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๐ 100 years ago today, the battle of Blair Mountain
The Battle of Blair Mountain was the largest labor uprising in United States history and the largest armed uprising since the American Civil War. The conflict occurred in Logan County, West Virginia, as part of the Coal Wars, a series of early-20th-century labor disputes in Appalachia. Up to 100 people were killed, and many more arrested. The United Mine Workers saw major declines in membership, but the long-term publicity led to some improvements in working conditions.
For five days from late August to early September 1921, some 10,000 armed coal miners confronted 3,000 lawmen and strikebreakers (called the Logan Defenders) who were backed by coal mine operators during the miners' attempt to unionize the southwestern West Virginia coalfields when tensions rose between workers and mine management. The battle ended after approximately one million rounds were fired and the United States Army, represented by the West Virginia Army National Guard led by McDowell County native William Eubanks, intervened by presidential order.
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- "100 years ago today, the battle of Blair Mountain" | 2021-08-25 | 11 Upvotes 1 Comments
๐ Saw-Tooth Roof
A saw-tooth roof is a roof comprising a series of ridges with dual pitches either side. The steeper surfaces are glazed to admit daylight and face away from the equator to shield workers and machinery from direct sunlight. This kind of roof admits natural light into a deep plan building or factory. It was therefore most commonly built during the Machine Age from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth, when electrification of factories was not yet common.
Many factories of the era had little or no electrical wiring; their main power sources for the machinery were often steam engines driving line shafting, and the lighting was chiefly via daylighting through the windows. Work done at night, when necessary, was typically lit by oil lamps and candles, but many factories closed for the night. Their norm of an early working day (for example, 6 a.m. to 4 p.m.) was not merely a tradition but a functional decision based on this reliance on daylighting. The same was true of the farmer's workday, for the same reason.
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- "Saw-Tooth Roof" | 2025-09-18 | 15 Upvotes 3 Comments
๐ Wikipedia policies on what editors should do in the case of impending apocalypse
The Terminal Event Management Policy (TEMP) is a Wikipedia policy detailing the procedures to be followed to safeguard the content of the encyclopedia in the event of a non-localized event that would render the continuation of Wikipedia in its current form untenable.
The policy is designed to facilitate the preservation of the encyclopedia by a transition to non-electronic media in an orderly, time-sensitive manner or, if events dictate otherwise, the preservation of the encyclopedia by other means. Editors are asked to familiarize themselves with the procedures and in the unlikely event that the implementation of these procedures proves necessary, act in accordance with the procedural guidelines, inasmuch as circumstances allow.
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- "Wikipedia policies on what editors should do in the case of impending apocalypse" | 2019-06-28 | 25 Upvotes 15 Comments
- "Wikipedia: Terminal Event Management Policy" | 2019-05-26 | 18 Upvotes 3 Comments
๐ User: Larry Sanger/Nine Theses
ย submit these nine theses to Wikipediaโs community and to the world. I do this, as Martin Luther said when he posted his famous 95 theses, โOut of love for the truth and the desire to elucidate it.โ
A quarter of a century ago, Jimmy Walesโ company Bomis hired me to start a free encyclopedia. The first draft, from which we learned much, was Nupediaโit made slow progress. So, a year later, on January 2, 2001, when a friend told me about wikis, I immediately began imagining a wiki encyclopedia. I proposed it to Jimmy, then CEO of Bomis. He agreed and installed the software, and I went to work getting things ready. After I named it, we launched Wikipedia on January 15, 2001, and just nine days later, I was able to write, โWikipedia has definitely taken on a life of its own; new people are arriving every day and the project seems to be getting only more popular. Long live Wikipedia!โ
The title I claimed at the time was โchief instigator.โ My daily leadership for the 14 months after that was essential to transforming a completely empty, blank wiki into what would soon become the largest written resource in the history of the world. I was responsible for several policies that were and are fundamental to the project: the exclusive focus on an encyclopedia; neutrality; โno original researchโ; โbe boldโ; aspects of the verifiability policy; and other things. I even proposed the tongue-in-cheek โruleโ to โignore all rules.โ For more, see this page on my role in Wikipedia, my Slashdot memoir, and my book, Essays on Free Knowledge. I say these things not to brag but to show why my proposals deserve a careful hearing.
I carefully chose and worded the following nine theses to appeal to the universal concern for truth and justice. I have worked for many months on this project. I am confident that every thesis stands on solid ground. Some Wikipedians, wedded to the current system, might be inclined to reject them; but many others, as well as the broader world, will be able to see that they are quite reasonable. I hope that the Wikipedia community will do the necessary introspection and find ways to make these proposals a reality. I also hope the broader world will join the discussion on each point and press Wikipediaโs leadership as well as rank-and-file editors to adopt them, for the good of all.
Please note that there are nine lengthy essays to go with the nine theses.
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- "User: Larry Sanger/Nine Theses" | 2025-10-01 | 11 Upvotes 2 Comments
๐ Richard Jewell
Richard Allensworth Jewell (born Richard White; December 17, 1962 โ August 29, 2007) was an American security guard and law enforcement officer who alerted police during the Centennial Olympic Park bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. For months afterwards he was suspected of planting the bomb, leading to adverse publicity that "came to symbolize the excesses of law enforcement and the news media."
While working as a security guard at the Olympic Park, Jewell discovered a backpack containing three pipe bombs on the park grounds. He alerted law enforcement and helped evacuate the area before the bomb exploded, probably saving many people from injury or death.
Initially hailed by the media as a hero, Jewell was soon considered a suspect by the FBI and local law enforcement based on scientific profiling. Though never charged, he underwent a "trial by media", which took a toll on his personal and professional life. Jewell was cleared as a suspect after 88 days of public scrutiny. Eric Rudolph eventually confessed and pleaded guilty to that bombing and other attacks. The media circus surrounding the investigation, which was leaked to the press, has been widely cited as an example of law enforcement and media excesses.
In recent years, Jewell's heroic legacy has been the subject of popular culture, including the 2019 film Richard Jewell, and the drama anthology series Manhunt.
๐ Christmas Tree Exec
Christmas Tree EXEC was the first widely disruptive computer worm, which paralyzed several international computer networks in December 1987. The malware ran on the IBM VM/CMS operating system.
Written by a student at the Clausthal University of Technology in the REXX scripting language, it drew a crude Christmas tree as text graphics, then sent itself to each entry in the target's email contacts file. In this way it spread onto the European Academic Research Network (EARN), BITNET, and IBM's worldwide VNET. On all of these systems it caused massive disruption.
The core mechanism of the ILOVEYOU worm of 2000 was essentially the same as Christmas Tree, although it ran on PCs rather than mainframes, was spread over a different network, and was scripted using VBScript rather than REXX.
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- "Christmas Tree Exec" | 2025-12-06 | 22 Upvotes 2 Comments
๐ Grave of the Fireflies
Grave of the Fireflies (Japanese: ็ซๅใใฎๅข, Hepburn: Hotaru no Haka) is a 1988 Japanese animated war drama film written and directed by Isao Takahata, and produced by Studio Ghibli. It is based on the 1967 semi-autobiographical short story Grave of the Fireflies by Akiyuki Nosaka.
The film stars Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi, Yoshiko Shinohara and Akemi Yamaguchi. Set in the city of Kobe, Japan, it tells the story of siblings and war orphans Seita and Setsuko, and their desperate struggle to survive during the final months of World War II. Universally acclaimed, Grave of the Fireflies has been ranked as one of the greatest war films of all time and is recognized as a major work of Japanese animation.
๐ Yenish people
The Yenish (German: Jenische; French: Yรฉniche) are an itinerant group in Western Europe who live mostly in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, and parts of France, roughly centred on the Rhineland. A number of theories for the group's origins have been proposed, including that the Yenish descended from members of the marginalized and vagrant poor classes of society of the early modern period, before emerging as a distinct group by the early 19th century. Most of the Yenish became sedentary in the course of the mid-19th to 20th centuries.
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- "Yenish people" | 2023-09-03 | 125 Upvotes 108 Comments
๐ New York, Ukraine
New York or Niu-York is a rural settlement in Toretsk urban hromada, Bakhmut Raion, Donetsk Oblast, eastern Ukraine. It is located 37.9 kilometres (23.5ย mi) north-northeast from the centre of the city of Donetsk. From 1951 to 2021, the settlement was named Novhorodske.
New York is administratively designated to Toretsk urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine with its center in the city of Toretsk, that is located about 10 kilometres (6.2ย mi) north of New York. Population: 9,735 (2022 estimate).
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- "New York, Ukraine" | 2024-07-19 | 11 Upvotes 4 Comments
๐ Finite Element Method
The finite element method (FEM) is the most widely used method for solving problems of engineering and mathematical models. Typical problem areas of interest include the traditional fields of structural analysis, heat transfer, fluid flow, mass transport, and electromagnetic potential. The FEM is a particular numerical method for solving partial differential equations in two or three space variables (i.e., some boundary value problems). To solve a problem, the FEM subdivides a large system into smaller, simpler parts that are called finite elements. This is achieved by a particular space discretisation in the space dimensions, which is implemented by the construction of a mesh of the object: the numerical domain for the solution, which has a finite number of points. The finite element method formulation of a boundary value problem finally results in a system of algebraic equations. The method approximates the unknown function over the domain. The simple equations that model these finite elements are then assembled into a larger system of equations that models the entire problem. The FEM then uses variational methods from the calculus of variations to approximate a solution by minimizing an associated error function.
Studying or analyzing a phenomenon with FEM is often referred to as finite element analysis (FEA).
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- "Finite Element Method" | 2020-02-17 | 75 Upvotes 44 Comments