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π Precariat
In sociology and economics, the precariat () is a social class formed by people suffering from precarity, which means existing without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. The term is a portmanteau merging precarious with proletariat.
Unlike the proletariat class of industrial workers in the 20th century who lacked their own means of production and hence sold their labor to live, members of the precariat are only partially involved in labor and must undertake extensive unremunerated activities that are essential if they are to retain access to jobs and to decent earnings. Classic examples of such unpaid activities include continually having to search for work (including preparing for and attending job interviews), as well as being expected to be perpetually responsive to calls for "gig" work (yet without being paid an actual wage for being "on call").
The hallmark of the precariat class is the condition of lack of job security, including intermittent employment or underemployment and the resultant precarious existence. The emergence of this class has been ascribed to the entrenchment of neoliberal capitalism.
Discussed on
- "Precariat" | 2025-08-12 | 11 Upvotes 1 Comments
π Swiss Railway Clock
The Swiss railway clock was designed in 1944 by Hans Hilfiker, a Swiss engineer and Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) employee, together with Moser-Baer, a Swiss clock manufacturer, for use by the SBB as a station clock. In 1953, Hilfiker added a red second hand in the shape of the baton used by train dispatch staff., giving the clock its current appearance.
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- "Swiss Railway Clock" | 2023-01-16 | 10 Upvotes 4 Comments
π Amiga Unix
Amiga Unix (informally known as Amix) is a discontinued full port of AT&T Unix System V Release 4 operating system developed by Commodore-Amiga, Inc. in 1990 for the Amiga computer family as an alternative to AmigaOS, which shipped by default. Bundled with the Amiga 3000UX, Commodore's Unix was one of the first ports of SVR4 to the 68k architecture. The Amiga A3000UX model even got the attention of Sun Microsystems, though ultimately nothing came of it.
Unlike Apple's A/UX, Amiga Unix contained no compatibility layer to allow AmigaOS applications to run under Unix. With few native applications available to take advantage of the Amiga's significant multimedia capabilities, it failed to find a niche in the quite-competitive Unix workstation market of the early 1990s. The A3000UX's price tag of $4,998 (equivalent to $9,382 in 2019) was also not very attractive compared to other Unix workstations at the time, such as the NeXTstation ($5,000 for a base system, with a full API and many times the number of applications available), the SGI Indigo (starting at $8,000), or the Personal DECstation 5000 Model 25 (starting at $5,000). Sun, HP, and IBM had similarly priced systems. The A3000UX's 68030 was noticeably underpowered compared to most of its RISC-based competitors.
Unlike typical commercial Unix distributions of the time, Amiga Unix included the source code to the vendor-specific enhancements and platform-dependent device drivers (essentially any part that wasn't owned by AT&T), allowing interested users to study or enhance those parts of the system. However this source code was subject to the same license terms as the binary part of the systemΒ β it was not free software. Amiga Unix also incorporated and depended upon many open source components, such as the GNU C Compiler and X Window System, and included their source code.
Like many other proprietary Unix variants with small market shares, Amiga Unix vanished into the mists of computer history when its vendor, Commodore, went out of business. Today, Unix-like operating systems such as Minix, NetBSD, and Linux are available for the Amiga platform.
Discussed on
- "Amiga Unix" | 2013-06-23 | 10 Upvotes 1 Comments
π The Myth of Mental Illness
The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct is a 1961 book by the psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, in which the author criticizes psychiatry and argues against the concept of mental illness. It received much publicity, and has become a classic, well known as an argument that "mentally ill" is a label which psychiatrists have used against people "disabled by living" rather than truly having a disease.
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- "The Myth of Mental Illness" | 2021-10-28 | 14 Upvotes 4 Comments
π List of OECD countries by hospital beds
This is a list of countries by hospital beds per 1000 or 100,000 people, as published by the local governments, international organisation (OECD, E.U.), academic sources or others. The number of beds per people is an important indicator of the health care system of a country. The basic measure focus on all hospital beds, which are variously split and occupied. The classic hospital beds are also called curative beds. For severe patients with risk of organ(s) failure, patients are provided intensive care unit beds (aka ICU bed) or critical care beds (CCB).
Among OECD countries, curative beds' occupancy rate average was 75%, from 94.9% (Ireland) to 61.6% (Greece), with half of the OECD's nation between 70% and 80%.
In 2009, European nations, most of them also part of OECD, had an aggregated total of 2,070,000 acute beds and 73,585 (2.8%) critical care beds (CCB) or 11.5CCB/100,000 inhabitants. Germany had 29.2, Portugal 4.2.Aging population leads to increased demand for CCB and difficulties to satisfy it, while both quantity of CCB and availability are poorly documented.
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- "List of OECD countries by hospital beds" | 2020-03-10 | 33 Upvotes 11 Comments
π BoseβEinstein Condensate
A BoseβEinstein condensate (BEC) is a state of matter (also called the fifth state of matter) which is typically formed when a gas of bosons at low densities is cooled to temperatures very close to absolute zero (-273.15Β Β°C). Under such conditions, a large fraction of bosons occupy the lowest quantum state, at which point microscopic quantum phenomena, particularly wavefunction interference, become apparent macroscopically. A BEC is formed by cooling a gas of extremely low density, about one-hundred-thousandth (1/100,000) the density of normal air, to ultra-low temperatures.
This state was first predicted, generally, in 1924β1925 by Albert Einstein following a paper written by Satyendra Nath Bose, although Bose came up with the pioneering paper on the new statistics.
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- "BoseβEinstein Condensate" | 2020-02-05 | 58 Upvotes 20 Comments
π Lowest temperature recorded on Earth
The lowest natural temperature ever directly recorded at ground level on Earth is β89.2Β Β°C (β128.6Β Β°F; 184.0Β K) at the Soviet Vostok Station in Antarctica on 21 July 1983 by ground measurements.
On 10 August 2010, satellite observations showed a surface temperature of β93.2Β Β°C (β135.8Β Β°F; 180.0Β K) at 81.8Β°S 59.3Β°Eο»Ώ / -81.8; 59.3, along a ridge between Dome Argus and Dome Fuji, at 3,900Β m (12,800Β ft) elevation. The result was reported at the 46th annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco in December 2013; it is a provisional figure, and may be subject to revision. The value is not listed as the record lowest temperature as it was measured by remote sensing from satellite and not by ground-based thermometers, unlike the 1983 record. The temperature announced reflects that of the ice surface, while the Vostok readings measured the air above the ice, and so the two are not directly comparable. More recent work shows many locations in the high Antarctic where surface temperatures drop to approximately β98Β Β°C (β144Β Β°F; 175Β K). Due to the very strong temperature gradient near the surface, these imply near-surface air temperature minima of approximately β94Β Β°C (β137Β Β°F; 179Β K).
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- "Lowest temperature recorded on Earth" | 2016-01-06 | 28 Upvotes 11 Comments
π Operation Epsilon
Operation Epsilon was the codename of a program in which Allied forces near the end of World War II detained ten German scientists who were thought to have worked on Nazi Germany's nuclear program. The scientists were captured between May 1 and June 30, 1945, as part of the Allied Alsos Mission, mainly as part of its Operation Big sweep through southwestern Germany.
They were interned at Farm Hall, a bugged house in Godmanchester, near Cambridge, England, from July 3, 1945, to January 3, 1946. The primary goal of the program was to determine how close Nazi Germany had been to constructing an atomic bomb by listening to their conversations.
Discussed on
- "Operation Epsilon" | 2023-05-08 | 61 Upvotes 10 Comments
π William of Rubruck
William of Rubruck (Dutch: Willem van Rubroeck, Latin: Gulielmus de Rubruquis; fl.β1248β1255) was a Flemish Franciscan missionary and explorer.
He is best known for his travels to various parts of the Middle East and Central Asia in the 13th century, including the Mongol Empire. His account of his travels is one of the masterpieces of medieval travel literature, comparable to those of Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta.
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- "William of Rubruck" | 2022-06-29 | 75 Upvotes 13 Comments
π Poppy Seed Defence
The poppy seed defence is a commonly cited reason to avoid any sanction for failing a drug test. The defence asserts that a suspect's positive result was a result of the person having consumed poppy seeds prior to taking the test. It has been recognised in medical and legal fields as a valid defence.