Random Articles (Page 4)
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๐ FedNow
FedNow is an instant payment service developed by the Federal Reserve for depository institutions in the United States, which allows individuals and businesses to send and receive money. The service launched on July 20, 2023. Banks will be able to build products on top of the FedNow platform.
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- "FedNow" | 2023-07-27 | 28 Upvotes 11 Comments
๐ Japanese addressing system
The Japanese addressing system is used to identify a specific location in Japan. When written in Japanese characters, addresses start with the largest geographical entity and proceed to the most specific one. When written in Latin characters, addresses follow the convention used by most Western addresses and start with the smallest geographic entity (typically a house number) and proceed to the largest. The Japanese system is complex and idiosyncratic, the product of the natural growth of urban areas, as opposed to the systems used in cities that are laid out as grids and divided into quadrants or districts.
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- "Japanese addressing system" | 2019-08-09 | 80 Upvotes 64 Comments
๐ Japanese Aesthetics
Japanese aesthetics comprise a set of ancient ideals that include wabi (transient and stark beauty), sabi (the beauty of natural patina and aging), and yลซgen (profound grace and subtlety). These ideals, and others, underpin much of Japanese cultural and aesthetic norms on what is considered tasteful or beautiful. Thus, while seen as a philosophy in Western societies, the concept of aesthetics in Japan is seen as an integral part of daily life. Japanese aesthetics now encompass a variety of ideals; some of these are traditional while others are modern and sometimes influenced by other cultures.
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- "Japanese Aesthetics" | 2023-12-22 | 26 Upvotes 2 Comments
๐ Pantala Flavescens
Pantala flavescens, the globe skimmer, globe wanderer or wandering glider, is a wide-ranging dragonfly of the family Libellulidae. This species and Pantala hymenaea, the "spot-winged glider", are the only members of the genus Pantala. It was first described by Johan Christian Fabricius in 1798. It is considered to be the most widespread dragonfly on the planet with good population on every continent except Antarctica although rare in Europe. Globe skimmers make an annual multigenerational journey of some 18,000ย km (about 11,200 miles); to complete the migration, individual globe skimmers fly more than 6,000ย km (3,730 miles)โone of the farthest known migrations of all insect species.
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- "Pantala Flavescens" | 2022-08-16 | 18 Upvotes 9 Comments
๐ Order of the Occult Hand
The Order of the Occult Hand is a secret society of American journalists who slip the meaningless and telltale phrase "It was as if an occult hand hadโฆ" in print as an inside joke.
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- "Order of the Occult Hand" | 2023-09-09 | 38 Upvotes 7 Comments
๐ The Theory of Interstellar Trade, Paul Krugman (1978)
The Theory of Interstellar Trade is a paper written in 1978 by the economist Paul Krugman. The paper was first published in March 2010 in the journal Economic Inquiry. He described the paper as something he wrote to cheer himself up when he was an "oppressed assistant professor" caught up in the academic rat race.
Krugman analyzed the question of
How should interest rates on goods in transit be computed when the goods travel at close to the speed of light? This is a problem because the time taken in transit will appear less to an observer traveling with the goods than to a stationary observer.
Krugman emphasized that in spite of its farcical subject matter, the economic analysis in the paper is correctly done. In his own words,
while the subject of this paper is silly, the analysis actually does make sense. This paper, then, is a serious analysis of a ridiculous subject, which is of course the opposite of what is usual in economics.
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- "The Theory of Interstellar Trade, Paul Krugman (1978)" | 2009-09-12 | 21 Upvotes 6 Comments
๐ Lowest temperature recorded on Earth
The lowest natural temperature ever directly recorded at ground level on Earth is โ89.2ย ยฐC (โ128.6ย ยฐF; 184.0ย K) at the Soviet Vostok Station in Antarctica on 21 July 1983 by ground measurements.
On 10 August 2010, satellite observations showed a surface temperature of โ93.2ย ยฐC (โ135.8ย ยฐF; 180.0ย K) at 81.8ยฐS 59.3ยฐE๏ปฟ / -81.8; 59.3, along a ridge between Dome Argus and Dome Fuji, at 3,900ย m (12,800ย ft) elevation. The result was reported at the 46th annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco in December 2013; it is a provisional figure, and may be subject to revision. The value is not listed as the record lowest temperature as it was measured by remote sensing from satellite and not by ground-based thermometers, unlike the 1983 record. The temperature announced reflects that of the ice surface, while the Vostok readings measured the air above the ice, and so the two are not directly comparable. More recent work shows many locations in the high Antarctic where surface temperatures drop to approximately โ98ย ยฐC (โ144ย ยฐF; 175ย K). Due to the very strong temperature gradient near the surface, these imply near-surface air temperature minima of approximately โ94ย ยฐC (โ137ย ยฐF; 179ย K).
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- "Lowest temperature recorded on Earth" | 2016-01-06 | 28 Upvotes 11 Comments
๐ Bicycle Day (Psychedelic Holiday)
Bicycle Day is a global holiday on April 19th celebrating the psychedelic revolution and commemorating the first psychedelic trip on LSD by Dr. Albert Hofmann in 1943, in tandem with his famous bicycle ride home from Sandoz Labs. It is commonly celebrated by ingesting psychedelics and riding a bike, sometimes in a parade, and often with psychedelic-themed festivities. The holiday was first named and declared in 1985 by Thomas Roberts, a psychology professor at Northern Illinois University, but has likely been celebrated by psychedelic enthusiasts since the begining of the psychedelic era, and celebrated in popular culture since at least 2004.
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- "Bicycle Day (Psychedelic Holiday)" | 2024-04-19 | 92 Upvotes 16 Comments
๐ Thridrangaviti Lighthouse
รrรญdrangaviti Lighthouse (transliterated as Thridrangaviti) is an active lighthouse 7.2 kilometres (4.5 miles) off the southwest coast of Iceland, in the archipelago of Vestmannaeyjar. It is often described as one of the most isolated lighthouses in the world. รrรญdrangar means "three rock pillars", referring to the three named sea stacks at that location: Stรณridrangur (on which the lighthouse stands), รรบfudrangur, and Klofadrangur. The lighthouse was commissioned on 5 July 1942.
๐ Rongorongo
Rongorongo (; Rapa Nui: [หษพoลoหษพoลo]) is a system of glyphs discovered in the 19th century on Easter Island that appears to be writing or proto-writing. Numerous attempts at decipherment have been made, none successfully. Although some calendrical and what might prove to be genealogical information has been identified, none of these glyphs can actually be read. If rongorongo does prove to be writing and proves to be an independent invention, it would be one of very few independent inventions of writing in human history.
Two dozen wooden objects bearing rongorongo inscriptions, some heavily weathered, burned, or otherwise damaged, were collected in the late 19th century and are now scattered in museums and private collections. None remain on Easter Island. The objects are mostly tablets shaped from irregular pieces of wood, sometimes driftwood, but include a chieftain's staff, a bird-man statuette, and two reimiro ornaments. There are also a few petroglyphs which may include short rongorongo inscriptions. Oral history suggests that only a small elite was ever literate and that the tablets were sacred.
Authentic rongorongo texts are written in alternating directions, a system called reverse boustrophedon. In a third of the tablets, the lines of text are inscribed in shallow fluting carved into the wood. The glyphs themselves are outlines of human, animal, plant, artifact and geometric forms. Many of the human and animal figures, such as glyphs 200 and 280 , have characteristic protuberances on each side of the head, possibly representing eyes.
Individual texts are conventionally known by a single uppercase letter and a name, such as Tablet C, the Mamari Tablet. The somewhat variable names may be descriptive or indicate where the object is kept, as in the Oar, the Snuffbox, the Small Santiago Tablet, and the Santiago Staff.
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- "Rongorongo" | 2020-02-08 | 80 Upvotes 17 Comments