Random Articles (Page 12)
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๐ Corona reconnaissance satellites
The Corona program was a series of American strategic reconnaissance satellites produced and operated by the Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of Science & Technology with substantial assistance from the U.S. Air Force. The Corona satellites were used for photographic surveillance of the Soviet Union (USSR), the People's Republic of China, and other areas beginning in June 1959 and ending in May 1972.
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- "Corona reconnaissance satellites" | 2015-11-13 | 26 Upvotes 4 Comments
๐ $100 Hamburger
$100 hamburger ("hundred-dollar hamburger") is aviation slang for the excuse a general aviation pilot might use to fly.
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- "$100 Hamburger" | 2025-06-14 | 139 Upvotes 52 Comments
๐ Chladni Figures
Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni (German: [หษสnst หfloหสษns หfสiหdสษชรง หkladnษช]; 30 November 1756ย โ 3 April 1827) was a German physicist and musician. His most important work, for which he is sometimes labeled the father of acoustics, included research on vibrating plates and the calculation of the speed of sound for different gases. He also undertook pioneering work in the study of meteorites and is regarded by some as the father of meteoritics.
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- "Chladni Figures" | 2018-07-24 | 41 Upvotes 9 Comments
๐ Hoover (Seal)
Hoover (c.โ1971 โ July 25, 1985) was a harbor seal who was able to imitate basic human speech.
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- "Hoover (Seal)" | 2021-09-02 | 102 Upvotes 9 Comments
๐ Grave of the Fireflies
Grave of the Fireflies (Japanese: ็ซๅใใฎๅข, Hepburn: Hotaru no Haka) is a 1988 Japanese animated war drama film written and directed by Isao Takahata, and produced by Studio Ghibli. It is based on the 1967 semi-autobiographical short story Grave of the Fireflies by Akiyuki Nosaka.
The film stars Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi, Yoshiko Shinohara and Akemi Yamaguchi. Set in the city of Kobe, Japan, it tells the story of siblings and war orphans Seita and Setsuko, and their desperate struggle to survive during the final months of World War II. Universally acclaimed, Grave of the Fireflies has been ranked as one of the greatest war films of all time and is recognized as a major work of Japanese animation.
๐ The SOLID principles of object-oriented design
In object-oriented computer programming, SOLID is a mnemonic acronym for five design principles intended to make software designs more understandable, flexible and maintainable. It is not related to the GRASP software design principles. The principles are a subset of many principles promoted by American software engineer and instructor Robert C. Martin. Though they apply to any object-oriented design, the SOLID principles can also form a core philosophy for methodologies such as agile development or adaptive software development. The theory of SOLID principles was introduced by Martin in his 2000 paper Design Principles and Design Patterns, although the SOLID acronym was introduced later by Michael Feathers.
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- "The SOLID principles of object-oriented design" | 2013-12-15 | 58 Upvotes 19 Comments
๐ Chicken Hypnotism
A chicken can be hypnotized, or put into a trance, by holding its head down against the ground, and drawing a line along the ground with a stick or a finger, starting at the beak and extending straight outward in front of the chicken. If the chicken is hypnotized in this manner, it will continue to stare at the line, remaining immobile for as long as 30 minutes. Other methods of inducing this state are also known. Ethologists refer to this state as 'tonic immobility' i.e. a natural state of semi-paralysis that some animals enter when presented with a threat, which is probably a defensive mechanism intended to feign death, albeit rather poorly.
The first known written reference for this method came in 1646, in Mirabele Experimentum de Imaginatione Gallinae by Athanasius Kircher in Rome.
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- "Chicken Hypnotism" | 2023-11-30 | 54 Upvotes 35 Comments
- "Chicken Hypnotism" | 2020-12-21 | 11 Upvotes 1 Comments
- "Chicken Hypnotism" | 2019-08-25 | 153 Upvotes 47 Comments
๐ Basil Zaharoff
Sir Basil Zaharoff, GCB, GBE, born Vasileios Zacharias (Greek: ฮฮฑฯฮฏฮปฮตฮนฮฟฯ Zฮฑฯฮฑฯฮฏฮฑฯ ฮฮฑฯฮฌฯฯฯ; October 6, 1849 โ November 27, 1936), was a Greek arms dealer and industrialist. One of the richest men in the world during his lifetime, Zaharoff was described as a "merchant of death" and "mystery man of Europe". His success was forged through his cunning, often aggressive and sharp, business tactics. These included the sale of arms to opposing sides in conflicts, sometimes delivering fake or faulty machinery and skilfully using the press to attack business rivals.
Zaharoff maintained close contacts with many powerful political leaders, including British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos and Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II; he served as a primary inspiration for Ian Fleming's fictional James Bond villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
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- "Basil Zaharoff" | 2014-06-22 | 30 Upvotes 9 Comments
๐ Micromouse
Micromouse is an event where small robot mice solve a 16ร16 maze. It began in the late 1970s. Events are held worldwide, and are most popular in the UK, U.S., Japan, Singapore, India, South Korea and becoming popular in subcontinent countries such as Sri Lanka.
The maze is made up of a 16ร16 grid of cells, each 180ย mm square with walls 50ย mm high. The mice are completely autonomous robots that must find their way from a predetermined starting position to the central area of the maze unaided. The mouse needs to keep track of where it is, discover walls as it explores, map out the maze and detect when it has reached the goal. Having reached the goal, the mouse will typically perform additional searches of the maze until it has found an optimal route from the start to the finish. Once the optimal route has been found, the mouse will run that route in the shortest possible time.
Competitions and conferences are still run regularly.
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- "Micromouse" | 2024-07-24 | 136 Upvotes 37 Comments
- "Micromouse" | 2017-12-25 | 131 Upvotes 35 Comments
๐ Freedom to Roam
The freedom to roam, or "everyman's right", is the general public's right to access certain public or privately owned land, lakes, and rivers for recreation and exercise. The right is sometimes called the right of public access to the wilderness or the "right to roam".
In Scotland, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Austria, Czech Republic and Switzerland, the freedom to roam takes the form of general public rights which are sometimes codified in law. The access is ancient in parts of Northern Europe and has been regarded as sufficiently basic that it was not formalised in law until modern times. However, the right usually does not include any substantial economic exploitation, such as hunting or logging, or disruptive activities, such as making fires and driving offroad vehicles.
In England and Wales public access rights apply only to certain categories of mainly uncultivated land.
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- "Freedom to Roam" | 2024-05-01 | 24 Upvotes 43 Comments