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🔗 Cognitive science

The Sussman anomaly is a problem in artificial intelligence, first described by Gerald Sussman, that illustrates a weakness of noninterleaved planning algorithms, which were prominent in the early 1970s. In the problem, three blocks (labeled A, B, and C) rest on a table. The agent must stack the blocks such that A is atop B, which in turn is atop C. However, it may only move one block at a time. The problem starts with B on the table, C atop A, and A on the table:

However, noninterleaved planners typically separate the goal (stack A atop B atop C) into subgoals, such as:

1. get A atop B
2. get B atop C

Suppose the planner starts by pursuing Goal 1. The straightforward solution is to move C out of the way, then move A atop B. But while this sequence accomplishes Goal 1, the agent cannot now pursue Goal 2 without undoing Goal 1, since both A and B must be moved atop C:

If instead the planner starts with Goal 2, the most efficient solution is to move B. But again, the planner cannot pursue Goal 1 without undoing Goal 2:

The problem was first identified by Sussman as a part of his PhD research. Sussman (and his supervisor, Marvin Minsky) believed that intelligence requires a list of exceptions or tricks, and developed a modular planning system for "debugging" plans. Most modern planning systems can handle this anomaly, but it is still useful for explaining why planning is non-trivial.

KarTrak, sometimes KarTrak ACI (for Automatic Car Identification) is a colored bar code system designed to automatically identify rail cars and other rolling stock. KarTrak was made a requirement in North America, but technical problems led to abandonment of the system in the late 1970s.

🔗 Biography 🔗 London 🔗 Trains 🔗 Civil engineering 🔗 Ships 🔗 River Thames 🔗 Wiltshire 🔗 Hampshire 🔗 Bristol 🔗 Trains/UK Railways

Isambard Kingdom Brunel (; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was a British civil engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history", "one of the 19th-century engineering giants", and "one of the greatest figures of the Industrial Revolution, [who] changed the face of the English landscape with his groundbreaking designs and ingenious constructions". Brunel built dockyards, the Great Western Railway (GWR), a series of steamships including the first propeller-driven transatlantic steamship, and numerous important bridges and tunnels. His designs revolutionised public transport and modern engineering.

Though Brunel's projects were not always successful, they often contained innovative solutions to long-standing engineering problems. During his career, Brunel achieved many engineering firsts, including assisting in the building of the first tunnel under a navigable river and the development of SS Great Britain, the first propeller-driven, ocean-going, iron ship, which, when launched in 1843, was the largest ship ever built.

On the GWR, Brunel set standards for a well-built railway, using careful surveys to minimise gradients and curves. This necessitated expensive construction techniques, new bridges, new viaducts, and the two-mile (3.2 km) long Box Tunnel. One controversial feature was the wide gauge, a "broad gauge" of 7 ft ¹⁄₄ in (2,140 mm), instead of what was later to be known as "standard gauge" of 4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in (1,435 mm). He astonished Britain by proposing to extend the GWR westward to North America by building steam-powered, iron-hulled ships. He designed and built three ships that revolutionised naval engineering: the SS Great Western (1838), the SS Great Britain (1843), and the SS Great Eastern (1859).

In 2002, Brunel was placed second in a BBC public poll to determine the "100 Greatest Britons". In 2006, the bicentenary of his birth, a major programme of events celebrated his life and work under the name Brunel 200.

🔗 Olympics 🔗 Classical Greece and Rome 🔗 Greece 🔗 Martial arts 🔗 Mixed martial arts

Pankration (; Greek: παγκράτιον) was a sporting event introduced into the Greek Olympic Games in 648 BC and was an empty-hand submission sport with scarcely any rules. The athletes used boxing and wrestling techniques, but also others, such as kicking and holds, locks and chokes on the ground. The term comes from the Greek παγκράτιον [paŋkrátion], literally meaning "all of power" from πᾶν (pan) "all" and κράτος (kratos) "strength, might, power".

It was known in ancient times for its ferocity and allowance of such tactics as knees to the head and eye gouging. One ancient account tells of a situation in which the judges were trying to determine the winner of a match. The difficulty lay in that fact that both men had died in the arena from their injuries, making it hard to determine a victor. Eventually, the judges decided the winner was the one who didn't have his eyes gouged out. Over time, however, maneuvers like eye gouging were discouraged to prevent such unpleasant incidents.

🔗 Television 🔗 Star Trek

Star Trek: Phase II was the initial working title for what officially became titled Star Trek II, an unproduced American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as a sequel to (and continuation of) the original Star Trek, which had run from 1966 to 1969. The plans for the series were first developed after several failed attempts to create a feature film based on the property, coupled with plans for a Paramount Television Service (PTS) as a fourth broadcast television network in the United States.

Both PTS and the Star Trek revival were announced in early June 1977, with PTS to debut as one evening of programming each Saturday night and to gradually expand to other nights; a strategy successfully employed by the Fox Broadcasting Company a decade later. Star Trek: Phase II was to be the flagship show, and be broadcast at 8pm EST, followed by a movie of the week starting at 9pm. The initial order was for a two-hour pilot, followed by 13 hour-long episodes.

With the exception of Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, who had ongoing disputes with Roddenberry and Paramount, the entire regular and recurring cast of The Original Series were contracted to return, notably William Shatner as Captain Kirk. Three new and younger regular characters were created, science officer Lt. Xon, navigator Lt. Ilia, and ship's executive officer Willard Decker. Xon, Decker and Ilia were later influential in the development of characters on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and two of the scripts written for Phase II would be re-developed for use in that series.

Behind the cameras, Roddenberry recruited Trek-novices Harold Livingston and Robert Goodwin as producers. Veterans of The Original Series were few, and included costume designer William Ware Theiss and illustrator Mike Minor. Art director Matt Jefferies was otherwise employed and brought in as a "technical advisor" and to update the design of the starship USS Enterprise. Special effects (on set) were to be by Jim Rugg. Science fiction novelist Alan Dean Foster received the assignment to write the story outline for the two-hour pilot, but, with a looming production deadline and unable to find a suitable writer to develop this story into a teleplay, Harold Livingston took on the writing job himself. Of the remaining 12 script assignments handed out, about half were to veterans of The Original Series.

Pre-production began in earnest, with the emphasis on what would be the standing sets of the Enterprise, which differed radically in layout, design and detailing from those for The Original Series. Many costumes and props, too, were designed. Ultimately, Paramount's plans for its network and Star Trek's TV return faltered, as the low anticipated advertising revenues for the Paramount Television Service indicated that it was not viable, and the Paramount Pictures parent company Gulf and Western's chairman, Charles Bluhdorn, refused to back the plan, resulting in the eventual exit of Paramount chief executive officer Barry Diller. In August 1977 Paramount president Michael Eisner announced—internally—that the two-hour pilot script was to be the long sought-after feature film story. However, In order to prevent negative publicity, the "cancellation" of the series and network was not immediately disclosed and development of the series and its scripts continued for a further five months, during which time tests were filmed on the incomplete Enterprise sets in widescreen format - a clear indication that whatever Star Trek would be, it would not be a TV movie.

On March 28, 1978, any illusions that Star Trek would be returning to television were ended when Paramount announced that instead of a series it would be producing what became the big budget film titled Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), which was itself a massive reworking of the "In Thy Image" two-hour pilot script.

Preproduction work on the series did not entirely go to waste. The standing Enterprise sets would be extensively reworked for the film (and its eventual sequels), and an unfinished admiral's office set's walls became part of the Enterprise cargo deck. However, the visual effects people hired for the feature film decided that the miniatures under construction were not up to the standards of a post-Star Wars feature, and all were scrapped. Director Robert Collins, who had been hired to direct the pilot, and promised he was to direct the feature, was replaced by Robert Wise.

The concept of a "Paramount Network" led by a flagship Star Trek series finally came to fruition in January 1995 when Paramount launched the United Paramount Network (UPN) and the Star Trek: Voyager series.

🔗 Computing

In computer science, dancing links is a technique for reverting the operation of deleting a node from a circular doubly linked list. It is particularly useful for efficiently implementing backtracking algorithms, such as Donald Knuth's Algorithm X for the exact cover problem. Algorithm X is a recursive, nondeterministic, depth-first, backtracking algorithm that finds all solutions to the exact cover problem. Some of the better-known exact cover problems include tiling, the n queens problem, and Sudoku.

The name dancing links, which was suggested by Donald Knuth, stems from the way the algorithm works, as iterations of the algorithm cause the links to "dance" with partner links so as to resemble an "exquisitely choreographed dance." Knuth credits Hiroshi Hitotsumatsu and Kōhei Noshita with having invented the idea in 1979, but it is his paper which has popularized it.

A proxy firm (also a proxy advisor, proxy adviser, proxy voting agency, vote service provider or shareholder voting research provider) provides services to shareholders (in most cases an institutional investor of some type) to vote their shares at shareholder meetings of, usually, quoted companies.

The typical services provided include agenda translation, provision of vote management software, voting policy development, company research, and vote administration including vote execution. According to their websites, not all firms provide voting recommendations and those that do may simply execute client voting instructions.

The votes executed are called "Proxy Votes" because the shareholder usually does not attend the meeting and instead sends instructions - a proxy appointment - for a third party, usually the chairman of the meeting to vote shares in accordance with the instructions given on the voting card.

🔗 Books 🔗 Writing systems

An abecedarium (also known as an abecedary or ABCs or simply an ABC) is an inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet, almost always listed in order. Typically, abecedaria (or abecedaries) are practice exercises.

🔗 United States 🔗 Skepticism 🔗 United States/Washington - Seattle 🔗 United States/Washington

The Seattle windshield pitting epidemic is a phenomenon which affected Bellingham, Seattle, and other communities of Washington state in April, 1954; it is considered an example of a mass delusion. It was characterized by widespread observation of previously unnoticed windshield holes, pits and dings, leading residents to believe that a common causative agent was at work. It was originally thought to be the work of vandals but the rate of pitting was so great that residents began to attribute it to everything from sand flea eggs to nuclear bomb testing.

Originating in Bellingham in March, police initially believed the work to be vandals using BB guns. However the pitting was soon observed in the nearby towns of Sedro Woolley and Mount Vernon and by mid-April, appeared to have spread to the town of Anacortes on Fidalgo Island.

Within a week, the news and the so-called "pitting epidemic" had reached metropolitan Seattle. As the newspapers began to feature the story, more and more reports of pitting were called in. Motorists began stopping police cars to report damage. Car lots and parking garages reported particularly severe attacks.

Several hypotheses for the widespread damage were postulated:

• Some thought that a new million-watt radio transmitter at nearby Jim Creek Naval Radio Station was producing waves that caused physical oscillations in glass;
• Some believed it to be the work of cosmic rays;
• Some reported seeing glass bubbles form right before their eyes, believing it to be the work of sand fleas.

By April 15, close to 3,000 windshields had been reported as affected. Mayor Allan Pomeroy contacted Washington Governor Arthur B. Langlie, then President Dwight D. Eisenhower asking for assistance.

Finally, Sergeant Max Allison of the Seattle police crime laboratory stated that the pitting reports consisted of "5 per cent hoodlum-ism, and 95 per cent public hysteria." By April 17, the pitting suddenly stopped.

The "Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic" as it is called has become a textbook case of collective delusion (not "mass hysteria" as reported). Although natural windshield pitting had been going on for some time, it was only when the media called public attention to it that people actually looked at their windshields and saw damage they had never noticed before.

🔗 Business

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.