Random Articles (Page 4)
Have a deep view into what people are curious about.
π The Johari Window
The Johari window is a technique designed to help people better understand their relationship with themselves and others. It was created by psychologists Joseph Luft (1916β2014) and Harrington Ingham (1916β1995) in 1955, and is used primarily in self-help groups and corporate settings as a heuristic exercise. Luft and Ingham named their model "Johari" using a combination of their first names.
Discussed on
- "The Johari Window" | 2023-05-29 | 126 Upvotes 13 Comments
π Ulam Spiral
The Ulam spiral or prime spiral is a graphical depiction of the set of prime numbers, devised by mathematician StanisΕaw Ulam in 1963 and popularized in Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games column in Scientific American a short time later. It is constructed by writing the positive integers in a square spiral and specially marking the prime numbers.
Ulam and Gardner emphasized the striking appearance in the spiral of prominent diagonal, horizontal, and vertical lines containing large numbers of primes. Both Ulam and Gardner noted that the existence of such prominent lines is not unexpected, as lines in the spiral correspond to quadratic polynomials, and certain such polynomials, such as Euler's prime-generating polynomial x2βββxβ+β41, are believed to produce a high density of prime numbers. Nevertheless, the Ulam spiral is connected with major unsolved problems in number theory such as Landau's problems. In particular, no quadratic polynomial has ever been proved to generate infinitely many primes, much less to have a high asymptotic density of them, although there is a well-supported conjecture as to what that asymptotic density should be.
In 1932, more than thirty years prior to Ulam's discovery, the herpetologist Laurence Klauber constructed a triangular, non-spiral array containing vertical and diagonal lines exhibiting a similar concentration of prime numbers. Like Ulam, Klauber noted the connection with prime-generating polynomials, such as Euler's.
Discussed on
- "Ulam Spiral" | 2021-08-06 | 64 Upvotes 19 Comments
- "Ulam Spiral" | 2016-06-06 | 71 Upvotes 13 Comments
- "Ulam spiral" | 2013-11-09 | 90 Upvotes 27 Comments
π An Automat is a fast food restaurant where foods and drink are served by vending machines.
An automat is a fast food restaurant where simple foods and drink are served by vending machines. The world's first automat was named Quisisana, which opened in Berlin, Germany in 1895.
Discussed on
- "An Automat is a fast food restaurant where foods and drink are served by vending machines." | 2008-09-27 | 7 Upvotes 14 Comments
π Unionization in the Tech Sector
A tech union is a trade union for tech workers typically employed in high tech or information and communications technology sectors. Due to the evolving nature of technology and work, different government agencies have conflicting definitions for who is a tech worker. Most definitions include computer scientists, people working in IT, telecommunications, media and video gaming. Broader definitions include all workers required for a tech company to operate, including on-site service staff, contractors, and platform economy workers.
Discussed on
- "Unionization in the Tech Sector" | 2024-03-03 | 13 Upvotes 2 Comments
π Project Coldfeet
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.
Discussed on
- "Project Coldfeet" | 2020-03-09 | 122 Upvotes 29 Comments
π Chladni Figures
Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni (German: [ΛΙΚnst ΛfloΛΚΙns ΛfΚiΛdΚΙͺΓ§ ΛkladnΙͺ]; 30 November 1756Β β 3 April 1827) was a German physicist and musician. His most important work, for which he is sometimes labeled the father of acoustics, included research on vibrating plates and the calculation of the speed of sound for different gases. He also undertook pioneering work in the study of meteorites and is regarded by some as the father of meteoritics.
Discussed on
- "Chladni Figures" | 2018-07-24 | 41 Upvotes 9 Comments
π FUTON bias
FUTON bias (acronym for "full text on the Net") is a tendency of scholars to cite academic journals with open accessβthat is, journals that make their full text available on the Internet without chargeβin preference to toll-access publications. Scholars in some fields can more easily discover and access articles whose full text is available online, which increases authors' likelihood of reading and citing these articles, an issue that was first raised and has been mainly studied in connection with medical research. In the context of evidence-based medicine, articles in expensive journals that do not provide open access (OA) may be "priced out of evidence", giving a greater weight to FUTON publications. FUTON bias may increase the impact factor of open-access journals relative to journals without open access.
One study concluded that authors in medical fields "concentrate on research published in journals that are available as full text on the internet, and ignore relevant studies that are not available in full text, thus introducing an element of bias into their search result". Authors of another study conclude that "the OA advantage is a quality advantage, rather than a quality bias", that authors make a "self-selection toward using and citing the more citable articlesβonce OA self-archiving has made them accessible", and that open access "itself will not make an unusable (hence uncitable) paper more used and cited".
The related no abstract available bias is a scholar's tendency to cite journal articles that have an abstract available online more readily than articles that do notβthis affects articles' citation count similarly to FUTON bias.
Discussed on
- "FUTON bias" | 2013-05-28 | 13 Upvotes 2 Comments
π Berlin Gold Hat
The Berlin Gold Hat or Berlin Golden Hat (German: Berliner Goldhut) is a Late Bronze Age artefact made of thin gold leaf. It served as the external covering on a long conical brimmed headdress, probably of an organic material. It is now in the Neues Museum on Museum Island in Berlin, in a room by itself with an elaborate explanatory display.
The Berlin Gold Hat is the best preserved specimen among the four known conical golden hats known from Bronze Age Europe so far. Of the three others, two were found in southern Germany, and one in the west of France. All were found in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is generally assumed that the hats served as the insignia of deities or priests in the context of a sun cult that appears to have been widespread in Central Europe at the time. The hats are also suggested to have served astronomical/calendrical functions.
The Berlin Gold Hat was acquired in 1996 by the Berlin Museum fΓΌr Vor- und FrΓΌhgeschichte as a single find without provenance. A comparative study of the ornaments and techniques in conjunction with dateable finds suggests that it was made in the Late Bronze Age, circa 1,000 to 800 BC.
Discussed on
- "Berlin Gold Hat" | 2020-06-19 | 87 Upvotes 57 Comments
π Zoopharmacognosy
Zoopharmacognosy is a behaviour in which non-human animals apparently self-medicate by selecting and ingesting or topically applying plants, soils, insects, and psychoactive drugs to prevent or reduce the harmful effects of pathogens and toxins. The term derives from Greek roots zoo ("animal"), pharmacon ("drug, medicine"), and gnosy ("knowing").
An example of zoopharmacognosy occurs when dogs eat grass to induce vomiting. However, the behaviour is more diverse than this. Animals ingest or apply non-foods such as clay, charcoal and even toxic plants and invertebrates, apparently to prevent parasitic infestation or poisoning.
Whether animals truly self-medicate remains a somewhat controversial subject because early evidence is mostly circumstantial or anecdotal, however, more recent examinations have adopted an experimental, hypothesis-driven approach.
The methods by which animals self-medicate vary, but can be classified according to function as prophylactic (preventative, before infection or poisoning) or therapeutic (after infection, to combat the pathogen or poisoning). The behaviour is believed to have widespread adaptive significance.
Discussed on
- "Zoopharmacognosy" | 2014-08-07 | 32 Upvotes 6 Comments
π Valeriepieris Circle
The Valeriepieris circle is a South China Sea-centered circular region on the world map that is about 4,000 kilometers (2,500Β mi) in radius and contains more than half the worldβs population. It was named after the Reddit username of Ken Myers, a Texas ESL teacher who first drew attention to the phenomenon in 2013. The map became a meme and was featured in numerous forms of media.
In 2015, the circle was tested by Danny Quah, who verified the claim but moved the circle slightly to exclude most of Japan, and used a globe model rather than a map projection as well as more specific calculations. He calculated that, as of 2015, half of the world's population lived within a 3,300-kilometer (2,050Β mi) radius of the city of Mong Khet in Myanmar.
The most common visual of the circle, originally used by Myers and also featured by io9 and Tech in Asia, used the Winkel tripel projection.