Popular Articles (Page 10)

Hint: You are looking at the most popular articles. If you are interested in popular topics instead, click here.

πŸ”— Shepard Tone

πŸ”— Professional sound production

A Shepard tone, named after Roger Shepard, is a sound consisting of a superposition of sine waves separated by octaves. When played with the bass pitch of the tone moving upward or downward, it is referred to as the Shepard scale. This creates the auditory illusion of a tone that continually ascends or descends in pitch, yet which ultimately seems to get no higher or lower.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Inner-platform effect

πŸ”— Computer science

The inner-platform effect is the tendency of software architects to create a system so customizable as to become a replica, and often a poor replica, of the software development platform they are using. This is generally inefficient and such systems are often considered to be examples of an anti-pattern.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Wikipedia users edits over 90k uses of β€œcomprised of”

I have edited thousands of articles so that they do not contain the phrase "comprised of". Edit summaries for those edits usually refer to this page.

This page explains the purpose of these edits and the project in general.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Open Cola

πŸ”— Computing πŸ”— Food and drink πŸ”— Brands πŸ”— Food and drink/Beverages

OpenCola is a brand of open-source cola, where the instructions for making it are freely available and modifiable. Anybody can make the drink, and anyone can modify and improve on the recipe. It was launched in 2001 by free software P2P company Opencola, to promote their open-source software concept.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Secretary Problem

πŸ”— Mathematics πŸ”— Statistics

The secretary problem is a problem that demonstrates a scenario involving optimal stopping theory. The problem has been studied extensively in the fields of applied probability, statistics, and decision theory. It is also known as the marriage problem, the sultan's dowry problem, the fussy suitor problem, the googol game, and the best choice problem.

The basic form of the problem is the following: imagine an administrator who wants to hire the best secretary out of n {\displaystyle n} rankable applicants for a position. The applicants are interviewed one by one in random order. A decision about each particular applicant is to be made immediately after the interview. Once rejected, an applicant cannot be recalled. During the interview, the administrator gains information sufficient to rank the applicant among all applicants interviewed so far, but is unaware of the quality of yet unseen applicants. The question is about the optimal strategy (stopping rule) to maximize the probability of selecting the best applicant. If the decision can be deferred to the end, this can be solved by the simple maximum selection algorithm of tracking the running maximum (and who achieved it), and selecting the overall maximum at the end. The difficulty is that the decision must be made immediately.

The shortest rigorous proof known so far is provided by the odds algorithm (Bruss 2000). It implies that the optimal win probability is always at least 1 / e {\displaystyle 1/e} (where e is the base of the natural logarithm), and that the latter holds even in a much greater generality (2003). The optimal stopping rule prescribes always rejecting the first ∼ n / e {\displaystyle \sim n/e} applicants that are interviewed and then stopping at the first applicant who is better than every applicant interviewed so far (or continuing to the last applicant if this never occurs). Sometimes this strategy is called the 1 / e {\displaystyle 1/e} stopping rule, because the probability of stopping at the best applicant with this strategy is about 1 / e {\displaystyle 1/e} already for moderate values of n {\displaystyle n} . One reason why the secretary problem has received so much attention is that the optimal policy for the problem (the stopping rule) is simple and selects the single best candidate about 37% of the time, irrespective of whether there are 100 or 100 million applicants.

Discussed on

πŸ”— The Buzzer

πŸ”— Russia πŸ”— Russia/technology and engineering in Russia πŸ”— Russia/mass media in Russia πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Military history/Military science, technology, and theory πŸ”— Military history/Intelligence πŸ”— Military history/Russian, Soviet and CIS military history πŸ”— Radio Stations

UVB-76, also known as "The Buzzer", is a nickname given by radio listeners to a shortwave radio station that broadcasts on the frequencies 4625 and 4810 kHz. It broadcasts a short, monotonous buzz toneΒ , repeating at a rate of approximately 25 tones per minute, 24 hours per day. Sometimes, the buzzer signal is interrupted and a voice transmission in Russian takes place. The first reports were made of a station on this frequency in 1973.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Aphantasia

πŸ”— Medicine πŸ”— Psychology πŸ”— Disability πŸ”— Neuroscience

Aphantasia is a condition where one does not possess a functioning mind's eye and cannot voluntarily visualize imagery. The phenomenon was first described by Francis Galton in 1880 but has since remained largely unstudied. Interest in the phenomenon renewed after the publication of a study in 2015 conducted by a team led by Professor Adam Zeman of the University of Exeter, which also coined the term aphantasia. Research on the condition is still scarce.

Discussed on

πŸ”— One Instruction Set Computer

πŸ”— Computing πŸ”— Computer science

A one-instruction set computer (OISC), sometimes called an ultimate reduced instruction set computer (URISC), is an abstract machine that uses only one instruction – obviating the need for a machine language opcode. With a judicious choice for the single instruction and given infinite resources, an OISC is capable of being a universal computer in the same manner as traditional computers that have multiple instructions. OISCs have been recommended as aids in teaching computer architecture and have been used as computational models in structural computing research.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Zooko's Triangle

πŸ”— Computing πŸ”— Computer Security πŸ”— Computer Security/Computing πŸ”— Computing/Software πŸ”— Computing/Computer science πŸ”— Cryptography πŸ”— Cryptography/Computer science πŸ”— Computing/Computer Security

Zooko's triangle is a trilemma of three properties that are generally considered desirable for names of participants in a network protocol:

  • Human-meaningful: Meaningful and memorable (low-entropy) names are provided to the users.
  • Secure: The amount of damage a malicious entity can inflict on the system should be as low as possible.
  • Decentralized: Names correctly resolve to their respective entities without the use of a central authority or service.

Discussed on