Have a deep view into what people are curious about.

🔗 United States 🔗 Law 🔗 Marketing & Advertising

Leonard v. Pepsico, Inc., 88 F. Supp. 2d 116, (S.D.N.Y. 1999), aff'd 210 F.3d 88 (2d Cir. 2000), more widely known as the Pepsi Points case, is an American contract law case regarding offer and acceptance. The case was brought in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1999; its judgment was written by Kimba Wood.

In 1996, PepsiCo began a promotional loyalty program, in which customers could earn Pepsi Points; these points could, in turn, be traded for physical items. A television commercial for the loyalty program displayed the commercial's protagonist flying a McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II vertical take off jet aircraft to school, valued at $37.4 million at the time, which could be redeemed for 7,000,000 Pepsi Points. The plaintiff, John Leonard, discovered a loophole in the promotion, allowing him to purchase Pepsi Points at 10¢ per point. Leonard promptly delivered a check for $700,008.50 to PepsiCo, attempting to purchase the jet. PepsiCo initially refuted Leonard's offer, citing the humorous nature of the offer in the advertisement. Leonard then sued PepsiCo, Inc. in an effort to enforce the offer and acceptance perceived by Leonard to be made in the advertisement. In her judgment, Wood sided with PepsiCo, noting the frivolous and improbable nature of landing a fighter jet in a school zone that was portrayed by the protagonist. PepsiCo would re-release the advertisement, valuing the jet at 700,000,000 Pepsi Points.

🔗 Mathematics

In mathematics, the Bernoulli numbers B_n are a sequence of rational numbers which occur frequently in number theory. The Bernoulli numbers appear in (and can be defined by) the Taylor series expansions of the tangent and hyperbolic tangent functions, in Faulhaber's formula for the sum of m-th powers of the first n positive integers, in the Euler–Maclaurin formula, and in expressions for certain values of the Riemann zeta function.

The values of the first 20 Bernoulli numbers are given in the adjacent table. Two conventions are used in the literature, denoted here by ${\displaystyle B_{n}^{-{}}}$ and ${\displaystyle B_{n}^{+{}}}$; they differ only for n = 1, where ${\displaystyle B_{1}^{-{}}=-1/2}$ and ${\displaystyle B_{1}^{+{}}=+1/2}$. For every odd n > 1, B_n = 0. For every even n > 0, B_n is negative if n is divisible by 4 and positive otherwise. The Bernoulli numbers are special values of the Bernoulli polynomials ${\displaystyle B_{n}(x)}$, with ${\displaystyle B_{n}^{-{}}=B_{n}(0)}$ and ${\displaystyle B_{n}^{+}=B_{n}(1)}$ (Weisstein 2016).

The Bernoulli numbers were discovered around the same time by the Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli, after whom they are named, and independently by Japanese mathematician Seki Kōwa. Seki's discovery was posthumously published in 1712 (Selin 1997, p. 891; Smith & Mikami 1914, p. 108) in his work Katsuyo Sampo; Bernoulli's, also posthumously, in his Ars Conjectandi of 1713. Ada Lovelace's note G on the Analytical Engine from 1842 describes an algorithm for generating Bernoulli numbers with Babbage's machine (Menabrea 1842, Note G). As a result, the Bernoulli numbers have the distinction of being the subject of the first published complex computer program.

🔗 Death 🔗 Glass

Defenestration (from Old French fenestre, inherited from Latin fenestra) is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window. The term was coined around the time of an incident in Prague Castle in the year 1618 which became the spark that started the Thirty Years' War. This was done in "good Bohemian style"; this referred to the defenestration which had occurred in Prague's City Hall almost 200 years earlier (July 1419), which also on that occasion led to war: the Hussite war. The word comes from the New Latin de- (down from) and fenestra (window or opening). Likewise, it can also refer to the condition of being thrown out of a window, as in "The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch".

While the act of defenestration connotes the forcible or peremptory removal of an adversary, and the term is sometimes used in just that sense, it also suggests breaking the windows in the process (de- also means removal).

🔗 Military history/United States military history

🔗 United States 🔗 Film 🔗 Television 🔗 New York City 🔗 Library of Congress 🔗 Film/American cinema 🔗 United States/Film - American cinema 🔗 Film/Core 🔗 Television/Television stations 🔗 Film/Canadian cinema

Network is a 1976 American satirical black comedy-drama film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet. It is about a fictional television network, UBS, and its struggle with poor ratings. The film stars Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch (in his final film role), Robert Duvall, Wesley Addy, Ned Beatty, and Beatrice Straight.

Network received widespread critical acclaim, with particular praise for the performances. The film was a commercial success, with nine Oscar nominations at the 49th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, that led to four wins: Best Actor (Finch), Best Actress (Dunaway), Best Supporting Actress (Straight), and Best Original Screenplay.

In 2000, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2002, it was inducted into the Producers Guild of America Hall of Fame as a film that has "set an enduring standard for American entertainment". In 2005, the two Writers Guilds of America voted Chayefsky's script one of the 10 greatest screenplays in the history of cinema. In 2007, the film was 64th among the 100 greatest American films as chosen by the American Film Institute, a ranking slightly higher than the one AFI had given it ten years earlier.

🔗 United States 🔗 Politics 🔗 LGBT studies 🔗 Sexology and sexuality 🔗 Politics/American politics 🔗 Donald Trump 🔗 Conservatism 🔗 Pornography

Project 2025 is a plan to reshape the executive branch of the U.S. federal government in the event of a Republican victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Established in 2022, the project seeks to recruit tens of thousands of conservatives to Washington, D.C., to replace existing federal civil service workers it characterizes as the "deep state", to further the objectives of the next Republican president. Although participants in the project cannot promote a specific presidential candidate, many have close ties to Donald Trump and the Trump 2024 presidential campaign. The plan would perform a swift takeover of the entire executive branch under a maximalist version of the unitary executive theory — a theory proposing the president of the United States has absolute power over the executive branch — upon inauguration.

The development of the plan is led by the The Heritage Foundation, an American conservative think tank, in collaboration with over 100 partners including Turning Point USA led by Charlie Kirk; the Conservative Partnership Institute including former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows as senior partner; the Center for Renewing America led by former Trump-appointee Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought; and America First Legal led by former Trump Senior Advisor Stephen Miller.

Project 2025 envisions widespread changes across the entire government, particularly with regard to economic and social policy and the role of the federal government and federal agencies. The plan proposes slashing U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) funding, dismantling the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, gutting environmental and climate change regulations to favor fossil fuel production, and eliminating the cabinet Departments of Education and Commerce. Citing an anonymous source, The Washington Post reported Project 2025 includes immediately invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement and directing the DOJ to pursue Trump adversaries. Project Director Paul Dans, a former Trump administration official, said in September 2023 that Project 2025 is "systematically preparing to march into office and bring a new army, aligned, trained, and essentially weaponized conservatives ready to do battle against the deep state."

Project 2025 consists largely of a book of policy recommendations titled Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise and an accompanying personnel database open for submissions. There is also an online course called the Presidential Administration Academy, and a guide to developing transition plans. Reactions to the plan included variously describing it as authoritarian, an attempt by Trump to become a dictator, and a path leading the United States towards autocracy, with several experts in law criticizing it for violating current constitutional laws that would undermine the rule of law and the separation of powers. Additionally, some conservatives and Republicans also criticized the plan, for example in relation to climate change. The Mandate states that "freedom is defined by God, not man."

🔗 Computing 🔗 Business 🔗 Computing/Software

The bus factor is a measurement of the risk resulting from information and capabilities not being shared among team members, derived from the phrase "in case they get hit by a bus." It is also known as the bread truck scenario, lottery factor, truck factor, bus/truck number, or lorry factor.

The concept is similar to the much older idea of key person risk, but considers the consequences of losing key technical experts, versus financial or managerial executives (who are theoretically replaceable at an insurable cost). Personnel must be both key and irreplaceable to contribute to the bus factor; losing a replaceable or non-key person would not result in a bus-factor effect.

The term was first applied to software development, where a team member might create critical components by crafting code that performs well, but which also is unavailable to other team members, such as work that was undocumented, never shared, encrypted, obfuscated, unpublished, or otherwise incomprehensible to others. Thus a key component would be effectively lost as a direct consequence of the absence of that team member, making the member key. If this component was key to the project's advancement, the project would stall.

🔗 Computing 🔗 Time 🔗 Linux

Unix time (also known as Epoch time, POSIX time, seconds since the Epoch, or UNIX Epoch time) is a system for describing a point in time. It is the number of seconds that have elapsed since the Unix epoch, that is the time 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970, minus leap seconds. Leap seconds are ignored, with a leap second having the same Unix time as the second before it, and every day is treated as if it contains exactly 86400 seconds. Due to this treatment, Unix time is not a true representation of UTC.

Unix time is widely used in operating systems and file formats. In Unix-like operating systems, date is a command which will print or set the current time; by default, it prints or sets the time in the system time zone, but with the -u flag, it prints or sets the time in UTC and, with the TZ environment variable set to refer to a particular time zone, prints or sets the time in that time zone.

🔗 Russia 🔗 Food and drink 🔗 Russia/demographics and ethnography of Russia 🔗 Lithuania 🔗 Ukraine 🔗 Food and drink/Beverages 🔗 Beer

Kvass is a fermented cereal-based non-alcoholic or low alcoholic (0.5–1.0% or 1–2 proof) beverage with a slightly cloudy appearance, light-dark brown colour and sweet-sour taste. It may be flavoured with berries, fruits, herbs, honey

🔗 Computing 🔗 Computing/Early computers

The IBM 7950, also known as Harvest, was a one-of-a-kind adjunct to the Stretch computer which was installed at the United States National Security Agency (NSA). Built by IBM, it was delivered in 1962 and operated until 1976, when it was decommissioned. Harvest was designed to be used for cryptanalysis.