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🔗 Biography 🔗 Children's literature 🔗 New York (state) 🔗 Chicago 🔗 Illinois 🔗 Biography/Actors and Filmmakers 🔗 New York (state)/Columbia University 🔗 Screenwriters 🔗 Musical Theatre

William Goldman (August 12, 1931 – November 16, 2018) was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He first came to prominence in the 1950s as a novelist before turning to screenwriting. He won Academy Awards for his screenplays Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and All the President's Men (1976). His other works include his thriller novel Marathon Man and comedy/fantasy novel The Princess Bride, both of which he adapted for the film versions.

Author Sean Egan has described Goldman as "one of the late twentieth century's most popular storytellers."

🔗 Mathematics 🔗 Physics 🔗 Systems 🔗 Systems/Dynamical systems

The Abelian sandpile model, also known as the Bak–Tang–Wiesenfeld model, was the first discovered example of a dynamical system displaying self-organized criticality. It was introduced by Per Bak, Chao Tang and Kurt Wiesenfeld in a 1987 paper.

The model is a cellular automaton. In its original formulation, each site on a finite grid has an associated value that corresponds to the slope of the pile. This slope builds up as "grains of sand" (or "chips") are randomly placed onto the pile, until the slope exceeds a specific threshold value at which time that site collapses transferring sand into the adjacent sites, increasing their slope. Bak, Tang, and Wiesenfeld considered process of successive random placement of sand grains on the grid; each such placement of sand at a particular site may have no effect, or it may cause a cascading reaction that will affect many sites.

The model has since been studied on the infinite lattice, on other (non-square) lattices, and on arbitrary graphs (including directed multigraphs). It is closely related to the dollar game, a variant of the chip-firing game introduced by Biggs.

🔗 China

"I would rather cry in a BMW" is a quotation that became an online sensation in the People's Republic of China in 2010. The old, long-familiar phrase was made famous by Ma Nuo, a 20-year-old female contestant on the television show Fei Cheng Wu Rao (also known in English as If You Are the One). The line was in response to a question by an unemployed suitor who asked if Ma would "ride a bicycle with him" on a date. The series of events have been summed up in the media with the quip "I would rather cry in a BMW than smile on a bicycle."

🔗 Economics 🔗 Basic Income 🔗 Taxation

In economics, a negative income tax (NIT) is a welfare system within an income tax where people earning below a certain amount receive supplemental pay from the government instead of paying taxes to the government.

Such a system has been discussed by economists but never fully implemented. According to surveys however, the consensus view among economists is that the "government should restructure the welfare system along the lines" of one. It was described by British politician Juliet Rhys-Williams in the 1940s and later by American free-market economist Milton Friedman.

Negative income taxes can implement a basic income or supplement a guaranteed minimum income system.

In a negative income tax system, people earning a certain income level would owe no taxes; those earning more than that would pay a proportion of their income above that level; and those below that level would receive a payment of a proportion of their shortfall, which is the amount their income falls below that level.

🔗 Computing

A quine is a computer program which takes no input and produces a copy of its own source code as its only output. The standard terms for these programs in the computability theory and computer science literature are "self-replicating programs", "self-reproducing programs", and "self-copying programs".

A quine is a fixed point of an execution environment, when the execution environment is viewed as a function transforming programs into their outputs. Quines are possible in any Turing complete programming language, as a direct consequence of Kleene's recursion theorem. For amusement, programmers sometimes attempt to develop the shortest possible quine in any given programming language.

The name "quine" was coined by Douglas Hofstadter, in his popular science book Gödel, Escher, Bach, in honor of philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000), who made an extensive study of indirect self-reference, and in particular for the following paradox-producing expression, known as Quine's paradox:

"Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation" yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.

🔗 Apple Inc./Macintosh 🔗 Apple Inc. 🔗 Human–Computer Interaction 🔗 Industrial design 🔗 Apple Inc./iOS

A skeuomorph () is a derivative object that retains nonfunctional ornamental design cues (attributes) from structures that were inherent to the original. Examples include pottery embellished with imitation rivets reminiscent of similar pots made of metal and a software calendar that imitates the appearance of binding on a paper desk calendar.

🔗 Astronomy

A Messier marathon is an attempt, usually organized by amateur astronomers, to find as many Messier objects as possible during one night. The Messier catalogue was compiled by French astronomer Charles Messier during the late 18th century and consists of 110 relatively bright deep-sky objects (galaxies, nebulae, and star clusters).

🔗 Brazil 🔗 Plants

The Cashew of Pirangi (Cajueiro de Pirangi), also called the world's largest cashew tree (maior cajueiro do mundo), is a cashew tree in Pirangi do Norte, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. In 1994, the tree entered the Guinness Book of Records. It covers an area between 7,300 square metres (1.8 acres) and 8,400 square metres (2.1 acres). Having the size of 70 normally sized cashew trees, it has a circumference of 500 m (1,600 ft). The vicinity of the World's Largest Cashew Tree in North Pirangi is also a main place for the sale of lace and embroidery in Rio Grande do Norte state.

The spread over a hectare of land was, unlike other trees, created by the tree's outward growth. When bent towards the ground (because of their weight), the branches tend to take new roots where they touch the ground. This may be seen in the images of the interior. It is now difficult to distinguish the initial trunk from the rest of the tree.

The tree is said to have been planted in 1888. However, based on its growth nature, "the tree is estimated to be more than a thousand years old." The tree produces over 60,000 fruits each year.

Flávio Nogueira, Jr., the state secretary of tourism for Piauí, has claimed that the Cashew of Pirangi in Piauí is, in fact, the largest tree, covering an area of 8,800 square metres (2.2 acres). That tree was studied by a laboratory from the State University of Piauí.

🔗 Philosophy 🔗 Psychology 🔗 Philosophy/Social and political philosophy 🔗 Sociology

In social psychology, social loafing is the phenomenon of a person exerting less effort to achieve a goal when he or she works in a group than when working alone and is seen as one of the main reasons groups are sometimes less productive than the combined performance of their members working as individuals. Research on social loafing began with rope pulling experiments by Ringelmann, who found that members of a group tended to exert less effort in pulling a rope than did individuals alone. In more recent research, studies involving modern technology, such as online and distributed groups, have also shown clear evidence of social loafing. Many of the causes of social loafing stem from individual members feeling their individual effort will not matter to the group.

The French professor of agricultural engineering called Max Ringelman demonstrated what “social loafing” was in the 1890s. Ringelman, who was also considered one of the founders of social psychology, made people pull on ropes separately and in groups, and he measured and compared how hard they pulled. After collecting the results he realized that members of a group tended to exert less effort in pulling a rope than did individuals alone. In more recent research, studies involving modern technology, such as online and distributed groups, have also shown clear evidence of social loafing. Many of the causes of social loafing stem from individual members feeling that his or her effort will not matter to the group. This is seen as one of the main reasons groups are sometimes less productive than the combined performance of their members working as individuals, but should be distinguished from the accidental coordination problems that groups sometimes experience.

Several studies found, a lack of an understanding of individual contributions, unchallenging tasks given to the individual, low personal satisfaction from the task, and a lack of a united group to be the most prevalent motivational origins of social loafing. Theories investigating why social loafing occurs range from a group member feeling their contribution will not be noticed to a group member realizing their efforts are not necessary. In a work setting, most managers agree if a task is new or complex employees should work alone. While tasks that are well known and have room for individual effort are better when done in groups.

In order to diminish social loafing from a group, several strategies could be put forward. Social loafing primarily happens when an individual unconscious or conscious exerts less effort due to a decrease in social awareness. In order to counteract the likelihood of this happening, Miguel Herraez, conducted a study on students where he used accountability and cooperation when unequal participation is found. The students were encouraged to do provide equal participation in the work and to point out sources of conflict that could arise. The conclusion of the study found that providing support to the group members lacking in commitment and creating options for independence among group members lowered social loafing. The support for the weaker students improves their standing while also benefiting the other students.

Social loafing should be distinguished from the accidental coordination problems that groups sometimes experience.

🔗 Physics 🔗 Philosophy 🔗 Philosophy/Philosophy of science 🔗 Philosophy/Metaphysics

In physics and cosmology, the mathematical universe hypothesis (MUH), also known as the ultimate ensemble theory, is a speculative "theory of everything" (TOE) proposed by cosmologist Max Tegmark.