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๐ The Bielefeld Conspiracy
The Bielefeld conspiracy (German: Bielefeldverschwรถrung or Bielefeld-Verschwรถrung, pronounced [หbiหlษfษltfษษฬฏหสvรธหสสล]) is a satire of conspiracy theories that claims that the city of Bielefeld, Germany, does not exist, but is an illusion propagated by various forces. First posted on the German Usenet in 1994, the conspiracy has since been mentioned in the city's marketing, and referenced by Chancellor Angela Merkel.
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- "The Bielefeld Conspiracy" | 2018-08-12 | 22 Upvotes 13 Comments
๐ Aleatoric Music
Aleatoric music (also aleatory music or chance music; from the Latin word alea, meaning "dice") is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, and/or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the determination of its performer(s). The term is most often associated with procedures in which the chance element involves a relatively limited number of possibilities.
The term became known to European composers through lectures by acoustician Werner Meyer-Eppler at the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music in the beginning of the 1950s. According to his definition, "a process is said to be aleatoric ... if its course is determined in general but depends on chance in detail". Through a confusion of Meyer-Eppler's German terms Aleatorik (noun) and aleatorisch (adjective), his translator created a new English word, "aleatoric" (rather than using the existing English adjective "aleatory"), which quickly became fashionable and has persisted. More recently, the variant "aleatoriality" has been introduced.
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- "Aleatoric Music" | 2022-11-27 | 46 Upvotes 31 Comments
๐ Brabant Killers
The Brabant killers, also named the Nijvel Gang in Dutch-speaking media (Dutch: De Bende van Nijvel), and the mad killers of Brabant in French-speaking media (French: Les Tueurs fous du Brabant), are believed to be responsible for a series of violent attacks that mainly occurred in the Belgian province of Brabant between 1982 and 1985. A total of 28 people died and 22 were injured. The actions of the gang, believed to consist of a core of three men, made it Belgium's most notorious unsolved crime spree. The active participants were known as The Giant (a tall man who may have been the leader); the Killer (the main shooter) and the Old Man (a middle aged man who drove). The identities and whereabouts of the "Brabant killers" are unknown. Although significant resources are still dedicated to it, the most recent arrests in the case were of the now-retired original senior detectives. Failure to catch the gang resulted in a parliamentary inquiry. There have been many theories of ulterior motives behind the crimes.
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- "Brabant Killers" | 2020-06-17 | 14 Upvotes 5 Comments
๐ Sangaku
Sangaku or San Gaku (็ฎ้ก; lit. translation: calculation tablet) are Japanese geometrical problems or theorems on wooden tablets which were placed as offerings at Shinto shrines or Buddhist temples during the Edo period by members of all social classes.
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- "Sangaku" | 2017-03-01 | 55 Upvotes 2 Comments
๐ Iceland Spar
Iceland spar, formerly called Iceland crystal (Icelandic: silfurberg [หsษชlvสrหpษrk], lit.โ'silver-rock') and also called optical calcite, is a transparent variety of calcite, or crystallized calcium carbonate, originally brought from Iceland, and used in demonstrating the polarization of light.
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- "Iceland Spar" | 2024-11-22 | 29 Upvotes 4 Comments
๐ Flashsort
Flashsort is a distribution sorting algorithm showing linear computational complexity for uniformly distributed data sets and relatively little additional memory requirement. The original work was published in 1998 by Karl-Dietrich Neubert.
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- "Flashsort" | 2020-02-09 | 141 Upvotes 31 Comments
๐ Kakure Kirishitan
Kakure kirishitan (Japanese: ้ ใใญใชใทใฟใณ, lit.โ'hidden Christians') is a modern term for a member of the Catholic Church in Japan that went underground at the start of the Edo period in the early 17th century due to Christianity's repression by the Tokugawa shogunate.
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- "Kakure Kirishitan" | 2023-07-15 | 32 Upvotes 5 Comments
๐ Zerah Colburn (Mental Calculator)
Zerah Colburn (September 1, 1804 โ March 2, 1840) was a child prodigy of the 19th century who gained fame as a mental calculator.
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- "Zerah Colburn (Mental Calculator)" | 2020-04-02 | 25 Upvotes 4 Comments
๐ Karลshi, death by overwork
Karoshi (้ๅดๆญป, Karลshi), which can be translated literally as "overwork death" in Japanese, is occupational sudden mortality. The major medical causes of karoshi deaths are heart attack and stroke due to stress and a starvation diet. This phenomenon is also widespread in other parts of Asia.
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- "Karลshi, death by overwork" | 2010-05-25 | 26 Upvotes 12 Comments
๐ Retrofuturism
Retrofuturism (adjective retrofuturistic or retrofuture) is a movement in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions of the future produced in an earlier era. If futurism is sometimes called a "science" bent on anticipating what will come, retrofuturism is the remembering of that anticipation. Characterized by a blend of old-fashioned "retro styles" with futuristic technology, retrofuturism explores the themes of tension between past and future, and between the alienating and empowering effects of technology. Primarily reflected in artistic creations and modified technologies that realize the imagined artifacts of its parallel reality, retrofuturism can be seen as "an animating perspective on the world". However, it has also manifested in the worlds of fashion, architecture, design, music, literature, film, and video games.
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- "Retrofuturism" | 2020-05-05 | 171 Upvotes 78 Comments