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🔗 Shakespeare

The Shakespeare Programming Language (SPL) is an esoteric programming language designed by Jon Åslund and Karl Hasselström. Like the Chef programming language, it is designed to make programs appear to be something other than programs; in this case, Shakespearean plays.

A character list in the beginning of the program declares a number of stacks, naturally with names like "Romeo" and "Juliet". These characters enter into dialogue with each other in which they manipulate each other's topmost values, push and pop each other, and do I/O. The characters can also ask each other questions which behave as conditional statements. On the whole, the programming model is very similar to assembly language but much more verbose.

🔗 Physics 🔗 Measurement

In particle physics and physical cosmology, Planck units are a system of units of measurement defined exclusively in terms of four universal physical constants: c, G, ħ, and k_B. Expressing one of these physical constants in terms of Planck units yields a numerical value of 1. They are a system of natural units, defined using fundamental properties of nature (specifically, properties of free space) rather than properties of a chosen prototype object. Originally proposed in 1899 by German physicist Max Planck, they are relevant in research on unified theories such as quantum gravity.

The term Planck scale refers to quantities of space, time, energy and other units that are similar in magnitude to corresponding Planck units. This region may be characterized by particle energies of around 10¹⁹ GeV or 10⁹ J, time intervals of around 10⁻⁴³ s and lengths of around 10⁻³⁵ m (approximately the energy-equivalent of the Planck mass, the Planck time and the Planck length, respectively). At the Planck scale, the predictions of the Standard Model, quantum field theory and general relativity are not expected to apply, and quantum effects of gravity are expected to dominate. One example is represented by the conditions in the first 10⁻⁴³ seconds of our universe after the Big Bang, approximately 13.8 billion years ago.

The four universal constants that, by definition, have a numerical value 1 when expressed in these units are:

• c, the speed of light in vacuum,
• G, the gravitational constant,
• ħ, the reduced Planck constant, and
• k_B, the Boltzmann constant.

Variants of the basic idea of Planck units exist, such as alternate choices of normalization that give other numerical values to one or more of the four constants above.

🔗 Books 🔗 Automobiles

Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile is a non-fiction book by consumer advocate Ralph Nader, first published in 1965. Its central theme is that car manufacturers resisted the introduction of safety features (such as seat belts), and that they were generally reluctant to spend money on improving safety. This work contains substantial references and material from industry insiders. It was a best seller in non-fiction in 1966.

🔗 Mathematics

In topology, the long line (or Alexandroff line) is a topological space somewhat similar to the real line, but in a certain way "longer". It behaves locally just like the real line, but has different large-scale properties (e.g., it is neither Lindelöf nor separable). Therefore, it serves as one of the basic counterexamples of topology. Intuitively, the usual real-number line consists of a countable number of line segments [0, 1) laid end-to-end, whereas the long line is constructed from an uncountable number of such segments.