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πŸ”— Mass amateurization

Mass amateurization refers to the capabilities that new forms of media have given to non-professionals and the ways in which those non-professionals have applied those capabilities to solve problems (e.g. create and distribute content) that compete with the solutions offered by larger, professional institutions. Mass amateurization is most often associated with Web 2.0 technologies. These technologies include the rise of blogs and citizen journalism, photo and video-sharing services such as Flickr and YouTube, user-generated wikis like Wikipedia, and distributed accommodation services such as Airbnb. While the social web is not the only technology responsible for the rise of mass amateurization, Clay Shirky claims Web 2.0 has allowed amateurs to undertake increasingly complex tasks resulting in accomplishments that would seem daunting within the traditional institutional model.

In addition to whole websites and applications, Web 2.0 has also birthed a variety of digital tools that facilitate organization and problem solving on a large scale. These tools include tags, trackbacks, and hashtags. These new forms of media became widely available during the first decade of the 21st century due in part to the fall of transactional costs of creating and distributing media. Mass amateurization is a social, cumulative and collaborative activity, wherein ideas will flow back up the pipeline from consumers and they will share them among themselves.

There is no institutional hierarchy in mass amateurization. There is only an informal group of collaborators working to solve a problem. Due to mass amateurization, amateurs are able to collaborate without the interference from the inherent obstacles associated with institutions. These obstacles include the costs that an institution incurs while educating, training, directing, coaching, advising, and organizing its members.

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πŸ”— 2022 Russian businessmen mystery deaths

πŸ”— Russia πŸ”— Crime πŸ”— Death

The 2022 Russian businessmen mystery deaths are a series of unusual deaths of Russian-connected businessmen in 2022. Most of the deaths were officially declared to be suicides, but a number of commentators have suggested that the circumstances of the suicides appear to be suspicious and may have been staged.

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πŸ”— Chants of Sennaar

πŸ”— Video games πŸ”— Video games/indie

Chants of Sennaar is a 2023 adventure video game developed by Rundisc and published by Focus Entertainment. Players solve puzzles and minigames to translate fictional languages.

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πŸ”— Operation Ivy Bells

πŸ”— Mass surveillance πŸ”— Espionage πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Military history/North American military history πŸ”— Military history/United States military history πŸ”— Military history/Maritime warfare πŸ”— Cold War

Operation Ivy Bells was a joint United States Navy, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and National Security Agency (NSA) mission whose objective was to place wire taps on Soviet underwater communication lines during the Cold War.

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πŸ”— Domain tasting

πŸ”— Internet πŸ”— Marketing & Advertising

Domain tasting is the practice of temporarily registering a domain under the five-day Add Grace Period at the beginning of the registration of an ICANN-regulated second-level domain. During this period, a registration must be fully refunded by the domain name registry if cancelled. This was designed to address accidental registrations, but domain tasters use the Add Grace Period for illegal purposes.

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πŸ”— Baum-Welch Algorithm

πŸ”— Computing πŸ”— Mathematics πŸ”— Statistics πŸ”— Molecular Biology πŸ”— Molecular Biology/Computational Biology

In electrical engineering, statistical computing and bioinformatics, the Baum–Welch algorithm is a special case of the expectation–maximization algorithm used to find the unknown parameters of a hidden Markov model (HMM). It makes use of the forward-backward algorithm to compute the statistics for the expectation step.

πŸ”— Robert Burnham Jr

πŸ”— United States πŸ”— Biography πŸ”— Biography/science and academia πŸ”— Astronomy πŸ”— United States/Arizona πŸ”— Astronomy/Solar System

Robert Burnham Jr. (June 16, 1931 – March 20, 1993) was an American astronomer, best known for writing the classic three-volume Burnham's Celestial Handbook. He is the discoverer of numerous asteroids including the Mars crossing asteroid 3397Β Leyla, as well as six comets.

Burnham's late years were tragic; he died destitute and alone. However, he is remembered by a generation of deep sky observers for his unique contribution to astronomy, the Celestial Handbook. The main-belt asteroid 3467Β Bernheim was named in his honor.

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πŸ”— Jiggle syphon

πŸ”— Physics πŸ”— Physics/Fluid Dynamics

A jiggle syphon (or siphon) is the combination of a syphon pipe and a simple priming pump that uses mechanical shaking action to pump enough liquid up the pipe to reach the highest point, and thus start the syphoning action.

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πŸ”— San Jose electric light tower

πŸ”— California πŸ”— California/San Francisco Bay Area πŸ”— Engineering

The San Jose electric light tower, also known as Owen's Electric Tower after its creator and chief booster, was constructed in 1881 at an intersection in downtown San Jose, California, as a "high light" or moonlight tower to light the city using arc lights. A pioneer use of electricity for municipal lighting, it was later strung with incandescent bulbs and was destroyed in a storm in December 1915. A half-size replica stands at History Park at Kelley Park.

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πŸ”— Rhumb Line

πŸ”— Maps πŸ”— Sailing

In navigation, a rhumb line, rhumb (), or loxodrome is an arc crossing all meridians of longitude at the same angle, that is, a path with constant bearing as measured relative to true north.

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