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π Ellison's Cave
Ellison's Cave is a pit cave located in Walker County, on Pigeon Mountain in the Appalachian Plateaus of Northwest Georgia. It is the 12th deepest cave in the United States and features the deepest, unobstructed pit in the continental US named Fantastic Pit. The cave is over 12 miles long and extends 1063 feet vertically.
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- "Ellison's Cave" | 2023-05-21 | 46 Upvotes 20 Comments
π The Alien and Seditions Act
The Alien and Sedition Acts were a set of four laws enacted in 1798 that applied restrictions to immigration and speech in the United States. The Naturalization Act increased the requirements to seek citizenship, the Alien Friends Act allowed the president to imprison and deport non-citizens, the Alien Enemies Act gave the president additional powers to detain non-citizens during times of war, and the Sedition Act criminalized false and malicious statements about the federal government. The Alien Friends Act and the Sedition Act expired after a set number of years, and the Naturalization Act was repealed in 1802. The Alien Enemies Act is still in effect.
The Alien and Sedition Acts were controversial. They were supported by the Federalist Party, and supporters argued that the bills strengthened national security during the Quasi-War, an undeclared naval war with France from 1798 to 1800. The acts were denounced by Democratic-Republicans as suppression of voters and violation of free speech under the First Amendment. While they were in effect, the Alien and Sedition Acts, and the Sedition Act in particular, were used to suppress publishers affiliated with the Democratic-Republicans, and several publishers were arrested for criticism of the Adams administration. The Democratic-Republicans took power in 1800, in part because of backlash to the Alien and Sedition Acts, and all but the Alien Enemies Act were eliminated by the next Congress. The Alien Enemies Act has been invoked several times since, particularly during World War II. The Alien and Sedition Acts are generally received negatively by modern historians, and the Supreme Court has since indicated that aspects of the laws would be found unconstitutional if challenged.
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- "The Alien and Seditions Act" | 2023-05-23 | 12 Upvotes 1 Comments
π Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 69
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 69 (P. Oxy. 69) is a complaint about a robbery, written in Greek. The manuscript was written on papyrus in the form of a sheet. It was discovered by Grenfell and Hunt in 1897 in Oxyrhynchus. The document was written on 21 November 190. Currently it is housed in the Haskell Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago (2061). The text was published by Grenfell and Hunt in 1898.
The beginning of the letter is lost. It is a petition to an unknown official describing the theft of some barley and asking that an investigation be carried out. The author is unknown. The measurements of the fragment are 178 by 115Β mm. The description of the crime scene is quite detailed:
... they broke down a door that led into the public street and had been blocked up with bricks, probably using a log of wood as a battering-ram. They then entered the house and contented themselves with taking what was stored there, 10 artabae of barley, which they carried off by the same way. We guessed that this was removed piecemeal by the said door from the marks of a rope dragged along in that direction, and pointed out this fact to the chief of the police of that village and to the other officials.
10 artabae are equivalent to approximately 30β40 kilograms (66β88Β lb) of barley.
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- "Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 69" | 2023-05-21 | 20 Upvotes 5 Comments
π You'll own nothing and be happy
You'll own nothing and be happy (alternatively you'll own nothing and you'll be happy) is a phrase originated by Danish Politician Ida Auken in a 2016 essay for the World Economic Forum. After appearing in a WEF video in 2016, the phrase began to be used by critics of the World Economic Forum (WEF) who accuse the WEF of desiring restrictions on ownership of private property.
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- "You'll own nothing and be happy" | 2023-05-22 | 70 Upvotes 52 Comments
π Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation
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- "Golden parachutes: Record severance payments at Wikimedia Foundation" | 2023-05-22 | 412 Upvotes 394 Comments
π Gustl Mollath
Gustl Ferdinand Mollath (born 7 November 1956 in Nuremberg) is a German man who was acquitted during a criminal trial in 2006 on the basis of diminished criminal responsibility. He was committed to a high-security psychiatric hospital, as the court deemed him a danger to the public and declared him insane based on expert diagnoses of paranoid personality disorder. The judgment became the basis of controversy when elements of his supposed delusions regarding money-laundering activities at a major bank were found to be true. Mollath had consistently claimed there was a conspiracy to have him locked up in a psychiatric care ward because of his incriminating knowledge; evidence discovered in 2012 made his claims appear plausible.
In 2006, after being accused of assaulting his former wife, Petra Mollath, Gustl Mollath was tried at the District Court of NΓΌrnberg-FΓΌrth for aggravated assault and wrongful deprivation of personal liberty of his ex-wife as well as damage to property. The court considered the charges proven but acquitted Mollath on the basis of finding him criminally insane. A pivotal argument for Mollath's insanity, besides the general impression he made, was that he insisted his wife was involved in a complex system of tax evasion. The court came to call it a paranoid belief system Mollath had developed, which led him to accuse many people of being part of a conspiracy and acting irrationally and aggressively, by puncturing car tires of people in a way that could lead to accidents.
In 2012, the case was widely publicized when evidence brought to the attention of state prosecutors showed that suspicious activities were carried out over several years by members of staff (including Mollath's ex-wife) at the Munich-based HypoVereinsbank, as detailed in an internal audit report carried out by the bank in 2003. The reported money transfers were not illegal per se.
In June 2013, Mollath's former wife spoke for the first time to the press. According to her, Gustl Mollath was continually violent towards her, prior and during marriage. The alleged money laundering activities became an issue only after their divorce, which directly contradicts Gustl Mollath's version that he had suffered from the illegal activities of his former wife. Gustl Mollath has denied the allegations levied against him and has said that he was being persecuted for blowing the whistle on tax evasion at HypoVereinsbank.
On August 6, 2013, the Higher Regional Court of Nuremberg ordered a retrial and Mollath's immediate release, overturning a verdict of the Regional Court of Regensburg that had blocked a retrial.
Mollath's 2018 action for damages by the unlawful custody has been concluded in November 2019 by an ex gratia payment of β¬600,000 by the defendant Free State of Bavaria.
π Late Capitalism
Late capitalism, late-stage capitalism, or end-stage capitalism is a term first used in print by German economist Werner Sombart around the turn of the 20th century. In the late 2010s, the term began to be used in the United States and Canada to refer to perceived absurdities, contradictions, crises, injustices, inequality, and exploitation created by modern business development.
Later capitalism refers to the historical epoch since 1940, including the postβWorld War II economic expansion called the "golden age of capitalism". The expression already existed for a long time in continental Europe, before it gained popularity in the English-speaking world through the English translation of Ernest Mandel's book Late Capitalism, published in 1975.
The German original edition of Mandel's work was subtitled in "an attempt at an explanation", meaning that Mandel tried to provide an orthodox Marxist explanation of the post-war epoch in terms of Marx's theory of the capitalist mode of production. Mandel suggested that important qualitative changes occurred within the capitalist system during and after World War II and that there are limits to capitalist development.
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- "Late Capitalism" | 2023-05-20 | 12 Upvotes 3 Comments
π S3 (Missile)
The S3 was a French land-based Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile, equipped with a single 1.2-megatonne thermonuclear warhead. In France it is called an SSBS, for Sol-Sol Balistique StratΓ©gique, or Ground-Ground Strategic Ballistic Missile.
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- "S3 (Missile)" | 2023-05-20 | 16 Upvotes 8 Comments
π Siemens Synthesizer β Studio for Electronic Music
The Siemens Synthesizer (or "Siemens Studio fΓΌr Elektronische Musik") was developed in Germany in 1959 by the German electronics manufacturer Siemens, originally to compose live electronic music for its own promotional films.
From 1956 to 1967, it had a significant influence on the development of electronic music. Among others, Mauricio Kagel, Henri Pousseur, Herbert BrΓΌn and Ernst Krenek completed important electronic works there.
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- "Siemens Synthesizer β Studio for Electronic Music" | 2023-05-19 | 12 Upvotes 1 Comments
π Ferrite Bead
A ferrite bead (also known as a ferrite block, ferrite core, ferrite ring, EMI filter, or ferrite choke) is a type of choke that suppresses high-frequency electronic noise in electronic circuits.
Ferrite beads employ high-frequency current dissipation in a ferrite ceramic to build high-frequency noise suppression devices.
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- "Ferrite Bead" | 2023-05-18 | 25 Upvotes 12 Comments