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🔗 Computing 🔗 Computing/Computer science

The Zero one infinity (ZOI) rule is a rule of thumb in software design proposed by early computing pioneer Willem van der Poel. It argues that arbitrary limits on the number of instances of a particular type of data or structure should not be allowed. Instead, an entity should either be forbidden entirely, only one should be allowed, or any number of them should be allowed. Although various factors outside that particular software could limit this number in practice, it should not be the software itself that puts a hard limit on the number of instances of the entity.

Examples of this rule may be found in the structure of many file systems' directories (also known as folders):

• 0 – The topmost directory has zero parent directories; that is, there is no directory that contains the topmost directory.
• 1 – Each subdirectory has exactly one parent directory (not including shortcuts to the directory's location; while such files may have similar icons to the icons of the destination directories, they are not directories at all).
• Infinity – Each directory, whether the topmost directory or any of its subdirectories, according to the file system's rules, may contain any number of files or subdirectories. Practical limits to this number are caused by other factors, such as space available on storage media and how well the computer's operating system is maintained.

In real-world software design, violations of this rule of thumb are common. For example, the FAT16 file system imposes a limit of 65,536 files to a directory.

🔗 Italy 🔗 Food and drink 🔗 Diptera 🔗 Food and drink/Cheeses

Casu martzu (Sardinian pronunciation: [ˈkazu ˈmaɾtsu]; literally 'rotten/putrid cheese'), sometimes spelled casu marzu, and also called casu modde, casu cundídu and casu fràzigu in Sardinian language, is a traditional Sardinian sheep milk cheese that contains live insect larvae (maggots). A variation of the cheese, casgiu merzu, is also produced in some Southern Corsican villages like Sartene.

Derived from pecorino, casu martzu goes beyond typical fermentation to a stage of decomposition, brought about by the digestive action of the larvae of the cheese fly of the Piophilidae family. These larvae are deliberately introduced to the cheese, promoting an advanced level of fermentation and breaking down of the cheese's fats. The texture of the cheese becomes very soft, with some liquid (called làgrima, Sardinian for "teardrop") seeping out. The larvae themselves appear as translucent white worms, roughly 8 mm (0.3 in) long.

🔗 Psychology 🔗 Poetry

"The Centipede's Dilemma" is a short poem that has lent its name to a psychological effect called the centipede effect or centipede syndrome. The centipede effect occurs when a normally automatic or unconscious activity is disrupted by consciousness of it or reflection on it. For example, a golfer thinking too closely about their swing or someone thinking too much about how they knot their tie may find their performance of the task impaired. The effect is also known as hyperreflection or Humphrey's law after English psychologist George Humphrey (1889–1966), who propounded it in 1923. As he wrote of the poem, "This is a most psychological rhyme. It contains a profound truth which is illustrated daily in the lives of all of us". The effect is the reverse of a solvitur ambulando.

🔗 Chess 🔗 Hungary 🔗 Turkey

The Turk, also known as the Mechanical Turk or Automaton Chess Player (German: Schachtürke, "chess Turk"; Hungarian: A Török), was a fake chess-playing machine constructed in the late 18th century. From 1770 until its destruction by fire in 1854 it was exhibited by various owners as an automaton, though it was eventually revealed to be an elaborate hoax. Constructed and unveiled in 1770 by Wolfgang von Kempelen (Hungarian: Kempelen Farkas; 1734–1804) to impress the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, the mechanism appeared to be able to play a strong game of chess against a human opponent, as well as perform the knight's tour, a puzzle that requires the player to move a knight to occupy every square of a chessboard exactly once.

The Turk was in fact a mechanical illusion that allowed a human chess master hiding inside to operate the machine. With a skilled operator, the Turk won most of the games played during its demonstrations around Europe and the Americas for nearly 84 years, playing and defeating many challengers including statesmen such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. The device was later purchased in 1804 and exhibited by Johann Nepomuk Mälzel. The chess masters who secretly operated it included Johann Allgaier, Boncourt, Aaron Alexandre, William Lewis, Jacques Mouret, and William Schlumberger, but the operators within the mechanism during Kempelen's original tour remain a mystery.

🔗 Brazil 🔗 Plants

The Cashew of Pirangi (Cajueiro de Pirangi), also called the world's largest cashew tree (maior cajueiro do mundo), is a cashew tree in Pirangi do Norte, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. In 1994, the tree entered the Guinness Book of Records. It covers an area between 7,300 square metres (1.8 acres) and 8,400 square metres (2.1 acres). Having the size of 70 normally sized cashew trees, it has a circumference of 500 m (1,600 ft). The vicinity of the World's Largest Cashew Tree in North Pirangi is also a main place for the sale of lace and embroidery in Rio Grande do Norte state.

The spread over a hectare of land was, unlike other trees, created by the tree's outward growth. When bent towards the ground (because of their weight), the branches tend to take new roots where they touch the ground. This may be seen in the images of the interior. It is now difficult to distinguish the initial trunk from the rest of the tree.

The tree is said to have been planted in 1888. However, based on its growth nature, "the tree is estimated to be more than a thousand years old." The tree produces over 60,000 fruits each year.

Flávio Nogueira, Jr., the state secretary of tourism for Piauí, has claimed that the Cashew of Pirangi in Piauí is, in fact, the largest tree, covering an area of 8,800 square metres (2.2 acres). That tree was studied by a laboratory from the State University of Piauí.

🔗 Companies

Geneva Freeport (French: Ports Francs et Entrepôts de Genève SA) is a warehouse complex in Geneva, Switzerland, for the storage of art and other valuables and collectibles. The free port has been described as the "premier place" to store valuable works of art, and users "come for the security and stay for the tax treatment."

It is the oldest and largest freeport facility, and the one with the most artworks, with an estimated art collection value of US$100 billion. According to Jean-René Saillard of the British Fine Art Fund, "It would be probably the best museum in the world if it was a museum."

🔗 Books 🔗 Anthropology 🔗 Mythology

An Instinct for Dragons is a book by University of Central Florida anthropologist, David E. Jones, in which he seeks to explain the universality of dragon images in the folklore of human societies. In the introduction, Jones conducts a survey of dragon myths from cultures around the world and argues that certain aspects of dragons or dragon-like mythical creatures are found very widely. He claims that even the Inuit have a reptilian dragon-like monster, even though (living in a frigid environment unsuited for cold-blooded animals) they had never seen an actual reptile.

Jones then argues against the common hypothesis that dragon myths might be motivated by primitive discoveries of dinosaur fossils (he argues that there are widespread traits of dragons in folklore which are not observable from fossils), and claims that the common traits of dragons seem to be an amalgam of the principal predators of our ancestral hominids, which he names as the raptors, great cats (especially leopards) and pythons.

The hypothesis to which Jones conforms is that over millions of years of evolution, members of a species will evolve an instinctive fear of their predators, and he proposes ways in which these fearful images may be merged in artistic or cultural expression to create the dragon image and, perhaps, other kinds of hybrid monster.

Finally he suggests sociological reasons for why such images may be perceived differently at different stages of a culture to try to explain why Chinese dragons are considered basically good and representative of government, but the great majority (although not all) European dragons are evil and often represent chaos.

🔗 Video games 🔗 Video games/Nintendo

The video game crash of 1983 (known as the Atari shock in Japan) was a large-scale recession in the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985, primarily in the United States. The crash was attributed to several factors, including market saturation in the number of game consoles and available games, and waning interest in console games in favor of personal computers. Revenues peaked at around $3.2 billion in 1983, then fell to around $100 million by 1985 (a drop of almost 97 percent). The crash abruptly ended what is retrospectively considered the second generation of console video gaming in North America.

Lasting about two years, the crash shook the then-booming industry, and led to the bankruptcy of several companies producing home computers and video game consoles in the region. Analysts of the time expressed doubts about the long-term viability of video game consoles and software.

The North American video game console industry eventually recovered a few years later, mostly due to the widespread success of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985; Nintendo designed the NES as the Western branding for its Famicom console originally released in 1983 in order to avoid the missteps which caused the 1983 crash and avoid the stigma which video games had at that time.

🔗 Computing 🔗 Computer Security 🔗 Computer Security/Computing 🔗 Computing/Computer Security 🔗 Computing/Networking

Warchalking is the drawing of symbols in public places to advertise an open Wi-Fi network. Inspired by hobo symbols, the warchalking marks were conceived by a group of friends in June 2002 and publicised by Matt Jones who designed the set of icons and produced a downloadable document containing them. Within days of Jones publishing a blog entry about warchalking, articles appeared in dozens of publications and stories appeared on several major television news programs around the world.

The word is formed by analogy to wardriving, the practice of driving around an area in a car to detect open Wi-Fi nodes. That term in turn is based on wardialing, the practice of dialing many phone numbers hoping to find a modem.

Having found a Wi-Fi node, the warchalker draws a special symbol on a nearby object, such as a wall, the pavement, or a lamp post. Those offering Wi-Fi service might also draw such a symbol to advertise the availability of their Wi-Fi location, whether commercial or personal.

🔗 Aviation 🔗 Aviation/aircraft

A propfan, also called an open rotor engine, or unducted fan, is a type of aircraft engine related in concept to both the turboprop and turbofan, but distinct from both. The design is intended to offer the speed and performance of a turbofan, with the fuel economy of a turboprop. A propfan is typically designed with a large number of short, highly twisted blades, similar to a turbofan's bypass compressor (the fan itself). For this reason, the propfan has been variously described as an "unducted fan" or an "ultra-high-bypass (UHB) turbofan."