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πŸ”— Gemini Space

πŸ”— Computing πŸ”— Telecommunications

Gemini space denotes the whole of the public information that is published on the Internet by the Gemini community via the Gemini protocol. Thus, Gemini spans an alternative communication web, with hypertext documents that include hyperlinks to other resources that the user can easily access, similar to the secure version of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTPS), but with a focus on simplified information sharing, both in respect to creation and reading of Gemini content.

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πŸ”— Long and short scales

πŸ”— Numbers πŸ”— Linguistics πŸ”— Malaysia

The long and short scales are two of several naming systems for integer powers of ten which use some of the same terms for different magnitudes.

For whole numbers smaller than 1,000,000,000 (109), such as one thousand or one million, the two scales are identical. For larger numbers, starting with 109, the two systems differ. For identical names, the long scale proceeds by powers of one million, whereas the short scale proceeds by powers of one thousand. For example, one billion is one thousand millions in the short scale, while it is one million millions in the long scale. The long scale system introduces new terms for the intervening values, typically replacing the word ending -ion with -iard.

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πŸ”— Webvan

πŸ”— California πŸ”— Companies πŸ”— California/San Francisco Bay Area πŸ”— Internet πŸ”— Food and drink

Webvan was a dot-com company and grocery business that filed for bankruptcy in 2001 after 3 years of operation. It was headquartered in Foster City, California, United States. It delivered products to customers' homes within a 30-minute window of their choosing. At its peak, it offered service in ten US markets: the San Francisco Bay Area; Dallas; Sacramento; San Diego; Los Angeles; Orange County, California; Chicago; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; and Atlanta, Georgia. The company had hoped to expand to 26 cities by 2001.

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πŸ”— OpenDoc

πŸ”— Apple Inc./Macintosh πŸ”— Apple Inc. πŸ”— Computing πŸ”— Computing/Software

OpenDoc is a multi-platform software componentry framework standard created by Apple for compound documents, intended as an alternative to Microsoft's Object Linking and Embedding (OLE). As part of the AIM alliance between Apple, IBM, and Motorola, OpenDoc is one of Apple's earliest experiments with open standards and collaborative development methods with other companiesβ€”effectively starting an industry consortium. Active development was discontinued in March 1997.

The core idea of OpenDoc is to create small, reusable components, responsible for a specific task, such as text editing, bitmap editing, or browsing an FTP server. OpenDoc provides a framework in which these components can run together, and a document format for storing the data created by each component. These documents can then be opened on other machines, where the OpenDoc frameworks substitute suitable components for each part, even if they are from different vendors. In this way users can "build up" their documents from parts. Since there is no main application and the only visible interface is the document itself, the system is known as document centered.

At its inception, it was envisioned that OpenDoc would allow smaller, third-party developers to enter the then-competitive office software market, able to build one good editor instead of having to provide a complete suite.

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πŸ”— Carthago delenda est

πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Classical Greece and Rome πŸ”— Politics πŸ”— Military history/Classical warfare

"Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam", or "Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam" (English: "Furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed"), often abbreviated to "Carthago delenda est" (English: "Carthage must be destroyed"), is a Latin oratorical phrase pronounced by Cato the Censor, a politician of the Roman Republic. The phrase originates from debates held in the Roman Senate prior to the Third Punic War (149–146 BC) between Rome and Carthage, where Cato is said to have used it as the conclusion to all his speeches in order to push for the war.

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πŸ”— World Chess Championship matches have not had an on-board checkmate since 1929

πŸ”— Chess

In 1929, a World Chess Championship was played between challenger Efim Bogoljubow and titleholder Alexander Alekhine. The match was held in Wiesbaden, Heidelberg and Berlin in Germany, and the Hague, Rotterdam and Amsterdam in the Netherlands, from September 6 to November 12. Alekhine retained his title.

πŸ”— Eigen's Paradox

πŸ”— Evolutionary biology πŸ”— Molecular Biology πŸ”— Molecular Biology/Genetics

In evolutionary biology and population genetics, the error threshold (or critical mutation rate) is a limit on the number of base pairs a self-replicating molecule may have before mutation will destroy the information in subsequent generations of the molecule. The error threshold is crucial to understanding "Eigen's paradox".

The error threshold is a concept in the origins of life (abiogenesis), in particular of very early life, before the advent of DNA. It is postulated that the first self-replicating molecules might have been small ribozyme-like RNA molecules. These molecules consist of strings of base pairs or "digits", and their order is a code that directs how the molecule interacts with its environment. All replication is subject to mutation error. During the replication process, each digit has a certain probability of being replaced by some other digit, which changes the way the molecule interacts with its environment, and may increase or decrease its fitness, or ability to reproduce, in that environment.

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πŸ”— Copyright Law is 300 years old today.

πŸ”— Law πŸ”— United Kingdom πŸ”— Politics of the United Kingdom

The Statute of Anne, also known as the Copyright Act 1710 (cited either as 8 Ann. c. 21 or as 8 Ann. c. 19), is an act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1710, which was the first statute to provide for copyright regulated by the government and courts, rather than by private parties.

Prior to the statute's enactment in 1710, copying restrictions were authorized by the Licensing of the Press Act 1662. These restrictions were enforced by the Stationers' Company, a guild of printers given the exclusive power to printβ€”and the responsibility to censorβ€”literary works. The censorship administered under the Licensing Act led to public protest; as the act had to be renewed at two-year intervals, authors and others sought to prevent its reauthorisation. In 1694, Parliament refused to renew the Licensing Act, ending the Stationers' monopoly and press restrictions.

Over the next 10 years the Stationers repeatedly advocated bills to re-authorize the old licensing system, but Parliament declined to enact them. Faced with this failure, the Stationers decided to emphasise the benefits of licensing to authors rather than publishers, and the Stationers succeeded in getting Parliament to consider a new bill. This bill, which after substantial amendments was granted Royal Assent on 5 April 1710, became known as the Statute of Anne owing to its passage during the reign of Queen Anne. The new law prescribed a copyright term of 14 years, with a provision for renewal for a similar term, during which only the author and the printers to whom they chose to license their works could publish the author's creations. Following this, the work's copyright would expire, with the material falling into the public domain. Despite a period of instability known as the Battle of the Booksellers when the initial copyright terms under the Statute began to expire, the Statute of Anne remained in force until the Copyright Act 1842 replaced it.

The statute is considered a "watershed event in Anglo-American copyright historyΒ ... transforming what had been the publishers' private law copyright into a public law grant". Under the statute, copyright was for the first time vested in authors rather than publishers; it also included provisions for the public interest, such as a legal deposit scheme. The Statute was an influence on copyright law in several other nations, including the United States, and even in the 21st century is "frequently invoked by modern judges and academics as embodying the utilitarian underpinnings of copyright law".

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πŸ”— .aq

πŸ”— Internet πŸ”— Computing πŸ”— Antarctica

.aq is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Antarctica (itself not a country). It is derived from the French Antarctique and is reserved for organizations that work in Antarctica or promote the Antarctic and Southern Ocean regions. It is administered by Peter Mott of Antarctica Network Information Centre Limited from Christchurch, New Zealand.

.aq domain names are available free of charge, and registration is granted for a period of 24 months. As a general rule, registrants are only allocated a single .aq domain name. The registry does not have a website. Registration is only possible by contacting Antarctica Network Information Centre Limited.

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  • ".aq" | 2024-05-16 | 12 Upvotes 2 Comments

πŸ”— Socialist millionaire protocol

πŸ”— Cryptography πŸ”— Cryptography/Computer science

In cryptography, the socialist millionaire problem is one in which two millionaires want to determine if their wealth is equal without disclosing any information about their riches to each other. It is a variant of the Millionaire's Problem whereby two millionaires wish to compare their riches to determine who has the most wealth without disclosing any information about their riches to each other.

It is often used as a cryptographic protocol that allows two parties to verify the identity of the remote party through the use of a shared secret, avoiding a man-in-the-middle attack without the inconvenience of manually comparing public key fingerprints through an outside channel. In effect, a relatively weak password/passphrase in natural language can be used.

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