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π Vulcan Salute (Handshake Alternative, U+1F596)
The Vulcan salutation is a hand gesture popularized by the 1960s television series Star Trek. It consists of a raised hand with the palm forward and the thumb extended, while the fingers are parted between the middle and ring finger.
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- "Vulcan Salute (Handshake Alternative, U+1F596)" | 2020-03-31 | 43 Upvotes 39 Comments
π Doom released 20 years ago today
Doom may refer to:
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- "Doom released 20 years ago today" | 2013-12-10 | 256 Upvotes 108 Comments
π Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr (), born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler (November 9, 1914Β β January 19, 2000), was an Austrian-born American actress, inventor and film producer. She was part of 30 films in an acting career spanning 28 years, and co-invented an early version of frequency-hopping spread spectrum.
After a brief early film career in Czechoslovakia, including the controversial Ecstasy (1933), she fled from her husband, a wealthy Austrian ammunition manufacturer, and secretly moved to Paris. Traveling to London, she met Louis B. Mayer, head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio, who offered her a movie contract in Hollywood, where he began promoting her as the "world's most beautiful woman".
She became a star with her performance in Algiers (1938), her first film made in the United States. Her MGM films include Lady of the Tropics (1939), Boom Town (1940), H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), and White Cargo (1942). Dismayed with her MGM contract, Lamarr co-founded a new production studio and starred in its films including The Strange Woman (1946), and Dishonored Lady (1947). Her greatest success was as Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949). She also acted on television before the release of her final film, The Female Animal (1958). She was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.
At the beginning of World War II, Lamarr and composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes, intended to use frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers. She also helped to improve aviation designs for Howard Hughes while they dated during the war. Although the US Navy did not adopt Lamarr and Antheil's invention until 1957, various spread-spectrum techniques are incorporated into Bluetooth technology and are similar to methods used in legacy versions of Wi-Fi. Recognition of the value of their work resulted in the pair being posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.
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- "Hedy Lamarr" | 2020-02-12 | 38 Upvotes 18 Comments
- "Hedy Lamarr, femme fatale and inventor of spread spectrum communications " | 2010-05-21 | 65 Upvotes 8 Comments
π Unsafe at Any Speed
Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile is a non-fiction book by consumer advocate Ralph Nader, first published in 1965. Its central theme is that car manufacturers resisted the introduction of safety features (such as seat belts), and that they were generally reluctant to spend money on improving safety. This work contains substantial references and material from industry insiders. It was a best seller in non-fiction in 1966.
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- "Unsafe at Any Speed" | 2021-11-11 | 83 Upvotes 78 Comments
π List of Proposed Etymologies of OK
This is a list of etymologies proposed for the word OK or okay. The majority can be easily classified as false etymologies, or possibly folk etymologies. H. L. Mencken, in The American Language, lists serious candidates and "a few of the more picturesque or preposterous". Allen Walker Read surveyed a variety of explanations in a 1964 article titled The Folklore of "O. K." Eric Partridge described O.K. as "an evergreen of the correspondence column."
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- "List of Proposed Etymologies of OK" | 2021-03-31 | 71 Upvotes 24 Comments
π Link 16
Link 16 is a military tactical data link network used by NATO and nations allowed by the MIDS International Program Office (IPO). Its specification is part of the family of Tactical Data Links.
With Link 16, military aircraft as well as ships and ground forces may exchange their tactical picture in near-real time. Link 16 also supports the exchange of text messages, imagery data and provides two channels of digital voice (2.4Β kbit/s or 16Β kbit/s in any combination). Link 16 is defined as one of the digital services of the JTIDS / MIDS in NATO's Standardization Agreement STANAG 5516. MIL-STD-6016 is the related United States Department of Defense Link 16 MIL-STD.
π Conservation-Induced Extinction
Conservation-induced extinction is where efforts to save endangered species lead to the extinction of other species. This mostly threatens the parasite and pathogen species that are highly host-specific to critically endangered hosts. When the last individuals of a host species are captured for the purpose of captive breeding and reintroduction programs, they typically undergo anti-parasitic treatments to increase survival and reproductive success. This practice may unintentionally result in the extinction of the species antagonistic to the target species, such as certain parasites. It has been proposed that the parasites should be reintroduced to the endangered population. A few cases of conservation-induced extinction have occurred in parasitic lice.
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- "Conservation-Induced Extinction" | 2024-07-26 | 13 Upvotes 2 Comments
π Solar pond
A solar pond is a pool of saltwater which collects and stores solar thermal energy. The saltwater naturally forms a vertical salinity gradient also known as a "halocline", in which low-salinity water floats on top of high-salinity water. The layers of salt solutions increase in concentration (and therefore density) with depth. Below a certain depth, the solution has a uniformly high salt concentration.
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- "Solar pond" | 2013-09-25 | 78 Upvotes 11 Comments
π Wolfram blocked publication of a mathematical proof with a court order
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.
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- "Wolfram blocked publication of a mathematical proof with a court order" | 2017-03-26 | 186 Upvotes 39 Comments
π ChindΕgu
ChindΕgu (ηιε ·) is the practice of inventing ingenious everyday gadgets that seem to be ideal solutions to particular problems, but which may cause more problems than they solve. The term is of Japanese origin.
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- "ChindΕgu" | 2023-05-14 | 15 Upvotes 4 Comments