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🔗 Electronics

The Smith chart, invented by Phillip H. Smith (1905–1987), and T. Mizuhashi, is a graphical calculator or nomogram designed for electrical and electronics engineers specializing in radio frequency (RF) engineering to assist in solving problems with transmission lines and matching circuits. The Smith chart can be used to simultaneously display multiple parameters including impedances, admittances, reflection coefficients, ${\displaystyle S_{nn}\,}$ scattering parameters, noise figure circles, constant gain contours and regions for unconditional stability, including mechanical vibrations analysis. The Smith chart is most frequently used at or within the unity radius region. However, the remainder is still mathematically relevant, being used, for example, in oscillator design and stability analysis. While the use of paper Smith charts for solving the complex mathematics involved in matching problems has been largely replaced by software based methods, the Smith charts display is still the preferred method of displaying how RF parameters behave at one or more frequencies, an alternative to using tabular information. Thus most RF circuit analysis software includes a Smith chart option for the display of results and all but the simplest impedance measuring instruments can display measured results on a Smith chart display.

🔗 United States 🔗 Germany 🔗 Canada 🔗 Food and drink 🔗 Guild of Copy Editors 🔗 Canada/Ontario 🔗 Hawaii

Hawaiian pizza is a pizza topped with tomato sauce, cheese, pineapple, and ham.

🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/North American military history 🔗 Military history/United States military history 🔗 Military history/World War II 🔗 Graffiti

Kilroy was here is a meme that became popular during World War II, typically seen in graffiti. Its origin is debated, but the phrase and the distinctive accompanying doodle became associated with GIs in the 1940s: a bald-headed man (sometimes depicted as having a few hairs) with a prominent nose peeking over a wall with his fingers clutching the wall.

"Mr Chad" or just "Chad" was the version that became popular in the United Kingdom. The character of Chad may have been derived from a British cartoonist in 1938, possibly pre-dating "Kilroy was here". According to Dave Wilton, "Some time during the war, Chad and Kilroy met, and in the spirit of Allied unity merged, with the British drawing appearing over the American phrase." Other names for the character include Smoe, Clem, Flywheel, Private Snoops, Overby, Eugene the Jeep, Scabooch, and Sapo.

According to Charles Panati, "The outrageousness of the graffiti was not so much what it said, but where it turned up." It is not known if there was an actual person named Kilroy who inspired the graffiti, although there have been claims over the years.

🔗 Aviation

Bitching Betty is a slang term used by some pilots and aircrew (mainly North American), when referring to the voices used by some aircraft warning systems.

The enunciating voice, in at least some aircraft systems, may be either male or female and in some cases this may be selected according to pilot preference. If the voice is female, it may be referred to as Bitching Betty; if the voice is male, it may be referred to as Barking Bob. A female voice is heard on military aircraft such as the F-16 Fighting Falcon, the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Mikoyan MiG-29. A male voice is heard on Boeing commercial airliners and is also used in the BAE Hawk.

In the United Kingdom the term Nagging Nora is sometimes used, and in New Zealand the term used for Boeing aircraft is Hank the Yank. The voice warning system used on London Underground trains, which also uses a female voice, is known to some staff as Sonya, as it "gets on ya nerves".

🔗 Economics

"Assume a can opener" is a catchphrase used to mock economists and other theorists who base their conclusions on unjustified or oversimplified assumptions.

The phrase derives from a joke which dates to at least 1970 and possibly originated with British economists. The first book mentioning it is likely Economics as a Science (1970) by Kenneth E. Boulding:

There is a story that has been going around about a physicist, a chemist, and an economist who were stranded on a desert island with no implements and a can of food. The physicist and the chemist each devised an ingenious mechanism for getting the can open; the economist merely said, "Assume we have a can opener"!

The phrase was popularized in a 1981 book and has become sufficiently well known that many writers on economic topics use it as a catchphrase without further explanation.

🔗 Astronomy 🔗 Sweden 🔗 Solar System 🔗 Astronomy/Solar System

The Sweden Solar System is the world's largest permanent scale model of the Solar System. The Sun is represented by the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, the largest hemispherical building in the world. The inner planets can also be found in Stockholm but the outer planets are situated northward in other cities along the Baltic Sea. The system was started by Nils Brenning and Gösta Gahm and is on the scale of 1:20 million.

🔗 United States 🔗 Religion 🔗 Skepticism 🔗 Psychology 🔗 Alternative Views 🔗 Sociology 🔗 Religion/New religious movements 🔗 United States/U.S. history 🔗 Crime and Criminal Biography 🔗 Religion/Left Hand Path

The Satanic panic is a moral panic consisting of over 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse (SRA, sometimes known as ritual abuse, ritualistic abuse, organized abuse, or sadistic ritual abuse) starting in the United States in the 1980s, spreading throughout many parts of the world by the late 1990s, and persisting today. The panic originated in 1980 with the publication of Michelle Remembers, a book co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his patient (and future wife), Michelle Smith, which used the discredited practice of recovered-memory therapy to make sweeping lurid claims about satanic ritual abuse involving Smith. The allegations, which afterwards arose throughout much of the United States, involved reports of physical and sexual abuse of people in the context of occult or Satanic rituals. In its most extreme form, allegations involve a conspiracy of a global Satanic cult that includes the wealthy and elite in which children are abducted or bred for human sacrifices, pornography, and prostitution.

Nearly every aspect of the ritual abuse is controversial, including its definition, the source of the allegations and proof thereof, testimonies of alleged victims, and court cases involving the allegations and criminal investigations. The panic affected lawyers, therapists, and social workers who handled allegations of child sexual abuse. Allegations initially brought together widely dissimilar groups, including religious fundamentalists, police investigators, child advocates, therapists, and clients in psychotherapy. The term satanic abuse was more common early on; this later became satanic ritual abuse and further secularized into simply ritual abuse. Over time, the accusations became more closely associated with dissociative identity disorder (then called multiple personality disorder) and anti-government conspiracy theories.

Initial interest arose via the publicity campaign for Pazder's 1980 book Michelle Remembers, and it was sustained and popularized throughout the decade by coverage of the McMartin preschool trial. Testimonials, symptom lists, rumors, and techniques to investigate or uncover memories of SRA were disseminated through professional, popular, and religious conferences as well as through talk shows, sustaining and further spreading the moral panic throughout the United States and beyond. In some cases, allegations resulted in criminal trials with varying results; after seven years in court, the McMartin trial resulted in no convictions for any of the accused, while other cases resulted in lengthy sentences, some of which were later reversed. Scholarly interest in the topic slowly built, eventually resulting in the conclusion that the phenomenon was a moral panic, which, as one researcher put it in 2017, "involved hundreds of accusations that devil-worshipping paedophiles were operating America's white middle-class suburban daycare centers."

Of the more than 12,000 documented accusations nationwide, investigating police were not able to substantiate any allegations of organized cult abuse.

🔗 Physics 🔗 Physics/Fluid Dynamics

Granular convection, or granular segregation, is a phenomenon where granular material subjected to shaking or vibration will exhibit circulation patterns similar to types of fluid convection. It is sometimes described as the Brazil nut effect when the largest particles end up on the surface of a granular material containing a mixture of variously sized objects; this derives from the example of a typical container of mixed nuts, where the largest will be Brazil nuts. The phenomenon is also known as the muesli effect since it is seen in packets of breakfast cereal containing particles of different sizes but similar density, such as muesli mix.

Under experimental conditions, granular convection of variously sized particles has been observed forming convection cells similar to fluid motion. The convection of granular flows is becoming a well-understood phenomenon.

🔗 Religion 🔗 Iran 🔗 Central Asia 🔗 Syria 🔗 Iraq 🔗 Turkey 🔗 Ukraine 🔗 Holidays 🔗 Pakistan 🔗 Afghanistan 🔗 Caucasia 🔗 Kurdistan 🔗 Tajikistan 🔗 Georgia (country) 🔗 Azerbaijan 🔗 North Macedonia 🔗 Bahá'í Faith 🔗 Albania

Nowruz (Persian: نوروز‎, pronounced [nowˈɾuːz]; lit.  "new day") is the Iranian New Year, also known as the Persian New Year, which is celebrated worldwide by various ethno-linguistic groups.

Nowruz has Iranian and Zoroastrian origins, however, it has been celebrated by diverse communities for over 7,000 years in Western Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Black Sea Basin, the Balkans, and South Asia. It is a secular holiday for most celebrants that is enjoyed by people of several different faiths, but remains a holy day for Zoroastrians, Bahais, and some Muslim communities.

Nowruz is the day of the vernal equinox, and marks the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. It marks the first day of the first month (Farvardin) of the Iranian calendars. It usually occurs on March 21 or the previous or following day, depending on where it is observed. The moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator and equalizes night and day is calculated exactly every year, and families gather together to observe the rituals.

While Nowruz has been celebrated since the reform of the Iranian Calendar in the 11th century CE to mark the new year, the United Nations officially recognized the "International Day of Nowruz" with the adoption of UN resolution 64/253 in 2010.