Random Articles (Page 6)
Have a deep view into what people are curious about.
π Old Man Trump (Woody Guthrie 1954)
"Old Man Trump" is a song with lyrics written by American folk singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie in 1954. The song describes the racist housing practices and discriminatory rental policies of his landlord, Fred Trump (the father of the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump). Although the lyrics were written in 1954, it was never recorded by Guthrie. In January 2016, Will Kaufman, a Guthrie scholar and professor of American literature and culture at the University of Central Lancashire, unearthed the handwritten lyrics while conducting research at the Woody Guthrie Archives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
π Scuttlebutt: Decentralised, off-grid, mesh network and self-hosted social media
Secure Scuttlebutt (SSB) is a peer-to peer communication protocol, mesh network, and self-hosted social media ecosystem. Each user hosts their own content and the content of the peers they follow, which provides fault tolerance and eventual consistency. Messages are digitally signed and added to an append-only list of messages published by an author. SSB is primarily used for implementing distributed social networks, and utilizes cryptography to assure that content remains unforged as it is propagated through the network.
Discussed on
- "Secure Scuttlebutt" | 2023-01-22 | 151 Upvotes 82 Comments
- "Scuttlebutt: Decentralised, off-grid, mesh network and self-hosted social media" | 2021-09-22 | 31 Upvotes 3 Comments
π The Dyatlov Pass Incident
The Dyatlov Pass incident (Russian: ΠΠΈΠ±Π΅Π»Ρ ΡΡΡΠ³ΡΡΠΏΠΏΡ ΠΡΡΠ»ΠΎΠ²Π°) was an event where nine Russian hikers died in the northern Ural Mountains between 1 and 2 February 1959, in uncertain circumstances. The experienced trekking group, who were all from the Ural Polytechnical Institute, had established a camp on the slopes of Kholat Syakhl, in an area now named in honor of the group's leader, Igor Dyatlov. During the night, something caused them to tear their way out of their tents and flee the campsite, all while inadequately dressed for the heavy snowfall and sub-zero temperatures.
After the group's bodies were discovered, an investigation by Soviet authorities determined that six had died from hypothermia while the other three showed signs of physical trauma. One victim had a fractured skull; two others had major chest fractures and the body of one of the group was missing both its eyes. One of the victims was missing a tongue. The investigation concluded that a "compelling natural force" had caused the deaths. Numerous theories have been put forward to account for the unexplained deaths, including animal attacks, hypothermia, avalanche, katabatic winds, infrasound-induced panic, military involvement, or some combination of these.
Discussed on
- "The Dyatlov Pass Incident" | 2019-12-25 | 52 Upvotes 16 Comments
- "Dyatlov Pass Incident" | 2016-06-03 | 259 Upvotes 137 Comments
π Deep Crack
In cryptography, the EFF DES cracker (nicknamed "Deep Crack") is a machine built by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in 1998, to perform a brute force search of the Data Encryption Standard (DES) cipher's key space β that is, to decrypt an encrypted message by trying every possible key. The aim in doing this was to prove that the key size of DES was not sufficient to be secure.
Discussed on
- "Deep Crack" | 2009-04-24 | 23 Upvotes 6 Comments
π Von Neumann's Elephant
Von Neumann's elephant is a problem in recreational mathematics, consisting of constructing a planar curve in the shape of an elephant from only four fixed parameters. It originated from a discussion between physicists John von Neumann and Enrico Fermi.
Discussed on
- "Von Neumann's Elephant" | 2024-04-13 | 21 Upvotes 5 Comments
π BBS Door
A door in a bulletin board system (BBS) is an interface between the BBS software and an external application. The term is also used to refer to the external application, a computer program that runs outside of the main bulletin board program. Sometimes called external programs, doors are the most common way to add games, utilities, and other extensions to BBSes. Because BBSes typically depended on the telephone system, BBSes and door programs tended to be local in nature, unlike modern Internet games and applications.
From the 1990s on, most BBS software had the capability to "drop to" doors. Several standards were developed for passing connection and user information to doors; this was usually done with "dropfiles", small binary or text files dropped into known locations in the BBS's file system. Most doors were responsible for operating the serial port or other communications device directly until returning control to the BBS. Later development of FOSSIL drivers have allowed both BBSes and their doors to communicate without being responsible for direct operation of the communications hardware.
π Stalin's Poetry
Before he became a Bolshevik revolutionary and the leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin was a promising poet.
Discussed on
- "Stalin's Poetry" | 2019-09-29 | 50 Upvotes 47 Comments
π Visual calculus
Visual calculus, invented by Mamikon Mnatsakanian (known as Mamikon), is an approach to solving a variety of integral calculus problems. Many problems that would otherwise seem quite difficult yield to the method with hardly a line of calculation, often reminiscent of what Martin Gardner called "aha! solutions" or Roger Nelsen a proof without words.
Discussed on
- "Visual calculus" | 2024-02-13 | 231 Upvotes 41 Comments
π The Narcissism of Small Differences
The narcissism of small differences (German: der Narzissmus der kleinen Differenzen) is the thesis that communities with adjoining territories and close relationships are especially likely to engage in feuds and mutual ridicule because of hypersensitivity to details of differentiation. The term was coined by Sigmund Freud in 1917, based on the earlier work of British anthropologist Ernest Crawley. In language differing only slightly from current psychoanalytic terminology, Crawley declared that each individual is separated from others by a taboo of personal isolation, a narcissism of minor differences.
π Teasmade
A teasmade is a machine for making tea automatically, which was once common in the United Kingdom and some British Commonwealth countries. Teasmades generally include an analogue alarm clock and are designed to be used at the bedside, to ensure tea is ready first thing in the morning. Although crude versions existed in Victorian times, they only became practical with the availability of electric versions in the 1930s. They reached their peak in popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, since when their use has declined, but they are now enjoying a revival, partly as a retro novelty item.
The name teasmade is an example of a genericised trademark, now commonly used to refer to any automatic tea-making appliance.