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🔗 Mexico 🔗 Marine life 🔗 Panama 🔗 Nicaragua 🔗 Cephalopods 🔗 Guatemala

The larger Pacific striped octopus (LPSO), or Harlequin octopus, is a species of octopus known for its intelligence and gregarious nature. The species was first documented in the 1970s and, being fairly new to scientific observation, has yet to be scientifically described. Because of this, LPSO has no official scientific name. Unlike other octopus species which are normally solitary, the LPSO has been reported as forming groups of up to 40 individuals. While most octopuses are cannibalistic and have to exercise extreme caution while mating, these octopuses mate with their ventral sides touching, pressing their beaks and suckers together in an intimate embrace. The LPSO has presented many behaviors that differ from most species of octopus, including intimate mating behaviors, formation of social communities, unusual hunting behavior, and the ability to reproduce multiple times throughout their life. The LPSO has been found to favor the tropical waters of the Eastern Pacific.

🔗 Germany 🔗 Astronomy 🔗 Geology 🔗 Bavaria

The Nördlinger Ries (German pronunciation: [ˈnœʁtlɪŋɐ ˈʁiːs]) is an impact crater and large circular depression in western Bavaria and eastern Baden-Württemberg. It is located north of the Danube in the district of Donau-Ries. The city of Nördlingen is located within the depression, about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) south-west of its centre.

🔗 Mass surveillance 🔗 Computing 🔗 Film 🔗 Film/American cinema 🔗 Comedy 🔗 Computer Security 🔗 Computer Security/Computing

Sneakers is a 1992 American caper comedy film directed by Phil Alden Robinson from a screenplay co-written with Walter Parkes and Lawrence Lasker. It stars Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier and David Strathairn. In the film, Martin (Redford) and his group of security specialists are hired to steal a black box but soon realize the job has nefarious and far-reaching consequences.

Lasker and Parkes first conceived Sneakers in 1981 during pre-production on WarGames (1983). Redford was the first actor attached to the project, and he helped recruit the remaining cast members, as well as Robinson. Several of the characters were inspired by members of the hacking and national defense communities, and the actors improvised several scenes during filming. Principal photography took place on location across California, with filming taking place in San Francisco, Oakland, Simi Valley, and the Courthouse Square backlot at Universal Studios Hollywood.

Sneakers was theatrically released in the United States on September 11, 1992, by Universal Pictures. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for its humor, tone, and plot. It grossed $105.2 million worldwide, becoming the 20th-highest-grossing film of 1992.

🔗 Computing 🔗 Telecommunications 🔗 Computing/Networking

The Hayes command set (also known as the AT command set) is a specific command language originally developed by Dale Heatherington and Dennis Hayes for the Hayes Smartmodem in 1981.

The command set consists of a series of short text strings that can be combined to produce commands for operations such as dialing, hanging up, and changing the parameters of the connection. The vast majority of dial-up modems use the Hayes command set in numerous variations.

The command set covered only those operations supported by the earliest 300 bit/s modems. When new commands were required to control additional functionality in higher-speed modems, a variety of one-off standards emerged from each of the major vendors. These continued to share the basic command structure and syntax, but added any number of new commands using some sort of prefix character – & for Hayes and USRobotics, and \ for Microcom, for instance. Many of these were re-standardized on the Hayes extensions after the introduction of the SupraFAXModem 14400 and the market consolidation that followed.

The term Hayes compatible was and as of 2018 still is important within the industry.

🔗 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.