Random Articles (Page 4)
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π The Amiga Smart File System
The Smart File System (SFS) is a journaling filesystem used on Amiga computers and AmigaOS-derived operating systems (though some support also exists for IBM PC compatibles). It is designed for performance, scalability and integrity, offering improvements over standard Amiga filesystems as well as some special or unique features.
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- "The Amiga Smart File System" | 2019-09-01 | 129 Upvotes 32 Comments
π Karmarkar's algorithm β Patent controversy β can mathematics be patented?
Karmarkar's algorithm is an algorithm introduced by Narendra Karmarkar in 1984 for solving linear programming problems. It was the first reasonably efficient algorithm that solves these problems in polynomial time. The ellipsoid method is also polynomial time but proved to be inefficient in practice.
Denoting as the number of variables and as the number of bits of input to the algorithm, Karmarkar's algorithm requires operations on -digit numbers, as compared to such operations for the ellipsoid algorithm. The runtime of Karmarkar's algorithm is thus
using FFT-based multiplication (see Big O notation).
Karmarkar's algorithm falls within the class of interior-point methods: the current guess for the solution does not follow the boundary of the feasible set as in the simplex method, but moves through the interior of the feasible region, improving the approximation of the optimal solution by a definite fraction with every iteration and converging to an optimal solution with rational data.
π Massacre in Korea by Pablo Picasso
Massacre in Korea (French: Massacre en CorΓ©e) is an expressionistic painting completed on 18 January 1951 by Pablo Picasso. It is Picasso's third anti-war painting and depicts a scene of a massacre of a group of naked women and children by a firing squad. It has been considered to be a condemnation of American intervention in the Korean War. The painting is exhibited in the MusΓ©e Picasso in Paris.
π United States National Radio Quiet Zone
The National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ) is a large area of land in the United States designated as a radio quiet zone, in which radio transmissions are heavily restricted by law to facilitate scientific research and the gathering of military intelligence. Roughly half of the zone is located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of west-central Virginia while the other half is the Allegheny Mountains of east-central West Virginia; a small part of the zone is in the southernmost tip of the Maryland panhandle.
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- "United States National Radio Quiet Zone" | 2020-03-03 | 132 Upvotes 31 Comments
- "United States National Radio Quiet Zone" | 2018-06-27 | 11 Upvotes 1 Comments
π Biangbiang Noodles
Biangbiang noodles (simplified Chinese: π°»π°»ι’; traditional Chinese: π°»π°»ιΊ΅; pinyin: BiΓ‘ngbiΓ‘ngmiΓ n), alternatively known as youpo chemian (simplified Chinese: ζ²Ήζ³Όζ―ι’; traditional Chinese: ζ²Ήζ½ζ―ιΊ΅) in Chinese, are a type of Chinese noodle originating from Shaanxi cuisine. The noodles, touted as one of the "eight curiosities" of Shaanxi (ιθ₯Ώε «ε€§ζͺ), are described as being like a belt, owing to their thickness and length.
Biangbiang noodles are renowned for being written using a unique character. The character is unusually complex, with the standard variant of its traditional form containing 58 strokes.
Discussed on
- "Biangbiang Noodles" | 2024-06-25 | 11 Upvotes 6 Comments
π Alexander Abian
Alexander (Smbat) Abian (January 1, 1923 β July 24, 1999) was an Iranian-born Armenian-American mathematician who taught for over 25 years at Iowa State University and became notable for his frequent posts to various Usenet newsgroups, and his advocacy for the destruction of the Moon.
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- "Alexander Abian" | 2024-07-05 | 23 Upvotes 11 Comments
π Boaty McBoatface
Boaty McBoatface (also known as Boaty) is the British lead boat in a fleet of three robotic lithium batteryβpowered autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) of the Autosub Long Range (ALR) class. Launched in 2017 and carried on board the polar scientific research vessel RRS Sir David Attenborough, she is a focal point of the Polar Explorer Programme of the UK Government.
Boaty and her two fleet-mates are part of the UK National Marine Equipment Pool and owned by the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton. She is classified as an "autosub long range (ALR) autonomous underwater vehicle", and will use her onboard sensors to map the movement of deep waters that play a vital role in regulating the Earth's climate.
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- "Boaty McBoatface" | 2024-04-12 | 34 Upvotes 20 Comments
π Chiastic Structure
Chiastic structure, or chiastic pattern, is a literary technique in narrative motifs and other textual passages. An example of chiastic structure would be two ideas, A and B, together with variants A' and B', being presented as A,B,B',A'. Chiastic structures that involve more components are sometimes called "ring structures", "ring compositions", or, in cases of very ambitious chiasmus, "onion-ring compositions". These may be regarded as chiasmus scaled up from words and clauses to larger segments of text.
These often symmetrical patterns are commonly found in ancient literature such as the epic poetry of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Classicist Bruno Gentili describes this technique as "the cyclical, circular, or 'ring' pattern (ring composition). Here the idea that introduced a compositional section is repeated at its conclusion, so that the whole passage is framed by material of identical content". Meanwhile, in classical prose, scholars often find chiastic narrative techniques in the Histories of Herodotus:
"Herodotus frequently uses ring composition or 'epic regression' as a way of supplying background information for something discussed in the narrative. First an event is mentioned briefly, then its precedents are reviewed in reverse chronological order as far back as necessary; at that point the narrative reverses itself and moves forward in chronological order until the event in the main narrative line is reached again."
Various chiastic structures are also seen in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, and the Quran.
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- "Chiastic Structure" | 2021-09-13 | 41 Upvotes 12 Comments
π JScript
JScript is Microsoft's dialect of the ECMAScript standard that is used in Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
JScript is implemented as an Active Scripting engine. This means that it can be "plugged in" to OLE Automation applications that support Active Scripting, such as Internet Explorer, Active Server Pages, and Windows Script Host. It also means such applications can use multiple Active Scripting languages, e.g., JScript, VBScript or PerlScript.
JScript was first supported in the Internet Explorer 3.0 browser released in August 1996. Its most recent version is JScript 9.0, included in Internet Explorer 9.
JScript 10.0 is a separate dialect, also known as JScript .NET, which adds several new features from the abandoned fourth edition of the ECMAScript standard. It must be compiled for .NET Framework version 2 or version 4, but static type annotations are optional.
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- "JScript" | 2021-08-29 | 15 Upvotes 18 Comments
π El Paquete Semanal
El Paquete Semanal ("The Weekly Package") or El Paquete is a one terabyte collection of digital material distributed since around 2008 on the underground market in Cuba as a substitute for broadband Internet. Since 2015, it has been the primary source of entertainment for millions of Cubans, as Internet in Cuba has been suppressed for many years with only about a 38.8% Internet penetration rate as of 2018. El Paquete Semanal has its own page that is running in the United States, where one could view its contents and is consistently updated every week.
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- "El Paquete Semanal" | 2023-06-11 | 183 Upvotes 51 Comments