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🔗 Aviation 🔗 Aviation/aircraft

The Boom XB-1 Baby Boom is a one-third-scale supersonic demonstrator designed by Boom Technology, designed as part of development of the Boom Overture supersonic transport airliner. It is planned to maintain Mach 2.2, with over 1,000 nmi (1,900 km) of range. Powered by three 4,300 lbf (19 kN) dry General Electric CJ610s, it is expected to be flight tested in 2020.

A crinkle crankle wall, also known as a crinkum crankum, serpentine, ribbon or wavy wall, is an unusual type of garden wall built in a serpentine pattern with alternating curves.

The crinkle crankle wall economizes on bricks, despite its sinuous configuration, because it can be made just one brick thin. If a wall this thin were to be made in a straight line, without buttresses, it would easily topple over. The alternate convex and concave curves in the wall provide stability and help it to resist lateral forces.

"Crinkle crankle" is an ablaut reduplication, defined as something with bends and turns, first attested in 1598 (though "crinkle" and "crankle" have somewhat longer histories). However, it was not until the 18th century that the term began to be applied to wavy walls. At that time these garden walls were usually aligned east-west, so that one side faced south to catch the warming sun and were historically used for growing fruit.

Many crinkle crankle walls are found in the East Anglia region of England where the marshes of The Fens were drained by Dutch engineers starting in the mid-1600s. The walls' construction is attributed to these engineers who called them slangenmuur, meaning snake wall.  The county of Suffolk claims at least 50 examples, twice as many as in the whole of the rest of the country, and where crinkle crankle is said to derive from a local dialect. In the estate village of Easton the noted crinkle crankle wall running from the former manor house to All Saints' Church is supposed to be the longest existing example. In Lymington, Hampshire, there are at least two examples of crinkle crankle walls. The oldest is thought to have been constructed at the time of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) by exiled Hanoverian soldiers living in the adjacent house.

As a minor part of a larger system of fortification, such a wall may have been used to force oncoming troops to break ranks from closed to open ranks, and further expose them to defensive assault.

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) incorporated so-called serpentine walls into the architecture of the University of Virginia, which he founded. Flanking both sides of its landmark rotunda and extending down the length of the lawn are ten pavilions, each with its own walled garden separated by crinkle crankle walls. Although some authorities claim Jefferson invented this design, he was merely adapting a well-established English style of construction. A university document in his own hand shows how he calculated the savings and combined aesthetics with utility.

🔗 Aviation 🔗 Disaster management 🔗 Aviation/Aviation accident 🔗 Occupational Safety and Health

Aviation safety means the state of an aviation system or organization in which risks associated with aviation activities, related to, or in direct support of the operation of aircraft, are reduced and controlled to an acceptable level. It encompasses the theory, practice, investigation, and categorization of flight failures, and the prevention of such failures through regulation, education, and training. It can also be applied in the context of campaigns that inform the public as to the safety of air travel.

Aviation safety should not be confused with airport security which includes all of the measures taken to combat intentional malicious acts.

🔗 Film 🔗 Africa 🔗 Film/American cinema 🔗 Guild of Copy Editors 🔗 Animal rights

Roar is a 1981 American adventure comedy film written, produced, and directed by Noel Marshall. Roar's story follows Hank, a naturalist who lives on a nature preserve in Africa with lions, tigers, and other big cats. When his family visits him, they are instead confronted by the group of animals. The film stars Marshall as Hank and Tippi Hedren as his wife Madeleine, with Melanie Griffith, and Marshall's sons John and Jerry Marshall in supporting roles.

In 1969, while Hedren was filming Satan's Harvest in Mozambique, she and Marshall had occasion to observe a pride of lions move into a recently vacated house, driven by increased poaching. They decided to make a film centered around that theme, bringing rescued big cats into their homes in California and living with them. Filming began in 1976; it was finished after five years. The film was fully completed after 11 years in production.

Roar was not initially released in North America; in 1981, Noel and John Marshall privately released it internationally. It was also acquired by Filmways Pictures and Alpha Films. Despite performing well in Germany and Japan, Roar was a box office failure, grossing $2 million worldwide against a $17 million budget. In 2015, 34 years after the film's original release, it was released in theaters in the United States by Drafthouse Films. Roar's message of protection for African wildlife as well as its animal interactions were praised by critics, but its plot, story, inconsistent tone, dialogue, and editing were criticized.

The cast and crew members of Roar faced dangerous situations during filming; seventy people, including the film's stars, were injured as a result of multiple animal attacks. Flooding from a dam destroyed much of the set and equipment during its production, and the film's budget increased drastically. In 1983, Hedren founded the Roar Foundation and established the Shambala Preserve sanctuary, to house the animals appearing in the film. She also wrote a book, The Cats of Shambala (1985), about many of the film's events. The film has been described as "the most dangerous film ever made" and "the most expensive home movie ever made", and has gained a cult following.

🔗 Aviation 🔗 Aviation/aircraft 🔗 Automobiles

The AVE Mizar (named after the star Mizar) was a roadable aircraft built between 1971 and 1973 by Advanced Vehicle Engineers (AVE) of Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California. The company was started by Henry Smolinski and Harold Blake, both graduates of Northrop Institute of Technology's aeronautical engineering school.

🔗 Human rights 🔗 Disability 🔗 South Africa 🔗 Primates

Jack (died 1890) was a chacma baboon, who attained some fame for acting as an assistant to a disabled railway signalman in South Africa.

🔗 India 🔗 Numismatics 🔗 India/Indian politics workgroup

A zero-rupee note is a banknote imitation issued in India as a means of helping to fight systemic political corruption. The notes are "paid" in protest by angry citizens to government functionaries who solicit bribes in return for services which are supposed to be free. Zero rupee notes, which are made to resemble the regular 50 rupee banknote of India, are the creation of a non-governmental organization known as 5th Pillar which has, since their inception in 2007, distributed over 2.5 million notes as of August 2014. The notes remain in current use and thousands of notes are distributed every month.

🔗 Internet 🔗 Hong Kong

Hong Kong Internet eXchange (HKIX; Chinese: 香港互聯網交換中心) is an internet exchange point in Hong Kong. The cooperative project is initiated by the Information Technology Services Centre (ITSC) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) providing the service free of charge. It is now operated by HKIX Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the CUHK Foundation.

The aim of the HKIX is to connect Internet service providers (ISPs) in Hong Kong so that intra-Hong Kong traffic can be exchanged locally without routing through the US or other countries. 99% internet interaction in Hong Kong goes through the centre, and HKIX acts as Hong Kong's network backbone. According to Cloudflare, HKIX is the largest internet exchange point in Asia.

🔗 Companies 🔗 Finance & Investment

Renaissance Technologies LLC is an American hedge fund firm based in East Setauket, New York, on Long Island, which specializes in systematic trading using quantitative models derived from mathematical and statistical analyses. The firm is regarded as one of the "most secretive and successful" hedge funds in the world. Their signature Medallion fund is famed for the best record in investing history. Renaissance was founded in 1982 by James Simons, an award-winning mathematician and former Cold War code breaker.

In 1988, the firm established its most profitable portfolio, the Medallion Fund, which used an improved and expanded form of Leonard Baum's mathematical models, improved by algebraist James Ax, to explore correlations from which they could profit. Jim Berlekamp was instrumental in evolving trading to shorter-dated, pure systems driven decision-making. The hedge fund was named Medallion in honor of the math awards that Simons and Ax had won.

Renaissance's flagship Medallion fund, which is run mostly for fund employees, is famed for the best track record on Wall Street, returning more than 66 percent annualized before fees and 39 percent after fees over a 30-year span from 1988 to 2018. Renaissance offers two portfolios to outside investors—Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund (RIEF) and Renaissance Institutional Diversified Alpha (RIDA).

Simons ran Renaissance until his retirement in late 2009. The company is now run by Peter Brown (after Robert Mercer resigned). Both of them were computer scientists specializing in computational linguistics who joined Renaissance in 1993 from IBM Research. Simons continues to play a role at the firm as non-executive chairman and remains invested in its funds, particularly the secretive and consistently profitable black-box strategy known as Medallion. Because of the success of Renaissance in general and Medallion in particular, Simons has been described as the best money manager on earth.

🔗 Lists 🔗 Skepticism 🔗 Counter-Vandalism Unit

This is a list of known historical hoaxes on Wikipedia. Its purpose is to document hoaxes on Wikipedia, in order to improve our understanding of them and our ability to detect them. For the purpose of this list, a hoax is defined as a clear and deliberate attempt to deceptively present false information as fact. Libel, vandalism, and honest factual errors are not considered hoaxes. A hoax is considered notable enough for inclusion in this list if it evaded detection for more than one month or was discussed by reliable sources in the media. This list is incomplete, as many hoaxes remain undiscovered.

Hoaxes can be added to this page if they meet the requirements above. Do not list Wikipedia April Fools' Day pranks or factual articles about encyclopedically notable hoaxes. Start/Deletion date and Length are the dates and approximate time the article was generally visible.

For many of the below hoaxes, you can see an archived version of the deleted article by clicking on its title (see also list of archived hoaxes). Some also remain available from mirror sites. Any administrator can create an archived version of a hoax upon request by following the instructions below.

Academic research has investigated the impact and characteristics of Wikipedia hoaxes, and has proposed automated methods for detecting them. Researchers found that the automatic classification system was better at identifying hoaxes on Wikipedia than humans (86% vs. 63% accuracy) and used their algorithm to identify previously undiscovered hoaxes like "Steve Moertel" which went undetected for almost 7 years.

One way to identify hoax articles included examining the article structure and content, its mentions in other articles on Wikipedia (i.e., embeddedness), and features of the editor who created the page. Specifically, hoax articles are likely to be longer than a legitimate article, less likely to have links to other Wikipedia articles, references, images, or other "wiki-like" markup, less likely to be mentioned in other Wikipedia articles before its creation, and more likely to be created by a new account with few to no other edits.

While most hoaxes on Wikipedia are short-lived (90% of discovered hoaxes are flagged within one hour of creation and only 1% of hoaxes persist for more than a year), those that make it past this initial screening have an increased probability of continuing to "survive" and remain a part of Wikipedia for much longer (if a hoax survives past its first day, it has an 18% probability of lasting for a year or more). Compared to unsuccessful hoaxes, successful hoaxes that survive for long periods of time are more likely to include some "wiki-like" mark-up and more likely to include links to other articles on Wikipedia.

Compared to legitimate articles, successful hoaxes generally receive less daily traffic, have a longer median article length (134 vs. 71 words), and include fewer links to other Wikipedia articles when considering their article length.