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🔗 Philosophy 🔗 Skepticism 🔗 Philosophy/Philosophy of religion 🔗 Alternative Views 🔗 Philosophy/Metaphysics

The Omega Point is a theorized future event in which the entirety of the universe spirals toward a final point of unification. The term was invented by the French Jesuit Catholic priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955). Teilhard argued that the Omega Point resembles the Christian Logos, namely Christ, who draws all things into himself, who in the words of the Nicene Creed, is "God from God", "Light from Light", "True God from True God", and "through him all things were made". In the Book of Revelation, Christ describes himself thrice as "the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end". Several decades after Teilhard's death, the idea of the Omega Point was expanded upon in the writings of John David Garcia (1971), Paolo Soleri (1981), Frank Tipler (1994), and David Deutsch (1997).

🔗 Computing 🔗 Business 🔗 Computing/Software 🔗 Business/Accounting

Lotus 1-2-3 is a discontinued spreadsheet program from Lotus Software (later part of IBM). It was the first killer application of the IBM PC, was hugely popular in the 1980s, and significantly contributed to the success of IBM PC-compatibles in the business market.

The first spreadsheet, VisiCalc, had helped launch the Apple II as one of the earliest personal computers in business use. With IBM's entry into the market, VisiCalc was slow to respond, and when they did, they launched what was essentially a straight port of their existing system despite the greatly expanded hardware capabilities. Lotus's solution was marketed as a three-in-one integrated solution: it handled spreadsheet calculations, database functionality, and graphical charts, hence the name "1-2-3", though how much database capability the product actually had was debatable, given the sparse memory left over after launching 1-2-3. It quickly overtook VisiCalc, as well as Multiplan and SuperCalc, the two VisiCalc competitors.

Lotus 1-2-3 was the state-of-the-art spreadsheet and the standard throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s, part of an unofficial set of three stand-alone office automation products that included dBase and WordPerfect, to build a complete business platform. Lotus Software had their own word processor named Lotus Manuscript, which was to some extent acclaimed in academia, but did not catch the interest of the business, nor the consumer market. With the acceptance of Windows 3.0 in 1990, the market for desktop software grew even more. None of the major spreadsheet developers had seriously considered the graphical user interface (GUI) to supplement their DOS offerings, and so they responded slowly to Microsoft's own GUI-based products Excel and Word. Lotus was surpassed by Microsoft in the early 1990s, and never recovered. IBM purchased Lotus in 1995, and continued to sell Lotus offerings, only officially ending sales in 2013.

🔗 Computing 🔗 Software 🔗 Software/Computing

"Everything is a file" is an idea that Unix, and its derivatives, handle input/output to and from resources such as documents, hard-drives, modems, keyboards, printers and even some inter-process and network communications as simple streams of bytes exposed through the filesystem name space. Exceptions include semaphores, processes and threads.

The advantage of this approach is that the same set of tools, utilities and APIs can be used on a wide range of resources and a number of file types. When a file is opened, a file descriptor is created, using the file path as an addressing system. The file descriptor is then a byte stream I/O interface on which file operations are performed. File descriptors are also created for objects such as anonymous pipes and network sockets - and therefore a more accurate description of this feature is Everything is a file descriptor.

Additionally, a range of pseudo and virtual filesystems exists which exposes internal kernel data, such as information about processes, to user space in a hierarchical file-like structure. These are mounted into the single file hierarchy.

An example of this purely virtual filesystem is under /proc that exposes many system properties as files. All of these files, in the broader sense of the word, have standard Unix file attributes such as an owner and access permissions, and can be queried by the same classic Unix tools and filters. However, this is not universally considered a fast or portable approach. Some operating systems do not mount /proc by default due to security or speed concerns, relying on system calls instead. It is, though, used heavily by Linux shell utilities, such as procps ps implementation and the widely installed on embedded systems BusyBox. Android Toolbox program depend on it as well.

🔗 Technology 🔗 Physics 🔗 Neuroscience 🔗 Molecular Biology 🔗 Molecular Biology/Molecular and Cell Biology

Confocal microscopy, most frequently confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) or laser scanning confocal microscopy (LSCM), is an optical imaging technique for increasing optical resolution and contrast of a micrograph by means of using a spatial pinhole to block out-of-focus light in image formation. Capturing multiple two-dimensional images at different depths in a sample enables the reconstruction of three-dimensional structures (a process known as optical sectioning) within an object. This technique is used extensively in the scientific and industrial communities and typical applications are in life sciences, semiconductor inspection and materials science.

Light travels through the sample under a conventional microscope as far into the specimen as it can penetrate, while a confocal microscope only focuses a smaller beam of light at one narrow depth level at a time. The CLSM achieves a controlled and highly limited depth of field.

🔗 Mathematics 🔗 Game theory

Fair cake-cutting is a kind of fair division problem. The problem involves a heterogeneous resource, such as a cake with different toppings, that is assumed to be divisible – it is possible to cut arbitrarily small pieces of it without destroying their value. The resource has to be divided among several partners who have different preferences over different parts of the cake, i.e., some people prefer the chocolate toppings, some prefer the cherries, some just want as large a piece as possible. The division should be unanimously fair – each person should receive a piece believed to be a fair share.

The "cake" is only a metaphor; procedures for fair cake-cutting can be used to divide various kinds of resources, such as land estates, advertisement space or broadcast time.

The prototypical procedure for fair cake-cutting is divide and choose, which is mentioned in the book of Genesis. It solves the fair division problem for two people. The modern study of fair cake-cutting was initiated during World War II, when Hugo Steinhaus asked his students Stefan Banach and Bronisław Knaster to find a generalization of divide-and-choose to three or more people. They developed the last diminisher procedure. Today, fair cake-cutting is the subject of intense research in mathematics, computer science, economics and political science.

🔗 Computing 🔗 Computing/Computer hardware 🔗 Computing/Software 🔗 Java

Jazelle DBX (direct bytecode execution) is an extension that allows some ARM processors to execute Java bytecode in hardware as a third execution state alongside the existing ARM and Thumb modes. Jazelle functionality was specified in the ARMv5TEJ architecture and the first processor with Jazelle technology was the ARM926EJ-S. Jazelle is denoted by a "J" appended to the CPU name, except for post-v5 cores where it is required (albeit only in trivial form) for architecture conformance.

Jazelle RCT (Runtime Compilation Target) is a different technology based on ThumbEE mode; it supports ahead-of-time (AOT) and just-in-time (JIT) compilation with Java and other execution environments.

The most prominent use of Jazelle DBX is by manufacturers of mobile phones to increase the execution speed of Java ME games and applications. A Jazelle-aware Java virtual machine (JVM) will attempt to run Java bytecode in hardware, while returning to the software for more complicated, or lesser-used bytecode operations. ARM claims that approximately 95% of bytecode in typical program usage ends up being directly processed in the hardware.

The published specifications are very incomplete, being only sufficient for writing operating system code that can support a JVM that uses Jazelle. The declared intent is that only the JVM software needs to (or is allowed to) depend on the hardware interface details. This tight binding facilitates the hardware and JVM evolving together without affecting other software. In effect, this gives ARM Holdings considerable control over which JVMs are able to exploit Jazelle. It also prevents open source JVMs from using Jazelle. These issues do not apply to the ARMv7 ThumbEE environment, the nominal successor to Jazelle DBX.

🔗 Chemical and Bio Engineering

Non-explosive demolition agents are chemicals that are an alternative to explosives and gas pressure blasting products in demolition, mining, and quarrying. To use non-explosive demolition agents in demolition or quarrying, holes are drilled in the base rock as they would be for use with conventional explosives. A slurry mixture of the non-explosive demolition agent and water is poured into the drill holes. Over the next few hours the slurry expands, cracking the rock in a pattern somewhat like the cracking that would occur from conventional explosives.

Non-explosive demolition agents offer many advantages including that they are silent and do not produce vibration the way a conventional explosive would. In some applications conventional explosives are more economical than non-explosive demolition agents. In many countries these are available without restriction, unlike explosives which are highly regulated.

The active ingredient is typically calcium oxide, "burnt lime," and is typically mixed with Portland cement and modifiers.

These agents are much safer than explosives, but they have to be used as directed to avoid steam explosions during the first few hours after being placed.

Many patents describe non-explosive demolition agents containing CaO, SiO₂ and/or cement.

🔗 Songs

"Old Man Trump" is a song with lyrics written by American folk singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie in 1954. The song describes the racist housing practices and discriminatory rental policies of his landlord, Fred Trump (the father of the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump). Although the lyrics were written in 1954, it was never recorded by Guthrie. In January 2016, Will Kaufman, a Guthrie scholar and professor of American literature and culture at the University of Central Lancashire, unearthed the handwritten lyrics while conducting research at the Woody Guthrie Archives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

🔗 Law 🔗 Thailand

In Thailand, lèse-majesté is a crime according to Section 112 of the Thai Criminal Code. It is illegal to defame, insult, or threaten the monarch of Thailand (king, queen, heir-apparent, heir-presumptive, or regent). Modern Thai lèse-majesté law has been on the statute books since 1908. Thailand is the only constitutional monarchy to have strengthened its lèse-majesté law since World War II. With penalties ranging from three to fifteen years imprisonment for each count, it has been described as the "world's harshest lèse majesté law" and "possibly the strictest criminal-defamation law anywhere". Its enforcement has been described as being "in the interest of the palace".^: 134

The law has criminalised acts of insult since 1957. There is substantial room for interpretation, which causes controversy. Broad interpretation of the law reflects the inviolable status of the king, resembling feudal or absolute monarchs. Thailand's Supreme Court decided the law also applies to prior monarchs. Criticism of any privy council member has raised the question whether lèse-majesté applies by association. Even attempting to commit lèse-majesté, making sarcastic comments about the King's pet, and failure to rebuke an offense have been prosecuted as lèse-majesté.

Anyone can file a lèse-majesté complaint, and the police formally investigate all of them. Details of the charges are rarely made public. A Section 112 defendant meets with official obstruction throughout the case. There are months-long pretrial detentions, and courts routinely deny bail to those charged. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined that the pretrial detention of an alleged lèse-majesté offender violated international human rights law. The courts seem not to recognise the principle of granting defendants the benefit of the doubt. Judges have said accusers did not have to prove the factuality of the alleged lèse-majesté material but only claim it is defamatory. Pleading guilty, then asking for a royal pardon, is seen as the quickest route to freedom for any accused.

Since the 1976 coup, coup makers have regularly cited a surge of alleged lèse-majesté charges as a reason for overthrowing elected governments. This was cited as one of the major reasons for the 2006 coup and that of 2014. In 2006 and 2007, there were notable changes in the trend. Those targeted by lèse-majesté complaints included more average citizens who were given longer jail sentences. Human rights groups condemned its use as a political weapon and a means to restrict freedom. The 2014 junta government granted authority to army courts to prosecute lèse-majesté, which has usually resulted in secret trials and harsh sentences. Prior to the law's revival in 2020, for three years the Thai government often invoked other laws, such as the Computer Crimes Act and sedition laws, to deal with perceived damages and insults to the monarchy. The longest recorded sentence was in 2021: 87 years imprisonment, reduced to 43 years because the defendant pleaded guilty. In 2023, the Supreme Court ordered a female politician from the Move Forward Party to be banned from politics for life due to her alleged lèse-majesté posts on social media.

🔗 Physics

Isaac Newton's rotating bucket argument (also known as Newton's bucket) was designed to demonstrate that true rotational motion cannot be defined as the relative rotation of the body with respect to the immediately surrounding bodies. It is one of five arguments from the "properties, causes, and effects" of "true motion and rest" that support his contention that, in general, true motion and rest cannot be defined as special instances of motion or rest relative to other bodies, but instead can be defined only by reference to absolute space. Alternatively, these experiments provide an operational definition of what is meant by "absolute rotation", and do not pretend to address the question of "rotation relative to what?" General relativity dispenses with absolute space and with physics whose cause is external to the system, with the concept of geodesics of spacetime.