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π The Analytical Language of John Wilkins
"The Analytical Language of John Wilkins" (Spanish: "El idioma analΓtico de John Wilkins") is a short essay by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, first printed in La NaciΓ³n on 8 February 1942 and subsequently published in Otras Inquisiciones (1937β1952). It is a critique of the English natural philosopher and writer John Wilkins's proposal for a universal language and of the representational capacity of language generally. In it, Borges imagines a bizarre and whimsical (and fictional) Chinese taxonomy later quoted by Michel Foucault, David Byrne, and others.
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- "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins" | 2024-04-25 | 37 Upvotes 8 Comments
- "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins" | 2023-02-06 | 26 Upvotes 1 Comments
π Abraham Lempel (LZ77) has died
Abraham Lempel (Hebrew: ΧΧΧ¨ΧΧ ΧΧΧ€Χ, 10 February 1936 β 4 February 2023) was an Israeli computer scientist and one of the fathers of the LZ family of lossless data compression algorithms.
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- "RIP Abraham Lempel β one of the fathers of the LZ(ZIP) compression algorithms" | 2023-02-06 | 12 Upvotes 2 Comments
π Ulugh Beg Observatory
The Ulugh Beg Observatory is an observatory in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Built in the 1420s by the Timurid astronomer Ulugh Beg. Islamic astronomers who worked at the observatory include Al-Kashi, Ali Qushji, and Ulugh Beg himself. The observatory was destroyed in 1449 and rediscovered in 1908.
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- "Ulugh Beg Observatory" | 2023-02-06 | 80 Upvotes 11 Comments
π Wikipedia on Santos
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- "Wikipedia on Santos" | 2023-02-05 | 13 Upvotes 1 Comments
π The Last Man
The Last Man is an apocalyptic, dystopian science fiction novel by Mary Shelley, first published in 1826. The narrative concerns Europe in the late 21st century, ravaged by a mysterious plague pandemic that rapidly sweeps across the entire globe, ultimately resulting in the near-extinction of humanity. It also includes discussion of the British state as a republic, for which Shelley sat in meetings of the House of Commons to gain insight to the governmental system of the Romantic era. The novel includes many fictive allusions to her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, who drowned in a shipwreck four years before the book's publication, as well as their close friend Lord Byron, who had died two years previously.
The Last Man is one of the first pieces of dystopian fiction published. It was critically savaged and remained largely obscure at the time of its publication. It was not until the 1960s that the novel resurfaced for the public.
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- "The Last Man" | 2023-02-04 | 64 Upvotes 22 Comments
π Sraffa asks Wittgenstein: βWhat is the logical form of that?β
Piero Sraffa (5 August 1898 β 3 September 1983) was an influential Italian economist who served as lecturer of economics at the University of Cambridge. His book Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities is taken as founding the neo-Ricardian school of economics.
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- "Sraffa asks Wittgenstein: βWhat is the logical form of that?β" | 2023-02-03 | 13 Upvotes 1 Comments
π Bir Tawil
Bir Tawil (Egyptian Arabic: Ψ¨ΩΨ± Ψ·ΩΩΩ, romanized:Β BΔ«r αΉ¬awΔ«l, lit.β'tall water well', [biΛΙΎ tΛ€ΙΛwiΛl]) is a 2,060Β km2 (795.4Β sqΒ mi) area of land along the border between Egypt and Sudan, which is uninhabited and claimed by neither country. When spoken of in association with the neighbouring Halaib Triangle, it is sometimes referred to as the Bir Tawil Triangle, despite the area's quadrilateral shape; the two "triangles" border at a quadripoint.
Its terra nulliuscode: lat promoted to code: la status results from a discrepancy between the straight political boundary between Egypt and Sudan established in 1899, and the irregular administrative boundary established in 1902. Egypt asserts the political boundary, and Sudan asserts the administrative boundary, with the result that the Hala'ib Triangle is claimed by both and Bir Tawil by neither. In 2014, author Alastair Bonnett described Bir Tawil as the only place on Earth that was habitable but was not claimed by any recognised government.
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- "Bir Tawil" | 2023-02-02 | 40 Upvotes 17 Comments
π Electro Gyrocator
The Electro Gyro-Cator was claimed to be the world's first automated commercially available automotive navigation system. It was co-developed by Honda, Alpine, and Stanley Electric Co..
Unlike most navigation systems of today, it did not use GPS Satellites to maintain its position and discern movement of the vehicle. Rather, it was an Inertial navigation system, because it contained a helium gas gyroscope that could detect both rotation and movement. A special servo gear was also attached to the transmission housing to feed information to the Gyro-Cator to help maintain position, map speed and distance traveled.
Transparent maps were placed inside the unit and it would scroll them past a 6 inch monochrome CRT illuminated screen as the car traveled along. The monitor would indicate by a series of circles (or cross hairs) on the screen to show the vehicle's current location or display lines for path of travel. A marking pen was also included to help make personal indicators on the map if needed. Adjustments could be made to change the display scale, position, rotation, brightness, and contrast. In its only year of production in 1981, it was announced as an option on that year's Honda Accord and Honda Vigor, but at Β₯300,000 ($2,746 USD), it was almost a quarter of the value of the car. It is not clear how many units were actually sold to customers as a "dealer option". A patent for gyroscope design was introduced to the US in design patent D274332.
Documented weight for the unit was roughly 20Β lb (9Β kg). A display unit, with a cutaway of the Gyroscope, is currently shown at the Honda Collection Hall at Twin Ring Motegi, Japan.
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- "Electro Gyrocator" | 2023-01-28 | 101 Upvotes 57 Comments
π Contiki β OS for networked, memory-constrained systems
Contiki is an operating system for networked, memory-constrained systems with a focus on low-power wireless Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Extant uses for Contiki include systems for street lighting, sound monitoring for smart cities, radiation monitoring, and alarms. It is open-source software released under the BSD-3-Clause license.
Contiki was created by Adam Dunkels in 2002 and has been further developed by a worldwide team of developers from Texas Instruments, Atmel, Cisco, ENEA, ETH Zurich, Redwire, RWTH Aachen University, Oxford University, SAP, Sensinode, Swedish Institute of Computer Science, ST Microelectronics, Zolertia, and many others. Contiki gained popularity because of its built in TCP/IP stack and lightweight preemptive scheduling over event-driven kernel which is a very motivating feature for IoT. The name Contiki comes from Thor Heyerdahl's famous Kon-Tiki raft.
Contiki provides multitasking and a built-in Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP stack), yet needs only about 10 kilobytes of random-access memory (RAM) and 30 kilobytes of read-only memory (ROM). A full system, including a graphical user interface, needs about 30 kilobytes of RAM.
A new branch has recently been created, known as Contiki-NG: The OS for Next Generation IoT Devices
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- "Contiki β OS for networked, memory-constrained systems" | 2023-01-30 | 155 Upvotes 28 Comments
π Correction Girls
Correction girls was a term describing women who were forcibly shipped from France to its colonies in America as brides for its colonists during the early 18th century.
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- "Correction Girls" | 2023-01-29 | 59 Upvotes 14 Comments