Popular Articles (Page 5)
Hint: You are looking at the most popular articles. If you are interested in popular topics instead, click here.
π Illegal number
An illegal number is a number that represents information which is illegal to possess, utter, propagate, or otherwise transmit in some legal jurisdiction. Any piece of digital information is representable as a number; consequently, if communicating a specific set of information is illegal in some way, then the number may be illegal as well.
Discussed on
- "Illegal number β Represents information which is illegal to possess" | 2021-06-16 | 39 Upvotes 26 Comments
- "Illegal number" | 2019-01-11 | 6 Upvotes 10 Comments
- "Illegal number - Wikipedia" | 2013-10-01 | 14 Upvotes 1 Comments
- "Illegal Numbers" | 2012-10-28 | 184 Upvotes 95 Comments
π Hy
Hy (alternately, Hylang) is a programming language, a dialect of the language Lisp designed to interact with the language Python by translating expressions into Python's abstract syntax tree (AST). Hy was introduced at Python Conference (PyCon) 2013 by Paul Tagliamonte.
Similar to Kawa's and Clojure's mapping of s-expressions onto the Java virtual machine (JVM), Hy is meant to operate as a transparent Lisp front end to Python's abstract syntax. Lisp allows operating on code as data (metaprogramming). Thus, Hy can be used to write domain-specific languages. Hy also allows Python libraries, including the standard library, to be imported and accessed alongside Hy code with a compiling step converting the data structure of both into Python's AST.
π GΓΆbekli Tepe
GΓΆbekli Tepe (Turkish:Β [ΙΕbecΛli teΛpe], "Potbelly Hill") is an archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey approximately 12Β km (7Β mi) northeast of the city of ΕanlΔ±urfa. The tell (artificial mound) has a height of 15Β m (49Β ft) and is about 300Β m (980Β ft) in diameter. It is approximately 760Β m (2,490Β ft) above sea level.
The tell includes two phases of use, believed to be of a social or ritual nature by site discoverer and excavator Klaus Schmidt, dating back to the 10thβ8th millennium BCE. During the first phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), circles of massive "T-shaped" stone pillars were erected β the world's oldest known megaliths.
More than 200 pillars in about 20 circles are currently known through geophysical surveys. Each pillar has a height of up to 6Β m (20Β ft) and weighs up to 10 tons. They are fitted into sockets that were hewn out of the bedrock. In the second phase, belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB), the erected pillars are smaller and stood in rectangular rooms with floors of polished lime. The site was abandoned after the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB). Younger structures date to classical times.
The details of the structure's function remain a mystery. The excavations have been ongoing since 1996 by the German Archaeological Institute, but large parts still remain unexcavated. In 2018, the site was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Discussed on
- "GΓΆbekli Tepe" | 2022-09-12 | 21 Upvotes 4 Comments
- "GΓΆbekli Tepe" | 2021-01-29 | 139 Upvotes 59 Comments
- "GΓΆbekli Tepe" | 2020-07-03 | 142 Upvotes 99 Comments
- "GΓΆbekli Tepe β Stone age mountain sanctuary" | 2014-04-26 | 57 Upvotes 9 Comments
π Sortition
In governance, sortition (also known as selection by lot, allotment, demarchy, or Stochocracy) is the selection of political officials as a random sample from a larger pool of candidates. Filling individual posts or, more usually in its modern applications, to fill collegiate chambers. The system intends to ensure that all competent and interested parties have an equal chance of holding public office. It also minimizes factionalism, since there would be no point making promises to win over key constituencies if one was to be chosen by lot, while elections, by contrast, foster it. In ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was the traditional and primary method for appointing political officials, and its use was regarded as a principal characteristic of democracy.
Today, sortition is commonly used to select prospective jurors in common law-based legal systems and is sometimes used in forming citizen groups with political advisory power (citizens' juries or citizens' assemblies).
Discussed on
- "Sortition" | 2022-10-14 | 12 Upvotes 1 Comments
- "Sortition" | 2020-06-01 | 189 Upvotes 116 Comments
- "Sortition" | 2015-11-11 | 108 Upvotes 62 Comments
π Swatch Internet Time
Swatch Internet Time (or .beat time) is a decimal time concept introduced in 1998 by the Swatch corporation as part of their marketing campaign for their line of "Beat" watches.
Instead of hours and minutes, the mean solar day is divided into 1000 parts called ".beats". Each .beat is equal to one decimal minute in the French Revolutionary decimal time system and lasts 1 minute and 26.4 seconds (86.4 seconds) in standard time. Times are notated as a 3-digit number out of 1000 after midnight. So, for example @248 would indicate a time 248 .beats after midnight representing β248β1000 of a day, just over 5 hours and 57 minutes.
There are no time zones in Swatch Internet Time; instead, the new time scale of Biel Meantime (BMT) is used, based on Swatch's headquarters in Biel, Switzerland and equivalent to Central European Time, West Africa Time, and UTC+01. Unlike civil time in Switzerland and many other countries, Swatch Internet Time does not observe daylight saving time.
Discussed on
- "Swatch Internet Time" | 2024-04-14 | 61 Upvotes 39 Comments
- "Swatch Internet Time (1998)" | 2018-02-05 | 86 Upvotes 78 Comments
- "Swatch Internet Time" | 2014-01-12 | 103 Upvotes 96 Comments
- "Ask HN: Why did this idea of Internet Time not work?" | 2009-03-17 | 7 Upvotes 28 Comments
π Raising of Chicago
During the 1850s and 1860s, engineers carried out a piecemeal raising of the level of central Chicago. Streets, sidewalks, and buildings were physically raised on jackscrews. The work was funded by private property owners and public funds.
Discussed on
- "Raising of Chicago" | 2018-10-25 | 216 Upvotes 134 Comments
- "The Raising of Chicago" | 2013-08-29 | 222 Upvotes 73 Comments
π Telling the Bees
Telling the bees is a traditional custom of many European countries in which bees would be told of important events in their keeper's lives, such as births, marriages, or departures and returns in the household. If the custom was omitted or forgotten and the bees were not "put into mourning" then it was believed a penalty would be paid, such as the bees leaving their hive, stopping the production of honey, or dying. The custom is best known in England, but has also been recorded in Ireland, Wales, Germany, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Bohemia, and the United States.
Discussed on
- "Telling the Bees" | 2023-07-12 | 375 Upvotes 254 Comments
- "Telling the Bees" | 2021-09-27 | 253 Upvotes 59 Comments
π Beverly Clock
The Beverly Clock is a clock situated in the 3rd floor lift foyer of the Department of Physics at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. The clock is still running despite never having been manually wound since its construction in 1864 by Arthur Beverly.
Discussed on
- "Beverly Clock" | 2024-01-22 | 29 Upvotes 7 Comments
- "The Beverly Clock" | 2021-12-27 | 177 Upvotes 49 Comments
- "Beverly Clock" | 2018-02-20 | 289 Upvotes 53 Comments
π List of common misconceptions
This is a list of common misconceptions. Each entry is formatted as a correction; the misconceptions themselves are implied rather than stated. These entries are meant to be concise, but more detail can be found in the main subject articles.
Discussed on
- "List of Common Misconceptions" | 2022-07-13 | 21 Upvotes 8 Comments
- "List of Common Misconceptions" | 2020-05-22 | 52 Upvotes 15 Comments
- "List of common misconceptions" | 2018-06-14 | 94 Upvotes 26 Comments
- "List of Common Misconceptions" | 2010-06-27 | 169 Upvotes 53 Comments
π Black Perl
"Black Perl" is a code poem written using the Perl programming language. It was posted anonymously to Usenet on April 1, 1990, and is popular among Perl programmers as a piece of Perl poetry. Written in Perl 3, the poem is able to be executed as a program.
Discussed on
- "Black Perl" | 2013-09-12 | 330 Upvotes 67 Comments
- "Black Perl" | 2010-01-30 | 124 Upvotes 40 Comments