Random Articles (Page 209)
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π Marine glass sponge that builds silica skeletons
The Venus' flower basket (Euplectella aspergillum) is a glass sponge in the phylum Porifera. It is a marine sponge found in the deep waters of the Pacific ocean. As other glass sponges, they build their skeletons out of silica, which is of great interest in materials science as they do not require heat to form their glass latices, which in some ways makes their properties superior to manufactured fiber optics. As other sponges, they feed by filtering sea water to capture plankton.
The sponges are often found to house glass sponge shrimp, usually a breeding pair, whom are typically unable to exit the sponge's lattice due to their size. Consequently, they live in and around these sponges, where the shrimp perform a mutuallistic relationship with the sponge until they die. This may have influenced the adoption of the sponge as a symbol of undying love in Japan, where the skeletons of these sponges are presented as nuptial gifts.
Discussed on
- "Marine glass sponge that builds silica skeletons" | 2020-07-12 | 26 Upvotes 3 Comments
π Wireless USB
Wireless USB was a short-range, high-bandwidth wireless radio communication protocol created by the Wireless USB Promoter Group which intended to increase the availability of general USB-based technologies. It is unrelated to Wi-Fi. It was maintained by the WiMedia Alliance which ceased operations in 2009. Wireless USB is sometimes abbreviated as "WUSB", although the USB Implementers Forum discouraged this practice and instead prefers to call the technology Certified Wireless USB to distinguish it from the competing UWB standard.
Wireless USB was based on the (now defunct) WiMedia Alliance's Ultra-WideBand (UWB) common radio platform, which is capable of sending 480Β Mbit/s at distances up to 3 metres (9.8Β ft) and 110Β Mbit/s at up to 10 metres (33Β ft). It was designed to operate in the 3.1 to 10.6Β GHz frequency range, although local regulatory policies may restrict the legal operating range in some countries.
The standard is now obsolete, and no new hardware has been produced for many years.
Discussed on
- "Wireless USB" | 2021-04-18 | 34 Upvotes 15 Comments
π As We May Think
"As We May Think" is a 1945 essay by Vannevar Bush which has been described as visionary and influential, anticipating many aspects of information society. It was first published in The Atlantic in July 1945 and republished in an abridged version in September 1945βbefore and after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Bush expresses his concern for the direction of scientific efforts toward destruction, rather than understanding, and explicates a desire for a sort of collective memory machine with his concept of the memex that would make knowledge more accessible, believing that it would help fix these problems. Through this machine, Bush hoped to transform an information explosion into a knowledge explosion.
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- "As We May Think (1945)" | 2015-06-26 | 67 Upvotes 12 Comments
π The Larkin Soap Company
The Larkin Company, also known as the Larkin Soap Company, was a company founded in 1875 in Buffalo, New York as a small soap factory. It grew tremendously throughout the late 1800s and into the first quarter of the 1900s with an approach called "The Larkin Idea" that transformed the company into a mail-order conglomerate that employed 2,000 people and had annual sales of $28.6Β million (equivalent to $434,986,000 in 2023) in 1920. The company's success allowed them to hire Frank Lloyd Wright to design the iconic Larkin Administration Building which stood as a symbol of Larkin prosperity until the company's demise in the 1940s.
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- "The Larkin Soap Company" | 2024-10-13 | 31 Upvotes 27 Comments
π Homoiconicity
In computer programming, homoiconicity (from the Greek words homo- meaning "the same" and icon meaning "representation") is a property of some programming languages. A language is homoiconic if a program written in it can be manipulated as data using the language, and thus the program's internal representation can be inferred just by reading the program itself. For example, a Lisp program is written as a regular Lisp list, and can be manipulated by other Lisp code. In homoiconic languages, all code can be accessed and transformed as data, using the same representation. This property is often summarized by saying that the language treats "code as data".
In a homoiconic language, the primary representation of programs is also a data structure in a primitive type of the language itself. This makes metaprogramming easier than in a language without this property: reflection in the language (examining the program's entities at runtime) depends on a single, homogeneous structure, and it does not have to handle several different structures that would appear in a complex syntax.
As noted above, a commonly cited example is Lisp, which was created to allow for easy list manipulations and where the structure is given by S-expressions that take the form of nested lists. Lisp programs are written in the form of lists; the result is that the program can access its own functions and procedures while running, and programmatically alter itself on the fly. Homoiconic languages typically include full support of syntactic macros, allowing the programmer to express transformations of programs in a concise way. Examples are the programming languages Clojure (a contemporary dialect of Lisp), Rebol (also its successor Red), Refal, Prolog, and more recently Julia.
Discussed on
- "Homoiconicity" | 2016-01-19 | 20 Upvotes 5 Comments
π Sulfur Lamp
The sulfur lamp (also sulphur lamp) is a highly efficient full-spectrum electrodeless lighting system whose light is generated by sulfur plasma that has been excited by microwave radiation. They are a particular type of plasma lamp, and one of the most modern. The technology was developed in the early 1990s, but, although it appeared initially to be very promising, sulfur lighting was a commercial failure by the late 1990s. Since 2005, lamps are again being manufactured for commercial use.
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- "Sulfur Lamp" | 2019-11-30 | 64 Upvotes 31 Comments
π List of really, really stupid article ideas that you should not create
An article about or described by any of the following can be safely assumed to fit into the set of unnecessary articles:
- You, your family, or the organization you work for.
- Your band, which has only sold 47 copies of its one album. Even if you think it will sell 48. Or maybe 49! Or, if you get really lucky, you can pay off the record store owner so that he may buy one and your sales will have gone up to fifty!!! Keep dreamin', brotha.
- Your imaginary friend or your imaginary friends that don't even exist.
- The religion, language or even country that you made up with your friends in school one day.
- The street you live on, unless it is on a Monopoly board. But since it is highly unlikely that you live on a Monopoly game board, we suggest that you not even try.
- Any one of the 16 distinct regions in the PokΓ©mon video game series or lieking mudkipz, or hering dat someon lieks mudkipz. Remember, not everyone is a PokΓ©mon fanatic.
- A stunt or trick only you have ever attempted, probably unsuccessfully.
- Any movie you made yourself which has never been seen by more people at one time than can fit in your basement. Even if you have a really big basement.
- Individual songs that have never been released as a single nor seen radio play, unless they're twenty minutes long or have led to a phone number becoming unusable or even have questioned the essence of music itself.
- "(Anything) in popular culture." Anything at all.
- Likewise "Hysterical Realism in the Works of (insert neither hysterical nor realistic author here)".
- Your dormitory, university residence, or any suite therein.
- Stuff nobody but that guy who changes his Spock ears more often than his underpants cares about, or the equivalent thereto. For example, a song about a custom map of a video game, unless you are famous and the song managed to release as a single.
- Anything about which you cannot be buggered to write one complete sent
- Subjects that cannot be studied, or the knowledge of which amounts only to the fact that it pertains to another topic. A favourite line from a movie or catchy lyric, a potent phrase used in argument, juicy facts of interest to fans, a punch-line or zinger; these are all very interesting, but usually all that can be informatively written about topic "X" is: "X is a _______ found in _______."
- Just about everything listed on Wikipedia:Millionth topic pool.
- For that matter, Wikipedia:Millionth topic pool.
- Anything about your cat or dog and how cute it is (or your hamster, degu, or chinchilla).
- Exploding Whales, or indeed Exploding Wales, or even Exploding Wales. Or blowing up any other animals, for example, exploding mice, or even exploding Velociraptor, for that matter. Most things that implode are pretty much off the list too, with a few exceptions.
- Anything written under the influence of recreational substances or while tired and emotional.
- An article about another article, written after the use of aforementioned substances.
- A fork of an existing article for the sole purpose of adding some humor.
- The weather in London. Not even a redirect. (Wowee).
- Your guild in World of Warcraft or similar time wasters. Just because you have
no lifea personally fascinating hobby doesn't mean you get to tell the world about it. And don't write about this guy in your guild who wiped your raid, either. - Something you just saw on YouTube and, possibly, laughed at.
- Something you just put on YouTube.
- An article that haz badly grammar and/or speelling. Including, bad punctuation!!
- Any meme, no matter how popular or important.
- Anything you don't know the title of.
- Your wiki or blog. It's probably not internationally famous. If it is, well go ahead, but let's face it; your blog of cute cats is not internationally famous (three readers is not fame).
- Your new invention or research paper that will change the world. It will undoubtedly fail.
- Anything about your cat named Bubba or your dog named Max. No one cares. Trust us.
- Your nomination for the Noble (or even Nobel) Peace Prize.
- Anything about how you were abducted by aliens.
- An article on the dream you had last night. No matter how long you describe it, it will never be interesting: Even if dreaming that you were the inventor of the chalk board who had to overcome obstacles from the evil book binding lobbyists deeply moved you to tears upon waking up.
- An article on the person that knocked on your door while you was writing the article about your dream last night, causing you to forget about the dream (but Iβll be honest, I feel for you).
- An article about Wikpiedia, Wikipaedia, Wiokipedia, Wikipeedia, Wikipeadia, or any other Wikis that appear to be Wikipedia but aren't.
- An article about the media response to the Wikipedia article about the barely notable thing that shouldn't even have an article (recursivity has its limits, even here).
- The difference between Hoagy Carmichael and Stokely Carmichael.
- An entry promoting your hilarious web series about Wikipedia.
- Recreating this dumb list.
- Anything about hashtags. #IHateHashtags
- Anything about how fat you are or how much weight you're losing (trust us; no one cares).
- Headlight flashing β I know, it's preposterous, even for Wikipedia. But when you're done laughing and/or crying, follow the link. It really exists.
- Assumptions about the conclusions of scientific publications that you have seen the titles of, but not read.
- Your self-published book.
- McGannahan Skjellyfetti.
- An article about your friend's latest selfie. Or, for that matter, selfie stick. They are banned in most places anyway.
- Lists of times at which commercial breaks occurred during a sporting event.
- Your personal opinions about your boyfriend or girlfriend.
- An article on discussing the differences between you and your close friends. It does not matter to most people in the world.
- An article about how Tyson Foods is run by a bunch of chicken fuckers because the main article is protected from vandalism by the legions of Internet trolls.
- Yet another list of Google doodles.
- A new sex position that you and your boys theory-crafted one night.
- Times Scooby-Doo has defied the laws of reality.
- A list of celebrity couples names for couples that you wish would get together but as of now haven't.
- Your stupid esoteric programming language you made up to 'test the boundaries of computer programming language design'.
- Any article related to odorous gas clouds, but particularly smelly farts.
- Your youtube channel, unless you have millions of fangirls.
- Your opinion and/or fascination about outer space, even if there are lots of unusual exoplanets out there. Yes, we know. They're weird. No need to tell us that.
- Your opinion on time traveling to have dinner with the members of Bone Symphony or Bone Thugs-n-Harmony or Boney M. or The Right Honourable Bonar Law
- The time you laughed about someone eating a red 5-pound gummy skull while wearing a jetpack while driving a limousine at 5 a.m. on a Tuesday in August 2018.
- An article that uses templates to perform math for no apparent reason besides your entertainment
- Your anus and how it had very good funny time with girl.
- The time you laughed at someone living in Fortnite (Chapter 1), even though I get that they were eaten by a Black hole. Oh well, they came back!
- Posting a video of yourself saying the n-word.
- Posting an image of yourself falling off the Burj Khalifa.
- Singing any Cardi B song.
- Posting 69 (nice) useless messages made by bored editors of Wikipedia.
- Your low-effort school play of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!"
- A list of times you pinged @everyone on your Discord server.
Discussed on
- "List of really, really stupid article ideas that you should not create" | 2014-07-24 | 20 Upvotes 6 Comments
π Ortega hypothesis
The Ortega hypothesis holds that average or mediocre scientists contribute substantially to the advancement of science. According to this hypothesis, scientific progress occurs mainly by the accumulation of a mass of modest, narrowly specialized intellectual contributions. On this view, major breakthroughs draw heavily upon a large body of minor and little-known work, without which the major advances could not happen.
Discussed on
- "Ortega hypothesis" | 2025-10-08 | 225 Upvotes 117 Comments
π A Physical instance of recursion, from 1936
Bourton-on-the-Water model village is a scale model village in the grounds of the Old New Inn in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, England. One of the first model villages in the country, it was started in 1936 and completed in 1940. The model represents the core of Bourton-on-the-Water as it appeared in 1936 in 1:9 scale. The model village contains around 100 buildings. It is open to the public and includes exhibitions of other models on smaller scales.
The Bourton-on-the-Water model village was one of the first to be built in England, being completed between 1936 and 1940. Possibly the only earlier example is the Bekonscot model village in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, which is the oldest in the world, being begun in 1929, though not finished until the later 20th century. Bourton-on-the-Water was a fledgling tourist destination in the early 20th century and the landlord of the New Inn, Mr C A Morris, decided to build the model village to attract motorists to his public house. Morris had originally intended to convert the pub's vegetable garden into a village green with a stream with a waterfall and scale replicas of the arch bridges in the village. He soon decided to instead construct a 1:9 scale model of the entire village.
Morris and his wife carefully measured each building in the village and commissioned eight local craftsmen to construct scale replicas of around 100 structures. The craftsmen were construction workers rather than model makers so the methods used were scaled down versions of those used to construct real buildings. The walls are made from ashlars of local limestone, carefully cut to minimise joints and engraved to depict smaller courses of stone. The roofs are covered with slates of Cotswold stone from the Huntsman's Quarry located 3 miles (4.8Β km) from the village. The drystone walls are real and have cock and hen or flatstone copings to correspond with the real walls in the village. Two of the buildings have full interiors, visible through perspex panels in their walls: the Church of England parish church of St Lawrence and the village's Baptist chapel. The church has intricate tracery windows and the windows on the models are glazed with real glass. The model village includes examples of 17th- to 19th-century Cotswold architecture. A recording of hymns being sung is played from the village's churches. The roads include model benches and post boxes. Miniature shrubs, including some bonsai trees planted in the 1930s, and pruned real trees represent the trees and bushes of the full-size village and alpine plants the flowers.
The model village covers the core of the historic village stretching from the Old Mill (now home to the Cotswold Motoring Museum) to the New Inn (which is now known as the Old New Inn). This includes High Street, Station Road, Moore Road, Victoria Street and Sherborne Street. The only building not shown in its correct relative position is St Lawrence's church, which would otherwise fall outside of the area covered. A running stream stands in for the River Windrush.
The model village includes a scale model of the model village (which would be at 1:81 scale). This model, in turn, contains a scale model of the model of the model village; being at 1:729 scale this measures around 1 foot (30Β cm) in width. This model also contains a scale model (in paint only) of the model of the model of the model village (which would be at 1:6561 scale).
The model village opened to the public on 13 May 1937, as part of the celebrations for the coronation of George VI. The model village was the first tourist attraction in Bourton-on-the-Water; the village has since become one of the main tourist destinations in the Cotswolds. Construction of the models continued until 1940. No significant changes to the architecture have been made since, so the model village preserves Bourton-on-the-Water as it was in 1936, except that shop logos and window displays are updated to reflect changing occupants.
The Morris family maintained and operated the site until 1999 when the model village and the Old New Inn were sold to Julian and Vicki Atherton. In 2004 they purchased a collection of 30 miniature scenes that had been on display in a shop in the village; these form a separate exhibition. The model village became a grade II listed building on 22 March 2013, receiving the same protection as the early 18th-century Old New Inn, which was listed in 1983. In 2014 the Athertons bought a collection of seven 1:32 scale model buildings. These had been built by John Constable in Somerset, part funded by philanthropist Sir Paul Getty. They included a representation of Willy Lott's Cottage, the building depicted in John Constable's The Hay Wain. The collection, out of scale with the model village, were opened as a separate exhibition at the site. In 2016 when renovations were made to the roof of the St Lawrence's Church model, a penny dated 1937 was recovered, which is believed to indicate the date of its construction.
During the Athertons' ownership the village attracted around 100,000 visitors per year and was open every day except Christmas Day. The buildings remain outdoors all year round, while some model villages close in the winter when the models are put into storage. The Athertons employed a full time stone mason to repair damage caused by frost as well as three other employees to repaint the models and maintain the trees and bushes.
In April 2018 the Old New Inn and model village were put up for sale as the Athertons retired. The pub and model village were purchased by Andrew and Julie Lund-Yates, who had lived in Bourton-on-the-Water for 25 years.
- Droste effect known in art as an example of mise en abyme
- Official website
Discussed on
- "A Physical instance of recursion, from 1936" | 2024-07-20 | 29 Upvotes 9 Comments
π Lady Tasting Tea
In the design of experiments in statistics, the lady tasting tea is a randomized experiment devised by Ronald Fisher and reported in his book The Design of Experiments (1935). The experiment is the original exposition of Fisher's notion of a null hypothesis, which is "never proved or established, but is possibly disproved, in the course of experimentation".
The example is loosely based on an event in Fisher's life. The woman in question, phycologist Muriel Bristol, claimed to be able to tell whether the tea or the milk was added first to a cup. Her future husband, William Roach, suggested that Fisher give her eight cups, four of each variety, in random order. One could then ask what the probability was for her getting the specific number of cups she identified correct (in fact all eight), but just by chance.
Fisher's description is less than 10 pages in length and is notable for its simplicity and completeness regarding terminology, calculations and design of the experiment. The test used was Fisher's exact test.
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- "Lady Tasting Tea" | 2024-08-30 | 176 Upvotes 80 Comments