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π Think
"Think" (stylized as THINK) is a slogan associated with the American multinational technology company IBM.
Discussed on
- "Think" | 2025-12-28 | 20 Upvotes 1 Comments
π World's largest functioning musical instrument: Wanamaker Organ in Philadelphia
The Wanamaker Grand Court Organ, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the largest fully functioning pipe organ in the world, based on the number of playing pipes, the number of ranks and its weight. The Wanamaker Organ is located within a spacious 7-story Grand Court at the John Wanamaker Store (originally Wanamaker's and most recently Macy's) and was played twice a day Monday through Saturday. The organ was featured at several special concerts held throughout the year, including events featuring the Friends of the Wanamaker Organ Festival Chorus and Brass Ensemble.
Discussed on
- "World's largest functioning musical instrument: Wanamaker Organ in Philadelphia" | 2025-12-28 | 84 Upvotes 24 Comments
π Quadratrix of Hippias
The quadratrix or trisectrix of Hippias (also called the quadratrix of Dinostratus) is a curve which is created by a uniform motion. It is traced out by the crossing point of two lines, one moving by translation at a uniform speed, and the other moving by rotation around one of its points at a uniform speed. An alternative definition as a parametric curve leads to an equivalence between the quadratrix, the image of the Lambert W function, and the graph of the function .
The discovery of this curve is attributed to the Greek sophist Hippias of Elis, around 420 BC. Historians of mathematics have suggested that Hippias used it to solve the angle trisection problem, hence its name as a trisectrix. Later around 350 BC Dinostratus used it to solve the problem of squaring the circle, hence its name as a quadratrix. Dinostratus's theorem, used by Dinostratus to square the circle, relates an endpoint of the curve to the value of Ο. Both angle trisection and squaring the circle can be solved using a compass, a straightedge, and a given copy of this curve; however, they cannot be solved with compass and straightedge alone. Although a dense set of points on the curve can be constructed by compass and straightedge, allowing these problems to be approximated, the whole curve cannot be constructed in this way.
The quadratrix of Hippias is a transcendental curve. It is one of several curves used in Greek mathematics for squaring the circle.
π Shut-In Society
Shut-in Society was an international non-denominational social service organization working through established channels to unite the sick and well through letter writing. The idea originated with Jennie Drinkwater in 1877 who sought to foster cheer and comfort to those who were chronically incapacitated. Originally regarded as "an organization without organization", in 1884, it organized in New York City and incorporated the following year. By 1902, the work had expanded with 102 wheelchairs in use by members of the society, and hundreds of distributed books, magazines, and newspapers. By 1958, the Shut-in Society was located in 40 states, Canada, England, and Australia.
Discussed on
- "Shut-In Society" | 2025-12-27 | 11 Upvotes 3 Comments
π Lie to Children
A lie-to-children is a simplified, and often technically incorrect, explanation of technical or complex subjects employed as a teaching method. Educators who employ lies-to-children do not intend to deceive, but instead seek to 'meet the child/pupil/student where they are', in order to facilitate initial comprehension, which they build upon over time as the learner's intellectual capacity expands. The technique has been incorporated by academics within the fields of biology, evolution, bioinformatics and the social sciences.
Discussed on
- "Lie-to-Children" | 2025-12-23 | 11 Upvotes 3 Comments
- "Lie to Children" | 2024-03-12 | 52 Upvotes 66 Comments
π Interton Video Computer 4000
The Interton Video Computer 4000 (officially abbreviated as Interton VC 4000) is an 8-bit ROM cartridge-based second-generation home video game console that was released in Germany, England, France, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands and Australia in 1978 by German hearing aid manufacturer Interton. The console is quite obscure outside Germany, but many software-compatible systems can be found in numerous European countries (see versions of the 1292 Advanced Programmable Video System). The console is the successor of the Interton Video 3001 and was sold for 298DM and discontinued in 1983.
It is unknown if Interton designed and produced the Interton VCΒ 4000 within their own rights, or if they were sold the rights to design and produce it. This is because many other foreign brands have produced "clones" of this system in the preceding years.
The Interton VC 4000's power comes from a Signetics 2650 CPU (which is the same as an Arcadia 2001) and a Signetics 2636 gaming video controller. Both controllers contain a 12-button keypad, two fire buttons, and a joystick. Inside the systems control panel, there are four different buttons: the ON/OFF switch, RESET, SELECT, and START.
Discussed on
- "Interton Video Computer 4000" | 2025-12-21 | 18 Upvotes 1 Comments
π Buteyko Method
The Buteyko method or Buteyko breathing technique is a practice used to help regulate breathing, primarily as a treatment for asthma and other respiratory conditions.
Buteyko asserts that numerous medical conditions, including asthma, are caused or exacerbated by chronically increased respiratory rate or hyperventilation. The method aims to correct hyperventilation and encourage shallower, slower breathing. Treatments include a series of reduced-breathing exercises that focus on nasal-breathing, breath-holding and relaxation.
Advocates of the Buteyko method claim that it can alleviate symptoms and reliance on medication for patients with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and chronic hyperventilation. The medical community questions these claims, given limited and inadequate evidence supporting the theory and efficacy of the method.
Discussed on
- "Buteyko Method" | 2025-12-19 | 71 Upvotes 49 Comments
π XZ Utils Backdoor
In February 2024, a malicious backdoor was introduced to the Linux build of the xz utility within the liblzma library in versions 5.6.0 and 5.6.1 by an account using the name "Jia Tan". The backdoor gives an attacker who possesses a specific Ed448 private key remote code execution through OpenSSH (a suite of secure networking utilities) on the affected Linux system. The issue has been given the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures number CVE-2024-3094 and has been assigned a CVSS score of 10.0, the highest possible score.
While xz is commonly present in most Linux distributions, at the time of discovery the backdoored version had not yet been widely deployed to production systems, but was present in development versions of major distributions. The backdoor was discovered by the software developer Andres Freund, who announced his findings on 29 March 2024.
Discussed on
- "XZ Utils Backdoor" | 2025-12-19 | 25 Upvotes 21 Comments
π Freedom Fries
Freedom fries was a politically motivated renaming of french fries in the United States. The term was coined in February 2003 in a North Carolina restaurant, and was widely publicized a month later when the then Republican Chairman of the Committee on House Administration, Bob Ney, renamed the menu item in three Congressional cafeterias. The political renaming occurred in context of France's opposition to the proposed invasion of Iraq. Although some restaurants around the nation adopted the renaming, the term became unpopular, in part due to decreasing popularity of the Iraq War. After Ney's resignation as Chairman in 2006, the change of name in Congressional cafeterias was reverted.
π Star Gauge: a Chinese reversible poem formed by a 29x29 grid of characters
The Star Gauge (Chinese: ηη£ε; pinyin: XuΓ‘njΔ« TΓΊ), or translated as "the armillary sphere chart", is the posthumous title given to a 4th-century Classical Chinese poem written by the Former Qin poet Su Hui for her husband during the Sixteen Kingdoms period. It consists of a 29 by 29 grid of characters, forming a reversible poem that can be read in different ways to form roughly 3,000 smaller rhyming poems. The outer border forms a single circular poem, thought to be both the first and the longest of its kind.