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๐ Siemens Synthesizer โ Studio for Electronic Music
The Siemens Synthesizer (or "Siemens Studio fรผr Elektronische Musik") was developed in Germany in 1959 by the German electronics manufacturer Siemens, originally to compose live electronic music for its own promotional films.
From 1956 to 1967, it had a significant influence on the development of electronic music. Among others, Mauricio Kagel, Henri Pousseur, Herbert Brรผn and Ernst Krenek completed important electronic works there.
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- "Siemens Synthesizer โ Studio for Electronic Music" | 2023-05-19 | 12 Upvotes 1 Comments
๐ Yenish people
The Yenish (German: Jenische; French: Yรฉniche) are an itinerant group in Western Europe who live mostly in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, and parts of France, roughly centred on the Rhineland. A number of theories for the group's origins have been proposed, including that the Yenish descended from members of the marginalized and vagrant poor classes of society of the early modern period, before emerging as a distinct group by the early 19th century. Most of the Yenish became sedentary in the course of the mid-19th to 20th centuries.
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- "Yenish people" | 2023-09-03 | 125 Upvotes 108 Comments
๐ Canon Cat
The Canon Cat was a task-dedicated, desktop computer released by Canon Inc. in 1987 at a price of US$1,495. On the surface it was not unlike the dedicated word processors popular in the late 1970s to early 1980s, but it was far more powerful and incorporated many unique ideas for data manipulation.
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- "Canon Cat" | 2021-02-21 | 51 Upvotes 31 Comments
- "Canon Cat" | 2009-05-06 | 35 Upvotes 15 Comments
๐ Cistercian Numerals (base 10000 digit system)
The medieval Cistercian numerals, or "ciphers" in nineteenth-century parlance, were developed by the Cistercian monastic order in the early thirteenth century at about the time that Arabic numerals were introduced to northwestern Europe. They are more compact than Arabic or Roman numerals, with a single glyph able to indicate any integer from 1 to 9,999.
Digits are based on a horizontal or vertical stave, with the position of the digit on the stave indicating its place value (units, tens, hundreds or thousands). These digits are compounded on a single stave to indicate more complex numbers. The Cistercians eventually abandoned the system in favor of the Arabic numerals, but marginal use outside the order continued until the early twentieth century.
๐ Crush, Texas
Crush, Texas was a temporary "city" established as the site of a one-day publicity stunt in the U.S. state of Texas in 1896. William George Crush, general passenger agent of the MissouriโKansasโTexas Railroad (popularly known as the "Katy", from its "M-K-T" initials), conceived the idea in order to demonstrate a staged train wreck as a public spectacle. No admission was charged, and train fares to the crash site were offered at the reduced rate of US$2 (equivalent to $61.46 in 2019) from any location in Texas.
As a result, an estimated 40,000 peopleโmore people than lived in the state's second-largest city at the timeโattended the exhibition on Tuesday, September 15, 1896. The event planned to showcase the deliberate head-on collision of two unmanned locomotives at high speed; unexpectedly, the impact caused both engine boilers to explode, resulting in a shower of flying debris that killed two people and caused numerous injuries among the spectators.
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- "Crush, Texas" | 2017-11-27 | 179 Upvotes 40 Comments
๐ Radioactivity in Ramsar, Iran
Ramsar (Persian: ุฑุงู ุณุฑ, also Romanized as Rรกmsar and Rรกnsar; formerly, Sakht Sar) is the capital of Ramsar County, Mazandaran Province, Iran. In 2012 its population was 33,018, in 9,421 families.
Ramsar lies on the coast of the Caspian Sea. It was also known as Sakhtsar in the past. The climate of Ramsar is hot and humid in summer and mild in winter. The proximity of the forest and the sea in this city has given a special beauty to this city and this attracts tourists in all seasons. Ramsar has an airport. The city of Ramsar was a small village in western Mazandaran until the Qajar period, and during the first Pahlavi period, with the rule of Reza Shah and with the support of the government, it became a beautiful city with many tourist facilities.
Ramsar is the westernmost county and city in Mazandaran. It borders the Caspian Sea to the north, Gilan province to the west, Qazvin Province to the south, and Tonekabon to the east.
๐ Relativistic Quantum Chemistry
Relativistic quantum chemistry combines relativistic mechanics with quantum chemistry to explain elemental properties and structure, especially for the heavier elements of the periodic table. A prominent example of such an explanation is the color of gold: due to relativistic effects, it is not silvery like most other metals.
The term relativistic effects was developed in light of the history of quantum mechanics. Initially quantum mechanics was developed without considering the theory of relativity. Relativistic effects are those discrepancies between values calculated by models that consider and that do not consider relativity. Relativistic effects are important for the heavier elements with high atomic numbers. In the most common layout of the periodic table, these elements are shown in the lower area. Examples are the lanthanides and actinides.
Relativistic effects in chemistry can be considered to be perturbations, or small corrections, to the non-relativistic theory of chemistry, which is developed from the solutions of the Schrรถdinger equation. These corrections affect the electrons differently depending on the electron speed relative to the speed of light. Relativistic effects are more prominent in heavy elements because only in these elements do electrons attain sufficient speeds for the elements to have properties that differ from what non-relativistic chemistry predicts.
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- "Relativistic Quantum Chemistry" | 2019-10-12 | 70 Upvotes 5 Comments
๐ Cat Gap
The cat gap is a period in the fossil record of approximately 25 to 18.5 million years ago in which there are few fossils of cats or cat-like species found in North America. The cause of the "cat gap" is disputed, but may have been caused by changes in the climate (global cooling), changes in the habitat and environmental ecosystem, the increasingly hypercarnivorous trend of the cats (especially the nimravids), volcanic activity, evolutionary changes in dental morphology of the Canidae species present in North America, or a periodicity of extinctions called van der Hammen cycles.
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- "Cat Gap" | 2025-12-10 | 216 Upvotes 59 Comments
- "The Cat Gap" | 2022-07-31 | 182 Upvotes 47 Comments
- "Cat Gap" | 2020-10-16 | 315 Upvotes 48 Comments
๐ Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic
The Seattle windshield pitting epidemic is a phenomenon which affected Bellingham, Seattle, and other communities of Washington state in April, 1954; it is considered an example of a mass delusion. It was characterized by widespread observation of previously unnoticed windshield holes, pits and dings, leading residents to believe that a common causative agent was at work. It was originally thought to be the work of vandals but the rate of pitting was so great that residents began to attribute it to everything from sand flea eggs to nuclear bomb testing.
Originating in Bellingham in March, police initially believed the work to be vandals using BB guns. However the pitting was soon observed in the nearby towns of Sedro Woolley and Mount Vernon and by mid-April, appeared to have spread to the town of Anacortes on Fidalgo Island.
Within a week, the news and the so-called "pitting epidemic" had reached metropolitan Seattle. As the newspapers began to feature the story, more and more reports of pitting were called in. Motorists began stopping police cars to report damage. Car lots and parking garages reported particularly severe attacks.
Several hypotheses for the widespread damage were postulated:
- Some thought that a new million-watt radio transmitter at nearby Jim Creek Naval Radio Station was producing waves that caused physical oscillations in glass;
- Some believed it to be the work of cosmic rays;
- Some reported seeing glass bubbles form right before their eyes, believing it to be the work of sand fleas.
By April 15, close to 3,000 windshields had been reported as affected. Mayor Allan Pomeroy contacted Washington Governor Arthur B. Langlie, then President Dwight D. Eisenhower asking for assistance.
Finally, Sergeant Max Allison of the Seattle police crime laboratory stated that the pitting reports consisted of "5 per cent hoodlum-ism, and 95 per cent public hysteria." By April 17, the pitting suddenly stopped.
The "Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic" as it is called has become a textbook case of collective delusion (not "mass hysteria" as reported). Although natural windshield pitting had been going on for some time, it was only when the media called public attention to it that people actually looked at their windshields and saw damage they had never noticed before.
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- "Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic" | 2020-11-22 | 13 Upvotes 1 Comments
๐ Uranium Glass
Uranium glass is glass which has had uranium, usually in oxide diuranate form, added to a glass mix before melting for coloration. The proportion usually varies from trace levels to about 2% uranium by weight, although some 20th-century pieces were made with up to 25% uranium.
Uranium glass was once made into tableware and household items, but fell out of widespread use when the availability of uranium to most industries was sharply curtailed during the Cold War in the 1940s to 1990s. Most such objects are now considered antiques or retro-era collectibles, although there has been a minor revival in art glassware. Otherwise, modern uranium glass is now mainly limited to small objects like beads or marbles as scientific or decorative novelties.
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- "Uranium Glass" | 2021-10-23 | 104 Upvotes 74 Comments
- "Uranium Glass" | 2020-02-19 | 97 Upvotes 42 Comments