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🔗 Biography 🔗 Canada 🔗 Athletics 🔗 Running 🔗 Biography/sports and games

Terrance Stanley Fox (July 28, 1958 – June 28, 1981) was a Canadian athlete, humanitarian, and cancer research activist. In 1980, with one leg having been amputated due to cancer, he embarked on an east to west cross-Canada run to raise money and awareness for cancer research. Although the spread of his cancer eventually forced him to end his quest after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 mi), and ultimately cost him his life, his efforts resulted in a lasting, worldwide legacy. The annual Terry Fox Run, first held in 1981, has grown to involve millions of participants in over 60 countries and is now the world's largest one-day fundraiser for cancer research; over C$750 million has been raised in his name, as of January 2018.

Fox was a distance runner and basketball player for his Port Coquitlam high school, now named after him, and Simon Fraser University. His right leg was amputated in 1977 after he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, though he continued to run using an artificial leg. He also played wheelchair basketball in Vancouver, winning three national championships.

In 1980, he began the Marathon of Hope, a cross-country run to raise money for cancer research. He hoped to raise one dollar from each of Canada's 24 million people. He began with little fanfare from St John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, in April and ran the equivalent of a full marathon every day. Fox had become a national star by the time he reached Ontario; he made numerous public appearances with businessmen, athletes, and politicians in his efforts to raise money. He was forced to end his run outside Thunder Bay when the cancer spread to his lungs. His hopes of overcoming the disease and completing his marathon ended when he died nine months later.

In addition to being the youngest person ever named a Companion of the Order of Canada, Fox won the 1980 Lou Marsh Award as the nation's top sportsman and was named Canada's Newsmaker of the Year in both 1980 and 1981. Considered a national hero, he has had many buildings, statues, roads, and parks named in his honour across the country.

🔗 Computing 🔗 Mathematics

The Luhn algorithm or Luhn formula, also known as the "modulus 10" or "mod 10" algorithm, named after its creator, IBM scientist Hans Peter Luhn, is a simple checksum formula used to validate a variety of identification numbers, such as credit card numbers, IMEI numbers, National Provider Identifier numbers in the United States, Canadian Social Insurance Numbers, Israel ID Numbers, South African ID Numbers, Greek Social Security Numbers (ΑΜΚΑ), and survey codes appearing on McDonald's, Taco Bell, and Tractor Supply Co. receipts. It is described in U.S. Patent No. 2,950,048, filed on January 6, 1954, and granted on August 23, 1960.

The algorithm is in the public domain and is in wide use today. It is specified in ISO/IEC 7812-1. It is not intended to be a cryptographically secure hash function; it was designed to protect against accidental errors, not malicious attacks. Most credit cards and many government identification numbers use the algorithm as a simple method of distinguishing valid numbers from mistyped or otherwise incorrect numbers.

🔗 Technology

A blast valve is used to protect a shelter, such as a fallout shelter or bunker, from the effects of sudden outside air pressure changes. A nuclear weapon creates a shock wave, which may produce sudden pressure changes of more than an atmosphere (about 1 bar) even several kilometres from the detonation point. After the shock wave passes, a sudden negative pressure follows.

If such pressure waves enter a shelter, they will likely do substantial harm to occupants and equipment. A blast valve is placed in air intake/exhaust pipes, that remains open normally, but automatically closes when strong pressure is applied in either direction. Blast dampers operate in the same fashion and are related or identical to blast valves, the former name however is generally used to describe blast mitigation devices, for more conventional explosive events.

A typical blast valve has entries of 15–30 cm diameter, and a larger centre section. Within the centre section is a disk mounted on an axle, with weak springs that keep it centred, away from both entries. Pressure displaces the disk along the axle, until it plugs one entry or the other. After the blast, the springs return the disk to the centre, re-opening the valve.

Another type of blast valve employs rounded metal tubes held in place by springs. As pressure rises it pushes the tubes against the frame of the valve closing the opening. These valves are typically unidirectional in airflow and are employed in large wall structures where large amounts of airflow is required.

One form of blast valve, popularized by the book Nuclear War Survival Skills and tested by ORNL is worn flat rubber tire treads nailed or bolted to frames strong enough to resist the maximum overpressure, with tested closing times cited as being identical to commercial grade blast valves, however the use of this form of blast valve design must also take the risk of the flammable rubber catching fire into consideration.

🔗 Death 🔗 Italy 🔗 Hungary 🔗 Austria 🔗 Netherlands 🔗 Jewish history

A Stolperstein (pronounced [ˈʃtɔlpɐˌʃtaɪn] (listen); plural Stolpersteine; literally "stumbling stone", metaphorically a "stumbling block") is a sett-size, ten-centimetre (3.9 in) concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution.

The Stolpersteine project, initiated by the German artist Gunter Demnig in 1992, aims to commemorate individuals at exactly the last place of residency—or, sometimes, work—which was freely chosen by the person before he or she fell victim to Nazi terror, euthanasia, eugenics, deportation to a concentration or extermination camp, or escaped persecution by emigration or suicide. As of December 2019, 75,000 Stolpersteine have been laid, making the Stolpersteine project the world's largest decentralized memorial.

The majority of Stolpersteine commemorate Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Others have been placed for Sinti and Romani people (then also called "gypsies"), homosexuals, the physically or mentally disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, black people, members of the Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the anti-Nazi Resistance, the Christian opposition (both Protestants and Catholics), and Freemasons, along with International Brigade soldiers in the Spanish Civil War, military deserters, conscientious objectors, escape helpers, capitulators, "habitual criminals", looters, and others charged with treason, military disobedience, or undermining the Nazi military, as well as Allied soldiers.

🔗 Film 🔗 Science Fiction 🔗 Film/German cinema

World on a Wire (German: Welt am Draht) is a 1973 West German science fiction television serial, starring Klaus Löwitsch and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Shot in 16 mm, it was made for West German television and originally aired in 1973 in ARD as a two-part miniseries. It was based on the 1964 novel Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouye. An adaptation of the Fassbinder version was presented as the play World of Wires, directed by Jay Scheib, in 2012.

Its focus is not on action, but on sophistic and philosophic aspects of the human mind, simulation, and the role of scientific research. A movie based on the same novel titled The Thirteenth Floor starring Craig Bierko was released in 1999.

🔗 Biography 🔗 Women scientists 🔗 Biography/science and academia 🔗 New York (state) 🔗 LGBT studies/LGBT Person 🔗 LGBT studies

Lynn Ann Conway (January 2, 1938 - June 9, 2024) was an American computer scientist, electrical engineer and transgender activist.

She worked at IBM in the 1960s and invented generalized dynamic instruction handling, a key advance used in out-of-order execution, used by most modern computer processors to improve performance. She initiated the Mead–Conway VLSI chip design revolution in very large scale integrated (VLSI) microchip design. That revolution spread rapidly through the research universities and computing industries during the 1980s, incubating an emerging electronic design automation industry, spawning the modern 'foundry' infrastructure for chip design and production, and triggering a rush of impactful high-tech startups in the 1980s and 1990s.

🔗 Horse racing

Potoooooooo or variations of Pot-8-Os (1773 – November 1800) was an 18th-century thoroughbred racehorse who won over 30 races and defeated some of the greatest racehorses of the time. He went on to be a sire. He is now best known for the unusual spelling of his name, pronounced 'Potatoes'.

🔗 Lists 🔗 Skepticism 🔗 Counter-Vandalism Unit

This is a list of known historical hoaxes on Wikipedia. Its purpose is to document hoaxes on Wikipedia, in order to improve our understanding of them and our ability to detect them. For the purpose of this list, a hoax is defined as a clear and deliberate attempt to deceptively present false information as fact. Libel, vandalism, and honest factual errors are not considered hoaxes. A hoax is considered notable enough for inclusion in this list if it evaded detection for more than one month or was discussed by reliable sources in the media. This list is incomplete, as many hoaxes remain undiscovered.

Hoaxes can be added to this page if they meet the requirements above. Do not list Wikipedia April Fools' Day pranks or factual articles about encyclopedically notable hoaxes. Start/Deletion date and Length are the dates and approximate time the article was generally visible.

For many of the below hoaxes, you can see an archived version of the deleted article by clicking on its title (see also list of archived hoaxes). Some also remain available from mirror sites. Any administrator can create an archived version of a hoax upon request by following the instructions below.

Academic research has investigated the impact and characteristics of Wikipedia hoaxes, and has proposed automated methods for detecting them. Researchers found that the automatic classification system was better at identifying hoaxes on Wikipedia than humans (86% vs. 63% accuracy) and used their algorithm to identify previously undiscovered hoaxes like "Steve Moertel" which went undetected for almost 7 years.

One way to identify hoax articles included examining the article structure and content, its mentions in other articles on Wikipedia (i.e., embeddedness), and features of the editor who created the page. Specifically, hoax articles are likely to be longer than a legitimate article, less likely to have links to other Wikipedia articles, references, images, or other "wiki-like" markup, less likely to be mentioned in other Wikipedia articles before its creation, and more likely to be created by a new account with few to no other edits.

While most hoaxes on Wikipedia are short-lived (90% of discovered hoaxes are flagged within one hour of creation and only 1% of hoaxes persist for more than a year), those that make it past this initial screening have an increased probability of continuing to "survive" and remain a part of Wikipedia for much longer (if a hoax survives past its first day, it has an 18% probability of lasting for a year or more). Compared to unsuccessful hoaxes, successful hoaxes that survive for long periods of time are more likely to include some "wiki-like" mark-up and more likely to include links to other articles on Wikipedia.

Compared to legitimate articles, successful hoaxes generally receive less daily traffic, have a longer median article length (134 vs. 71 words), and include fewer links to other Wikipedia articles when considering their article length.

🔗 Climate change 🔗 Environment 🔗 Meteorology 🔗 Urban studies and planning

An urban heat island (UHI) is an urban area or metropolitan area that is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas due to human activities. The temperature difference is usually larger at night than during the day, and is most apparent when winds are weak. UHI is most noticeable during the summer and winter. The main cause of the urban heat island effect is from the modification of land surfaces. Waste heat generated by energy usage is a secondary contributor. As a population center grows, it tends to expand its area and increase its average temperature. The term heat island is also used; the term can be used to refer to any area that is relatively hotter than the surrounding, but generally refers to human-disturbed areas.

Monthly rainfall is greater downwind of cities, partially due to the UHI. Increases in heat within urban centers increases the length of growing seasons, and decreases the occurrence of weak tornadoes. The UHI decreases air quality by increasing the production of pollutants such as ozone, and decreases water quality as warmer waters flow into area streams and put stress on their ecosystems.

Not all cities have a distinct urban heat island, and the heat island characteristics depend strongly on the background climate of the area in which the city is located. Mitigation of the urban heat island effect can be accomplished through the use of green roofs and the use of lighter-colored surfaces in urban areas, which reflect more sunlight and absorb less heat.

Concerns have been raised about possible contribution from urban heat islands to global warming. While some lines of research did not detect a significant impact, other studies have concluded that heat islands can have measurable effects on climate phenomena at the global scale.

pattern parsing virtual machine (previously called 'chomski' after Noam Chomsky) and pp (the pattern parser, also a provisional name) refer to both a command line computer language and utility (interpreter for that language) which can be used to parse and transform text patterns and (formal mathematical) languages. The utility reads input files character by character (sequentially), applying the operation which has been specified via the command line or a pp script, and then outputs the line. It was developed from 2006 in the C language. Pp has derived a number of ideas and syntax elements from Sed, a command line text stream editor.