Popular Articles (Page 11)

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

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

πŸ”— Mpemba Effect

πŸ”— Physics

The Mpemba effect is a process in which hot water can freeze faster than cold water. The phenomenon is temperature-dependent. There is disagreement about the parameters required to produce the effect and about its theoretical basis.

The Mpemba effect is named after Tanzanian scientist Erasto Bartholomeo Mpemba (b.1950) who discovered it in 1963. There were preceding ancient accounts of similar phenomena, but these lacked sufficient detail to attempt verification.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Oblique Strategies

πŸ”— Literature πŸ”— Psychology

Oblique Strategies (subtitled Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas) is a card-based method for promoting creativity jointly created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, first published in 1975. Physically, it takes the form of a deck of 7-by-9-centimetre (2.8Β in Γ—Β 3.5Β in) printed cards in a black box. Each card offers a challenging constraint intended to help artists (particularly musicians) break creative blocks by encouraging lateral thinking.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Zero Rupee Note

πŸ”— India πŸ”— Numismatics πŸ”— India/Indian politics workgroup

A zero-rupee note is a banknote imitation issued in India as a means of helping to fight systemic political corruption. The notes are "paid" in protest by angry citizens to government functionaries who solicit bribes in return for services which are supposed to be free. Zero rupee notes, which are made to resemble the regular 50 rupee banknote of India, are the creation of a non-governmental organization known as 5th Pillar which has, since their inception in 2007, distributed over 2.5 million notes as of August 2014. The notes remain in current use and thousands of notes are distributed every month.

Discussed on

πŸ”— The Peter Principle

πŸ”— Books πŸ”— Business πŸ”— Psychology πŸ”— Organizations

The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter, which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their "level of incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another. The concept was elucidated in the book The Peter Principle (William Morrow and Company, 1969) by Dr Peter and Raymond Hull.

Peter and Hull intended the book to be satire, but it became popular as it was seen to make a serious point about the shortcomings of how people are promoted within hierarchical organizations. Hull wrote the text, based on Peter's research. The Peter principle has been the subject of much subsequent commentary and research.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Alan Turing's 100th Birthday - Mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, scientist

πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Computing πŸ”— Mathematics πŸ”— London πŸ”— Philosophy πŸ”— Philosophy/Logic πŸ”— England πŸ”— Biography/science and academia πŸ”— Philosophy/Philosophy of science πŸ”— History of Science πŸ”— Computing/Computer science πŸ”— Robotics πŸ”— Philosophy/Philosophers πŸ”— Cryptography πŸ”— LGBT studies/LGBT Person πŸ”— LGBT studies πŸ”— Athletics πŸ”— Greater Manchester πŸ”— Cheshire πŸ”— Cryptography/Computer science πŸ”— Philosophy/Philosophy of mind πŸ”— Molecular and Cell Biology πŸ”— Surrey πŸ”— Running πŸ”— Molecular Biology πŸ”— Molecular Biology/Molecular and Cell Biology

Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general-purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. Despite these accomplishments, he was not fully recognised in his home country during his lifetime, due to his homosexuality, and because much of his work was covered by the Official Secrets Act.

During the Second World War, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre that produced Ultra intelligence. For a time he led Hut 8, the section that was responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. Here, he devised a number of techniques for speeding the breaking of German ciphers, including improvements to the pre-war Polish bombe method, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine.

Turing played a crucial role in cracking intercepted coded messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis in many crucial engagements, including the Battle of the Atlantic, and in so doing helped win the war. Due to the problems of counterfactual history, it is hard to estimate the precise effect Ultra intelligence had on the war, but at the upper end it has been estimated that this work shortened the war in Europe by more than two years and saved over 14Β million lives.

After the war Turing worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he designed the Automatic Computing Engine. The Automatic Computing Engine was one of the first designs for a stored-program computer. In 1948 Turing joined Max Newman's Computing Machine Laboratory, at the Victoria University of Manchester, where he helped develop the Manchester computers and became interested in mathematical biology. He wrote a paper on the chemical basis of morphogenesis and predicted oscillating chemical reactions such as the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, first observed in the 1960s.

Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts; the Labouchere Amendment of 1885 had mandated that "gross indecency" was a criminal offence in the UK. He accepted chemical castration treatment, with DES, as an alternative to prison. Turing died in 1954, 16 days before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined his death as a suicide, but it has been noted that the known evidence is also consistent with accidental poisoning.

In 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for "the appalling way he was treated". Queen Elizabeth II granted Turing a posthumous pardon in 2013. The Alan Turing law is now an informal term for a 2017 law in the United Kingdom that retroactively pardoned men cautioned or convicted under historical legislation that outlawed homosexual acts.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Gombe Chimpanzee War

πŸ”— Africa πŸ”— Africa/Tanzania πŸ”— Primates

The Gombe Chimpanzee War was a violent conflict between two communities of chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania lasting from 1974 to 1978. The two groups were once unified in the Kasakela community. By 1974, researcher Jane Goodall noticed the community splintering. Over a span of eight months, a large party of chimpanzees separated themselves into the southern area of Kasakela and were renamed the Kahama community. The separatists consisted of six adult males, three adult females and their young. The Kasakela was left with eight adult males, twelve adult females and their young.

During the four-year conflict, all males of the Kahama community were killed, effectively disbanding the community. The victorious Kasakela then expanded into further territory but were later repelled by another community of chimpanzees.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Lindy Effect

πŸ”— Economics πŸ”— Sociology

The Lindy effect is a theory that the future life expectancy of some non-perishable things like a technology or an idea is proportional to their current age, so that every additional period of survival implies a longer remaining life expectancy. Where the Lindy effect applies, mortality rate decreases with time.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Shamir's Secret Sharing

πŸ”— Cryptography πŸ”— Cryptography/Computer science

Shamir's Secret Sharing is an algorithm in cryptography created by Adi Shamir. It is a form of secret sharing, where a secret is divided into parts, giving each participant its own unique part.

To reconstruct the original secret, a minimum number of parts is required. In the threshold scheme this number is less than the total number of parts. Otherwise all participants are needed to reconstruct the original secret.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Billion laughs attack

πŸ”— Computer Security πŸ”— Computer Security/Computing

In computer security, a billion laughs attack is a type of denial-of-service (DoS) attack which is aimed at parsers of XML documents.

It is also referred to as an XML bomb or as an exponential entity expansion attack.

Discussed on