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๐Ÿ”— Global Peace Index (GPI)

๐Ÿ”— Politics ๐Ÿ”— Anti-war ๐Ÿ”— Globalization

Global Peace Index (GPI) measures the relative position of nations' and regions' peacefulness. The GPI ranks 172 independent states and territories (99.7 percent of the world's population) according to their levels of peacefulness. In the past decade, the GPI has presented trends of increased global violence and less peacefulness. It also increases the world peace program in the world.

The GPI is a report produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) and developed in consultation with an international panel of peace experts from peace institutes and think tanks with data collected and collated by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The Index was first launched in May 2009, with subsequent reports being released annually. In 2015 it ranked 165 countries, up from 121 in 2007. The study was conceived by Australian technology entrepreneur Steve Killelea, and is endorsed by individuals such as former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Dalai Lama, archbishop Desmond Tutu, former President of Finland and 2008 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, economist Jeffrey Sachs, former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, former Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Jan Eliasson and former United States president Jimmy Carter. The updated index is released each year at events in London, Washington, DC; and at the United Nations Secretariat in New York.

The 2019 GPI indicates Iceland, New Zealand, Portugal, Austria and Denmark to be the most peaceful countries and Somalia, Afghanistan, Syria, South Sudan, Yemen, and Iraq to be the least peaceful. Long-term findings of the 2017 GPI include a less peaceful world over the past decade, a 2.14 per cent deterioration in the global level of peace in the past decade, growing inequality in peace between the most and least peaceful countries, a long-term reduction in the GPI Militarization domain, and a widening impact of terrorism, with historically high numbers of people killed in terrorist incidents over the past 10 years.

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๐Ÿ”— Direct Fusion Drive

๐Ÿ”— Spaceflight ๐Ÿ”— Physics ๐Ÿ”— Rocketry

Direct Fusion Drive (DFD) is a conceptual low radioactivity, nuclear-fusion rocket engine designed to produce both thrust and electric power for interplanetary spacecraft. The concept is based on the Princeton field-reversed configuration reactor invented in 2002 by Samuel A. Cohen, and is being modeled and experimentally tested at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, a US Department of Energy facility, and modeled and evaluated by Princeton Satellite Systems. As of 2018, the concept has moved on to Phase II to further advance the design.

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๐Ÿ”— National Raisin Reserve

๐Ÿ”— United States ๐Ÿ”— Food and drink

The National Raisin Reserve was a raisin reserve of the United States. It was created after World War II by the government in order to control raisin prices. The reserve was run by the Raisin Administrative Committee. It was enforced by means of a "marketing order". In 2015, the United States Supreme Court ruled the reserve unconstitutional and ended it.

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๐Ÿ”— Siwa Oasis

๐Ÿ”— Egypt

The Siwa Oasis (Arabic: ูˆุงุญุฉ ุณูŠูˆุฉโ€Ž, Wฤแธฅat Sฤซwah, IPA:ย [หˆwรฆหฤงet หˆsiหwรฆ]; Coptic: โฒฅโฒ“โฒŸโฒฉโฒฯฉ Siwah; Berber languages: Isiwan, โต‰โต™โต‰โตกโดฐโต ) is an urban oasis in Egypt between the Qattara Depression and the Great Sand Sea in the Western Desert, 50ย km (30ย mi) east of the Libyan border, and 560ย km (348ย mi) from Cairo. About 80ย km (50ย mi) in length and 20ย km (12ย mi) wide, Siwa Oasis is one of Egypt's most isolated settlements with about 33,000 people, mostly Berbers, who developed a unique and isolated desert culture and a distinct dialect and language different than all other dialects called Siwi, they are also fluent in the Egyptian dialect of Arabic which is called "Masry" meaning Egyptian.

Its fame lies primarily in its ancient role as the home to an oracle of Ammon, the ruins of which are a popular tourist attraction which gave the oasis its ancient name Oasis of Amun Ra. Historically, it was part of Ancient Egypt.

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๐Ÿ”— Joe Biden inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States

๐Ÿ”— United States ๐Ÿ”— Politics ๐Ÿ”— Women's History ๐Ÿ”— United States/U.S. presidential elections ๐Ÿ”— United States/District of Columbia ๐Ÿ”— Current events ๐Ÿ”— Joe Biden ๐Ÿ”— Women in Red

The inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States took place on January 20, 2021, before noon (EST), marking the commencement of the four-year term of Joe Biden as president and Kamala Harris as vice president. The inaugural ceremony took place on the West Front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. and was the 59th presidential inauguration. Biden took the presidential oath of office, before which Harris took the vice presidential oath of office.

The inauguration took place amidst extraordinary political, public health, economic, and national security crises, including outgoing President Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, which incited a storming of the Capitol, Trump's unprecedented second impeachment, and a threat of widespread civil unrest, which stimulated a nationwide law enforcement response. Festivities were sharply curtailed by efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and mitigate the potential for violence near the Capitol. The live audience was limited to members of the 117th United States Congress and, for each, one guest of their choosing, resembling a State of the Union address. Public health measures such as mandatory face coverings, testing, temperature checks, and social distancing were used to protect participants in the ceremony.

"America United" and "Our Determined Democracy: Forging a More Perfect Union"โ€”a reference to the Preamble to the United States Constitutionโ€”served as the inaugural themes.

๐Ÿ”— Zombie Zero

๐Ÿ”— Computer Security ๐Ÿ”— Computer Security/Computing

Zombie Zero is an attack vector where a cyber attacker utilized malware that was clandestinely embedded in new barcode readers which were manufactured overseas.

It remains unknown if this attack was promulgated by organized crime or a nation state. Clearly there was significant planning and investment in order to design the malware, and then embed it into the hardware within the barcode scanner. Internet of things (IoT) devices may be similarly preinstalled with malware that can capture the network passwords and then open a backdoor to attackers. Given the high volume of these devices manufactured overseas high caution is to be exercised before placing these devices on corporate or government networks.

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๐Ÿ”— Design rule for Camera File system

๐Ÿ”— Computing ๐Ÿ”— Photography ๐Ÿ”— Computer graphics

Design rule for Camera File system (DCF) is a JEITA specification (number CP-3461) which defines a file system for digital cameras, including the directory structure, file naming method, character set, file format, and metadata format. It is currently the de facto industry standard for digital still cameras. The file format of DCF conforms to the Exif specification, but the DCF specification also allows use of any other file formats.

The latest version of the standard is 2.0 (2010 edition).

๐Ÿ”— BB84 โ€“ A quantum key distribution scheme

๐Ÿ”— Cryptography ๐Ÿ”— Cryptography/Computer science

BB84 is a quantum key distribution scheme developed by Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard in 1984. It is the first quantum cryptography protocol. The protocol is provably secure, relying on the quantum property that information gain is only possible at the expense of disturbing the signal if the two states one is trying to distinguish are not orthogonal (see no-cloning theorem) and an authenticated public classical channel. It is usually explained as a method of securely communicating a private key from one party to another for use in one-time pad encryption.

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๐Ÿ”— Project Coldfeet

๐Ÿ”— United States/U.S. Government ๐Ÿ”— United States

Project COLDFEET was a 1962 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation to extract intelligence from an abandoned Soviet Arctic drifting ice station. Due to the nature of its abandonment as the result of unstable ice, the retrieval of the operatives used the Fulton surface-to-air recovery system.

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