Have a deep view into what people are curious about.

🔗 Philosophy 🔗 Skepticism 🔗 Alternative Views 🔗 ArtAndFeminism

'Pataphysics (French: 'pataphysique) is a "philosophy" of science invented by French writer Alfred Jarry (1873–1907) intended to be a parody of science. Difficult to be simply defined or pinned down, it has been described as the "science of imaginary solutions".

🔗 Architecture 🔗 Urban studies and planning 🔗 Effective Altruism

The YIMBY movement (short for "yes in my back yard") is a pro-infrastructure development movement mostly focusing on public housing policy, real estate development, public transportation, and pedestrian safety in transportation planning, in contrast and in opposition to the NIMBY ("not in my back yard") movement that generally opposes most forms of urban development in order to maintain the status quo. As a popular organized movement in the United States, it began in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 2010s amid a major housing affordability crisis and has subsequently become a potent political force in state and local politics across the United States.

The YIMBY position supports increasing the supply of housing within cities where housing costs have escalated to unaffordable levels. They have also supported infrastructure development projects like improving housing development (especially for affordable housing or trailer parks), high-speed rail lines, homeless shelters, day cares, schools, universities and colleges, bike lanes, and transportation planning that promotes pedestrian safety infrastructure. YIMBYs often seek rezoning that would allow denser housing to be produced or the repurposing of obsolete buildings, such as shopping malls, into housing. Some YIMBYs have also supported public-interest projects like clean energy or alternative transport.

The YIMBY movement has supporters across the political spectrum, including left-leaning adherents who believe housing production is a social justice issue, free-market libertarian proponents who think the supply of housing should not be regulated by the government, and environmentalists who believe land use reform will slow down exurban development into natural areas. YIMBYs argue cities can be made increasingly affordable and accessible by building more infill housing,^: 1 and that greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced by denser cities.

🔗 Scotland 🔗 Transport in Scotland 🔗 UK Waterways 🔗 Scotland/Transport in Scotland

The Falkirk Wheel is a rotating boat lift in central Scotland, connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. The lift is named after Falkirk, the town in which it is located. It reconnects the two canals for the first time since the 1930s. It opened in 2002 as part of the Millennium Link project.

The plan to regenerate central Scotland's canals and reconnect Glasgow with Edinburgh was led by British Waterways with support and funding from seven local authorities, the Scottish Enterprise Network, the European Regional Development Fund, and the Millennium Commission. Planners decided early on to create a dramatic 21st-century landmark structure to reconnect the canals, instead of simply recreating the historic lock flight.

The wheel raises boats by 24 metres (79 ft), but the Union Canal is still 11 metres (36 ft) higher than the aqueduct which meets the wheel. Boats must also pass through a pair of locks between the top of the wheel and the Union Canal. The Falkirk Wheel is the only rotating boat lift of its kind in the world, and one of two working boat lifts in the United Kingdom, the other being the Anderton Boat Lift.

🔗 Sexology and sexuality 🔗 Japan 🔗 Japan/History 🔗 Japan/Culture 🔗 Japan/Law and government 🔗 Gender Studies 🔗 Sexology and sexuality/Sex work

Prostitution in modern Japan, as defined under Japanese law, is the illegal practice of sexual intercourse with an 'unspecified' (unacquainted) person in exchange for monetary compensation, which was criminalised in 1956 by the introduction of article 3 of the Anti-Prostitution Law (売春防止法, Baishun bōshi hō). However, the definition of prostitution made illegal under this law is strictly limited to sexual intercourse with an 'unspecified person', and does not criminalise the sale of numerous other acts performed by sex workers in exchange for compensation, such as oral sex, anal sex, mammary intercourse, and other non-coital sex acts; the Businesses Affecting Public Morals Regulation Law of 1948 (風俗営業取締法, Fūzoku eigyō torishimari hō), also known as the "Law to Regulate Adult Entertainment Businesses", amended in 1985, 1999 and 2005, regulates these businesses, making only one definition of prostitution in Japan illegal.

Following the criminalisation of payment for sexual intercourse, the sex industry in Japan has developed into a number of varied businesses and offering services not prohibited under Japanese law. These fall into a number of categories known by various euphemistic names, such as soaplands, fashion health shops, and pink salons, with the term "health" commonly being a euphemism for sexual services. These businesses typically operate out of physical premises, either with their own employees or freelancers such as call girls, who may operate via Internet dating sites known as deai sites (Internet dating sites) or via delivery health services.

🔗 Philosophy 🔗 Philosophy/Logic 🔗 Philosophy/Philosophy of mind

Bonini's paradox, named after Stanford business professor Charles Bonini, explains the difficulty in constructing models or simulations that fully capture the workings of complex systems (such as the human brain).

🔗 Biography 🔗 Russia 🔗 Biography/science and academia 🔗 Russia/science and education in Russia

Anatoli Petrovich Bugorski (Russian: Анатолий Петрович Бугорский), born 25 June 1942, is a Russian scientist.

🔗 Amateur radio

The British Amateur Television Club (BATC) is the world's largest television technology club; it has members in the UK and all around the world and is a non-profit making club run by an elected committee of volunteers for the benefit of its members. Membership is open to all who are interested in television, amateur or professional, indeed the club has many members who work for major broadcasting companies.

🔗 Physics 🔗 Physics/relativity

In theoretical physics, particularly in discussions of gravitation theories, Mach's principle (or Mach's conjecture) is the name given by Einstein to an imprecise hypothesis often credited to the physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach. The hypothesis attempted to explain how rotating objects, such as gyroscopes and spinning celestial bodies, maintain a frame of reference.

The proposition is that the existence of absolute rotation (the distinction of local inertial frames vs. rotating reference frames) is determined by the large-scale distribution of matter, as exemplified by this anecdote:

You are standing in a field looking at the stars. Your arms are resting freely at your side, and you see that the distant stars are not moving. Now start spinning. The stars are whirling around you and your arms are pulled away from your body. Why should your arms be pulled away when the stars are whirling? Why should they be dangling freely when the stars don't move?

Mach's principle says that this is not a coincidence—that there is a physical law that relates the motion of the distant stars to the local inertial frame. If you see all the stars whirling around you, Mach suggests that there is some physical law which would make it so you would feel a centrifugal force. There are a number of rival formulations of the principle, often stated in vague ways like "mass out there influences inertia here". A very general statement of Mach's principle is "local physical laws are determined by the large-scale structure of the universe".

Mach's concept was a guiding factor in Einstein's development of the general theory of relativity. Einstein realized that the overall distribution of matter would determine the metric tensor which indicates which frame is stationary with respect to rotation. Frame-dragging and conservation of gravitational angular momentum makes this into a true statement in the general theory in certain solutions. But because the principle is so vague, many distinct statements have been made which would qualify as a Mach principle, and some of which are false. The Gödel rotating universe is a solution of the field equations that is designed to disobey Mach's principle in the worst possible way. In this example, the distant stars seem to be revolving faster and faster as one moves further away. This example does not completely settle the question of the physical relevance of the principle because it has closed timelike curves.

🔗 Books

The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't is a book by Stanford professor Robert I. Sutton. He initially wrote an essay for the Harvard Business Review, published in the breakthrough ideas for 2004. Following the essay, he received more than one thousand emails and testimonies. Among other reasons disclosed in another article published at the Harvard Business Review, these letters led him to write the book, sell more than 115,000 copies, and win the Quill Award for best business book in 2007.

The theme of this book is that workplace bullying worsens morale and productivity. To screen out the toxic staff, it suggests the "no asshole rule". The author insists upon use of the word asshole since other words such as bully or jerk "do not convey the same degree of awfulness". In terms of using the word in the book's title, he said "There's an emotional reaction to a dirty title. You have a choice between being offensive and being ignored."

🔗 Physics 🔗 Elements 🔗 Elements/Isotope 🔗 Chemistry

In nuclear physics, the island of stability is a predicted set of isotopes of superheavy elements that may have considerably longer half-lives than known isotopes of these elements. It is predicted to appear as an "island" in the chart of nuclides, separated from known stable and long-lived primordial radionuclides. Its theoretical existence is attributed to stabilizing effects of predicted "magic numbers" of protons and neutrons in the superheavy mass region.

Several predictions have been made regarding the exact location of the island of stability, though it is generally thought to center near copernicium and flerovium isotopes in the vicinity of the predicted closed neutron shell at N = 184. These models strongly suggest that the closed shell will confer further stability towards fission and alpha decay. While these effects are expected to be greatest near atomic number Z = 114 and N = 184, the region of increased stability is expected to encompass several neighboring elements, and there may also be additional islands of stability around heavier nuclei that are doubly magic (having magic numbers of both protons and neutrons). Estimates of the stability of the elements on the island are usually around a half-life of minutes or days; some estimates predict half-lives of millions of years.

Although the nuclear shell model predicting magic numbers has existed since the 1940s, the existence of long-lived superheavy nuclides has not been definitively demonstrated. Like the rest of the superheavy elements, the nuclides on the island of stability have never been found in nature; thus, they must be created artificially in a nuclear reaction to be studied. Scientists have not found a way to carry out such a reaction, for it is likely that new types of reactions will be needed to populate nuclei near the center of the island. Nevertheless, the successful synthesis of superheavy elements up to Z = 118 (oganesson) with up to 177 neutrons demonstrates a slight stabilizing effect around elements 110 to 114 that may continue in unknown isotopes, supporting the existence of the island of stability.