Popular Articles (Page 35)
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๐ Wireworld
Wireworld is a cellular automaton first proposed by Brian Silverman in 1987, as part of his program Phantom Fish Tank. It subsequently became more widely known as a result of an article in the "Computer Recreations" column of Scientific American. Wireworld is particularly suited to simulating transistors, and Wireworld is Turing-complete.
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- "Wireworld" | 2016-07-07 | 290 Upvotes 26 Comments
๐ List of Creepypastas
Creepypastas are horror-related legends or images that have been copied and pasted around the Internet. These Internet entries are often brief, user-generated, paranormal stories intended to scare, frighten, or discomfort readers. The term "Creepypasta" originates from Copypasta, made from the words "copy" and "paste".
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- "List of Creepypastas" | 2022-08-29 | 190 Upvotes 124 Comments
๐ Machine Identification Code
A Machine Identification Code (MIC), also known as printer steganography, yellow dots, tracking dots or secret dots, is a digital watermark which certain color laser printers and copiers leave on every single printed page, allowing identification of the device with which a document was printed and giving clues to the originator. Developed by Xerox and Canon in the mid-1980s, its existence became public only in 2004. In 2018, scientists developed privacy software to anonymize prints in order to support whistleblowers publishing their work.
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- "Printer Identification Code Surveillance" | 2024-03-23 | 13 Upvotes 1 Comments
- "Machine Identification Code" | 2021-08-09 | 12 Upvotes 1 Comments
- "Machine Identification Code" | 2018-10-29 | 62 Upvotes 15 Comments
๐ Stick bomb
A stick bomb is a (mechanical) spring-loaded device constructed out of flat sticks woven together under a bending moment. Other names for stick bombs include Chinese stick puzzles, Cobra wave, and frame bombs. Stick bombs are created for fun and as art, not for any practical use.
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- "Stick bomb" | 2014-03-05 | 255 Upvotes 57 Comments
๐ Extreme Ironing
Extreme ironing (also called EI) is an extreme sport in which people take ironing boards to remote locations and iron items of clothing. According to the Extreme Ironing Bureau, extreme ironing is "the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt."
Part of the attraction and interest the media has shown towards extreme ironing seems to center on the issue of whether it is really a sport or not. It is widely considered to be tongue-in-cheek.
Some other locations where such performances have taken place include a mountainside of a difficult climb; a forest; in a canoe; while skiing or snowboarding; on top of large bronze statues; in the middle of a street; underwater; in the middle of the M1 motorway; race; whilst parachuting; and under the ice sheet of a frozen lake. The performances have been conducted solo or by groups.
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- "Extreme Ironing" | 2021-08-31 | 411 Upvotes 172 Comments
๐ 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre
The Tiananmen Square protests, also known as the June Fourth Incident (Chinese: ๅ ญๅไบไปถ; pinyin: liรนsรฌ shรฌjiร n) in China, were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre (Chinese: ๅคฉๅฎ้จๅคงๅฑ ๆ; pinyin: Tiฤn'ฤnmรฉn dร tรบshฤ), troops armed with assault rifles and accompanied by tanks fired at the demonstrators and those trying to block the military's advance into Tiananmen Square. The protests started on 15 April and were forcibly suppressed on 4 June when the government declared martial law and sent the People's Liberation Army to occupy parts of central Beijing. Estimates of the death toll vary from several hundred to several thousand, with thousands more wounded. The popular national movement inspired by the Beijing protests is sometimes called the '89 Democracy Movement (Chinese: ๅ ซไนๆฐ่ฟ; pinyin: Bฤjiว mรญnyรนn) or the Tiananmen Square Incident (Chinese: ๅคฉๅฎ้จไบไปถ; pinyin: Tiฤn'ฤnmรฉn shรฌjiร n).
The protests were precipitated by the death of pro-reform Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary Hu Yaobang in April 1989 amid the backdrop of rapid economic development and social change in post-Mao China, reflecting anxieties among the people and political elite about the country's future. The reforms of the 1980s had led to a nascent market economy that benefited some people but seriously disadvantaged others, and the one-party political system also faced a challenge to its legitimacy. Common grievances at the time included inflation, corruption, limited preparedness of graduates for the new economy, and restrictions on political participation. Although they were highly disorganized and their goals varied, the students called for greater accountability, constitutional due process, democracy, freedom of the press, and freedom of speech. At the height of the protests, about oneย million people assembled in the Square.
As the protests developed, the authorities responded with both conciliatory and hardline tactics, exposing deep divisions within the party leadership. By May, a student-led hunger strike galvanized support around the country for the demonstrators, and the protests spread to some 400 cities. Among the CCP's top leadership, Premier Li Peng and Party Elders Li Xiannian and Wang Zhen called for decisive action through violent suppression of the protesters, and ultimately managed to win over Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping and President Yang Shangkun to their side. On 20 May, the State Council declared martial law. They mobilized as many as ~300,000 troops to Beijing. The troops advanced into central parts of Beijing on the city's major thoroughfares in the early morning hours of 4 June, killing both demonstrators and bystanders in the process. The military operations were under the overall command of General Yang Baibing, half-brother of President Yang Shangkun.
The international community, human rights organizations, and political analysts condemned the Chinese government for the massacre. Western countries imposed arms embargoes on China. The Chinese government made widespread arrests of protesters and their supporters, suppressed other protests around China, expelled foreign journalists, strictly controlled coverage of the events in the domestic press, strengthened the police and internal security forces, and demoted or purged officials it deemed sympathetic to the protests. More broadly, the suppression ended the political reforms begun in 1986 and halted the policies of liberalization of the 1980s, which were only partly resumed after Deng Xiaoping's Southern Tour in 1992. Considered a watershed event, reaction to the protests set limits on political expression in China that have lasted up to the present day. Remembering the protests is widely associated with questioning the legitimacy of CCP rule and remains one of the most sensitive and most widely censored topics in China.
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- "1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre" | 2024-06-02 | 22 Upvotes 3 Comments
- "Tiananmen Square: Protests and Massacre (1989)" | 2022-11-27 | 39 Upvotes 4 Comments
- "1989 Tiananmen Square Protests and Massacre" | 2022-06-04 | 52 Upvotes 8 Comments
๐ YInMn Blue
YInMn Blue (for yttrium, indium, manganese), also known as Oregon Blue, Mas Blue, or Yin Min Blue, is an inorganic blue pigment that was discovered accidentally by Professor Mas Subramanian and his then-graduate student Andrew E. Smith at Oregon State University in 2009. It is the first inorganic blue pigment discovered in 200 years, since cobalt blue was identified in 1802.
The compound has a unique trigonal bipyramidal structure, and further research has discovered it may be modified to create green, purple, and orange pigments.
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- "YInMn Blue" | 2019-06-21 | 212 Upvotes 97 Comments
๐ Unexpected hanging paradox
The unexpected hanging paradox or hangman paradox is a paradox about a person's expectations about the timing of a future event which they are told will occur at an unexpected time. The paradox is variously applied to a prisoner's hanging, or a surprise school test. It could be reduced to be Moore's paradox.
Despite significant academic interest, there is no consensus on its precise nature and consequently a final correct resolution has not yet been established. Logical analysis suggests that the problem arises in a self-contradictory self-referencing statement at the heart of the judge's sentence. Epistemological studies of the paradox have suggested that it turns on our concept of knowledge. Even though it is apparently simple, the paradox's underlying complexities have even led to its being called a "significant problem" for philosophy.
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- "Unexpected Hanging Paradox" | 2020-06-26 | 11 Upvotes 2 Comments
- "Unexpected hanging paradox" | 2018-06-30 | 77 Upvotes 80 Comments
- "Unexpected Hanging Paradox" | 2015-04-29 | 13 Upvotes 7 Comments
๐ Li Wenliang
Li Wenliang (Chinese: ๆๆไบฎ; pinyin: Lว Wรฉnliร ng; 12 October 1986 โ 7 February 2020) was a Chinese ophthalmologist who worked as a physician at Wuhan Central Hospital. Li warned his colleagues in December 2019 about a possible outbreak of an illness that resembled severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), later acknowledged as COVID-19. He became a whistleblower when his warnings were later shared publicly. On 3 January 2020, Wuhan police summoned and admonished him for "making false comments on the Internet". Li returned to work, later contracted the virus from an infected patient (who had been originally treated for glaucoma) and died from the disease on 7 February 2020, at age 33. A subsequent Chinese official inquiry exonerated him and the Communist Party formally offered a "solemn apology" to his family and revoked its admonishment of him.
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- "Li Wenliang" | 2020-02-11 | 350 Upvotes 206 Comments
๐ International Workers' Day
International Workers' Day, also called Labour Day in some countries and often referred to as May Day, is a celebration of labourers and the working classes that is promoted by the international labour movement and occurs every year on 1 May, or the first Monday in May.
Traditionally, 1 May is the date of the European spring festival of May Day. The International Workers Congress held in Paris in 1889 established the Second International for labor, socialist, and Marxist parties. It adopted a resolution for a "great international demonstration" in support of working-class demands for the eight-hour day. The date was chosen by the American Federation of Labor to commemorate a general strike in the United States, which had begun on 1 May 1886 and culminated in the Haymarket affair on 4 May. The demonstration subsequently became a yearly event. The 1904 Sixth Conference of the Second International, called on "all Social Democratic Party organisations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the eight-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace".
The 1st of May, or first Monday in May, is a national public holiday in many countries, in most cases known as "International Workers' Day" or a similar name. Some countries celebrate a Labour Day on other dates significant to them, such as the United States and Canada, which celebrate Labor Day on the first Monday of September. In 1955, the Catholic Church dedicated 1 May to "Saint Joseph the Worker". Saint Joseph is the patron saint of workers and craftsmen, among others.
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- "International Workers' Day" | 2025-05-01 | 401 Upvotes 151 Comments