Random Articles (Page 200)
Have a deep view into what people are curious about.
🔗 El Corte Inglés, Europe’s Biggest Department Store
El Corte Inglés S.A. (Spanish pronunciation: [el ˈkoɾte iŋˈɡles]), headquartered in Madrid, is the biggest department store group in Europe and ranks third worldwide. El Corte Inglés is Spain's only remaining department store chain. El Corte Inglés has been a member of the International Association of department stores since 1998.
Discussed on
- "El Corte Inglés, Europe’s Biggest Department Store" | 2021-12-13 | 13 Upvotes 2 Comments
🔗 Tweel – Airless Wheel
The Tweel (a portmanteau of tire and wheel) is an airless tire design developed by the French tire company Michelin. Its significant advantage over pneumatic tires is that the Tweel does not use a bladder full of compressed air, and therefore cannot burst, leak pressure, or become flat. Instead, the Tweel's hub is connected to the rim via flexible polyurethane spokes which fulfil the shock-absorbing role provided by the compressed air in a traditional tire.
Discussed on
- "Tweel – Airless Wheel" | 2015-02-24 | 40 Upvotes 16 Comments
🔗 Eirôn
In the theatre of ancient Greece, the eirôn (Ancient Greek: εἴρων) was one of three stock characters in comedy. The eirôn usually succeeded in bringing down his braggart opponent (the alazôn) by understating his own abilities.
Discussed on
- "Eirôn" | 2019-04-28 | 11 Upvotes 1 Comments
🔗 Don't Buy This
Don't Buy This (also known as Don't Buy This: Five of the Worst Games Ever) is a compilation of video games for the ZX Spectrum released on 1 April 1985. As described on the box, it contains five of the poorest games submitted to publisher Firebird. Instead of rejecting the submissions, they decided to mock the original developers by releasing them together and publicly brand it as "unoriginal" and "awful". Firebird even disowned all their copyright to the game and encouraged buyers to pirate it at will.
Reviews for the game were universally negative, with critics questioning how to critique the game due to its publicity being based on it being a collection of bad games. Despite the negative reception, the game was a commercial success.
🔗 Ford Nucleon - a nuclear-powered concept car from 1958
The Ford Nucleon is a concept car developed by Ford in 1957 designed as a future nuclear-powered car, one of a handful of such designs during the 1950s and '60s. The concept was only demonstrated as a scale model. The design did not include an internal-combustion engine; rather, the vehicle was to be powered by a small nuclear reactor in the rear of the vehicle, based on the assumption that this would one day be possible by reducing sizes. The car was to use a steam engine powered by uranium fission similar to those found in nuclear submarines.
The mock-up of the car can be viewed at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
Discussed on
- "Ford Nucleon - a nuclear-powered concept car from 1958" | 2012-11-05 | 51 Upvotes 47 Comments
🔗 Semantic Satiation
Semantic satiation is a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who then perceives the speech as repeated meaningless sounds. Extended inspection or analysis (staring at the word or phrase for a lengthy period of time) in place of repetition also produces the same effect.
Discussed on
- "Semantic Satiation" | 2021-04-23 | 119 Upvotes 52 Comments
🔗 They Live
They Live is a 1988 American science fiction action horror film written and directed by John Carpenter, based on the 1963 short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson. Starring Roddy Piper, Keith David, and Meg Foster, the film follows an unnamed drifter who discovers through special sunglasses that the ruling class are aliens concealing their appearance and manipulating people to consume, breed, and conform to the status quo via subliminal messages in mass media.
Having acquired the film rights to the Nelson-penned short story prior to the production of They Live, Carpenter used the story as the basis for the screenplay's structure, which he wrote under the pseudonym "Frank Armitage". Carpenter has stated that the themes of They Live stemmed from his dissatisfaction with the economic policies of then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan, as well as what Carpenter saw as increasing commercialization in both popular culture and politics.
They Live was a minor success upon release, debuting at #1 at the North American box office. It initially received negative reviews from critics, who lambasted its social commentary, writing, and acting; however, it later gained a cult following and experienced a significantly more favorable critical reception. It is now regarded by many as one of Carpenter's best films. The film has also entered the pop culture lexicon, notably having a lasting effect on street art (particularly that of Shepard Fairey).
Discussed on
- "They Live" | 2024-05-05 | 117 Upvotes 81 Comments
🔗 Lace Card
A lace card is a punched card with all holes punched (also called a whoopee card, ventilator card, flyswatter card, or IBM doily). They were mainly used as practical jokes to cause disruption in card readers. Card readers tended to jam when a lace card was inserted, as the resulting card had too little structural strength to avoid buckling inside the mechanism. Card punches could also jam trying to produce cards with all holes punched, owing to power-supply problems. When a lace card was fed through the reader, a card knife or card saw (a flat tool used with punched card readers and card punches) was needed to clear the jam.
Discussed on
- "Lace Card" | 2023-06-23 | 23 Upvotes 5 Comments
🔗 Hacker's Delight
Hacker's Delight is a software algorithm book by Henry S. Warren, Jr. first published in 2002. It presents fast bit-level and low-level arithmetic algorithms for common tasks such as counting bits or improving speed of division by using multiplication.
Discussed on
- "Hacker's Delight" | 2024-05-22 | 13 Upvotes 1 Comments
- "Hacker's Delight" | 2024-03-18 | 17 Upvotes 3 Comments
🔗 Teletransportation Paradox
The teletransportation paradox or teletransport paradox (also known in alternative forms as the duplicates paradox) is a thought experiment on the philosophy of identity that challenges common intuitions on the nature of self and consciousness. It first appeared under this name in full published form presumably in Derek Parfit's 1984 book Reasons and Persons.
The Polish science-fiction writer Stanisław Lem described the same problem in the mid-twentieth century. He put it in writing in his philosophical text "Dialogs", 1957. Similarly, in Lem's Star Diaries ("Fourteenth Voyage") of 1957 the hero visits a planet and he finds himself recreated from a backup record, after his death from a meteorite strike, which on this planet is a very commonplace procedure.
Similar questions of identity have been raised as early as 1775.
I would be glad to know your Lordship's opinion whether when my brain has lost its original structure, and when some hundred years after the same materials are fabricated so curiously as to become an intelligent being, whether, I say that being will be me; or, if, two or three such beings should be formed out of my brain; whether they will all be me, and consequently one and the same intelligent being.
Discussed on
- "Teletransportation Paradox" | 2021-09-17 | 42 Upvotes 118 Comments