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🔗 Electronic music 🔗 Albums

ʅ͡(̸̢̛̼)̸͚͛:̴͓̑:̸͎̂ ҉ ͡ ͞ ͞ ͞ ҉● ࿀ ● ࿀ ● ҉⃝ ⃝͢ ͞ ͘ ͞⃝̕ ͢ ̛ ⃝ ̸ ̡ ͢⃝̧ ͡ ͡ ̀ ̧ ̢⃝͜ ҉ ͞ ͞ ⃝͞ ͘ ͞ ͡⃝ ⃝҉҈҉҈҉҈҉҈҉҈҉ :̶̢͙͆(̷̮͂)̵̳̊( ҈͜͢ͅ l̡ ̡͌ Ɵʅ͡(̸̢, also known as Wingdings, is the debut studio album by the English musician Kieran Hebden under the alias ⣎⡇ꉺლ༽இ•̛)ྀ◞ ༎ຶ ༽ৣৢ؞ৢ؞ؖ ꉺლ, known colloquially as "Wingdings". It was surprise released by Text Records as a limited vinyl on June 12, 2026, before being released on streaming services on July 3, 2026.

🔗 Video games 🔗 Internet culture 🔗 Fictional characters 🔗 Software 🔗 Software/Computing 🔗 Musical Instruments 🔗 Electronic music 🔗 Japan 🔗 Japan/Science and technology 🔗 Video games/Sega 🔗 Anime and manga 🔗 Women in Music 🔗 Video games/Video game characters 🔗 Japan/Music

Hatsune Miku (Japanese: 初音ミク, [hatsɯ̥ne miꜜkɯ]), officially code-named CV01, is a Vocaloid voicebank and software application developed by Crypton Future Media. Her voice is generated using vocal sound samples provided by Japanese voice actress Saki Fujita. The software is personified by an official mascot character depicted as a 16-year-old girl with turquoise twintails. Marketed as a virtual idol, Miku has performed at live virtual concerts as an animated projection.

Released in August 2007, Hatsune Miku was the second product built on Yamaha Corporation's Vocaloid 2 engine and the first Japanese voicebank for the platform. Subsequent updates have expanded her functionality across Vocaloid 3, Vocaloid 4, and Vocaloid 6 technology, alongside Crypton's proprietary Piapro Studio editor.

The name of the character comes from merging the Japanese words for first (初, hatsu), sound (音, ne), and future (ミク, miku), thus meaning "the first sound of the future", which, along with her code name, refers to her position as the first of Crypton's "Character Vocal Series" (abbreviated "CV Series"), preceding Kagamine Rin/Len (code-named CV02) and Megurine Luka (code-named CV03). The number 01 can be seen on her left shoulder in official artwork.

🔗 Germany 🔗 Writing systems 🔗 Typography 🔗 Graphic design

The Antiqua–Fraktur dispute was a typographical dispute in 19th- and early 20th-century Germany.

In most European countries, blackletter typefaces like the German Fraktur were displaced by the creation of the Antiqua typefaces in the 15th and 16th centuries. However, in Germany and Austria, the two styles of printing coexisted until the first half of the 20th century.

During that time, both styles gained ideological connotations in Germany, which led to long and heated disputes on what was the "correct" typeface to use. The eventual outcome was that the Antiqua-style typefaces prevailed when the Nazi Party chose to put an end to the use of Fraktur in favor of "normal typeface" (German: Normalschrifterlaß).

🔗 New York City 🔗 Philately

The pneumatic tube mail was a postal system operating in New York City from 1897 to 1953 using pneumatic tubes. Similar systems had arisen in the mid-19th century in London, via the London Pneumatic Despatch Company; in Manchester and other British cities; and in Paris via the Paris pneumatic post. Following the creation of the first American pneumatic mail system in Philadelphia in 1893, New York City's system was begun, initially only between the old General Post Office on Park Row and the Produce Exchange on Bowling Green, a distance of 3,750 feet (1,140 m).

Eventually the network stretched up both sides of Manhattan Island all the way to Manhattanville on the West Side and "Triborough" in East Harlem, forming a loop running a few feet below street level. Travel time from the General Post Office to Harlem was 20 minutes. A crosstown line connected the two parallel lines between the new General Post Office on the West Side and Grand Central Terminal on the east, and took four minutes for mail to traverse. Using the Brooklyn Bridge, a spur line also ran from Church Street in lower Manhattan to the General Post Office in Brooklyn, taking four minutes. Operators of the system were called "Rocketeers".

Though 10 cities were funded for pneumatic mail, the New York operation was the most developed. By 1907 contracts were issued in five other cities (Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis), but not in four cities (Baltimore, Cincinnati, Kansas City, San Francisco). The system was discontinued in 1953.

🔗 Mexico 🔗 Geology 🔗 Caves

Cave of the Crystals (Spanish: Cueva de los cristales), also known as Naica Cave (Spanish: Cueva de Naica) or the Giant Crystal Cave, is a cave connected to the Naica Mine at a depth of 300 metres (980 ft), in Naica, Chihuahua, Mexico. It takes the form of a chamber within the limestone host rock of the mine, and is about 109 metres (358 ft) long with a volume of 5,000 to 6,000 cubic metres (180,000 to 210,000 ft³).

The chamber contains giant selenite crystals (gypsum, CaSO₄ · 2 H₂O), some of the largest natural crystals ever found. The largest is 11.40 metres (37.4 ft), with a volume of about 5 cubic metres (180 ft³), and an estimated mass of 12 tonnes. When not flooded, the cave is extremely hot, with air temperatures reaching up to 58 °C (136 °F) with 90 to 99 percent humidity. This is comparable to temperature records in Death Valley, but with much wetter air that results in a much higher wet bulb temperature; this prevents cooling via sweating. The cave is relatively unexplored because of these factors. Without proper protection, people can only endure approximately ten minutes of exposure at a time.

The cave was discovered in April 2000 by brothers Juan and Pedro Sánchez while drilling in the mine. As of October 2015, the mine had reflooded and the cavern filled once more with the water rich in minerals required for the crystals to grow.

A group of scientists in the Naica Project have been studying these caverns.

🔗 Computing 🔗 Computing/Early computers

Mailüfterl is a nickname for the Austrian Binär dezimaler Volltransistor-Rechenautomat (binary-decimal fully transistorized computing automaton), an early transistorized computer. Other early transistorized computers included TRADIC, Harwell CADET and TX-0.

Mailüfterl was built from May 1956 to May 1958 at the Vienna University of Technology by Heinz Zemanek.

Heinz Zemanek had come to an agreement with Konrad Zuse, whose company Zuse KG would finance the work of Rudolf Bodo, who helped build the Mailüfterl, also that all circuit diagrams of the Z22 were supplied to Bodo and Zemanek, and that after the Mailüfterl project Bodo should work for the Zuse KG to help build the transistorized Z23.

The first program, computation of the prime 5,073,548,261, was executed in May 1958. Completion of the software continued until 1961. The nickname was coined by Zemanek: "Even if it cannot match the rapid calculation speed of American models called 'Whirlwind' or 'Typhoon', it will be enough for a 'Wiener Mailüfterl'" (Viennese May breeze).

The computer has 3,000 transistors, 5,000 diodes, 1,000 assembly platelets, 100,000 solder joints, 15,000 resistors, 5,000 capacitors and about 20,000 metres (66,000 ft) of wire. It is 4 meters (13 ft) wide, 2.5 meters (8.2 ft) high, and 50 centimeters (20 in) deep. The machine was comparable in calculating power to what were then considered small vacuum-tube computers. Calculations and representation of values worked using the BCD system.

Zemanek later said about his project that it was a "semi-illegal" undertaking of an assistant professor, which he and a group of students realized without official authorization, and hence without financial support, from the university. In 1954 he traveled to Philips in the Netherlands, where he asked for a donation in kind. Transistors, invented seven years before and just beginning to be available commercially, were very difficult to obtain in quantity at any price, but Zemanek received a commitment for 1,000 rather slow hearing-aid transistors, and Philips finally shipped a total of 4,000 high-quality transistors to the Austrians.

🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/North American military history 🔗 Military history/United States military history 🔗 Military history/Military science, technology, and theory 🔗 Military history/Weaponry 🔗 Physics 🔗 Chemistry

FOGBANK is a code name given to a material used in nuclear weapons such as the W76, W78 and W80.

FOGBANK's precise nature is classified; in the words of former Oak Ridge general manager Dennis Ruddy, "The material is classified. Its composition is classified. Its use in the weapon is classified, and the process itself is classified." Department of Energy Nuclear Explosive Safety documents simply describe it as a material "used in nuclear weapons and nuclear explosives" along with lithium hydride (LiH) and lithium deuteride (LiD), beryllium (Be), uranium hydride (UH₃), and plutonium hydride.

However National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Tom D'Agostino disclosed the role of FOGBANK in the weapon: "There's another material in the—it's called interstage material, also known as fog bank", and arms experts believe that FOGBANK is an aerogel material which acts as an interstage material in a nuclear warhead; i.e., a material designed to become a superheated plasma following the detonation of the weapon's fission stage, the plasma then triggering the fusion-stage detonation.

🔗 Environment 🔗 Occupational Safety and Health 🔗 Brazil 🔗 Brazil/History of Brazil 🔗 Science Policy

The Goiânia accident [ɡojˈjɐniɐ] was a radioactive contamination accident that occurred on September 13, 1987, in Goiânia, in the Brazilian state of Goiás, after a forgotten radiotherapy source was taken from an abandoned hospital site in the city. It was subsequently handled by many people, resulting in four deaths. About 112,000 people were examined for radioactive contamination and 249 of them were found to have been contaminated.

In the cleanup operation, topsoil had to be removed from several sites, and several hundred houses were demolished. All the objects from within those houses, including personal possessions, were seized and incinerated. Time magazine has identified the accident as one of the world's "worst nuclear disasters" and the International Atomic Energy Agency called it "one of the world's worst radiological incidents".

🔗 History 🔗 Germany 🔗 Greece 🔗 Austria 🔗 Netherlands 🔗 Christianity 🔗 European history 🔗 Greece/Byzantine world 🔗 Christianity/Catholicism 🔗 Former countries 🔗 Czech Republic 🔗 Frisia 🔗 Former countries/Holy Roman Empire 🔗 Silesia 🔗 Christianity/Lutheranism 🔗 Christianity/Reformed Christianity

The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved on 6 August 1806, when the last Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, abdicated his title and released all Imperial states and officials from their oaths and obligations to the empire. Since the Middle Ages, the Holy Roman Empire had been recognized by Western Europeans as the legitimate continuation of the ancient Roman Empire due to its emperors having been proclaimed as Roman emperors by the papacy. Through this Roman legacy, the Holy Roman Emperors claimed to be universal monarchs whose jurisdiction extended beyond their empire's formal borders to all of Christian Europe and beyond. The decline of the Holy Roman Empire was a long and drawn-out process lasting centuries. The formation of the first modern sovereign territorial states in the 16th and 17th centuries, which brought with it the idea that jurisdiction corresponded to actual territory governed, threatened the ostensibly universal nature of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Holy Roman Empire by the time of the 18th century was widely regarded by contemporaries, both inside and outside the empire, as a highly "irregular" monarchy and "sick," having an "unusual" form of government. The empire lacked both a central standing army and a central treasury and its monarchs, formally elective rather than hereditary, could not exercise effective central control. Even then, most contemporaries believed that the empire could be revived and modernized. For example, the Reichstag passed the Imperial Recess as late as 1803.

The Holy Roman Empire finally began its true terminal decline during and after its involvement in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. Although the empire defended itself quite well initially, war with France and Napoleon proved catastrophic. In 1804, Napoleon proclaimed himself as the Emperor of the French, which Francis II responded to by proclaiming himself the Emperor of Austria, in addition to already being the Holy Roman Emperor, an attempt at maintaining parity between France and Austria while also illustrating that the Holy Roman title outranked them both. Austria's defeat at the Battle of Austerlitz in December 1805 and the secession of a large number of Francis II's German vassals in July 1806 to form the Confederation of the Rhine, a French satellite state, effectively meant the end of the Holy Roman Empire. The abdication in August 1806, combined with a dissolution of the entire Imperial hierarchy and its institutions, was seen as necessary to prevent the possibility of Napoleon proclaiming himself Holy Roman Emperor, something which would have reduced Francis II to Napoleon's vassal.

Reactions to the empire's dissolution ranged from indifference to despair. The populace of Vienna, capital of the Habsburg monarchy, were horrified at the loss of the empire. Many of Francis II's former subjects questioned the legality of his actions; though his abdication was agreed to be perfectly legal, the dissolution of the empire and the release of all its vassals were seen as beyond the emperor's authority. As such, many of the empire's princes and subjects refused to accept that the empire was gone, with some commoners going so far as to believe that news of its dissolution was a plot by their local authorities. In Germany, the dissolution was widely compared to the ancient and legendary Fall of Troy and some associated the end of the Holy Roman Empire with the end times and the apocalypse.

🔗 China 🔗 Insects

Keeping crickets as pets emerged in China in early antiquity. Initially, crickets were kept for their "songs" (stridulation). In the early 12th century, the Chinese people began holding cricket fights. Throughout the Imperial era the Chinese also kept pet cicadas and grasshoppers, but crickets were the favorites in the Forbidden City and with the commoners alike. The art of selecting and breeding the finest fighting crickets was perfected during the Qing dynasty and remained a monopoly of the imperial court until the beginning of the 19th century.

The Imperial patronage promoted the art of making elaborate cricket containers and individual cricket homes. Traditional Chinese cricket homes come in three distinct shapes: wooden cages, ceramic jars, and gourds. Cages are used primarily for trapping and transportation. Gourds and ceramic jars are used as permanent cricket homes in winter and summer, respectively. They are treated with special mortar to enhance the apparent loudness and tone of a cricket's song. The imperial gardeners grew custom-shaped molded gourds tailored to each species of cricket. Their trade secrets were lost during the Chinese Civil War and the Cultural Revolution, but crickets remain a favorite pet of the Chinese to the present day. The Japanese pet cricket culture, which emerged at least a thousand years ago, has practically vanished during the 20th century.

Chinese cricket culture and cricket-related business is highly seasonal. Trapping crickets in the fields peaks in August and extends into September. The crickets soon end up at the markets of Shanghai and other major cities. Cricket fighting season extends until the end of autumn, overlapping with the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day. Chinese breeders are striving to make cricket fighting a year-round pastime, but the seasonal tradition prevails.

Modern Western sources recommend keeping pet crickets in transparent jars or small terrariums providing at least two inches of soil for burrowing and containing egg-crate shells or similar objects for shelter. A cricket's life span is short: Development from an egg to imago takes from one to two months. The imago then lives for around one month. Cricket hobbyists have to frequently replace aging insects with younger ones which are either specifically bred for cricket fighting or caught in the wild. This makes crickets less appealing as pets in Western countries. The speed of growth, coupled with the ease of breeding and raising nymphs, makes industrial-grown crickets a preferred and inexpensive food source for pet birds, reptiles, and spiders.