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🔗 Statistics

The bean machine, also known as the Galton Board or quincunx, is a device invented by Sir Francis Galton to demonstrate the central limit theorem, in particular that with sufficient sample size the binomial distribution approximates a normal distribution. Among its applications, it afforded insight into regression to the mean or "regression to mediocrity".

🔗 Languages 🔗 Melanesia 🔗 Melanesia/Papua New Guinea

Manam is a Kairiru–Manam language spoken mainly on the volcanic Manam Island, northeast of New Guinea.

🔗 Video games

The Interton Video Computer 4000 (officially abbreviated as Interton VC 4000) is an 8-bit ROM cartridge-based second-generation home video game console that was released in Germany, England, France, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands and Australia in 1978 by German hearing aid manufacturer Interton. The console is quite obscure outside Germany, but many software-compatible systems can be found in numerous European countries (see versions of the 1292 Advanced Programmable Video System). The console is the successor of the Interton Video 3001 and was sold for 298DM and discontinued in 1983.

It is unknown if Interton designed and produced the Interton VC 4000 within their own rights, or if they were sold the rights to design and produce it. This is because many other foreign brands have produced "clones" of this system in the preceding years.

The Interton VC 4000's power comes from a Signetics 2650 CPU (which is the same as an Arcadia 2001) and a Signetics 2636 gaming video controller. Both controllers contain a 12-button keypad, two fire buttons, and a joystick. Inside the systems control panel, there are four different buttons: the ON/OFF switch, RESET, SELECT, and START.

🔗 United States 🔗 International relations 🔗 Russia 🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/North American military history 🔗 Military history/United States military history 🔗 United States/Military history - U.S. military history 🔗 Korea 🔗 Women's History 🔗 Sexology and sexuality 🔗 Military history/Asian military history 🔗 Organized crime 🔗 Gender Studies 🔗 Feminism 🔗 Sexology and sexuality/Sex work 🔗 Tambayan Philippines 🔗 Military history/Korean military history

During and following the Korean War, the United States military used regulated prostitution services in South Korean military camptowns. Despite prostitution being illegal since 1948, women in South Korea were the fundamental source of sex services for the U.S. military as well as a component of American and Korean relations. The women in South Korea who served as prostitutes are known as kijichon (기지촌) women, also called as "Korean Military Comfort Women", and were visited by the U.S. military, Korean soldiers and Korean civilians. Kijich'on women were from Korea, Philippines, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Indonesia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, specifically Russia and Kazakhstan.

🔗 Computing

Constraint programming (CP) is a paradigm for solving combinatorial problems that draws on a wide range of techniques from artificial intelligence, computer science, and operations research. In constraint programming, users declaratively state the constraints on the feasible solutions for a set of decision variables. Constraints differ from the common primitives of imperative programming languages in that they do not specify a step or sequence of steps to execute, but rather the properties of a solution to be found. In addition to constraints, users also need to specify a method to solve these constraints. This typically draws upon standard methods like chronological backtracking and constraint propagation, but may use customized code like a problem specific branching heuristic.

Constraint programming takes its root from and can be expressed in the form of constraint logic programming, which embeds constraints into a logic program. This variant of logic programming is due to Jaffar and Lassez, who extended in 1987 a specific class of constraints that were introduced in Prolog II. The first implementations of constraint logic programming were Prolog III, CLP(R), and CHIP.

Instead of logic programming, constraints can be mixed with functional programming, term rewriting, and imperative languages. Programming languages with built-in support for constraints include Oz (functional programming) and Kaleidoscope (imperative programming). Mostly, constraints are implemented in imperative languages via constraint solving toolkits, which are separate libraries for an existing imperative language.

🔗 Computing 🔗 Computing/Software

Dhrystone is a synthetic computing benchmark program developed in 1984 by Reinhold P. Weicker intended to be representative of system (integer) programming. The Dhrystone grew to become representative of general processor (CPU) performance. The name "Dhrystone" is a pun on a different benchmark algorithm called Whetstone, which emphasizes floating point performance.

With Dhrystone, Weicker gathered meta-data from a broad range of software, including programs written in FORTRAN, PL/1, SAL, ALGOL 68, and Pascal. He then characterized these programs in terms of various common constructs: procedure calls, pointer indirections, assignments, etc. From this he wrote the Dhrystone benchmark to correspond to a representative mix. Dhrystone was published in Ada, with the C version for Unix developed by Rick Richardson ("version 1.1") greatly contributing to its popularity.

🔗 Philosophy 🔗 Philosophy/Philosophy of religion

The self-referencing doomsday argument rebuttal is an attempt to refute the doomsday argument (that there is a credible link between the brevity of the human race's existence and its expected extinction) by applying the same reasoning to the lifetime of the doomsday argument itself.

The first researchers to write about this were P. T. Landsberg and J. N. Dewynne in 1997; they applied belief in the doomsday argument to itself, and claimed that a paradox results.

🔗 Biography

Jonathan Gillette, known by the pseudonym why the lucky stiff (often abbreviated as _why), is a writer, cartoonist, artist, and programmer notable for his work with the Ruby programming language. Annie Lowrey described him as "one of the most unusual, and beloved, computer programmers" in the world. Along with Yukihiro Matsumoto and David Heinemeier Hansson, he was seen as one of the key figures in the Ruby community.

_why made a presentation enigmatically titled "A Starry Afternoon, a Sinking Symphony, and the Polo Champ Who Gave It All Up for No Reason Whatsoever" at the 2005 O'Reilly Open Source Convention. It explored how to teach programming and make the subject more appealing to adolescents. _why gave a presentation and performed with his band, the Thirsty Cups, at RailsConf in 2006.

On 19 August 2009, _why's accounts on Twitter and GitHub and his personally maintained websites went offline. Shortly before he disappeared, why the lucky stiff tweeted, "programming is rather thankless. u see your works become replaced by superior ones in a year. unable to run at all in a few more."

_why's colleagues have assembled collections of his writings and projects.

Later his website briefly went back online with a detailed explanation of his plans for the future.

🔗 Technology 🔗 Physics 🔗 Color 🔗 Chemistry 🔗 Science

Vantablack is a material developed by Surrey NanoSystems in the United Kingdom and is one of the darkest substances known, absorbing up to 99.965% of visible light (at 663 nm if the light is perpendicular to the material).

The name is a compound of the acronym VANTA (vertically aligned nanotube arrays) and the color black.

🔗 United States 🔗 Companies 🔗 Finance & Investment 🔗 United States/North Dakota

The Bank of North Dakota (BND) is a state-owned, state-run financial institution based in Bismarck, North Dakota. It is the only government-owned general-service bank in the United States. It is the legal depository for all state funds in North Dakota, and uses these deposits to fund development, agriculture, and small businesses.

The bank was established in the early 20th century to promote agriculture, commerce, and industry in the state. It has received praise and media attention in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007–2008. and for their actions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to available data, the bank has turned a profit every year since its founding. The BND has a favorable reputation among North Dakotans. Other states have tried to replicate the BND elsewhere, but have been limited by political gridlock and the power dynamics in banking.