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🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/Asian military history 🔗 Military history/South Asian military history 🔗 Afghanistan

The Granai airstrike, sometimes called the Granai massacre, refers to the killing of approximately 86 to 147 Afghan civilians by an airstrike by a US Air Force B-1 Bomber on May 4, 2009, in the village of Granai (sometimes spelled Garani or Gerani) in Farah Province, south of Herat, Afghanistan.

The United States admitted significant errors were made in carrying out the airstrike, stating "the inability to discern the presence of civilians and avoid and/or minimize accompanying collateral damage resulted in the unintended consequence of civilian casualties".

The Afghan government has said that around 140 civilians were killed, of whom 22 were adult males and 93 were children. Afghanistan's top rights body has said 97 civilians were killed, most of them children. Other estimates range from 86 to 147 civilians killed. An earlier probe by the US military had said that 20–30 civilians were killed along with 60–65 insurgents. A partially released American inquiry stated "no one will ever be able conclusively to determine the number of civilian casualties that occurred". The Australian has said that the airstrike resulted in "one of the highest civilian death tolls from Western military action since foreign forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001".

🔗 Video games 🔗 Computer science 🔗 Mathematics

Fast inverse square root, sometimes referred to as Fast InvSqrt() or by the hexadecimal constant 0x5F3759DF, is an algorithm that estimates ​¹⁄_√x, the reciprocal (or multiplicative inverse) of the square root of a 32-bit floating-point number x in IEEE 754 floating-point format. This operation is used in digital signal processing to normalize a vector, i.e., scale it to length 1. For example, computer graphics programs use inverse square roots to compute angles of incidence and reflection for lighting and shading. The algorithm is best known for its implementation in 1999 in the source code of Quake III Arena, a first-person shooter video game that made heavy use of 3D graphics. The algorithm only started appearing on public forums such as Usenet in 2002 or 2003. At the time, it was generally computationally expensive to compute the reciprocal of a floating-point number, especially on a large scale; the fast inverse square root bypassed this step.

The algorithm accepts a 32-bit floating-point number as the input and stores a halved value for later use. Then, treating the bits representing the floating-point number as a 32-bit integer, a logical shift right by one bit is performed and the result subtracted from the number 0x5F3759DF, which is a floating point representation of an approximation of √2¹²⁷. This results in the first approximation of the inverse square root of the input. Treating the bits again as a floating-point number, it runs one iteration of Newton's method, yielding a more precise approximation.

The algorithm was originally attributed to John Carmack, but an investigation showed that the code had deeper roots in both the hardware and software side of computer graphics. Adjustments and alterations passed through both Silicon Graphics and 3dfx Interactive, with Gary Tarolli's implementation for the SGI Indigo as the earliest known use. It is not known how the constant was originally derived, though investigation has shed some light on possible methods.

With subsequent hardware advancements, especially the x86 SSE instruction rsqrtss, this method is not generally applicable to modern computing, though it remains an interesting example both historically and for more limited machines.

🔗 International relations 🔗 Human rights 🔗 Military history 🔗 Law 🔗 Computer Security 🔗 Computer Security/Computing 🔗 Military history/Military biography 🔗 International relations/International law 🔗 Organizations 🔗 Crime and Criminal Biography

On 4 October 2023 the International Committee of the Red Cross published rules of engagement for civilian hackers involved in conflicts. The rules had been described as a "Geneva Code of cyber-war".

🔗 Environment 🔗 Architecture 🔗 Civil engineering 🔗 Industrial design

Biophilic design is a concept used within the building industry to increase occupant connectivity to the natural environment through the use of direct nature, indirect nature, and space and place conditions. Used at both the building and city-scale, it is argued that this idea has health, environmental, and economic benefits for building occupants and urban environments, with few drawbacks. Although its name was coined in recent history, indicators of biophilic design have been seen in architecture from as far back as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

🔗 Astronomy 🔗 Hawaii

Lāhainā Noon is a semi-annual tropical solar phenomenon when the Sun culminates at the zenith at solar noon, passing directly overhead (above the subsolar point). The term "lāhainā noon" was coined by the Bishop Museum in Hawaiʻi.

🔗 France 🔗 Basque

The Cagots (pronounced [ka.ɡo]) were a persecuted minority found in the west of France and northern Spain: the Navarrese Pyrenees, Basque provinces, Béarn, Aragón, Gascony and Brittany. Their name differed by province and the local language: Cagots, Gézitains, Gahets, and Gafets in Gascony; Agotes, Agotak, and Gafos in Basque country; Capots in Anjou and Languedoc; and Cacons, Cahets, Caqueux, and Caquins in Brittany. Evidence of the group exists back as far as AD 1000.

Cagots were shunned and hated; while restrictions varied by time and place, they were typically required to live in separate quarters in towns, called cagoteries, which were often on the far outskirts of the villages. Cagots were excluded from all political and social rights. They were not allowed to marry non-Cagots, enter taverns, hold cabarets, use public fountains, sell food or wine, touch food in the market, work with livestock, or enter mills. They were allowed to enter a church only by a special door and, during the service, a rail separated them from the other worshippers. Either they were altogether forbidden to partake of the sacrament, or the Eucharist was given to them on the end of a wooden spoon, while a holy water stoup was reserved for their exclusive use. They were compelled to wear a distinctive dress to which, in some places, was attached the foot of a goose or duck (whence they were sometimes called "Canards"). So pestilential was their touch considered that it was a crime for them to walk the common road barefooted or to drink from the same cup as non-Cagots. The Cagots were often restricted to the trades of carpenter, butcher, and rope-maker.

The Cagots were not an ethnic nor a religious group. They spoke the same language as the people in an area and generally kept the same religion as well. Their only distinguishing feature was their descent from families long identified as Cagots. Few consistent reasons were given as to why they were hated; accusations varied from Cagots being cretins, lepers, heretics, cannibals, to simply being intrinsically evil. The Cagots did have a culture of their own, but very little of it was written down or preserved; as a result, almost everything that is known about them relates to their persecution. The repression lasted through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Industrial Revolution, with the prejudice fading only in the 19th and 20th centuries.

🔗 Economics 🔗 Business

The principal–agent problem, in political science, supply chain management and economics (also known as agency dilemma or the agency problem) occurs when one person or entity (the "agent"), is able to make decisions and/or take actions on behalf of, or that impact, another person or entity: the "principal". This dilemma exists in circumstances where agents are motivated to act in their own best interests, which are contrary to those of their principals, and is an example of moral hazard. Issues also arise when companies have an incentive to become increasingly deferential to management that have ownership stakes. As shareholders are dis-incentived to intervene, there are fewer checks on management. Issues can also arise among different types of management.

Common examples of this relationship include corporate management (agent) and shareholders (principal), elected officials (agent) and citizens (principal), or brokers (agent) and markets (buyers and sellers, principals). Consider a legal client (the principal) wondering whether their lawyer (the agent) is recommending protracted legal proceedings because it is truly necessary for the client's well-being, or because it will generate income for the lawyer. In fact the problem can arise in almost any context where one party is being paid by another to do something where the agent has a small or nonexistent share in the outcome, whether in formal employment or a negotiated deal such as paying for household jobs or car repairs.

The principal–agent problem typically arises where the two parties have different interests and asymmetric information (the agent having more information), such that the principal cannot directly ensure that the agent is always acting in their (the principal's) best interest, particularly when activities that are useful to the principal are costly to the agent, and where elements of what the agent does are costly for the principal to observe (see moral hazard and conflict of interest). Often, the principal may be sufficiently concerned at the possibility of being exploited by the agent that they choose not to enter into the transaction at all, when it would have been mutually beneficial: a suboptimal outcome that can lower welfare overall. The deviation from the principal's interest by the agent is called "agency costs".

The agency problem can be intensified when an agent acts on behalf of multiple principals (see multiple principal problem). When one agent acts on behalf of multiple principals, the multiple principals have to agree on the agent's objectives, but face a collective action problem in governance, as individual principals may lobby the agent or otherwise act in their individual interests rather than in the collective interest of all principals. As a result, there may be free-riding in steering and monitoring, duplicate steering and monitoring, or conflict between principals, all leading to high autonomy for the agent. The multiple principal problem is particularly serious in the public sector, where multiple principals are common and both efficiency and democratic accountability are undermined in the absence of salient governance. This problem may occur, for example, in the governance of the executive power, ministries, agencies, intermunicipal cooperation, public-private partnerships, and firms with multiple shareholders.

The relationships between investment managers and corporate management is an especially common example of the principal–agent relationship. There are several drivers of agency problems that affect investment managers of index funds and mutual funds include. First, investment managers receive a fraction of the benefits resulting from stewardship activities while having to handle all the costs. competition among investment managers is can also contribute to agency problems.And, lastly, another driver of agency problems is that investment managers can be heavily influenced by private incentives provided by the managers of corporations.

Various mechanisms may be used to align the interests of the agent with those of the principal. In employment, employers (principal) may use piece rates/commissions, profit sharing, efficiency wages, performance measurement (including financial statements), the agent posting a bond, or the threat of termination of employment to align worker interests with their own.

🔗 Time

The Symmetry454 calendar (Sym454) is a proposal for calendar reform created by Irv Bromberg of the University of Toronto, Canada. It is a perennial solar calendar that conserves the traditional month pattern and 7-day week, has symmetrical equal quarters in 82% of the years in its 293-year cycle, and starts every month on Monday.

🔗 Fisheries and Fishing

Trout tickling is the art of rubbing the underbelly of a trout with fingers. If done properly, the trout will go into a trance after a minute or so, and can then easily be thrown onto the nearest bit of dry land.

🔗 Biography 🔗 Mathematics 🔗 France 🔗 Women scientists 🔗 Biography/science and academia 🔗 Women's History 🔗 Mathematics/Mathematicians

Marie-Sophie Germain (French: [maʁi sɔfi ʒɛʁmɛ̃]; 1 April 1776 – 27 June 1831) was a French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. Despite initial opposition from her parents and difficulties presented by society, she gained education from books in her father's library, including ones by Leonhard Euler, and from correspondence with famous mathematicians such as Lagrange, Legendre, and Gauss (under the pseudonym of «Monsieur LeBlanc»). One of the pioneers of elasticity theory, she won the grand prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences for her essay on the subject. Her work on Fermat's Last Theorem provided a foundation for mathematicians exploring the subject for hundreds of years after. Because of prejudice against her sex, she was unable to make a career out of mathematics, but she worked independently throughout her life. Before her death, Gauss had recommended that she be awarded an honorary degree, but that never occurred. On 27 June 1831, she died from breast cancer. At the centenary of her life, a street and a girls’ school were named after her. The Academy of Sciences established the Sophie Germain Prize in her honor.