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๐Ÿ”— Run Commands, the 'rc' in '.bashrc'

๐Ÿ”— Software ๐Ÿ”— Software/Computing

In the context of Unix-like systems, the term rc stands for the phrase "run commands". It is used for any file that contains startup information for a command. It is believed to have originated sometime in 1965 at a runcom facility from the MIT Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS).

From Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie:

There was a facility that would execute a bunch of commands stored in a file; it was called runcom for "run commands", and the file began to be called "a runcom". rc in Unix is a fossil from that usage.

Tom Van Vleck, a Multics engineer, has also reminisced about the extension rc: "The idea of having the command processing shell be an ordinary slave program came from the Multics design, and a predecessor program on CTSS by Louis Pouzin called RUNCOM, the source of the '.rc' suffix on some Unix configuration files."

This is also the origin of the name of the Plan 9 from Bell Labs shell by Tom Duff, the rc shell. It is called "rc" because the main job of a shell is to "run commands".

While not historically precise, rc may also be expanded as "run control", because an rc file controls how a program runs. For instance, the editor Vim looks for and reads the contents of the .vimrc file to determine its initial configuration. In The Art of Unix Programming, Eric S. Raymond consistently refers to rc files as "run-control" files.

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๐Ÿ”— The Tanenbaum โ€“ Torvalds Debate

๐Ÿ”— Computing ๐Ÿ”— Linux

The Tanenbaumโ€“Torvalds debate was a written debate between Andrew S. Tanenbaum and Linus Torvalds, regarding the Linux kernel and kernel architecture in general. Tanenbaum, the creator of Minix, began the debate in 1992 on the Usenet discussion group comp.os.minix, arguing that microkernels are superior to monolithic kernels and therefore Linux was, even in 1992, obsolete.

The debate has sometimes been considered a flame war.

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๐Ÿ”— Hinged dissection

๐Ÿ”— Mathematics

A hinged dissection, also known as a swing-hinged dissection or Dudeney dissection, is a kind of geometric dissection in which all of the pieces are connected into a chain by "hinged" points, such that the rearrangement from one figure to another can be carried out by swinging the chain continuously, without severing any of the connections. Typically, it is assumed that the pieces are allowed to overlap in the folding and unfolding process; this is sometimes called the "wobbly-hinged" model of hinged dissection.

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๐Ÿ”— Wallace Tree

๐Ÿ”— Electronics

A Wallace tree is an efficient hardware implementation of a digital circuit that multiplies two integers. It was devised by the Australian computer scientist Chris Wallace in 1964.

The Wallace tree has three steps:

  1. Multiply (that is โ€“ AND) each bit of one of the arguments, by each bit of the other, yielding n 2 {\displaystyle n^{2}} results. Depending on position of the multiplied bits, the wires carry different weights, for example wire of bit carrying result of a 4 b 3 {\displaystyle a_{4}b_{3}} is 128 (see explanation of weights below).
  2. Reduce the number of partial products to two by layers of full and half adders.
  3. Group the wires in two numbers, and add them with a conventional adder.

The second step works as follows. As long as there are three or more wires with the same weight add a following layer:-

  • Take any three wires with the same weights and input them into a full adder. The result will be an output wire of the same weight and an output wire with a higher weight for each three input wires.
  • If there are two wires of the same weight left, input them into a half adder.
  • If there is just one wire left, connect it to the next layer.

The benefit of the Wallace tree is that there are only O ( log โก n ) {\displaystyle O(\log n)} reduction layers, and each layer has O ( 1 ) {\displaystyle O(1)} propagation delay. As making the partial products is O ( 1 ) {\displaystyle O(1)} and the final addition is O ( log โก n ) {\displaystyle O(\log n)} , the multiplication is only O ( log โก n ) {\displaystyle O(\log n)} , not much slower than addition (however, much more expensive in the gate count). Naively adding partial products with regular adders would require O ( log 2 โก n ) {\displaystyle O(\log ^{2}n)} time. From a complexity theoretic perspective, the Wallace tree algorithm puts multiplication in the class NC1.

These computations only consider gate delays and don't deal with wire delays, which can also be very substantial.

The Wallace tree can be also represented by a tree of 3/2 or 4/2 adders.

It is sometimes combined with Booth encoding.

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๐Ÿ”— Green Wave

๐Ÿ”— Civil engineering

A green wave occurs when a series of traffic lights (usually three or more) are coordinated to allow continuous traffic flow over several intersections in one main direction.

Any vehicle travelling along with the green wave (at an approximate speed decided upon by the traffic engineers) will see a progressive cascade of green lights, and not have to stop at intersections. This allows higher traffic loads, and reduces noise and energy use (because less acceleration and braking is needed). In practical use, only a group of cars (known as a "platoon", the size of which is defined by the signal times) can use the green wave before the time band is interrupted to give way to other traffic flows.

The coordination of the signals is sometimes done dynamically, according to sensor data of currently existing traffic flows - otherwise it is done statically, by the use of timers. Under certain circumstances, green waves can be interwoven with each other, but this increases their complexity and reduces usability, so in conventional set-ups only the roads and directions with the heaviest loads get this preferential treatment.

In 2011, a study modeled the implementation of green waves during the night in a busy Manchester suburb (Chorlton-cum-Hardy) using S-Paramics microsimulation and the AIRE emissions module. The results showed using green wave signal setups on a network have the potential to:

  • Reduce CO2, NOx and PM10 emissions from traffic.
  • Reduce fuel consumption of vehicles.
  • Be used on roads that intersect with other green waves.
  • Reduce the time cars wait at side roads.
  • Give pedestrians more time to cross at crossings and help them to cross streets as vehicles travel in platoons
  • Control the speed of traffic in urban areas.
  • Reduce component wear of vehicles and indirect energy consumption through their manufacture

A green wave in both directions may be possible with different speed recommendations for each direction, otherwise traffic coming from one direction may reach the traffic light faster than from the other direction if the distance from the previous traffic light is not mathematically a multiple of the opposite direction. Alternatively a dual carriageway may be suitable for green waves in both directions if there is sufficient space in the central reservation to allow pedestrians to wait and separate pedestrian crossing stages for each side of the road.

Green waves are sometimes used to facilitate bicycle traffic. Copenhagen, Amsterdam, San Francisco, and other cities may synchronize traffic signals to provide a green light for a flow of cyclists. On San Francisco's Valencia Street, the signals were retimed in early 2009 to provide a green wave in both directions, possibly the first street in the world with a two-way green wave for cyclists. In Copenhagen, a green wave on the arterial street Nรธrrebrogade facilitates 30,000 cyclists to maintain a 12ย mph (19.3ย km/h) speed for 2.5 kilometers. In Amsterdam, cyclists riding at a speed of 15 to 18ย km/h will be able to travel without being stopped by a red signal. Tests show that public transport can benefit as well and cars may travel slightly slower.

In Vienna, Austria a stretch of cycle path on Lassellestrasse in the 2nd district has a display that tells cyclists their speed and the speed they must maintain to make the next green light.

Frederiksberg, a part of Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, has implemented a green wave for emergency vehicles to improve the public services.

In the UK, in 2009, it was revealed that the Department for Transport had previously discouraged green waves as they reduced fuel usage, and thus less revenue was raised from fuel taxes. Despite this government Webtag documents were only updated in 2011. It is still unclear if the economic appraisal software used to apply these guidelines has also been updated and if the new guidelines are being applied to new projects.

In a more limited sense, the term Green wave has also been applied to railroad travel. For several years starting in the 1960s, the German Federal Railway maintained an advertising campaign featuring the slogan garantiert grรผne Welle (Guaranteed Green Wave), which communicated the notion of speed, limited delays and open track blocks to potential customers choosing between train and automobile travel, and was featured prominently in promotional materials ranging from posters to radio jingles.

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๐Ÿ”— The Myth of Mental Illness

๐Ÿ”— Books ๐Ÿ”— Psychology

The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct is a 1961 book by the psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, in which the author criticizes psychiatry and argues against the concept of mental illness. It received much publicity, and has become a classic, well known as an argument that "mentally ill" is a label which psychiatrists have used against people "disabled by living" rather than truly having a disease.

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๐Ÿ”— Go Away Green

๐Ÿ”— Color ๐Ÿ”— Amusement Parks ๐Ÿ”— Disney

Go Away Green refers to a range of paint colors used in Disney Parks to divert attention away from infrastructure. It has been compared to military camouflage like Olive Drab.

Imagineer John Hench wrote about developing such colors, "We chose a neutral gray-brown for the railing, a 'go away' color that did not call attention to itself, even though it was entirely unrelated to the Colonial color scheme."

Large attraction buildings visible either inside or outside a park such as Soarinโ€™ at California Adventure or Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland are often painted a muted green. Necessary in-park infrastructure like speakers, lamp posts, fences, trash cans, and the former entrance to Club 33 are also painted various shades of green.

This concept also extends to grays, browns, and blues for spaces with less greenery or buildings that extend above the tree line, such as Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind.

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๐Ÿ”— Greenspun's Tenth Rule

๐Ÿ”— Computing ๐Ÿ”— Systems ๐Ÿ”— Computing/Software ๐Ÿ”— Systems/Systems engineering

Greenspun's tenth rule of programming is an aphorism in computer programming and especially programming language circles that states:

Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp.

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๐Ÿ”— Chess Boxing

๐Ÿ”— Chess ๐Ÿ”— Boxing

Chess boxing, or chessboxing, is a hybrid that combines two traditional pastimes: chess, a cerebral board game, and boxing, a physical sport. The competitors fight in alternating rounds of chess and boxing. Chessboxing was invented by French comic book artist Enki Bilal and adapted by Dutch performance artist Iepe Rubingh as an art performance and has subsequently grown into a competitive sport. Chessboxing is particularly popular in Germany, the United Kingdom, India, and Russia.

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๐Ÿ”— Ortega hypothesis

๐Ÿ”— Science

The Ortega hypothesis holds that average or mediocre scientists contribute substantially to the advancement of science. According to this hypothesis, scientific progress occurs mainly by the accumulation of a mass of modest, narrowly specialized intellectual contributions. On this view, major breakthroughs draw heavily upon a large body of minor and little-known work, without which the major advances could not happen.

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