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๐ --All You Zombies--
"โ'โAll You Zombiesโ'โ" is a science fiction short story by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. It was written in one day, July 11, 1958, and first published in the March 1959 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine after being rejected by Playboy.
The story involves a number of paradoxes caused by time travel. In 1980, it was nominated for the Balrog Award for short fiction.
"'โAll You Zombiesโ'" further develops themes explored by the author in a previous work: "By His Bootstraps", published some 18 years earlier. Some of the same elements also appear later in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985), including the Circle of Ouroboros and the Temporal Corps.
The unusual title of the story, which includes both the quotation marks and dashes shown above, is a quotation from a sentence near the end of the story; the quotation is taken from the middle of the sentence, hence the dashes indicating edited text before and after the title.
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- "All You Zombies" | 2022-02-25 | 111 Upvotes 51 Comments
- "--All You Zombies--" | 2009-12-19 | 30 Upvotes 13 Comments
- "All You Zombiesโ The most craziest of the time travel paradoxes" | 2008-10-10 | 42 Upvotes 21 Comments
๐ Wikipedia Turns 15
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- "Wikipedia Turns 15" | 2016-01-15 | 441 Upvotes 109 Comments
๐ Etaoin shrdlu
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- "Etaoin Shrdlu" | 2023-09-17 | 22 Upvotes 1 Comments
- "Etaoin Shrdlu" | 2021-11-01 | 116 Upvotes 33 Comments
๐ Category:Obsolete occupations
This is a category of jobs that have been rendered obsolete due to advances in technology and/or social conditions.
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- "Category:Obsolete occupations" | 2019-12-11 | 300 Upvotes 247 Comments
๐ List of oldest continuously inhabited cities
This is a list of present-day cities by the time period over which they have been continuously inhabited as a city. The age claims listed are generally disputed. Differences in opinion can result from different definitions of "city" as well as "continuous habitation" and historical evidence is often disputed. Caveats (and sources) to the validity of each claim are discussed in the "Notes" column.
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- "List of oldest continuously inhabited cities" | 2020-04-22 | 323 Upvotes 214 Comments
๐ Pig War
The Pig War was a confrontation in 1859 between the United States and United Kingdom over the BritishโU.S. border in the San Juan Islands, between Vancouver Island (present-day Canada) and the State of Washington. The Pig War, so called because it was triggered by the shooting of a pig, is also called the Pig Episode, the Pig and Potato War, the San Juan Boundary Dispute and the Northwestern Boundary Dispute. Aside from the death of one pig, this dispute was a bloodless conflict.
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- "Pig War (1859)" | 2022-10-20 | 25 Upvotes 11 Comments
- "Pig War" | 2019-10-03 | 84 Upvotes 28 Comments
- "Pig War (1859)" | 2017-12-25 | 22 Upvotes 6 Comments
๐ SoftICE
SoftICE is a kernel mode debugger for DOS and Windows up to Windows XP. Crucially, it is designed to run underneath Windows such that the operating system is unaware of its presence. Unlike an application debugger, SoftICE is capable of suspending all operations in Windows when instructed. For driver debugging this is critical due to how hardware is accessed and the kernel of the operating system functions. Because of its low-level capabilities, SoftICE is also popular as a software cracking tool.
Microsoft offers two kernel-mode debuggers, WinDbg and KD, for no charge. However, the full capabilities of WinDbg and KD are available only when two interlinked computers are used. SoftICE therefore is an exceptionally useful tool for difficult driver related development. The last released version was for Windows XP.
Older versions exist for DOS and compatible operating systems. SoftICE was originally produced by a company called NuMega, and was subsequently acquired by Compuware in 1997, which in turn sold the property to Micro Focus in 2009. Currently, Micro Focus owns the source code and patents, but is not actively maintaining SoftICE.
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- "SoftICE" | 2020-01-19 | 168 Upvotes 82 Comments
- "SoftICE: a kernel mode debugger for Windows" | 2015-09-12 | 106 Upvotes 44 Comments
๐ Guanxi
Guanxi (simplified Chinese: ๅ ณ็ณป; traditional Chinese: ้ไฟ; pinyin: guฤnxi) defines the fundamental dynamic in personalized social networks of power, and is a crucial system of beliefs in Chinese culture. In Western media, the pinyin romanization of this Chinese word is becoming more widely used instead of the two common translations of itโ"connections" and "relationships"โas neither of those terms sufficiently reflects the wide cultural implications that guanxi describes.
Guanxi plays a fundamental role within the Confucian doctrine, which sees the individual as part of a community and a set of family, hierarchical and friendly relationships. In particular, there is a focus on tacit mutual commitments, reciprocity, and trust, which are the grounds of guanxi and guanxi networks.
Guanxi also has a major influence on the management of businesses based in Mainland China, and businesses owned by Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia (the latter is known as the bamboo network).
Closely related concepts include that of ganqing, a measure which reflects the depth of feeling within an interpersonal relationship, renqing (ไบบๆ rรฉnqรญng/jen-ch'ing), the moral obligation to maintain a relationship, and the idea of "face" (้ขๅญ, miร nzi/mien-tzu), which refers to social status, propriety, prestige, or a combination of all three. Other related concepts include wu-lune, which supports the idea of a long term, developing relationship between a business and its client, and yi-ren and ren, which respectively support reciprocity and empathy.
๐ Boustrophedon
Boustrophedon (Ancient Greek: ฮฒฮฟฯ ฯฯฯฮฟฯฮทฮดฯฮฝ, boustrophฤdรณn "ox-turning" from ฮฒฮฟแฟฆฯ, bous, "ox", ฯฯฯฮฟฯฮฎ, strophฤ, "turn" and the adverbial suffix -ฮดฯฮฝ, "like, in the manner of"; that is, turning like oxen in ploughing) is a type of bi-directional text, mostly seen in ancient manuscripts and other inscriptions. Alternate lines of writing are flipped, or reversed, with reversed letters. Rather than going left-to-right as in modern European languages, or right-to-left as in Arabic and Hebrew, alternate lines in boustrophedon must be read in opposite directions. Also, the individual characters are reversed, or mirrored. It was a common way of writing in stone in Ancient Greece.
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- "Boustrophedon" | 2023-04-22 | 60 Upvotes 23 Comments
- "Boustrophedon" | 2017-10-24 | 82 Upvotes 59 Comments
- "Boustrophedon Order" | 2010-07-26 | 24 Upvotes 12 Comments
๐ Ship's cat
The ship's cat has been a common feature on many trading, exploration, and naval ships dating to ancient times. Cats have been carried on ships for many reasons, most importantly to control rodents. Vermin aboard a ship can cause damage to ropes, woodwork, and more recently, electrical wiring. Also, rodents threaten ships' stores, devour crews' foodstuff, and could cause economic damage to ships' cargo such as grain. They are also a source of disease, which is dangerous for ships that are at sea for long periods of time. Rat fleas are carriers of plague, and rats on ships were believed to be a primary vector of the Black Death.
Cats naturally attack and kill rodents, and their natural ability to adapt to new surroundings made them suitable for service on a ship. In addition, they offer companionship and a sense of home, security and camaraderie to sailors away from home.
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- "Ship's cat" | 2014-03-03 | 277 Upvotes 72 Comments