Random Articles (Page 5)

Have a deep view into what people are curious about.

๐Ÿ”— Rhumb Line

๐Ÿ”— Maps ๐Ÿ”— Sailing

In navigation, a rhumb line, rhumb (), or loxodrome is an arc crossing all meridians of longitude at the same angle, that is, a path with constant bearing as measured relative to true north.

Discussed on

๐Ÿ”— Ur

๐Ÿ”— Ancient Near East ๐Ÿ”— Bible ๐Ÿ”— Iraq ๐Ÿ”— Archaeology ๐Ÿ”— Cities

Ur was an important Sumerian city-state in ancient Mesopotamia, located at the site of modern Tell el-Muqayyar (Arabic: ุชู„ ูฑู„ู’ู…ูู‚ูŽูŠูŽู‘ุฑ) in south Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate. Although Ur was once a coastal city near the mouth of the Euphrates on the Persian Gulf, the coastline has shifted and the city is now well inland, on the south bank of the Euphrates, 16 kilometres (9.9 miles) from Nasiriyah in modern-day Iraq. The city dates from the Ubaid period circa 3800ย BC, and is recorded in written history as a city-state from the 26th century BC, its first recorded king being Mesannepada.

The city's patron deity was Nanna (in Akkadian, Sin), the Sumerian and Akkadian moon god, and the name of the city is in origin derived from the god's name, UNUGKI, literally "the abode (UNUG) of Nanna". The site is marked by the partially restored ruins of the Ziggurat of Ur, which contained the shrine of Nanna, excavated in the 1930s. The temple was built in the 21st century BC (short chronology), during the reign of Ur-Nammu and was reconstructed in the 6th century BC by Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon. The ruins cover an area of 1,200 metres (3,900ย ft) northwest to southeast by 800 metres (2,600ย ft) northeast to southwest and rise up to about 20 metres (66ย ft) above the present plain level.

Discussed on

  • "Ur" | 2022-11-12 | 509 Upvotes 103 Comments

๐Ÿ”— The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

๐Ÿ”— Typography

"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is an English-language pangramโ€”a sentence that contains all of the letters of the alphabet. It is commonly used for touch-typing practice, testing typewriters and computer keyboards, displaying examples of fonts, and other applications involving text where the use of all letters in the alphabet is desired. Owing to its brevity and coherence, it has become widely known.

Discussed on

๐Ÿ”— Eltanin Antenna

๐Ÿ”— Paranormal

The Eltanin Antenna is an object photographed on the sea floor by the Antarctic oceanographic research ship USNS Eltanin in 1964, while photographing the sea bottom west of Cape Horn.

Due to its regular antenna-like structure and upright position on the seafloor at a depth of 3,904 metres (12,808ย ft), some proponents of fringe and UFO-related theories including Bruce Cathie have suggested that it might be an extraterrestrial artifact. Other authorities have suggested that the object photographed by the Eltanin was an unusual carnivorous sponge, Chondrocladia concrescens (formerly Cladorhiza concrescens).

Discussed on

๐Ÿ”— Lockout-Tagout

๐Ÿ”— Occupational Safety and Health

Lock Out, Tag Out (LOTO), Lock Out, Tag Out, Try Out (LOTOTO) or lock and tag is a safety procedure used in industry and research settings to ensure that dangerous machines are properly shut off and not able to be started up again prior to the completion of maintenance or repair work. It requires that hazardous energy sources be "isolated and rendered inoperative" before work is started on the equipment in question. The isolated power sources are then locked and a tag is placed on the lock identifying the worker who placed it. The worker then holds the key for the lock, ensuring that only he or she can remove the lock and start the machine. This prevents accidental startup of a machine while it is in a hazardous state or while a worker is in direct contact with it.

Lockout-tagout is used across industries as a safe method of working on hazardous equipment and is mandated by law in some countries.

Discussed on

๐Ÿ”— Kirkbride Plan

๐Ÿ”— Architecture ๐Ÿ”— Psychology ๐Ÿ”— Sociology ๐Ÿ”— Correction and Detention Facilities ๐Ÿ”— Urban studies and planning ๐Ÿ”— Hospitals

The Kirkbride Plan was a system of mental asylum design advocated by American psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride (1809โ€“1883) in the mid-19th century. The asylums built in the Kirkbride design, often referred to as Kirkbride Buildings (or simply Kirkbrides), were constructed during the mid-to-late-19th century in the United States. The structural features of the hospitals as designated by Kirkbride were contingent on his theories regarding the healing of the mentally ill, in which environment and exposure to natural light and air circulation were crucial. The hospitals built according to the Kirkbride Plan would adopt various architectural styles, but had in common the "bat wing" style floor plan, housing numerous wings that sprawl outward from the center.

The first hospital designed under the Kirkbride Plan was the Trenton State Hospital in Trenton, New Jersey, constructed in 1848. Throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century, numerous psychiatric hospitals were designed under the Kirkbride Plan across the United States. By the twentieth century, popularity of the design had waned, largely due to the economic pressures of maintaining the immense facilities, as well as contestation of Kirkbride's theories amongst the medical community.

Numerous Kirkbride structures still exist, though many have been demolished or partially-demolished and repurposed. At least 30 of the original Kirkbride buildings have been registered with the National Register of Historic Places in the United States, either directly or through their location on hospital campuses or in historic districts.

Discussed on

๐Ÿ”— Norman-Arab-Byzantine Culture

๐Ÿ”— Greece ๐Ÿ”— Middle Ages ๐Ÿ”— Middle Ages/History ๐Ÿ”— Sicily ๐Ÿ”— Greece/Byzantine world ๐Ÿ”— Normandy

The term Normanโ€“Arabโ€“Byzantine culture, Normanโ€“Sicilian culture or, less inclusively, Normanโ€“Arab culture, (sometimes referred to as the "Arab-Norman civilization") refers to the interaction of the Norman, Byzantine Greek, Latin, and Arab cultures following the Norman conquest of the former Emirate of Sicily and North Africa from 1061 to around 1250. The civilization resulted from numerous exchanges in the cultural and scientific fields, based on the tolerance shown by the Normans towards the Latin- and Greek-speaking Christian populations and the former Arab Muslim settlers. As a result, Sicily under the Normans became a crossroad for the interaction between the Norman and Latin Catholic, Byzantineโ€“Orthodox, and Arabโ€“Islamic cultures.

Discussed on

๐Ÿ”— Operation Epsilon

๐Ÿ”— United States ๐Ÿ”— Germany ๐Ÿ”— Military history ๐Ÿ”— Military history/North American military history ๐Ÿ”— Military history/United States military history ๐Ÿ”— Military history/Military science, technology, and theory ๐Ÿ”— Military history/Weaponry ๐Ÿ”— Military history/Intelligence ๐Ÿ”— United Kingdom ๐Ÿ”— Military history/World War II ๐Ÿ”— Military history/German military history ๐Ÿ”— Military history/European military history ๐Ÿ”— Military history/British military history

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

๐Ÿ”— Lambda Cube

๐Ÿ”— Computing ๐Ÿ”— Mathematics

In mathematical logic and type theory, the ฮป-cube is a framework introduced by Henk Barendregt to investigate the different dimensions in which the calculus of constructions is a generalization of the simply typed ฮป-calculus. Each dimension of the cube corresponds to a new kind of dependency between terms and types. Here, "dependency" refers to the capacity of a term or type to bind a term or type. The respective dimensions of the ฮป-cube correspond to:

  • y-axis ( โ†‘ {\displaystyle \uparrow } ): terms that can bind types, corresponding to polymorphism.
  • x-axis ( โ†’ {\displaystyle \rightarrow } ): types that can bind terms, corresponding to dependent types.
  • z-axis ( โ†— {\displaystyle \nearrow } ): types that can bind types, corresponding to (binding) type operators.

The different ways to combine these three dimension yield the 8 vertices of the cube, each corresponding to a different kind of typed system. The ฮป-cube can be generalized into the concept of a pure type system.

Discussed on