Topic: Technology
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π Phoebus Cartel
The Phoebus cartel existed to control the manufacture and sale of incandescent light bulbs. They appropriated market territories and fixed the useful life of such bulbs. Corporations based in Europe and America founded the cartel on January 15, 1925 in Geneva. They had intended the cartel to last for thirty years (1925 to 1955). The cartel ceased operations in 1939 owing to the outbreak of World War II. The cartel included manufacturers Osram, General Electric, Associated Electrical Industries, and Philips, among others.
The Phoebus cartel created a notable landmark in the history of the global economy because it engaged in large-scale planned obsolescence to generate repeated sales and maximize profit. It also reduced competition in the light bulb industry for almost fifteen years. Critics accused the cartel of preventing technological advances that would produce longer-lasting light bulbs. Phoebus based itself in Switzerland. The corporation named itself PhΕbus S.A. Compagnie Industrielle pour le DΓ©veloppement de l'Γclairage (French for "Phoebus, Inc. Industrial Company for the Development of Lighting").
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- "Phoebus Cartel" | 2021-04-26 | 126 Upvotes 82 Comments
- "Phoebus Cartel" | 2019-11-21 | 195 Upvotes 120 Comments
- "Phoebus cartel" | 2018-07-25 | 131 Upvotes 48 Comments
π List of screw drives
A screw drive is a system used to turn a screw. At a minimum, it is a set of shaped cavities and protrusions on the screw head that allows torque to be applied to it. Usually, it also involves a mating tool, such as a screwdriver, that is used to turn it. The following heads are categorized based on commonality, with some of the less-common drives being classified as "tamper-resistant".
Most heads come in a range of sizes, typically distinguished by a number, such as "Phillips #00". These sizes do not necessarily describe a particular dimension of the drive shape, but rather are arbitrary designations.
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- "List of screw drives" | 2018-05-07 | 303 Upvotes 255 Comments
π Geneva drive
The Geneva drive or Maltese cross is a gear mechanism that translates a continuous rotation movement into intermittent rotary motion.
The rotating drive wheel is usually equipped with a pin that reaches into a slot located in the other wheel (driven wheel) that advances it by one step at a time. The drive wheel also has an elevated circular blocking disc that "locks" the rotating driven wheel in position between steps.
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- "Geneva drive" | 2013-12-17 | 481 Upvotes 71 Comments
π List of Emerging Technologies
Emerging technologies are those technical innovations that represent progressive innovations within a field for competitive advantage.
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- "List of Emerging Technologies" | 2021-04-16 | 162 Upvotes 44 Comments
- "List of Emerging Technologies" | 2019-03-10 | 160 Upvotes 15 Comments
- "List of emerging technologies" | 2012-05-17 | 78 Upvotes 41 Comments
π List of common misconceptions
This is a list of common misconceptions. Each entry is formatted as a correction; the misconceptions themselves are implied rather than stated. These entries are meant to be concise, but more detail can be found in the main subject articles.
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- "List of Common Misconceptions" | 2022-07-13 | 21 Upvotes 8 Comments
- "List of Common Misconceptions" | 2020-05-22 | 52 Upvotes 15 Comments
- "List of common misconceptions" | 2018-06-14 | 94 Upvotes 26 Comments
- "List of Common Misconceptions" | 2010-06-27 | 169 Upvotes 53 Comments
π Wringing
Gauge blocks (also known as gage blocks, Johansson gauges, slip gauges, or Jo blocks) are a system for producing precision lengths. The individual gauge block is a metal or ceramic block that has been precision ground and lapped to a specific thickness. Gauge blocks come in sets of blocks with a range of standard lengths. In use, the blocks are stacked to make up a desired length.
An important feature of gauge blocks is that they can be joined together with very little dimensional uncertainty. The blocks are joined by a sliding process called wringing, which causes their ultra-flat surfaces to cling together. A small number of gauge blocks can be used to create accurate lengths within a wide range. By using 3 blocks at a time taken from a set of 30 blocks, one may create any of the 1000 lengths from 3.000 to 3.999Β mm in 0.001Β mm steps (or .3000 to .3999 inches in 0.0001Β inch steps). Gauge blocks were invented in 1896 by Swedish machinist Carl Edvard Johansson. They are used as a reference for the calibration of measuring equipment used in machine shops, such as micrometers, sine bars, calipers, and dial indicators (when used in an inspection role). Gauge blocks are the main means of length standardization used by industry.
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- "Wringing" | 2019-07-05 | 356 Upvotes 77 Comments
π A Tesla Valve
A Tesla valve, called by Tesla a valvular conduit, is a fixed-geometry passive check valve. It allows a fluid to flow preferentially in one direction, without moving parts. The device is named after Nikola Tesla, who was awarded U.S. Patent 1,329,559 in 1920 for its invention. The patent application describes the invention as follows:
The interior of the conduit is provided with enlargements, recesses, projections, baffles, or buckets which, while offering virtually no resistance to the passage of the fluid in one direction, other than surface friction, constitute an almost impassable barrier to its flow in the opposite direction.
Tesla illustrates this with the drawing, showing one possible construction with a series of eleven flow-control segments, although any other number of such segments could be used as desired to increase or decrease the flow regulation effect.
One computational fluid dynamics simulation of Tesla valves with two and four segments showed that the flow resistance in the blocking (or reverse) direction was about 15 and 40 times greater, respectively, than the unimpeded (or forward) direction. This lends support to Tesla's patent assertion that in the valvular conduit in his diagram, a pressure ratio "approximating 200 can be obtained so that the device acts as a slightly leaking valve".
The Tesla valve is used in microfluidic applications and offers advantages such as scalability, durability, and ease of fabrication in a variety of materials.
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- "Tesla Valve" | 2021-08-12 | 100 Upvotes 40 Comments
- "A Tesla Valve" | 2019-12-18 | 197 Upvotes 42 Comments
π Oil Pipeline Pigs
In pipeline transportation, pigging is the practice of using devices known as pigs or scrapers to perform various maintenance operations. This is done without stopping the flow of the product in the pipeline. These devices are known as pigs because they scrape or clean just like a normal pig.
These operations include but are not limited to cleaning and inspecting the pipeline. This is accomplished by inserting the pig into a "pig launcher" (or "launching station")Β β an oversized section in the pipeline, reducing to the normal diameter. The launching station is then closed and the pressure-driven flow of the product in the pipeline is used to push the pig along down the pipe until it reaches the receiving trapΒ β the "pig catcher" (or "receiving station").
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- "Pigging" | 2023-10-21 | 222 Upvotes 80 Comments
- "Oil Pipeline Pigs" | 2014-07-28 | 12 Upvotes 3 Comments
π Mecanum wheel
The Mecanum wheel is a omnidirectional wheel design for a land-based vehicle to move in any direction. It is sometimes called the Ilon wheel after its inventor, Bengt Erland Ilon (1923-2008), who came up with the concept while working as an engineer with the Swedish company Mecanum AB, and patented it in the United States on November 13, 1972.
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- "Mecanum Wheel" | 2024-09-13 | 70 Upvotes 26 Comments
- "Mecanum wheel" | 2018-05-04 | 169 Upvotes 50 Comments
π Google was founded 25 years ago Today
Google was officially launched in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin to market Google Search, which has become the most used web-based search engine. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, students at Stanford University in California, developed a search algorithm at first known as "BackRub" in 1996, with the help of Scott Hassan and Alan Steremberg. The search engine soon proved successful and the expanding company moved several times, finally settling at Mountain View in 2003. This marked a phase of rapid growth, with the company making its initial public offering in 2004 and quickly becoming one of the world's largest media companies. The company launched Google News in 2002, Gmail in 2004, Google Maps in 2005, Google Chrome in 2008, and the social network known as Google+ in 2011 (which was shut down in April 2019), in addition to many other products. In 2015, Google became the main subsidiary of the holding company Alphabet Inc.
The search engine went through many updates in attempts to eradicate search engine optimization.
Google has engaged in partnerships with NASA, AOL, Sun Microsystems, News Corporation, Sky UK, and others. The company set up a charitable offshoot, Google.org, in 2005.
The name Google is a misspelling of Googol, the number 1 followed by 100 zeros, which was picked to signify that the search engine was intended to provide large quantities of information.
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- "Google was founded 25 years ago Today" | 2023-09-04 | 84 Upvotes 215 Comments