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🔗 Computer science

The Rule 110 cellular automaton (often simply Rule 110) is an elementary cellular automaton with interesting behavior on the boundary between stability and chaos. In this respect, it is similar to Conway's Game of Life. Like Life, Rule 110 is known to be Turing complete. This implies that, in principle, any calculation or computer program can be simulated using this automaton.

🔗 Statistics

The Erlang distribution is a two-parameter family of continuous probability distributions with support ${\displaystyle x\in [0,\infty )}$. The two parameters are:

• a positive integer ${\displaystyle k,}$ the "shape", and
• a positive real number ${\displaystyle \lambda ,}$ the "rate". The "scale", ${\displaystyle \mu ,}$ the reciprocal of the rate, is sometimes used instead.

The Erlang distribution with shape parameter ${\displaystyle k=1}$ simplifies to the exponential distribution. It is a special case of the gamma distribution. It is the distribution of a sum of ${\displaystyle k}$ independent exponential variables with mean ${\displaystyle 1/\lambda }$ each.

The Erlang distribution was developed by A. K. Erlang to examine the number of telephone calls which might be made at the same time to the operators of the switching stations. This work on telephone traffic engineering has been expanded to consider waiting times in queueing systems in general. The distribution is also used in the field of stochastic processes.

🔗 Mass surveillance 🔗 United Kingdom 🔗 Law Enforcement

🔗 England 🔗 Geography 🔗 Transport 🔗 UK geography 🔗 East Anglia 🔗 Hiking trails 🔗 East Anglia/Essex

The Broomway is a public right of way over the foreshore at Maplin Sands off the coast of Essex, England. Most of the route is classed as a Byway Open to All Traffic, with a shorter section of bridleway. When the tide is out, it provides access to Foulness Island, and indeed was the only access to Foulness on foot, and the only access at low tide, until a road bridge was built over Havengore Creek in 1922.

At over 600 years old, recorded as early as 1419, the Broomway runs for 6 miles (9.7 km) along the Maplin Sands, some 440 yards (400 m) from the present shoreline. It was named for the "brooms", bundles of twigs attached to short poles, with which the route was once marked. A number of headways or hards ran from the track to the shore, giving access to local farms. The track is extremely dangerous in misty weather, as the incoming tide floods across the sands at high speed, and the water forms whirlpools because of flows from the River Crouch and River Roach. Under such conditions, the direction of the shore cannot be determined. After the road bridge was opened in 1922, the Broomway ceased to be used, except by the military.

🔗 Mathematics 🔗 Economics 🔗 Politics 🔗 Game theory

In game theory, the Nash equilibrium, named after the mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr., is a proposed solution of a non-cooperative game involving two or more players in which each player is assumed to know the equilibrium strategies of the other players, and no player has anything to gain by changing only their own strategy.

In terms of game theory, if each player has chosen a strategy, and no player can benefit by changing strategies while the other players keep theirs unchanged, then the current set of strategy choices and their corresponding payoffs constitutes a Nash equilibrium.

Stated simply, Alice and Bob are in Nash equilibrium if Alice is making the best decision she can, taking into account Bob's decision while his decision remains unchanged, and Bob is making the best decision he can, taking into account Alice's decision while her decision remains unchanged. Likewise, a group of players are in Nash equilibrium if each one is making the best decision possible, taking into account the decisions of the others in the game as long as the other parties' decisions remain unchanged.

Nash showed that there is a Nash equilibrium for every finite game: see further the article on strategy.

🔗 Media 🔗 Journalism

State media are typically understood as media outlets that are owned, operated, or significantly influenced by the government. They are sometimes distinguished from public service media, which are designed to serve the public interest, operate independently of government control, and are financed through a combination of public funding, licensing fees, and sometimes advertising. The crucial difference lies in the level of independence from government influence and the commitment to building trust and serving a broad public interest rather than the interests of a specific political party or government agenda.

State media serve as tools for public diplomacy and narrative shaping. These media outlets can broadcast via television, radio, print, and increasingly on social media, to convey government viewpoints to domestic and international audiences. The approach to using state media can vary, focusing on positive narratives, adjusting narratives retroactively, or spreading misinformation through sophisticated social media campaigns.

Public or state media may be financed through different sources, such as direct government funding, a licence fee paid by television viewers, donations, and commercial advertising.

🔗 Lists 🔗 Geography 🔗 Rivers

This article lists rivers by their average discharge measured in descending order of their water flow rate. Here, only those rivers whose discharge is more than 2,000 m³/s (71,000 cu ft/s) are shown, as this list does not include rivers with a water flow rate of less than 2,000 m³/s (71,000 cu ft/s). It can be thought of as a list of the biggest rivers on earth, measured by a specific metric.

For context, the volume of an Olympic-size swimming pool is 2,500 m³. The average flow rate at the mouth of the Amazon is sufficient to fill more than 83 such pools each second. The average flow of all the rivers in this list adds up to 1,192,134 m³/s.

🔗 Technology

Tensegrity, tensional integrity or floating compression is a structural principle based on a system of isolated components under compression inside a network of continuous tension, and arranged in such a way that the compressed members (usually bars or struts) do not touch each other while the prestressed tensioned members (usually cables or tendons) delineate the system spatially.

The term was coined by Buckminster Fuller in the 1960s as a portmanteau of "tensional integrity". The other denomination of tensegrity, floating compression, was used mainly by the constructivist artist Kenneth Snelson.

🔗 Biography

John Socha-Leialoha (born 1958) is a software developer best known for creating Norton Commander, the first orthodox file manager. The original Norton Commander was written for DOS. Over the years, Socha's design for file management has been extended and cloned many times.

John grew up in the woods of Wisconsin, earned a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Wisconsin–Madison, and his PhD in Applied Physics from Cornell University. He now lives in Bellevue, Washington with his wife. His son, John Avi, is a graduate of the University of Washington.

Starting in September 2010, John began working at Microsoft officially.

🔗 Buses

A bus trap (car trap in the UK) is a metal grate placed over a ditch or pit in the road with tines (sides) spaced far enough apart that small (shorter axle) vehicles fall between the tines but close enough that larger-diameter-wheeled vehicles, such as buses, may pass. Cycles may cross broader sided examples.

Different versions exist for restricting access. The tines cross the path of the road, not parallel with the road direction. Small-wheeled vehicles bottom out in between the tines, preventing the vehicle from continuing over the obstacle.