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๐ Ted Kaczynski
Theodore John Kaczynski (; born May 22, 1942), also known as the Unabomber (), is an American domestic terrorist, anarchist, and former mathematics professor. He was a mathematics prodigy, but he abandoned his academic career in 1969 to pursue a more primitive lifestyle. Between 1978 and 1995, he killed three people and injured 23 others in an attempt to start a revolution by conducting a nationwide bombing campaign targeting people involved with modern technology.
In 1971, Kaczynski moved to a remote cabin without electricity or running water near Lincoln, Montana, where he lived as a recluse while learning survival skills in an attempt to become self-sufficient. He witnessed the destruction of the wilderness surrounding his cabin and concluded that living in nature was untenable; he began his bombing campaign in 1978. In 1995, he sent a letter to The New York Times and promised to "desist from terrorism" if the Times or The Washington Post published his essay Industrial Society and Its Future, in which he argued that his bombings were extreme but necessary to attract attention to the erosion of human freedom and dignity by modern technologies that require large-scale organization.
Kaczynski was the subject of the longest and most expensive investigation in the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Before his identity was known, the FBI used the case identifier UNABOM (University and Airline Bomber) to refer to his case, which resulted in the media naming him the "Unabomber." The FBI and Attorney General Janet Reno pushed for the publication of Industrial Society and Its Future, which led to a tip from Kaczynski's brother David, who recognized the writing style.
After his arrest in 1996, Kaczynski tried unsuccessfully to dismiss his court-appointed lawyers because they wanted him to plead insanity in order to avoid the death penalty, whereas he did not believe that he was insane. In 1998, a plea bargain was reached under which he pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
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- "Ted Kaczynski" | 2020-06-04 | 24 Upvotes 6 Comments
๐ Portable soup
Portable soup was a kind of dehydrated food used in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was a precursor of meat extract and bouillon cubes, and of industrially dehydrated food. It is also known as pocket soup or veal glew. It is a cousin of the glace de viande of French cooking. It was long a staple of seamen and explorers, for it would keep for many months or even years. In this context, it was a filling and nutritious dish. Portable soup of less extended vintage was, according to the 1881 Household Cyclopedia, "exceedingly convenient for private families, for by putting one of the cakes in a saucepan with about a quart of water, and a little salt, a basin of good broth may be made in a few minutes."
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- "Portable soup" | 2016-02-09 | 17 Upvotes 1 Comments
๐ Cool stuff you can do with netcat
netcat (often abbreviated to nc) is a computer networking utility for reading from and writing to network connections using TCP or UDP. The command is designed to be a dependable back-end that can be used directly or easily driven by other programs and scripts. At the same time, it is a feature-rich network debugging and investigation tool, since it can produce almost any kind of connection its user could need and has a number of built-in capabilities.
Its list of features includes port scanning, transferring files, and port listening, and it can be used as a backdoor.
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- "Cool stuff you can do with netcat" | 2010-11-05 | 126 Upvotes 39 Comments
๐ TrumpโTsai Call
The TrumpโTsai call was a telephone conversation between the U.S President-elect Donald Trump and the President of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen which took place on December 2, 2016. This event marked the first time since 1979 that a U.S. president or President-elect had directly spoken with a ROC President. In the call, Tsai congratulated Trump for his victory in the presidential election. The two leaders spoke for around 10 minutes, focusing on politics, economy, and security in Asia-Pacific. Following the call, Trump publicized this on Twitter and Facebook and said thank you to "the President of Taiwan". After Trump's transition team confirmed the event, the Presidential Office of Taiwan released a statement about the content of the call.
Several prominent Republicans praised the call between the two leaders, saying that the United States needs no more pressure from the government of the People's Republic of China (commonly called "China"), which does not recognize the ROC government and claims Taiwan is part of its territory. Some commentators from U.S. media outlets said that the call humiliated Beijing as it seemed a violation of a diplomatic practice. Other media and comments criticized the One-China policy, saying that Trump's move was morally right and strategically correct for American interests. Wang Yi, the Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China subsequently responded that this event is only a "small trick" played by Taiwan and will not change the One-China Policy. A spokesperson for the Presidential Office in Taipei expressed that there is no conflict between the Cross-Strait relations and the TaiwanโU.S. relations. The Obama administration stated that the U.S. would uphold the One-China Policy. Trump later responded by saying that the U.S. did not have to follow that policy.
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- "TrumpโTsai Call" | 2020-12-02 | 18 Upvotes 5 Comments
๐ An account of travel to the five Indian kingdoms โ 723 CE
Wang ocheonchukguk jeon (Korean pronunciation:ย [waหลotษสฐสntษสฐukkอuktษอสn]; pinyin: wวng wว tiฤnzhรบ guรณ zhuร n; "An account of travel to the five Indian kingdoms") is a travelogue by Buddhist monk Hyecho, who traveled from Korea to India, in the years 723 - 727/728 CE.
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- "An account of travel to the five Indian kingdoms โ 723 CE" | 2022-09-17 | 113 Upvotes 17 Comments
๐ Ishango Bone
The Ishango bone is a bone tool and possible mathematical object, dated to the Upper Paleolithic era. It is a dark brown length of bone, the fibula of a baboon, with a sharp piece of quartz affixed to one end, perhaps for engraving. It is thought by some to be a tally stick, as it has a series of what has been interpreted as tally marks carved in three columns running the length of the tool, though it has also been suggested that the scratches might have been to create a better grip on the handle or for some other non-mathematical reason. Others argue that the marks on the object are non-random and that it was likely a kind of counting tool and used to perform simple mathematical procedures.
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- "Ishango Bone" | 2021-04-10 | 13 Upvotes 3 Comments
๐ Timeline of audio formats
An audio format is a medium for sound recording and reproduction. The term is applied to both the physical recording media and the recording formats of the audio contentโin computer science it is often limited to the audio file format, but its wider use usually refers to the physical method used to store the data.
Music is recorded and distributed using a variety of audio formats, some of which store additional information.
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- "Timeline of audio formats" | 2018-08-17 | 45 Upvotes 17 Comments
๐ Ichiki Shirล
Ichiki Shirล (ๅธๆฅ ๅ้, January 29, 1828 โ February 12, 1903) was a pioneering Japanese photographer.
Ichiki was born in Satsuma Province (now Kagoshima Prefecture) in Kyลซshลซ on 24 December 1828. He excelled in the study of topics related to gunpowder production in the Takashima-ryลซ school of gunnery. This talent was recognized by Shimazu Nariakira, the daimyล of Satsuma, who selected Ichiki to be one of his personal retainers. In 1848, Shimazu obtained the first daguerreotype camera ever imported into Japan. Ever fascinated by Western technology, he ordered his retainers (including Ichiki) to study it and produce working photographs. Due to the limitations of the lens used and the lack of formal training, it took many years for a quality photograph to be created, but on 17 September 1857, Ichiki created a portrait of Shimazu in formal attire. All this was recorded in detail in Ichiki's memoirs, which were compiled in 1884.
This photograph became an object of worship in Terukuni jinja after Shimazu's death, but it later went missing. Lost for a century, the daguerreotype was discovered in a warehouse in 1975 and was later determined to be the oldest daguerreotype in existence that was created by a Japanese photographer. For this reason, it was designated an Important Cultural Property by the government of Japan in 1999, the first photograph so designated.
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- "Ichiki Shirล" | 2023-12-22 | 87 Upvotes 8 Comments
๐ Transactional analysis
Transactional analysis (TA) is a psychoanalytic theory and method of therapy wherein social transactions are analyzed to determine the ego state of the patient (whether parent-like, childlike, or adult-like) as a basis for understanding behavior. In transactional analysis, the patient is taught to alter the ego state as a way to solve emotional problems. The method deviates from Freudian psychoanalysis which focuses on increasing awareness of the contents of unconsciously held ideas. Eric Berne developed the concept and paradigm of transactional analysis in the late 1950s.
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- "Transactional analysis" | 2015-06-23 | 13 Upvotes 2 Comments
๐ Vinฤa symbols
The Vinฤa symbols, sometimes known as the Danube script, Vinฤa signs, Vinฤa script, VinฤaโTurdaศ script, Old European script, etc., are a set of symbols found on Neolithic era (6th to 5th millennia BC) artifacts from the Vinฤa culture of Central Europe and Southeastern Europe. The vast majority of historians agree that those symbols are not a writing system, but private symbols or ornaments of some kind. A minority of historians claim that this is the earliest known writing system that has influenced other early writing systems.
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- "Vinฤa symbols" | 2015-03-25 | 27 Upvotes 2 Comments