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🔗 Lists 🔗 Songs

This is a list of musical compositions or pieces of music that have unusual time signatures. "Unusual" is here defined to be any time signature other than simple time signatures with top numerals of 2, 3, or 4 and bottom numerals of 2, 4, or 8, and compound time signatures with top numerals of 6, 9, or 12 and bottom numerals 4, 8, or 16.

The conventions of musical notation typically allow for more than one written representation of a particular piece. The chosen time signature largely depends upon musical context, personal taste of the composer or transcriber, and the graphic layout on the written page. Frequently, published editions were written in a specific time signature to visually signify the tempo for slow movements in symphonies, sonatas, and concerti.

A perfectly consistent unusual metrical pattern may be notated in a more familiar time signature that does not correspond to it. For example, the Passacaglia from Britten's opera Peter Grimes consists of variations over a recurring bass line eleven beats in length but is notated in ordinary ⁴
₄ time, with each variation lasting 2+3⁄4 bars, and therefore commencing each time one crotchet earlier in the bar than the preceding one.

🔗 Biography 🔗 Mathematics 🔗 Biography/science and academia 🔗 Chicago 🔗 Armenia

Alexander (Smbat) Abian (January 1, 1923 – July 24, 1999) was an Iranian-born Armenian-American mathematician who taught for over 25 years at Iowa State University and became notable for his frequent posts to various Usenet newsgroups, and his advocacy for the destruction of the Moon.

🔗 Physics 🔗 Greece 🔗 Food and drink 🔗 Spirits

The ouzo effect (also louche effect and spontaneous emulsification) is a milky (louche) oil-in-water emulsion that is formed when water is added to ouzo and other anise-flavored liqueurs and spirits, such as pastis, rakı, arak, sambuca and absinthe. Such emulsions occur with only minimal mixing and are highly stable.

🔗 Astronomy 🔗 Geology 🔗 Geology/Meteorites 🔗 Solar System

The Perseids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Swift–Tuttle. The meteors are called the Perseids because the point from which they appear to hail (called the radiant) lies in the constellation Perseus.

🔗 United States 🔗 Military history 🔗 Philosophy 🔗 Philosophy/Logic 🔗 Military history/Military biography

The McNamara fallacy (also known as the quantitative fallacy), named for Robert McNamara, the US Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, involves making a decision based solely on quantitative observations (or metrics) and ignoring all others. The reason given is often that these other observations cannot be proven.

The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.

The fallacy refers to McNamara's belief as to what led the United States to defeat in the Vietnam War—specifically, his quantification of success in the war (e.g., in terms of enemy body count), ignoring other variables.

🔗 United States/U.S. Government 🔗 United States 🔗 Spaceflight 🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/North American military history 🔗 Military history/United States military history 🔗 United States/Military history - U.S. military history 🔗 Cold War

Project West Ford (also known as Westford Needles and Project Needles) was a test carried out by Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory on behalf of the United States Military in 1961 and 1963 to create an artificial ionosphere above the Earth. This was done to solve a major weakness that had been identified in US military communications.

🔗 India 🔗 Visual arts 🔗 India/Kerala

The Padmanabhaswamy temple treasure is a collection of valuable objects including gold thrones, crowns, coins, statues and ornaments, diamonds and other precious stones. It was discovered in some of the subterranean vaults of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, in the Indian state of Kerala, when five of its six (or possibly eight) vaults were opened on 27 June 2011. The vaults were opened on the orders of the Supreme Court of India, which was hearing a private petition seeking transparency in the running of the temple. The discovery of the treasure attracted widespread national and international media attention as it is considered to be the largest collection of items of gold and precious stones in the recorded history of the world. On the possibility of future appropriation of the wealth, for the need of a new management and proper inventorisation of the articles in the vaults, a public interest petition was registered with Supreme court of India. In 2020, the royal family won the rights to manage the temple, as well all its financial aspects. The Supreme Court of India overruled the Kerala High Court's legal jurisprudence based on regional facts and recognition of the nullified princely agreement based on "Ruler of Travancore."

🔗 Computing 🔗 Computer science

Note G was a computer algorithm written by Ada Lovelace, and was designed to calculate Bernoulli numbers using the hypothetical analytical engine. Note G is generally agreed to be the first algorithm specifically for a computer, and Lovelace is considered as the first computer programmer as a result. The algorithm was the last note in a series labelled A to G, which she employed as visual aids to accompany her English translation of Luigi Menabrea's 1842 French transcription of Charles Babbage's lecture on the analytical engine at the University of Turin, "Notions sur la machine analytique de Charles Babbage" ("Elements of Charles Babbage’s Analytical Machine"). Lovelace's Note G was never tested, as the engine was never built. Her notes, along with her translation, were published in 1843.

In the modern era, thanks to more readily available computing equipment and programming resources, Lovelace's algorithm has since been tested, after being "translated" into modern programming languages. These tests have independently concluded that there was a bug in the script, due to a minor typographical error, rendering the algorithm in its original state unusable.

🔗 Neuroscience

The frequency format hypothesis is the idea that the brain understands and processes information better when presented in frequency formats rather than a numerical or probability format. Thus according to the hypothesis, presenting information as 1 in 5 people rather than 20% leads to better comprehension. The idea was proposed by German scientist Gerd Gigerenzer, after compilation and comparison of data collected between 1976–1997.

🔗 Board and table games

Uckers is a two- or four-player board game traditionally played in the Royal Navy and has spread to many of the other arms of the UK Armed Forces as well as to, mainly Commonwealth Forces. It can now be found also in the Royal Marines, Army Air Corps, Royal Canadian Navy, Royal New Zealand Navy, Royal Australian Navy, Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), Royal Dutch Navy, and the Royal Air Force (RAF). It is believed to originate in the 18th/19th centuries from the Indian game Pachisi, although the first reference to it in print does not appear until 1946. It is mentioned in a diary by EJF Records (served 1928-1950) in 1937 as Huckers. Uckers is generally played using the rules stated below, but these will vary from one branch of the Royal Navy to another, most famously with the WAFU Rules of the Fleet Air Arm. Where those branches of the RN have worked with the other Armed Forces usually has dictated what rules the new playing Service use; why fellow aviators tend to play under WAFU Rules for example.

It is also played in units of the Army Air Corps (United Kingdom) where it was introduced by aircraft technicians on loan from the Fleet Air Arm in the late 1950s/early 1960s. Uckers boards can now also be found in most RAF Squadron crewroom, where the game has caught on, especially with the Aircraft Technicians. Most RAAF crew rooms feature uckers boards also. In addition to the units services, units mentioned, uckers was also played by units in the Royal Artillery, particularly meteorologists and LifeFlight Toowoomba Rescue Helicopter crews aka Rescue 588. The current and now 7-time world champion is Queenslander Mark Arthur. In the UK the Pusser's Rum World 'Uckers championships have been played for the last 5 years at various ROYAL NAVAL MUSEUMS, the most being notable being 2017 when the final was played on Nelson's Flagship HMS VICTORY and was won by the'timber shifters' Wally Blagden and David Clark both ex RN. The next Pusser's Rum WORLD 'uckers' championships are being played in the Explosion Museum Gosport 26 October 2019. Wally andDavid are also current HMS GANGES Champions won in April 2019 Update Wally Blagden and Dave Clark the 'Timbershifters' have won the 2019 Championships. Knock knock. The chicken

It is similar to the board game Ludo and is based on the same principles; getting four player pieces around the board before the opposition. The whole point of Uckers is to get all player pieces home before the opponent does. However, greater glory is attached to achieving all pieces home without the opponent getting any home at all—this is known as an 8 piecer. The ultimate win is when the player gets all their pieces home and the opponent has all their pieces still in the base—this is called an 8 piece in harbour, or an eight-piece dicking and merits the unfortunate player's name to be recorded on the reverse of the board.