Random Articles (Page 4)
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π Siteswap
Siteswap is a numeric juggling notation used to describe or represent juggling patterns. It is also referred to as Quantum Juggling, or The Cambridge Notation. Siteswap may also be used to describe siteswap patterns, possible patterns transcribed using siteswap. Throws are represented by positive integers that specify the number of beats in the future when the object is thrown again: "The idea behind siteswap is to keep track of the order that balls are thrown and caught, and only that." It is an invaluable tool in determining which combinations of throws yield valid juggling patterns for a given number of objects, and has led to previously unknown patterns (such as 441). However, it does not describe body movements such as behind-the-back and under-the-leg. Siteswap assumes that, "throws happen on beats that are equally spaced in time."
For example, a three-ball cascade may be notated "3 ", while a shower may be notated "5 1".
Discussed on
- "Siteswap" | 2020-12-02 | 110 Upvotes 39 Comments
π The oldest, continuously running, independent business in the world?
KongΕ Gumi Co., Ltd. (ζ ͺεΌδΌη€Ύιεη΅, Kabushiki Gaisha KongΕ Gumi) is a Japanese construction company which was the world's oldest continuously ongoing independent company, operating for over 1,400 years. In January 2006, it became a subsidiary of Takamatsu.
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- "The oldest, continuously running, independent business in the world?" | 2010-06-15 | 83 Upvotes 33 Comments
π Cassowary
Casuarius is a genus of birds in the order Casuariiformes, whose members are the cassowaries (Tok Pisin: muruk, Indonesian: kasuari). It is classified as a ratite (flightless bird without a keel on its sternum bone) and is native to the tropical forests of New Guinea (Papua New Guinea and East Indonesia), Aru Islands (Maluku), and northeastern Australia.
Three species are extant: The most common, the southern cassowary, is the third-tallest and second-heaviest living bird, smaller only than the ostrich and emu. The other two species are represented by the northern cassowary and the dwarf cassowary; the northern cassowary is the most recently discovered and the most threatened. A fourth but extinct species is represented by the pygmy cassowary.
Cassowaries feed mainly on fruit, although all species are truly omnivorous and take a range of other plant foods, including shoots and grass seeds, in addition to fungi, invertebrates, and small vertebrates. Cassowaries are very wary of humans, but if provoked, they are capable of inflicting serious, even fatal, injuries to both dogs and people. The cassowary has often been labeled "the world's most dangerous bird".
Discussed on
- "Cassowary" | 2022-09-20 | 17 Upvotes 13 Comments
π Von Neumann Universal Constructor
John von Neumann's universal constructor is a self-replicating machine in a cellular automata (CA) environment. It was designed in the 1940s, without the use of a computer. The fundamental details of the machine were published in von Neumann's book Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata, completed in 1966 by Arthur W. Burks after von Neumann's death.
Von Neumann's goal was to specify an abstract machine which, when run, would replicate itself. In his design, the machine consists of three parts: a 'blueprint' for itself, a mechanism that can read any blueprint and construct the machine (sans blueprint) specified by that blueprint, and a 'copy machine' that can make copies of any blueprint. After the mechanism has been used to construct the machine specified by the blueprint, the copy machine is used to create a copy of that blueprint, and this copy is placed into the new machine, resulting in a working replication of the original machine. Some machines will do this backwards, copying the blueprint and then building a machine.
To define his machine in more detail, von Neumann invented the concept of a cellular automaton. The one he used consists of a two-dimensional grid of cells, each of which can be in one of 29 states at any point in time. At each timestep, each cell updates its state depending on the states of the surrounding cells at the prior timestep. The rules governing these updates are identical for all cells.
The universal constructor is a certain pattern of cell states in this cellular automaton. It contains one line of cells that serve as a 'tape', encoding a sequence of instructions that serve as a 'blueprint' for the machine. The machine reads these instructions one by one and performs the corresponding actions. The instructions direct the machine to use its 'construction arm' to build a copy of the machine, without tape, at some other location in the cell grid. The tape can't contain instructions to build an equally long tape, just as a container can't contain a container of the same size. Therefore, the machine contains a separate 'copy machine' which reads the tape and places a copy into the newly constructed machine. The resulting new machine and tape is identical to the old one, and it proceeds to replicate again.
Discussed on
- "Von Neumann Universal Constructor" | 2020-03-30 | 90 Upvotes 29 Comments
π Beverly Clock
The Beverly Clock is a clock situated in the 3rd floor lift foyer of the Department of Physics at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. The clock is still running despite never having been manually wound since its construction in 1864 by Arthur Beverly.
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- "Beverly Clock" | 2024-01-22 | 29 Upvotes 7 Comments
- "The Beverly Clock" | 2021-12-27 | 177 Upvotes 49 Comments
- "Beverly Clock" | 2018-02-20 | 289 Upvotes 53 Comments
π Xv6
xv6 is a modern reimplementation of Sixth Edition Unix in ANSI C for multiprocessor x86 and RISC-V systems. It is used for pedagogical purposes in MIT's Operating Systems Engineering (6.828) course as well as Georgia Tech's (CS 3210) Design of Operating Systems Course, IIIT Hyderabad, IIIT Delhi and as well as many other institutions.
Discussed on
- "Xv6" | 2015-11-14 | 350 Upvotes 47 Comments
π Bidet Shower β Hand Bidet, Commode/Toilet/Bum Shower, Health Faucet, Bum Gun
A bidet showerβalso known as a handheld bidet, commode shower, toilet shower, health faucet, bum shower, shatafa (from the Arabic: Ψ΄ΩΨ·ΩΩΨ§ΩΩΨ© [ΚΙtΛ€ΛtΛ€ΙΛfΙ], "rinser") or bum gunβis a hand-held triggered nozzle that is placed near the toilet and delivers a spray of water used for anal cleansing and cleaning of the genitals after using the toilet for defecation and urination, popularised by Arab nations where the bidet shower is a common bathroom accessory. The device is similar to that of a kitchen sink sprayer.
In predominantly Catholic countries, the Muslim world, in the Eastern Orthodox and Hindu cultures, and in some Protestant countries such as Finland, water is usually used for anal cleansing, using a jet (bidet shower, bidet) or vessel, and a person's hand (in some places only the left hand is used).
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- "Bidet Shower β Hand Bidet, Commode/Toilet/Bum Shower, Health Faucet, Bum Gun" | 2023-07-24 | 22 Upvotes 24 Comments
π Zip Bomb
A zip bomb, also known as a zip of death or decompression bomb, is a malicious archive file designed to crash or render useless the program or system reading it. It is often employed to disable antivirus software, in order to create an opening for more traditional viruses.
Rather than hijacking the normal operation of the program, a zip bomb allows the program to work as intended, but the archive is carefully crafted so that unpacking it (e.g. by a virus scanner in order to scan for viruses) requires inordinate amounts of time, disk space or memory.
Most modern antivirus programs can detect whether a file is a zip bomb, to avoid unpacking it.
Discussed on
- "Zip Bomb" | 2012-10-05 | 342 Upvotes 108 Comments
π User: Junnn11
Arthropod enthusiast, mainly focus on Panarthropod head problem, phylogeny across arthropod subphyla and stem lineage, basal chelicerates, dinocaridids and lobopodians. Sometime drawing stuff, not so well in english, mainly active at Japanese Wikipedia.
Japanese: ε©η¨θ :Junnn11
Commons: User:Junnn11
Twitter: ni075
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- "User: Junnn11" | 2023-04-19 | 747 Upvotes 101 Comments
π Exorbitant Privilege
The term exorbitant privilege (privilège exorbitant in French) refers to the benefits the United States has due to its own currency (the US dollar) being the international reserve currency. For example, the US would not face a balance of payments crisis, because their imports are purchased in their own currency. Exorbitant privilege as a concept cannot refer to currencies that have a regional reserve currency role, only to global reserve currencies.
Academically, the exorbitant privilege literature analyzes two empirical puzzles, the position puzzle and the income puzzle. The position puzzle refers to the difference between the (negative) U.S. net international investment position (NIIP) and the accumulated U.S. current account deficits, the former being much smaller than the latter. The income puzzle is that despite a deeply negative NIIP, the U.S. income balance is positive, i.e. despite having much more liabilities than assets, earned income is higher than interest expenses.
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- "Exorbitant Privilege" | 2025-03-30 | 42 Upvotes 4 Comments