Random Articles (Page 3)
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π Eagle Cash
Eagle Cash (stylized as EagleCash), and sister program EZpay, are cash management applications that use stored-value card technology to process financial transactions in "closed-loop" operating environments. The United States Department of the Treasury sponsors the programs for the U.S. Armed Forces. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston administers the programs for the Treasury, and they are in use at approved U.S. military facilities inside and outside the continental United States. The systems use a plastic payment card, similar to a credit or debit card, which has an embedded microchip that tracks the card's balance and interfaces with encrypted card readers. This method allows soldiers to purchase goods and services at U.S. military posts and canteens, without carrying cash, or manage their personal bank accounts while on deployment or in training. The program reduces the amount of American currency required overseas, reduces theft, saves thousands of man-hours in labor, helps reduce the risk of transporting cash in combat environments, and increases security and convenience for service members. It helped reduce or eliminate the need for cash and money orders.
Discussed on
- "Eagle Cash" | 2021-01-01 | 137 Upvotes 103 Comments
π Tell HN: There will be a Blue moon in December
A blue moon is an additional full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year: either the third of four full moons in a season, or a second full moon in a month of the common calendar.
The phrase in modern usage has nothing to do with the actual color of the Moon, although a visually blue Moon (the Moon appearing with a bluish tinge) may occur under certain atmospheric conditions β for instance, if volcanic eruptions or fires release particles in the atmosphere of just the right size to preferentially scatter red light.
Discussed on
- "Tell HN: There will be a Blue moon in December" | 2009-12-07 | 29 Upvotes 8 Comments
π Semantic Satiation
Semantic satiation is a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who then perceives the speech as repeated meaningless sounds. Extended inspection or analysis (staring at the word or phrase for a lengthy period of time) in place of repetition also produces the same effect.
Discussed on
- "Semantic Satiation" | 2021-04-23 | 119 Upvotes 52 Comments
π RTX2010 radiation-hardened microprocessor
The RTX2010 manufactured by Intersil is a radiation hardened stack machine microprocessor which has been used in numerous spacecraft.
Discussed on
- "RTX2010 βΒ Radiation-hardened stack machine microprocessor" | 2014-11-15 | 156 Upvotes 60 Comments
- "RTX2010 radiation-hardened microprocessor" | 2014-11-14 | 11 Upvotes 5 Comments
π Microsoft v MikeRoweSoft
Microsoft v. MikeRoweSoft was a legal dispute between Microsoft and a Canadian Belmont High School student named Mike Rowe over the domain name "MikeRoweSoft.com". Microsoft argued that their trademark had been infringed because of the phonetic resemblance between "Microsoft" and "MikeRoweSoft".
The case received international press attention following Microsoft's perceived heavy-handed approach to a 12th grade student's part-time web design business and the subsequent support that Rowe received from the online community. A settlement was eventually reached, with Rowe granting ownership of the domain to Microsoft in exchange for an Xbox and additional compensation.
Discussed on
- "Microsoft vs. MikeRoweSoft" | 2024-03-22 | 49 Upvotes 8 Comments
- "Microsoft v MikeRoweSoft" | 2018-04-17 | 96 Upvotes 20 Comments
- "Microsoft vs. MikeRoweSoft" | 2017-10-12 | 19 Upvotes 1 Comments
- "Microsoft vs. MikeRoweSoft" | 2013-07-20 | 52 Upvotes 24 Comments
π 2022 Russian businessmen mystery deaths
The 2022 Russian businessmen mystery deaths are a series of unusual deaths of Russian-connected businessmen in 2022. Most of the deaths were officially declared to be suicides, but a number of commentators have suggested that the circumstances of the suicides appear to be suspicious and may have been staged.
Discussed on
- "2022 Russian businessmen mystery deaths" | 2022-09-15 | 18 Upvotes 1 Comments
π Sraffa asks Wittgenstein: βWhat is the logical form of that?β
Piero Sraffa (5 August 1898 β 3 September 1983) was an influential Italian economist who served as lecturer of economics at the University of Cambridge. His book Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities is taken as founding the neo-Ricardian school of economics.
Discussed on
- "Sraffa asks Wittgenstein: βWhat is the logical form of that?β" | 2023-02-03 | 13 Upvotes 1 Comments
π Tescreal
TESCREAL is a neologism proposed by computer scientist Timnit Gebru and philosopher Γmile P. Torres. An acronym, it stands for Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singularitarianism, (modern) Cosmism, Rationalists (the internet community, not to be confused with other uses of the term), Effective Altruism, and Longtermism. Gebru and Torres argue that these ideologies should be treated as an "interconnected and overlapping" group with shared origins. They claim these constitute a movement that allows its proponents to use the threat of human extinction to justify expensive or detrimental projects and consider it pervasive in social and academic circles in Silicon Valley centered on artificial intelligence. As such, the acronym is sometimes used to criticize a perceived belief system associated with Big Tech.
π A pair of pants is a special two-dimensional surface
Trousers or pants (American English) are an item of clothing that might have originated in Central Asia, worn from the waist to the ankles, covering both legs separately (rather than with cloth extending across both legs as in robes, skirts, and dresses).
Outside North America, the word pants generally means underwear and not trousers. Shorts are similar to trousers, but with legs that come down only to around the area of the knee, higher or lower depending on the style of the garment. To distinguish them from shorts, trousers may be called "long trousers" in certain contexts such as school uniform, where tailored shorts may be called "short trousers", especially in the UK.
The oldest known trousers were found at the Yanghai cemetery in Turpan, Xinjiang, western China and dated to the period between the 10th and the 13th centuries BC. Made of wool, the trousers had straight legs and wide crotches and were likely made for horseback riding.
In most of Europe, trousers have been worn since ancient times and throughout the Medieval period, becoming the most common form of lower-body clothing for adult males in the modern world. Breeches were worn instead of trousers in early modern Europe by some men in higher classes of society. Distinctive formal trousers are traditionally worn with formal and semi-formal day attire. Since the mid-20th century, trousers have increasingly been worn by women as well.
Jeans, made of denim, are a form of trousers for casual wear widely worn all over the world by both sexes. Shorts are often preferred in hot weather or for some sports and also often by children and adolescents. Trousers are worn on the hips or waist and are often held up by buttons, elastic, a belt or suspenders (braces).
π The Art Gallery Problem
The art gallery problem or museum problem is a well-studied visibility problem in computational geometry. It originates from a real-world problem of guarding an art gallery with the minimum number of guards who together can observe the whole gallery. In the geometric version of the problem, the layout of the art gallery is represented by a simple polygon and each guard is represented by a point in the polygon. A set of points is said to guard a polygon if, for every point in the polygon, there is some such that the line segment between and does not leave the polygon.
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- "The Art Gallery Problem" | 2011-05-15 | 40 Upvotes 1 Comments