Random Articles (Page 3)
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π Yo (App)
Yo is a social mobile application for iOS, Android, and formerly also Windows Phone. Initially, the application's only function was to send the user's friends the word "yo" as a text and audio notification, but it has since been updated to enable users to attach links and location to their "Yo"s.
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- "Yo (App)" | 2021-04-15 | 18 Upvotes 1 Comments
π Happy Sysadmin Day
System Administrator Appreciation Day, also known as Sysadmin Day, SysAdminDay, is an annual event created by system administrator Ted Kekatos. The event exists to show appreciation for the work of sysadmins and other IT workers. It is celebrated on the last Friday in July.
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- "Happy Sysadmin Day" | 2011-07-29 | 107 Upvotes 25 Comments
π Tweel β 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.
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- "Tweel β Airless Wheel" | 2015-02-24 | 40 Upvotes 16 Comments
π .DS_Store
In the Apple macOS operating system, .DS_Store is a file that stores custom attributes of its containing folder, such as the position of icons or the choice of a background image. The name is an abbreviation of Desktop Services Store, reflecting its purpose. It is created and maintained by the Finder application in every folder, and has functions similar to the file desktop.ini in Microsoft Windows. Starting with a full stop (period) character, it is hidden in Finder and many Unix utilities. Its internal structure is proprietary, but has since been reverse-engineered.
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- ".DS_Store" | 2021-03-12 | 50 Upvotes 30 Comments
- ".DS_Store" | 2019-07-02 | 71 Upvotes 21 Comments
π Plant Blindness
Plant blindness is an informally-proposed form of cognitive bias, which in its broadest meaning, is a human tendency to ignore plant species. This includes such phenomena as not noticing plants in the surrounding environment, not recognizing the importance of plant life to the whole biosphere and to human affairs, a philosophical view of plants as an inferior form of life to animals and/or the inability to appreciate the unique features or aesthetics of plants.
The term was coined by the botanists and biology educators J. H. Wandersee and E. E. Schussler in their 1999 publication 'Preventing Plant Blindness'. Scientists have suggested that the reason some people don't notice plants is because plants are stationary and similarly coloured, although other research has suggested that plant blindness is affected by cultural practices. A US study looked at how plants and animals are perceived using "attentional blink" (the ability to notice one of two rapidly presented images). The study showed that participants were more accurate in detecting animals in images, rather than plants. The researchers also suggested possible strategies for characterizing and overcoming zoo-centrism.
According to the BBC journalist Christine Ro, plant blindness is potentially linked to nature deficit disorder, which she construes is causing what she claims is reduced funding and fewer classes for botany.
The term was coined in 1999 by botanists James Wandersee and Elisabeth Schussler.
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- "Plant Blindness" | 2021-02-18 | 61 Upvotes 29 Comments
π List of people and companies named in the Paradise Papers
This is a list of people and organisations named in the Paradise Papers as connected to offshore companies. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists stated in their politicians database, as a disclaimer, "There are legitimate uses for offshore companies and trusts. We do not intend to suggest or imply that any people, companies or other entities included in the ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database have broken the law or otherwise acted improperly."
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- "List of people and companies named in the Paradise Papers" | 2017-11-06 | 36 Upvotes 1 Comments
π Using Wikipedia for Mathematics Self-Study
Wikipedia provides one of the more prominent resources on the Web for factual information about contemporary mathematics, with over 20,000 articles on mathematical topics. It is natural that many readers use Wikipedia for the purpose of self-study in mathematics and its applications. Some readers will be simultaneously studying mathematics in a more formal way, while others will rely on Wikipedia alone. There are certain points that need to be kept in mind by anyone using Wikipedia for mathematical self-study, in order to make the best use of what is here, perhaps in conjunction with other resources.
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- "Using Wikipedia for Mathematics Self-Study" | 2018-06-17 | 11 Upvotes 2 Comments
π Atari STacy (1989)
The STacy is a portable computer version of the Atari ST.
The computer was originally designed to operate on 12 standard C cell flashlight batteries for portability. When Atari realized how quickly the machine would use up a set of batteries (especially when rechargeable batteries of the time supplied insufficient power compared to the intended alkalines), they simply glued the lid of the battery compartment shut.
The STacy has features similar to the Macintosh Portable, a version of Apple's Macintosh computer which contained a built in keyboard and monitor.
With built-in MIDI, the STacy enjoyed success for running music-sequencer software and as a controller of musical instruments among both amateurs and well-known musicians.
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- "Atari STacy (1989)" | 2023-07-17 | 31 Upvotes 12 Comments
π Gravity Probe B
Gravity Probe B (GP-B) was a satellite-based experiment to test two unverified predictions of general relativity: the geodetic effect and frame-dragging. This was to be accomplished by measuring, very precisely, tiny changes in the direction of spin of four gyroscopes contained in an Earth-orbiting satellite at 650Β km (400Β mi) altitude, crossing directly over the poles.
The satellite was launched on 20 April 2004 on a Delta II rocket. The spaceflight phase lasted until ; Its aim was to measure spacetime curvature near Earth, and thereby the stressβenergy tensor (which is related to the distribution and the motion of matter in space) in and near Earth. This provided a test of general relativity, gravitomagnetism and related models. The principal investigator was Francis Everitt.
Initial results confirmed the expected geodetic effect to an accuracy of about 1%. The expected frame-dragging effect was similar in magnitude to the current noise level (the noise being dominated by initially unmodeled effects due to nonuniform coatings on the gyroscopes). Work continued to model and account for these sources of error, thus permitting extraction of the frame-dragging signal. By , the frame-dragging effect had been confirmed to within 15% of the expected result, and the NASA report indicated that the geodetic effect was confirmed to be better than 0.5%.
In an article published in the journal Physical Review Letters in , the authors reported analysis of the data from all four gyroscopes results in a geodetic drift rate of β6601.8Β±18.3Β mas/yr and a frame-dragging drift rate of β37.2Β±7.2Β mas/yr, in good agreement with the general relativity predictions of β6606.1Β±0.28%Β mas/yr and β39.2Β±0.19%Β mas/yr, respectively.
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- "Gravity Probe B" | 2022-08-14 | 70 Upvotes 15 Comments
π Blinkenlights
In computer jargon, blinkenlights are diagnostic lights on front panels of old mainframe computers. More recently the term applies to status lights of modern network hardware (modems, network hubs, etc.). Blinkenlights disappeared from more recent computers for a number of reasons, the most important being the fact that with faster CPUs a human can no longer interpret the processes in the computer on the fly. Though more sophisticated UI mechanisms have since been developed, blinkenlights may still be present as additional status indicators and familiar skeuomorphs.
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- "Blinkenlights" | 2025-01-16 | 40 Upvotes 20 Comments