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π Project One (San Francisco)
An important part of the counterculture of the 1970s, Project One, sometimes described as a technological commune, was an intentional community in San Francisco, California, U.S. Located at 1380 Howard St. in an 84,000 square foot warehouse, formerly an abandoned candy factory, the community functioned from 1970 to 1980 and was the first "warehouse community" in San Francisco. Occupied by a shifting mix of students, craftspeople, artisans, sculptors, filmmakers, and technologists, Project One was anchored by a number of organizations.
The community had no formal organizational structure. Decisions were made through a voluntary weekly meeting of members who made decisions based on a consensus of those present.
Project One was initiated by architect Ralph Scott, a former student of Buckminster Fuller, and rapidly became an interdisciplinary learning environment. Central to the concept was Symbas Alternative High School, founded by Scott and located in a large, high-ceiling space on the first floor. Many of these resident non-profit organizations and small businesses were brought in to serve as resources for the students, who were also members of the larger community. Students found mentors who offered skills training and the opportunities to practice new skills. See also community of place.
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- "Project One (San Francisco)" | 2022-11-26 | 34 Upvotes 8 Comments
π Year Without a Summer
The year 1816 is known as the Year Without a Summer (also the Poverty Year and Eighteen Hundred and Froze To Death) because of severe climate abnormalities that caused average global temperatures to decrease by 0.4β0.7Β Β°C (0.72β1.26Β Β°F). This resulted in major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere.
Evidence suggests that the anomaly was predominantly a volcanic winter event caused by the massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in April in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). This eruption was the largest eruption in at least 1,300 years (after the hypothesized eruption causing the extreme weather events of 535β536), and perhaps exacerbated by the 1814 eruption of Mayon in the Philippines.
Discussed on
- "Year Without a Summer" | 2020-02-24 | 295 Upvotes 131 Comments
- "The Year Without a Summer" | 2018-11-17 | 14 Upvotes 1 Comments
π Zone System
The Zone System is a photographic technique for determining optimal film exposure and development, formulated by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer. Adams described the Zone System as "[...] not an invention of mine; it is a codification of the principles of sensitometry, worked out by Fred Archer and myself at the Art Center School in Los Angeles, around 1939β40."
The technique is based on the late 19th century sensitometry studies of Hurter and Driffield. The Zone System provides photographers with a systematic method of precisely defining the relationship between the way they visualize the photographic subject and the final results. Although it originated with black-and-white sheet film, the Zone System is also applicable to roll film, both black-and-white and color, negative and reversal, and to digital photography.
Discussed on
- "Zone System" | 2022-03-18 | 23 Upvotes 12 Comments
π Miller test
The Miller test, also called the three-prong obscenity test, is the United States Supreme Court's test for determining whether speech or expression can be labeled obscene, in which case it is not protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and can be prohibited.
Discussed on
- "Miller test" | 2023-03-22 | 48 Upvotes 18 Comments
π F-Law
Management f-Laws are subversive epigrams about common management practices. Based on observation and experience, they are used to draw attention to entrenched ways of thinking about management and business that are often at odds with common sense or our actual experience.
Systems theorist Russell L. Ackoff, his co-author Herbert J. Addison and Sally Bibb invented the term in 2006 to describe their series of over 100 distilled observations of bad leadership and the misplaced wisdom that often surrounds management in organizations. Ackoff and Addison's f-Laws might seem counter-intuitive. They are designed to challenge organizations' unquestioning adherence to established management habits or beliefs. Many of the f-Laws describe a relationship of inverse proportionality, in example: "The lower the rank of managers, the more they know about fewer things."
The f-Laws advocate adopting a positive, forward-looking and interactive approach to structural or systematic change within organizations, following the principles of idealized design. This is a process that "involves redesigning the organization on the assumption that it was destroyed last night... The most effective way of creating the future is by closing or reducing the gap between the current state and the idealized design".
Three collections of f-Laws entitled A Little Book of f-Laws: 13 Common Sins of Management, Management f-Laws: How Organizations Really Work and Systems Thinking for Curious Managers have been published. While, if read in isolation, each f-Law is a witty and thought-provoking axiom, the books provide a context that draws upon systems thinking and the debate over the importance of developing soft skills in business environments.
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- "F-Law" | 2020-11-07 | 19 Upvotes 2 Comments
π Highway of Death
The Highway of Death (Arabic: Ψ·Ψ±ΩΩ Ψ§ΩΩ ΩΨͺ αΉarΔ«q al-mawt) is a six-lane highway between Kuwait and Iraq, officially known as Highway 80. It runs from Kuwait City to the border town of Safwan in Iraq and then on to the Iraqi city of Basra. The road was used by Iraqi armored divisions for the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It was repaired after the Gulf War and used by U.S. and British forces in the initial stages of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
During the American-led coalition offensive in the Persian Gulf War, American, Canadian, British and French aircraft and ground forces attacked retreating Iraqi military personnel attempting to leave Kuwait on the night of February 26β27, 1991, resulting in the destruction of hundreds of vehicles and the deaths of many of their occupants. Between 1,400 and 2,000 vehicles were hit or abandoned on the main Highway 80 north of Al Jahra.
The scenes of devastation on the road are some of the most recognizable images of the war, and it has been suggested that they were a factor in President George H. W. Bush's decision to declare a cessation of hostilities the next day. Many Iraqi forces successfully escaped across the Euphrates river, and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency estimated that upwards of 70,000 to 80,000 troops from defeated divisions in Kuwait might have fled into Basra, evading capture.
π Sequoyah β Inventor of the Cherokee Script
Sequoyah (αααα― Ssiquoya, as he signed his name, or ααα― Se-quo-ya, as is often spelled in Cherokee; named in English George Gist or George Guess) (c.1770β1843), was a Native American polymath of the Cherokee Nation. In 1821 he completed his independent creation of a Cherokee syllabary, making reading and writing in Cherokee possible. This was one of the very few times in recorded history that a member of a pre-literate people created an original, effective writing system (another example being Shong Lue Yang). After seeing its worth, the people of the Cherokee Nation rapidly began to use his syllabary and officially adopted it in 1825. Their literacy rate quickly surpassed that of surrounding European-American settlers.
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- "Sequoyah β Inventor of the Cherokee Script" | 2019-12-08 | 68 Upvotes 16 Comments
π Bardcore
Bardcore (from the Celtic-origin word βbardβ meaning βpoetβ or βstorytellerβ) or tavernwave is a 2020 internet phenomenon consisting of medievalised remakes of hit pop songs.
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- "Bardcore" | 2020-09-02 | 454 Upvotes 164 Comments
π Siwa Oasis
The Siwa Oasis (Arabic: ΩΨ§ΨΨ© Ψ³ΩΩΨ©β, WΔαΈ₯at SΔ«wah, IPA:Β [ΛwΓ¦ΛΔ§et ΛsiΛwΓ¦]; Coptic: β²₯β²β²β²©β²Ο© Siwah; Berber languages: Isiwan, β΅β΅β΅β΅‘β΄°β΅ ) is an urban oasis in Egypt between the Qattara Depression and the Great Sand Sea in the Western Desert, 50Β km (30Β mi) east of the Libyan border, and 560Β km (348Β mi) from Cairo. About 80Β km (50Β mi) in length and 20Β km (12Β mi) wide, Siwa Oasis is one of Egypt's most isolated settlements with about 33,000 people, mostly Berbers, who developed a unique and isolated desert culture and a distinct dialect and language different than all other dialects called Siwi, they are also fluent in the Egyptian dialect of Arabic which is called "Masry" meaning Egyptian.
Its fame lies primarily in its ancient role as the home to an oracle of Ammon, the ruins of which are a popular tourist attraction which gave the oasis its ancient name Oasis of Amun Ra. Historically, it was part of Ancient Egypt.
Discussed on
- "Siwa Oasis" | 2019-07-13 | 35 Upvotes 10 Comments
π Precariat
In sociology and economics, the precariat () is a social class formed by people suffering from precarity, which means existing without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. The term is a portmanteau merging precarious with proletariat.
Unlike the proletariat class of industrial workers in the 20th century who lacked their own means of production and hence sold their labor to live, members of the precariat are only partially involved in labor and must undertake extensive unremunerated activities that are essential if they are to retain access to jobs and to decent earnings. Classic examples of such unpaid activities include continually having to search for work (including preparing for and attending job interviews), as well as being expected to be perpetually responsive to calls for "gig" work (yet without being paid an actual wage for being "on call").
The hallmark of the precariat class is the condition of lack of job security, including intermittent employment or underemployment and the resultant precarious existence. The emergence of this class has been ascribed to the entrenchment of neoliberal capitalism.
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- "Precariat" | 2025-08-12 | 11 Upvotes 1 Comments