Random Articles (Page 3)

Have a deep view into what people are curious about.

๐Ÿ”— Moravec's Paradox

๐Ÿ”— Computer science ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Logic ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Philosophy of science ๐Ÿ”— Philosophy/Philosophy of mind

Moravec's paradox is the observation by artificial intelligence and robotics researchers that, contrary to traditional assumptions, reasoning (which is high-level in humans) requires very little computation, but sensorimotor skills (comparatively low-level in humans) require enormous computational resources. The principle was articulated by Hans Moravec, Rodney Brooks, Marvin Minsky and others in the 1980s. As Moravec writes, "it is comparatively easy to make computers exhibit adult level performance on intelligence tests or playing checkers, and difficult or impossible to give them the skills of a one-year-old when it comes to perception and mobility".

Similarly, Minsky emphasized that the most difficult human skills to reverse engineer are those that are unconscious. "In general, we're least aware of what our minds do best", he wrote, and added "we're more aware of simple processes that don't work well than of complex ones that work flawlessly".

Discussed on

๐Ÿ”— Impossible color

๐Ÿ”— Color

Impossible colors (forbidden, non-physical, unrealizable or chimerical colors) are supposed colors that do not appear in ordinary visual functioning. Non-physical colors are those notionally resulting from combinations of retinal outputs which cannot arise in normal vision. Chimerical colors are perceived, typically transiently, through contrast effects.

Discussed on

๐Ÿ”— Authoritarian Capitalism

๐Ÿ”— Capitalism

Authoritarian capitalism, or illiberal capitalism, is an economic system in which a capitalist market economy exists alongside an authoritarian government. Related to and overlapping with state capitalism, a system in which the state undertakes commercial activity, authoritarian capitalism combines private property and the functioning of market forces with repression of dissent, restrictions on freedom of speech and either a lack of elections or an electoral system with a single dominant political party.

Political scientists disagree on the long-run sustainability of authoritarian capitalism, with arguments both for and against the long-term viability of political repression alongside a free-market capitalist economic system.

Countries commonly referred to as being authoritarian capitalist states include China since the economic reforms, Hungary under Viktor Orbรกn, Russia under Vladimir Putin, Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew and Turkey under Recep Tayyip ErdoฤŸan as well as fascist regimes and military dictatorships during the Cold War. Nazi Germany has also been described as authoritarian capitalist.

๐Ÿ”— White Coke

๐Ÿ”— Military history ๐Ÿ”— Military history/North American military history ๐Ÿ”— Military history/United States military history ๐Ÿ”— Food and drink ๐Ÿ”— Military history/Russian, Soviet and CIS military history ๐Ÿ”— Food and drink/Beverages

White Coke (Russian: ะ‘ะตัั†ะฒะตั‚ะฝะฐั ะบะพะบะฐ-ะบะพะปะฐ, tr. Bestsvetnaya koka-kola, lit. "colorless Coca-Cola") is a nickname for a clear variant of Coca-Cola produced in the 1940s at the request of Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov. Like other clear colas, it was of the same original flavor, virtually unchanged by the absence of caramel coloring.

Discussed on

๐Ÿ”— Knuthโ€“Morrisโ€“Pratt algorithm

๐Ÿ”— Computer science

In computer science, the Knuthโ€“Morrisโ€“Pratt string-searching algorithm (or KMP algorithm) searches for occurrences of a "word" W within a main "text string" S by employing the observation that when a mismatch occurs, the word itself embodies sufficient information to determine where the next match could begin, thus bypassing re-examination of previously matched characters.

The algorithm was conceived by James H. Morris and independently discovered by Donald Knuth "a few weeks later" from automata theory. Morris and Vaughan Pratt published a technical report in 1970. The three also published the algorithm jointly in 1977. Independently, in 1969, Matiyasevich discovered a similar algorithm, coded by a two-dimensional Turing machine, while studying a string-pattern-matching recognition problem over a binary alphabet. This was the first linear-time algorithm for string matching.

Discussed on

๐Ÿ”— Soviet version of the Space Shuttle

๐Ÿ”— Aviation ๐Ÿ”— Soviet Union ๐Ÿ”— Russia ๐Ÿ”— Russia/technology and engineering in Russia ๐Ÿ”— Spaceflight ๐Ÿ”— Aviation/aircraft ๐Ÿ”— Central Asia

Buran (Russian: ะ‘ัƒั€ะฐฬะฝ, IPA:ย [bสŠหˆran], meaning "Snowstorm" or "Blizzard"; GRAU index serial number: "11F35 K1") was the first spaceplane to be produced as part of the Soviet/Russian Buran programme. It is, depending on the source, also known as "OK-1K1", "Orbiter K1", "OK 1.01" or "Shuttle 1.01". Besides describing the first operational Soviet/Russian shuttle orbiter, "Buran" was also the designation for the entire Soviet/Russian spaceplane project and its orbiters, which were known as "Buran-class spaceplanes".

OK-1K1 completed one uncrewed spaceflight in 1988, and was destroyed in 2002 when the hangar it was stored in collapsed. The Buran-class orbiters used the expendable Energia rocket, a class of super heavy-lift launch vehicle.

Discussed on

๐Ÿ”— Lithops

๐Ÿ”— Plants

Lithops is a genus of succulent plants in the ice plant family, Aizoaceae. Members of the genus are native to southern Africa. The name is derived from the Ancient Greek words ฮปฮฏฮธฮฟฯ‚ (lรญthos), meaning "stone," and แฝ„ฯˆ (รณps), meaning "face," referring to the stone-like appearance of the plants. They avoid being eaten by blending in with surrounding rocks and are often known as pebble plants or living stones. The formation of the name from the Ancient Greek "-ops" means that even a single plant is called a Lithops.

Discussed on

๐Ÿ”— Green Flash

๐Ÿ”— Physics

The green flash and green ray are meteorological optical phenomena that sometimes occur transiently around the moment of sunset or sunrise. When the conditions are right, a distinct green spot is briefly visible above the upper rim of the Sun's disk; the green appearance usually lasts for no more than two seconds. Rarely, the green flash can resemble a green ray shooting up from the sunset or sunrise point.

Green flashes occur because the earth's atmosphere can cause the light from the Sun to separate out into different colors. Green flashes are a group of similar phenomena that stem from slightly different causes, and therefore, some types of green flashes are more common than others.

Discussed on

๐Ÿ”— Proxy Firm

A proxy firm (also a proxy advisor, proxy adviser, proxy voting agency, vote service provider or shareholder voting research provider) provides services to shareholders (in most cases an institutional investor of some type) to vote their shares at shareholder meetings of, usually, quoted companies.

The typical services provided include agenda translation, provision of vote management software, voting policy development, company research, and vote administration including vote execution. According to their websites, not all firms provide voting recommendations and those that do may simply execute client voting instructions.

The votes executed are called "Proxy Votes" because the shareholder usually does not attend the meeting and instead sends instructions - a proxy appointment - for a third party, usually the chairman of the meeting to vote shares in accordance with the instructions given on the voting card.

๐Ÿ”— Socialist millionaire protocol

๐Ÿ”— Cryptography ๐Ÿ”— Cryptography/Computer science

In cryptography, the socialist millionaire problem is one in which two millionaires want to determine if their wealth is equal without disclosing any information about their riches to each other. It is a variant of the Millionaire's Problem whereby two millionaires wish to compare their riches to determine who has the most wealth without disclosing any information about their riches to each other.

It is often used as a cryptographic protocol that allows two parties to verify the identity of the remote party through the use of a shared secret, avoiding a man-in-the-middle attack without the inconvenience of manually comparing public key fingerprints through an outside channel. In effect, a relatively weak password/passphrase in natural language can be used.

Discussed on