Random Articles (Page 3)
Have a deep view into what people are curious about.
π Abecedarium
An abecedarium (also known as an abecedary or ABCs or simply an ABC) is an inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet, almost always listed in order. Typically, abecedaria (or abecedaries) are practice exercises.
Discussed on
- "Abecedarium" | 2023-03-17 | 56 Upvotes 14 Comments
π Ur-Fascism (Umberto Eco, 1995)
βUr-Fascismβ or βEternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirtβ (in Italian: Il fascismo eterno, or Ur-Fascismo) is a renowned essay authored by the Italian philosopher, novelist, and semiotician Umberto Eco. First published in 1995, this influential essay provides an analysis of fascism, a definition of fascism, and discusses the fundamental characteristics and traits of fascism. Drawing on Eco's personal experiences growing up in Mussolini's Italy and his extensive research on fascist movements, the essay offers his insights into the nature of fascism and its manifestations.
Discussed on
- "Ur-Fascism (Umberto Eco, 1995)" | 2024-11-12 | 27 Upvotes 7 Comments
π Kite Aerial Photography
Kite aerial photography (KAP) is a type of photography. A camera is lifted using a kite and is triggered either remotely or automatically to take aerial photographs. The camera rigs can range from the extremely simple, consisting of a trigger mechanism with a disposable camera, to complex apparatus using radio control and digital cameras. On some occasions it can be a good alternative to other forms of aerial photography.
Discussed on
- "Kite Aerial Photography" | 2025-07-18 | 10 Upvotes 3 Comments
π Wikirace - Wikipedia
Wikiracing is a game using the online encyclopedia Wikipedia which focuses on traversing links from one page to another. It has many different variations and names, including The Wikipedia Game, Wikipedia Maze, Wikispeedia, Wikiwars, Wikipedia Ball, and Litner Ball. External websites have been created to facilitate the game.
The Seattle Times has recommended it as a good educational pastime for children and the Larchmont Gazette has said, "While I don't know any teenagers who would curl up with an encyclopedia for a good read, I hear that a lot are reading it in the process of playing the Wikipedia Game".
The Amazing Wiki Race has been an event at the TechOlympics and the Yale Freshman Olympics.
The average number of links separating any Wikipedia page from the United Kingdom page is 3.67. Other common houserules such as not using the United States page increase the difficulty of the game.
As of July 2019, a website and game known as The Wiki Game has been created, allowing players to Wikirace against each other in a server, for more points and recognition on the server. The game reached more recognition as Internet stars such as Game Grumps played it on their channels. There is a version on the App Store as well, in which players can do a variety of Wikirace styles from their phone.
Discussed on
- "Wikirace - Wikipedia" | 2010-02-01 | 38 Upvotes 7 Comments
π Gish Gallop
The Gish gallop is a technique used during debating that focuses on overwhelming an opponent with as many arguments as possible, without regard for accuracy or strength of the arguments. The term was coined by Eugenie Scott and named after the creationist Duane Gish, who used the technique frequently against proponents of evolution.
Discussed on
- "Gish Gallop" | 2022-01-02 | 22 Upvotes 4 Comments
- "Gish Gallop" | 2020-05-08 | 33 Upvotes 26 Comments
π Corecursion
In computer science, corecursion is a type of operation that is dual to recursion. Whereas recursion works analytically, starting on data further from a base case and breaking it down into smaller data and repeating until one reaches a base case, corecursion works synthetically, starting from a base case and building it up, iteratively producing data further removed from a base case. Put simply, corecursive algorithms use the data that they themselves produce, bit by bit, as they become available, and needed, to produce further bits of data. A similar but distinct concept is generative recursion which may lack a definite "direction" inherent in corecursion and recursion.
Where recursion allows programs to operate on arbitrarily complex data, so long as they can be reduced to simple data (base cases), corecursion allows programs to produce arbitrarily complex and potentially infinite data structures, such as streams, so long as it can be produced from simple data (base cases) in a sequence of finite steps. Where recursion may not terminate, never reaching a base state, corecursion starts from a base state, and thus produces subsequent steps deterministically, though it may proceed indefinitely (and thus not terminate under strict evaluation), or it may consume more than it produces and thus become non-productive. Many functions that are traditionally analyzed as recursive can alternatively, and arguably more naturally, be interpreted as corecursive functions that are terminated at a given stage, for example recurrence relations such as the factorial.
Corecursion can produce both finite and infinite data structures as results, and may employ self-referential data structures. Corecursion is often used in conjunction with lazy evaluation, to produce only a finite subset of a potentially infinite structure (rather than trying to produce an entire infinite structure at once). Corecursion is a particularly important concept in functional programming, where corecursion and codata allow total languages to work with infinite data structures.
Discussed on
- "Corecursion" | 2014-05-08 | 167 Upvotes 62 Comments
π Simpson's Paradox
Simpson's paradox, which goes by several names, is a phenomenon in probability and statistics, in which a trend appears in several different groups of data but disappears or reverses when these groups are combined. This result is often encountered in social-science and medical-science statistics and is particularly problematic when frequency data is unduly given causal interpretations. The paradox can be resolved when causal relations are appropriately addressed in the statistical modeling.
Simpson's paradox has been used as an exemplar to illustrate to the non-specialist or public audience the kind of misleading results mis-applied statistics can generate. Martin Gardner wrote a popular account of Simpson's paradox in his March 1976 Mathematical Games column in Scientific American.
Edward H. Simpson first described this phenomenon in a technical paper in 1951, but the statisticians Karl Pearson et al., in 1899, and Udny Yule, in 1903, had mentioned similar effects earlier. The name Simpson's paradox was introduced by Colin R. Blyth in 1972.
It is also referred to as or Simpson's reversal, YuleβSimpson effect, amalgamation paradox, or reversal paradox.
Discussed on
- "Simpson's Paradox" | 2024-03-11 | 365 Upvotes 106 Comments
- "Simpsonβs Paradox" | 2022-02-06 | 11 Upvotes 3 Comments
- "Simpson's paradox" | 2011-07-29 | 174 Upvotes 34 Comments
- "Simpson's paradox: why mistrust seemingly simple statistics" | 2009-08-28 | 152 Upvotes 17 Comments
π David Graeber has passed away
David Rolfe Graeber (; February 12, 1961 β September 2, 2020) was an American anthropologist, anarchist activist, and author known for his books Debt: The First 5000 Years (2011), The Utopia of Rules (2015) and Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (2018). He was a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics.
As an assistant professor and associate professor of anthropology at Yale from 1998 to 2007, Graeber specialized in theories of value and social theory. Yale's decision not to rehire him when he would otherwise have become eligible for tenure sparked an academic controversy. He went on to become, from 2007 to 2013, reader in social anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London.
His activism includes protests against the 3rd Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in 2001, and at the 2002 World Economic Forum in New York City. Graeber was a leading figure in the Occupy Wall Street movement, and is sometimes credited with having coined the slogan "we are the 99%". He accepted credit for the description "the 99%" but said that others had expanded it into the slogan.
Discussed on
- "David Graeber has passed away" | 2020-09-03 | 11 Upvotes 1 Comments
π The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is an English-language pangramβa sentence that contains all of the letters of the alphabet. It is commonly used for touch-typing practice, testing typewriters and computer keyboards, displaying examples of fonts, and other applications involving text where the use of all letters in the alphabet is desired. Owing to its brevity and coherence, it has become widely known.
Discussed on
- "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" | 2010-06-14 | 14 Upvotes 5 Comments
π Magdeburg Water Bridge
The Magdeburg Water Bridge (German: KanalbrΓΌcke Magdeburg) is a large navigable aqueduct in central Germany, located near Magdeburg. The largest canal underbridge in Europe, it spans the river Elbe and directly connects the Mittellandkanal to the west and Elbe-Havel Canal to the east of the river, allowing large commercial ships to pass between the Rhineland and Berlin without having to descend into and then climb out of the Elbe itself.
Discussed on
- "Magdeburg Water Bridge" | 2019-11-21 | 52 Upvotes 41 Comments