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π Vim, 25 years since initial release
Vim (; a contraction of Vi IMproved) is a clone, with additions, of Bill Joy's vi text editor program for Unix. Vim's author, Bram Moolenaar, based it upon the source code for a port of the Stevie editor to the Amiga and released a version to the public in 1991. Vim is designed for use both from a command-line interface and as a standalone application in a graphical user interface. Vim is free and open-source software and is released under a license that includes some charityware clauses, encouraging users who enjoy the software to consider donating to children in Uganda. The license is compatible with the GNU General Public License through a special clause allowing distribution of modified copies "under the GNU GPL version 2 or any later version".
Since its release for the Amiga, cross-platform development has made it available on many other systems. In 2006, it was voted the most popular editor amongst Linux Journal readers; in 2015 the Stack Overflow developer survey found it to be the third most popular text editor, and the fifth most popular development environment in 2019.
π iSmell (2001)
The iSmell Personal Scent Synthesizer developed by DigiScents Inc. is a small device that can be connected to a computer through a Universal serial bus (USB) port and powered using any ordinary electrical outlet. The appearance of the device is similar to that of a sharkβs fin, with many holes lining the βfinβ to release the various scents. Using a cartridge similar to a printerβs, it can synthesize and even create new smells by combining certain combinations of other scents. These newly created odors can be used to closely replicate common natural and manmade odors. The cartridges used also need to be swapped every so often once the scents inside are used up. Once partnered with websites and interactive media, the scents can be activated either automatically once a website is opened or manually. However, the product is no longer on the market and never generated substantial sales. Digiscent had plans for the iSmell to have several versions but did not progress past the prototype stage. The company did not last long and filed for bankruptcy a short time after.
In 2006, the iSmell was named one of the "25 Worst Tech Products of All Time" by PC World Magazine, which commented that "[f]ew products literally stink, but this one did--or at least it would have, had it progressed beyond the prototype stage."
Discussed on
- "iSmell (2001)" | 2016-10-30 | 29 Upvotes 13 Comments
π ZMODEM
ZMODEM is a file transfer protocol developed by Chuck Forsberg in 1986, in a project funded by Telenet in order to improve file transfers on their X.25 network. In addition to dramatically improved performance compared to older protocols, ZMODEM also offered restartable transfers, auto-start by the sender, an expanded 32-bit CRC, and control character quoting supporting 8-bit clean transfers, allowing it to be used on networks that would not pass control characters.
In contrast to most transfer protocols developed for bulletin board systems (BBSs), ZMODEM was not directly based on, nor compatible with, the seminal XMODEM. Many variants of XMODEM had been developed in order to address one or more of its shortcomings, and most remained backward compatible and would successfully complete transfers with "classic" XMODEM implementations.
ZMODEM eschewed backward compatibility in favor of producing a radically improved protocol. It performed as well or better than any of the high-performance varieties of XMODEM, did so over links that previously didn't work at all, like X.25, or had poor performance, like Telebit modems, and included useful features found in few or no other protocols. ZMODEM became extremely popular on bulletin board systems (BBS) in the early 1990s, becoming a standard as widespread as XMODEM had been before it.
Discussed on
- "ZMODEM" | 2016-10-22 | 132 Upvotes 99 Comments
π HAKMEM
HAKMEM, alternatively known as AI Memo 239, is a February 1972 "memo" (technical report) of the MIT AI Lab containing a wide variety of hacks, including useful and clever algorithms for mathematical computation, some number theory and schematic diagrams for hardware β in Guy L. Steele's words, "a bizarre and eclectic potpourri of technical trivia". Contributors included about two dozen members and associates of the AI Lab. The title of the report is short for "hacks memo", abbreviated to six upper case characters that would fit in a single PDP-10 machine word (using a six-bit character set).
Discussed on
- "HAKMEM" | 2010-09-25 | 53 Upvotes 5 Comments
π Fabrice Bellard
Fabrice Bellard (French pronunciation:Β β[fa.bΚis bΙ.laΚ]) is a computer programmer who created the FFmpeg and QEMU software projects. He has also developed a number of other programs, including the Tiny C Compiler.
Discussed on
- "Fabrice Bellard" | 2010-09-12 | 73 Upvotes 13 Comments
π Duffs Device
In the C programming language, Duff's device is a way of manually implementing loop unrolling by interleaving two syntactic constructs of C: the do-while loop and a switch statement. Its discovery is credited to Tom Duff in November 1983, when Duff was working for Lucasfilm and used it to speed up a real-time animation program.
Loop unrolling attempts to reduce the overhead of conditional branching needed to check whether a loop is done, by executing a batch of loop bodies per iteration. To handle cases where the number of iterations is not divisible by the unrolled-loop increments, a common technique among assembly language programmers is to jump directly into the middle of the unrolled loop body to handle the remainder. Duff implemented this technique in C by using C's case label fall-through feature to jump into the unrolled body.
Discussed on
- "Duff's Device" | 2020-05-25 | 145 Upvotes 59 Comments
- "Duffs Device" | 2016-10-21 | 19 Upvotes 4 Comments
- "Duff's device: do + switch fall-through = loop unrolling" | 2009-08-13 | 16 Upvotes 11 Comments
π Bitmessage: a decentralized, encrypted, trustless communications protocol
Bitmessage is a decentralized, encrypted, peer-to-peer, trustless communications protocol that can be used by one person to send encrypted messages to another person, or to multiple subscribers.
In June 2013, the software experienced a surge of new adoptions after news reports of email surveillance by the US National Security Agency.
Bitmessage was conceived by software developer Jonathan Warren, who based its design on the decentralized digital currency, bitcoin. The software was released in November 2012 under the MIT license.
Bitmessage gained a reputation for being out of reach of warrantless wiretapping conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA), due to the decentralized nature of the protocol, and its encryption being difficult to crack. As a result, downloads of the Bitmessage program increased fivefold during June 2013, after news broke of classified email surveillance activities conducted by the NSA.
Bitmessage has also been mentioned as an experimental alternative to email by Popular Science and CNET.
Some ransomware programs instruct affected users to use Bitmessage to communicate with the attackers.
Discussed on
- "Bitmessage: a decentralized, encrypted, trustless communications protocol" | 2016-10-15 | 70 Upvotes 26 Comments
π LΓ¨se-majestΓ©
Lèse-majesté ( or ;), a French term meaning "to do wrong to majesty", is an offence against the dignity of a reigning sovereign or against a state.
This behaviour was first classified as a criminal offence against the dignity of the Roman Republic of ancient Rome. In the Dominate, or Late Empire period, the emperors eliminated the Republican trappings of their predecessors and began to identify the state with their person. Although legally the princeps civitatis (his official title, meaning, roughly, 'first citizen') could never become a sovereign because the republic was never officially abolished, emperors were deified as divus, first posthumously but by the Dominate period while reigning. Deified emperors enjoyed the same legal protection that was accorded to the divinities of the state cult; by the time it was replaced by Christianity, what was in all but name a monarchical tradition had already become well-established.
Narrower conceptions of offences against Majesty as offences against the crown predominated in the European kingdoms that emerged in the early medieval period. In feudal Europe, some crimes were classified as lèse-majesté even if they were not intentionally directed against the crown. An example is counterfeiting, so classified because coins bore the monarch's effigy and/or coat of arms.
With the disappearance of absolute monarchy in Europe (with exception of Vatican City), lèse-majesté came to be viewed as less of a crime. However, certain malicious acts that would have once been classified as the crime of lèse-majesté could still be prosecuted as treason. Future republics that emerged as great powers generally still classified as a crime any offence against the highest representatives of the state. These laws are still applied as well in monarchies outside of Europe, such as modern Thailand and Cambodia.
Discussed on
- "Lèse-majesté" | 2016-10-13 | 16 Upvotes 4 Comments
π List of countries by tax rates
A comparison of tax rates by countries is difficult and somewhat subjective, as tax laws in most countries are extremely complex and the tax burden falls differently on different groups in each country and sub-national unit. The list focuses on the main indicative types of taxes: corporate tax, individual income tax, and sales tax, including VAT and GST, but does not list capital gains tax.
Some other taxes (for instance property tax, substantial in many countries, such as the United States) and payroll tax are not shown here. The table is not exhaustive in representing the true tax burden to either the corporation or the individual in the listed country. The tax rates displayed are marginal and do not account for deductions, exemptions or rebates. The effective rate is usually lower than the marginal rate. The tax rates given for federations (such as the United States and Canada) are averages and vary depending on the state or province. Territories that have different rates to their respective nation are in italics.
Discussed on
- "List of countries by tax rates" | 2016-10-10 | 25 Upvotes 13 Comments
π Wikipedia lets you create books
- This Help page is about Wikipedia books created on Wikipedia.
Discussed on
- "Wikipedia lets you create books" | 2010-09-06 | 106 Upvotes 22 Comments