internet 🔗 Internet culture 🔗 Business 🔗 Crime and Criminal Biography

The eBay stalking scandal was a campaign conducted in 2019 by eBay and contractors. The scandal involved the aggressive stalking and harassment of two e-commerce bloggers, Ina and David Steiner, who wrote frequent commentary about eBay on their website EcommerceBytes. Seven eBay employees pleaded guilty to charges involving criminal conspiracies. The seven employees included two senior members of eBay’s corporate security team. Two members of eBay's Executive Leadership Team who were implicated in the scandal were not charged.

🔗 Food and drink 🔗 Sweden

Lördagsgodis (Swedish) or lørdagsgodis and lørdagsgodteri (Norwegian), (English: "Saturday sweets" or "Saturday candy") is a Norwegian and Swedish tradition of children eating candy or sweets mainly or only on Saturdays.

The tradition started as a health recommendation in 1959 following the government-funded Vipeholm experiments, where patients of Vipeholm Hospital for the intellectually disabled in Lund, Sweden, were unknowingly fed large amounts of sweets to see whether a high-sugar diet would cause tooth decay.

Over time, what was once a recommendation has turned into a routine for both children and adults to eat candy on Saturdays, as an event to look forward to during the week. It is common for Swedes to buy lördagsgodis by weight from candy walls in grocery stores. Candy consumption started increasing in 1980s and by 2010s, Sweden had the highest per capita candy consumption in the world. As of 2015, the Swedish government, facing high candy consumption and in effort to improve public health was considering enforcing Saturday candy. Such deliberations were being met with criticism from groups who instead supported a cap on consumption.

🔗 United States 🔗 Biography 🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/North American military history 🔗 Military history/United States military history 🔗 Lists 🔗 Military history/World War I 🔗 Military history/World War II 🔗 Military history/American Civil War

The following is a list of Irish-American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who were awarded the American military's highest decoration — the Medal of Honor. The Medal of Honor is bestowed "for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life, above and beyond the call of duty, in actual combat against an armed enemy force." The medal is awarded by the President of the United States on behalf of the Congress.

Of the 3,464 Medals of Honor awarded as of September 17, 2009, an estimated 2,021 (58%) have been awarded to Irish-American recipients, more than twice the number awarded any other ethnic group; 257 Irish-born Americans have received the Medal of Honor which represents more than half of foreign-born MOH recipients. A monument to these Irish-born Medal of Honor recipients is located at Valley Forge's Medal of Honor Grove; erected by the Ancient Order of Hibernians. The first Irish American to receive the Medal was Michael Madden, who received it for his actions in the American Civil War (Note that the earliest action for which the Medal of Honor was awarded was to Irish American U.S. Army Assistant Surgeon Bernard J.D. Irwin for the engagement at Apache Pass, February 1861. The award was made three decades after the event and after Madden's award).