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π Wikipedia chooses Lua as its new template/macro language
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- "Wikipedia chooses Lua as its new template/macro language " | 2012-01-31 | 25 Upvotes 1 Comments
π They Live
They Live is a 1988 American science fiction action horror film written and directed by John Carpenter, based on the 1963 short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson. Starring Roddy Piper, Keith David, and Meg Foster, the film follows an unnamed drifter who discovers through special sunglasses that the ruling class are aliens concealing their appearance and manipulating people to consume, breed, and conform to the status quo via subliminal messages in mass media.
Having acquired the film rights to the Nelson-penned short story prior to the production of They Live, Carpenter used the story as the basis for the screenplay's structure, which he wrote under the pseudonym "Frank Armitage". Carpenter has stated that the themes of They Live stemmed from his dissatisfaction with the economic policies of then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan, as well as what Carpenter saw as increasing commercialization in both popular culture and politics.
They Live was a minor success upon release, debuting at #1 at the North American box office. It initially received negative reviews from critics, who lambasted its social commentary, writing, and acting; however, it later gained a cult following and experienced a significantly more favorable critical reception. It is now regarded by many as one of Carpenter's best films. The film has also entered the pop culture lexicon, notably having a lasting effect on street art (particularly that of Shepard Fairey).
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- "They Live" | 2024-05-05 | 117 Upvotes 81 Comments
π Zenzizenzizenzic
Zenzizenzizenzic is an obsolete form of mathematical notation representing the eighth power of a number (that is, the zenzizenzizenzic of x is x8), dating from a time when powers were written out in words rather than as superscript numbers. This term was suggested by Robert Recorde, a 16th-century Welsh writer of popular mathematics textbooks, in his 1557 work The Whetstone of Witte (although his spelling was zenzizenzizenzike); he wrote that it "doeth represent the square of squares squaredly".
At the time Recorde proposed this notation, there was no easy way of denoting the powers of numbers other than squares and cubes. The root word for Recorde's notation is zenzic, which is a German spelling of the medieval Italian word censo, meaning "squared". Since the square of a square of a number is its fourth power, Recorde used the word zenzizenzic (spelled by him as zenzizenzike) to express it. Some of the terms had prior use in Latin "zenzicubicus", "zensizensicus" and "zensizenzum". Similarly, as the sixth power of a number is equal to the square of its cube, Recorde used the word zenzicubike to express it; a more modern spelling, zenzicube, is found in Samuel Jeake's Logisticelogia. Finally, the word zenzizenzizenzic denotes the square of the square of a number's square, which is its eighth power: in modern notation,
Recorde proposed three mathematical terms by which any power (that is, index or exponent) greater than 1 could be expressed: zenzic, i.e. squared; cubic; and sursolid, i.e. raised to a prime number greater than three, the smallest of which is five. Sursolids were as follows: 5 was the first; 7, the second; 11, the third; 13, the fourth; etc.
Therefore, a number raised to the power of six would be zenzicubic, a number raised to the power of seven would be the second sursolid, hence bissursolid (not a multiple of two and three), a number raised to the twelfth power would be the "zenzizenzicubic" and a number raised to the power of ten would be the square of the (first) sursolid. The fourteenth power was the square of the second sursolid, and the twenty-second was the square of the third sursolid.
Curiously, Jeake's text appears to designate a written exponent of 0 as being equal to an "absolute number, as if it had no Mark", thus using the notation x0 to refer to x alone, while a written exponent of 1, in his text, denotes "the Root of any number", thus using the notation x1 to refer to what is now known to be x0.5.
The word, as well as the system, is obsolete except as a curiosity; the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has only one citation for it. As well as being a mathematical oddity, it survives as a linguistic oddity: zenzizenzizenzic has more Zs than any other word in the OED.
Samuel Jeake the Younger gives zenzizenzizenzizenzike (the square of the square of the square of the square, or 16th power) in a table in A Compleat Body of Arithmetick:
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- "Zenzizenzizenzic" | 2016-07-21 | 258 Upvotes 89 Comments
π Lace Card
A lace card is a punched card with all holes punched (also called a whoopee card, ventilator card, flyswatter card, or IBM doily). They were mainly used as practical jokes to cause disruption in card readers. Card readers tended to jam when a lace card was inserted, as the resulting card had too little structural strength to avoid buckling inside the mechanism. Card punches could also jam trying to produce cards with all holes punched, owing to power-supply problems. When a lace card was fed through the reader, a card knife or card saw (a flat tool used with punched card readers and card punches) was needed to clear the jam.
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- "Lace Card" | 2023-06-23 | 23 Upvotes 5 Comments
π Intelligent Disobedience
Intelligent disobedience occurs where a service animal trained to help a disabled person goes directly against the owner's instructions in an effort to make a better decision. This behavior is a part of the dog's training and is central to a service animal's success on the job. The concept of intelligent disobedience has been in use and a common part of service animals' training since at least 1936.
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- "Intelligent Disobedience" | 2020-05-25 | 212 Upvotes 84 Comments
π Frank Rosenblatt
Frank Rosenblatt (July 11, 1928Β β July 11, 1971) was an American psychologist notable in the field of artificial intelligence. He is sometimes called the father of deep learning for his pioneering work on neural networks.
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- "Frank Rosenblatt" | 2023-04-07 | 70 Upvotes 39 Comments
π High Arctic relocation
The High Arctic relocation (French: La dΓ©localisation du Haut-Arctique, Inuktitut syllabics: αα¦αααα₯α α¦α α αα ααα¦ Inuktitut: Quttiktumut nuutauningit) took place during the Cold War in the 1950s, when 92 Inuit were moved by the Government of Canada to the High Arctic.
The relocation has been a source of controversy: on one hand being described as a humanitarian gesture to save the lives of starving indigenous people and enable them to continue a subsistence lifestyle; and on the other hand, said to be a forced migration instigated by the federal government to assert its sovereignty in the Far North by the use of "human flagpoles", in light of both the Cold War and the disputed territorial claims to the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Both sides acknowledge that the relocated Inuit were not given sufficient support to prevent extreme privation during their first years after the move. The story was the subject of a book called The Long Exile, published by Melanie McGrath in 2006.
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- "High Arctic relocation" | 2017-11-11 | 68 Upvotes 7 Comments
π Petoskey stone
A Petoskey stone is a rock and a fossil, often pebble-shaped, that is composed of a fossilized rugose coral, Hexagonaria percarinata. Such stones were formed as a result of glaciation, in which sheets of ice plucked stones from the bedrock, grinding off their rough edges and depositing them in the northwestern (and some in the northeastern) portion of Michigan's lower peninsula. In those same areas of Michigan, complete fossilized coral colony heads can be found in the source rocks for the Petoskey stones.
Petoskey stones are found in the Gravel Point Formation of the Traverse Group. They are fragments of a coral reef that was originally deposited during the Devonian period. When dry, the stone resembles ordinary limestone but when wet or polished using lapidary techniques, the distinctive mottled pattern of the six-sided coral fossils emerges. It is sometimes made into decorative objects. Other forms of fossilized coral are also found in the same location.
In 1965, it was named the state stone of Michigan.
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- "Petoskey stone" | 2017-07-24 | 113 Upvotes 35 Comments
π List of unsolved problems in mathematics
Since the Renaissance, every century has seen the solution of more mathematical problems than the century before, yet many mathematical problems, both major and minor, still remain unsolved. These unsolved problems occur in multiple domains, including physics, computer science, algebra, analysis, combinatorics, algebraic, differential, discrete and Euclidean geometries, graph, group, model, number, set and Ramsey theories, dynamical systems, partial differential equations, and more. Some problems may belong to more than one discipline of mathematics and be studied using techniques from different areas. Prizes are often awarded for the solution to a long-standing problem, and lists of unsolved problems (such as the list of Millennium Prize Problems) receive considerable attention.
π Barbados 4β2 Grenada
On January 27, 1994, the national football teams of Barbados and Grenada played against each other as part of the qualification round for the 1994 Caribbean Cup. Barbados won 4-2 in extra time. In the last minutes of regular time, both teams attempted to score own goals. The result has been described as "one of the strangest matches ever".
In the 1994 Caribbean Cup, the tournament organisers implemented a variant of the golden goal rule: the first goal scored in extra-time not only won the match, but was also worth two goals. Barbados needed to win the match by a margin of at least two goals to qualify for the final tournament over Grenada. Barbados led the game 2-0 until Grenada scored at the 83rd minute, bringing the score to 2-1. Barbados then deliberately scored an own goal, tying the game at 2-2, to force extra-time so that they could take advantage of the golden goal rule to achieve their needed two-goal margin. This resulted in an unusual situation: for the last three minutes of the match, Grenada tried to score in both goals. Either outcome (3β2 on points, or 2β3 via goal difference) would have advanced them to the finals, while Barbados had to defend both goals. Ultimately, Barbados was able to prevent Grenada from scoring, forcing extra-time. Barbados then scored the golden goal to win the match.
The outcome of the match was criticised by Grenadian coach James Clarkson, who felt that his team had been unfairly prevented from advancing to the finals. However, given the fact that the unusual tournament rules had not been broken, FIFA cleared Barbados of any wrongdoing.
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- "Barbados 4β2 Grenada" | 2023-03-24 | 151 Upvotes 40 Comments