My apologies. Too much else is going on, so I am seldom current on my watchlist and am now running about 4 weeks behind; some articles in my tab list are months behind because I need to examine sources. That has some sad implications. If I make an edit today, that does not mean I'm current on my watchlist. If an article has lots of activity, then I may not look at that article until the activity has stopped for a few days. (I do jump ahead sometimes.) Even if I see some article changes, I may queue them for later handling because I don't have the time to check them now. Unfortunately, the further back they fall, the less likely they will be addressed.
"This place slightly resembles an insane asylum." ―Blake "Well, all you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people." ―Alexander Bullock,My Man Godfrey
"Hey, but a lot can happen over a year. I mean, you could come back next fall as a completely normal person." ―Samantha Baker,Sixteen Candles
"Eternity is a very long time — especially toward the end." ―Woody Allen
"It is tough to make predictions, especially about the future." —Yogi Berra[1]
"You got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there." —Yogi Berra[2]
"You had a leak? You call what's goin' on around here a leak? Boy, the last time there was a leak like this, Noah built hisself a boat." ―James A. Wells, Assistant U.S. Attorney General,Absence of Malice
"You're gonna need a bigger boat." ―Martin C. Brody,Jaws.WhenAaron Sorkin was asked what was the best line ever written, he quoted this one, but the line was an ad lib. I bet Sorkin knew.
"I'm an actor."Roy Scheider toSteven Spielberg when Spielberg was complaining he could not find an actor for Brody's part.
"No es Canadiense! Todos Canadienses hablan polaco!" ["You're no Canadian! All Canadians speak Polish!"] ― Spanish officer trying to interrogate a Canadian flier in Polish atMiranda de Ebro concentration camp (where Polish refugees who spoke English would claim to be Canadian so they would not be returned to the Nazis). The flier was classified as stateless.Enigma, Władyshaw Kozaczuk translated by Christopher Kasparek, University Publications of America 1984, pp 152–154
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ⋯ = −1/12 —Srinivasa RamanujanNot only is the sum of all positive integers a fraction less than 1, but it is also a negative fraction.
LetN be the largest integer. IfN > 1, thenN 2 >N, contradicting the definition ofN. HenceN = 1. ―Oskar Perron
All angles are right angles. All triangles are equilateral triangles. ―David Hilbert
"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is." —Anon
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt." — possibly Maurice Switzer but often attributied toMark Twain orAbraham LincolnSeeQuote Investigator.
"I stopped her right there and said look, ifThe Economist says that, then they are wrong. I said that people should come to this article and look at the table where we have a meticulous table with exact reference to the authoritative data." —Jimbo Wales in athank you note atTalk:Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa.
"I could see our escort fighters weaving in their protective pattern... our bomber pilots also sighted the enemy force and, without orders, raced for low altitude. ... Even as we pulled out above the jungle, our escort fighters turned into the attacking planes.... For a few moments I lost sight ofYamamoto's plane and finally located theBetty far to the right. I was horrified to see the airplane flying slowly just above the jungle, headed to the south, with bright orange flames rapidly enveloping the wings and fuselage. ... I stared hopelessly as a silver H-shapedP-38 half-rolled in a screaming zoom, then turned steeply, and closed rapidly toward our plane. ... I watched the P-38's nose seem to burst into twinkling flame, and suddenly the bomber shook from the impact of the enemy's machine gun bullets and cannon shells. The P-38 pilot was an excellent gunner, for his first fusilade of bullets and shells crashed into the right side of the airplane, then into the left. The drumming sounds vibrated through the airplane which rocked from the impact of the enemy fire. ... One by one our answering machine guns fell silent. ... Another canon shell suddenly tore open the right wing. ... aZero pilot above us ... reported heavy smoke pouring from our bomber ... the pilot ... could no longer control the aircraft. Enemy bullets had shattered the cables. ... The impact of the crash momentarily stunned me, and everything turned black." — Vice AdmiralMatome Ugaki, Chief of Staff of theCombined Fleet, describing18 April 1943 attack overBougainville Island,quoted inAttack on Yamamoto, Carroll V. Glines, New York: Orion Books, 1990,ISBN0-517-57728-3, pp 99-101.
"Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience." —George CarlinAlso possibly Greg King. Attributed to Mark Twain but word usage slightly off. Similar to "When arguing with fools, don't answer their foolish arguments, or you will become as foolish as they are." — Proverbs 26:4
"Have you ever noticed when you're driving that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?" —George Carlin
"Never call a man a fool; borrow from him' —Addison Mizner[3]The Perfectly Good Cynic's Calendar by Ethel Watts Mumford Grant, Addison Mizner, Oliver Herford
"If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." —Gerald Uelmenwho fed it toJohnnie Cochran. Also had a wonderful conversation about his losing the Fuhrman motion turning out well.
Ted Kennedy on the stand in theWilliam Kennedy Smith trial. Prosecutor asks a question, Kennedy goes into a long answer, prosecutor objects, defense counsel opposes objection, and Kennedy keeps talking through the whole episode.
"Very interesting. $50,000." —Lan Jen Chu. Power company's transmission towers were being destroyed by lightning strikes. Company tried better grounding systems and other fixes without success. The company described the problem to Chu, and he immediately saw the problem. Chu didn't want an hourly fee because he already knew the answer, but the company recoiled at the large flat fee. Since the solution was immediately obvious to Chu, the company did not hire him but rather went back to its engineers telling them that if Chu figured it out quickly by looking a few pictures, they should be able to figure it out with a little more time. But the engineers didn't figure it out, and the power company ultimately paid Chu. Making a better ground had made the problem worse; the solution was to remove a strut that made a large shorted loop.
"Speak not to him, for God hath rendered him tasteless."B. Klibanpossibly inTwo Guys Fooling Around with the Moon (1982)ISBN0-89480-198-8
"Okay so maybe I was overly ambitious with my plan to post a weekly lust list. It’s not that there was any shortage of things I loved lately, more that there always seemed to be a shortage of something far more valuable: time. First I picked up a last minute freelance job on a yacht in the Bahamas (plenty of things to love there) and was too busy working to play on my computer. And then when I did have the luxury of time, I was working on Bahamas Wi-Fi which is comparable to trying to start a fire with a coconut. Pretty much pointless." — Kate Chastain,Lucky Charming.
"I am a damned sight smarter man thanGrant. I know more about military history, strategy, and grand tactics than he does. I know more about supply, administration, and everything else than he does. I'll tell you where he beats me though and where he beats the world. He doesn't give a damn about what the enemy does out of his sight, but it scares me like hell. … I am more nervous than he is. I am more likely to change my orders or to countermarch my command than he is. He uses such information as he has according to his best judgment; he issues his orders and does his level best to carry them out without much reference to what is going on about him and, so far, experience seems to have fully justified him." —William Tecumseh Sherman.Comments toJames H. Wilson (22 October 1864), as quoted inUnder the Old Flag: Recollections of Military Operations in the War for the Union, the Spanish War, the Boxer Rebellion, etc Vol. 2 (1912) by James Harrison Wilson, p. 17.
"It has been a damned serious business...Blücher and I have lost 30,000 men. It has been a damned nice thing — the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life." —Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, about theBattle of Waterloo toThomas Creevey (18 June 1815)."Nice" used as "doubtful"; "a damned nice thing" sometimes quoted as "a damn close-run thing". T. Creevy,Reminiscences (28 July 1822);Creevey Papers (1903), Ch. X, p. 236.
(find MacArthur's comment about raid in Mexico.)
"It's not easy to wreck a nice beach."On a tee shirt given out at a 1983 speech recognition conference inChatham, Massachusetts.John Sirica's house was close by.
"I'll have what she's having." —Older Woman Customer inWhen Harry Met Sally...Mother of directorRob Reiner. SeeBilly Crystal'sReveals Secret.Nora Ephron, Crystal, andMeg Ryan thought up the scene, but Crystal explains that Rob Reiner amped it up: "And then Rob said, 'I want you to do it this way. Like this.' And he sat down opposite me — so now it looks like I'm on a date with him orSebastian Cabot — he has an orgasm that King Kong would be jealous of."
"It costs a lot of money to look this cheap." —Dolly Parton
"A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money." —Everett Dirksen
"I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb… and I also know that I'm not blonde." —Dolly Parton
"Oatsn.f. [aten, Saxon.] A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people." —Samuel JohnsonDictionary of the English Language, J. & P. Knapton, London, 1755.[6]
"The good that people do is oft in turd with their bones." — Alex K, 14-years old.ALady Mondegreen during a discussion ofShakespeare'sJulius Caesar. Alex blamed us for bringing up poop, and explained that owl poop has bones in it.
Putting a star in her place.Julia Robert's young daughter started to realize her mom might be special, so she asked, "Mommy, are you famous?" Roberts replied, "Yes." The daughter followed up with, "Famous likeTaylor Swift?" 6 April 2017.
"Coram[9] used the tried and true 'CPR method' to pop the top on this trash bin." — CBS News[10]
"It was absolutely marvelous working forWolfgang Pauli. You could ask him anything. There was no worry that he would think a particular question was stupid, since he thought all questions were stupid." —Victor Weisskopf
"He doesn't have sense enough to pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the heel." —LBJ,Paul F. Boller, Jr.,Presidential Anecdotes, page 319
"Well, it's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in." —LBJ onJ. Edgar Hoover,Boller, page 319
"When you have a bunch of government-haters getting control of the government, it’s no surprise they don’t know how to make things operate effectively." —John SparksRussell Berman, 27 November 2017, "The Red State Revolt Spreads to Oklahoma",The Atlantic
Whereas it is moſt apparent, That the Multitude of Coffee-houſes of late Years ſet up and kept within this Kingdom, the Dominion ofWales, and the Town ofBerwick uponTweed, and the great reſort of Idle and Diſaffected perſons to them, have produced very evil and dangerous Effects, as well for that many Tradeſmen and others do therein miſpend much of their time, which might and probably would otherwiſe be employed in and about their lawful Callings and Affairs; but alſo, for that in ſuch Houſes, and by occaſion of the meetings of ſuch perſons therein, the divers falſe, malicious and ſcandalous Reports are deviſed and ſpread abroad, to the Defamation of His Majeſties Government, and to the Diſturbance of the Peace and Quiet of the Realm. His Majeſty hath thought it fit and neceſſary, That the ſaid Coffee-houſes be (for the future) Put Down and Suppreſſed: And doth (with the Advice of His Privy Council) by this His Royal Proclamation, ſtrictly Charge and Command all manner of Perſons, That they, or any of them, do not preſume from and after the 10th day ofJanuary next enſuing, to keep any publick Coffee-houſe, or to utter or ſell by Retail, in his, her or their Houſe or Houſes (to be ſpent or conſumed within the ſame) any Coffee, Chocolet, Sherbett or Tea, as they will anſwer the contrary at their utmoſt Perils. And for the better accompliſhment of this His Majeſties Royal Pleaſure, His Majeſty doth hereby Will and Require the Juſtices of Peace within their ſeveral Counties, and the chief Magiſtrates in all Cities and Towns Corporate, That they do at the next reſpective General Seſſions of the Peace (to be holden within their ſeveral and reſpective Counties, Diviſions and Precincts) Recall and Make void all Licences at any time heretofore Granted for the Selling or Retailing of any Coffee, Chocolet, Sherbett, or Tea: And that they, or any of them, do not (for the future) Make or Grant any such Licence or Licences to any Perſon or Perſons whatſoever. And His Majeſty doth further hereby Declare, That if any Perſon or Perſons ſhall take upon them, him or her, after his, her or their Licence or Licences Recalled, or otherwiſe without Licence, to ſell by Retail (as aforeſaid) any of the Liquors aforeſaid, that then the Perſon or Perſons ſo offending, ſhall not only be proceeded againſt upon the Statute made in the Fifteenth Year of His Majeſties Reign (which gives the forfeiture of Five pounds for every Month, wherein he, ſhe or they ſhall offend therein) but ſhall (in caſe they perſevere to offend) receive the ſevereſt Puniſhments that may by Law be inflicted.
Given at Our Court atWhitehall, this Twenty ninth day ofDecember 1675. In the Seven and twentieth Year of Our Reign.
Note: The above text uses the Unicode characterLATIN SMALL LETTER LONG S, f;. Uppercasing that character produces the ordinary capital S. Searches are supposed to ignore case, so searching for "Majesty" might reasonably match "Majeſty". The search works in Chrome, but not Edge or Firefox. That also raises an issue with ligatures. Will a search for the ordinary "flint" also find the ligatured "flint"? Are ligatures only the result of painting, or should they be in text? Chrome matches the ligature; Edge and Firefox do not.
"You are really nuts, you know it? One a these days they're gonna come over and just lock you up! You aren't playing with a full deck,Eunice. I think somebody blew your pilot light out." —Vicki Lawrence,Sorry,The Carol Burnett Show
"Under pressure, you don't rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training. That's why we train so hard." — attributed to a Navy Seal. I first heard it in 1980. Variation ofArchilochus, "We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training." SeeQuora.
"So [theF-104] was an easy airplane to fly, but unforgiving in the sense that it had all — if the engine quit, and they often did, it had all the gliding characteristics of a set of car keys. So you could — I mean, we did have a high loss rate. But it was a wonderful airplane. I mean, it was the only airplane since the Wright Brothers to hold all of the important records, the absolute speed, time to climb into any altitude. And the absolute altitude record was over a hundred thousand feet, a hundred and three thousand or something like. Marvelous airplane. Just what every lieutenant needs is an airplane like that and a credit card so he can buy gas." —Merrill McPeak[11]
"You'll be interested and amused to know that you are now talking to the chief research scientist of the Metaplast Corporation, whose staff consisted of one bottle-washer!" —Richard Feynman toFrederic de Hoffmann,"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman": Adventures of a Curious Character, 1985, Norton, p. 58.
Feynman used psychology to guess the combination of de Hoffmann's filing cabinets at Los Alamos; the cabinets held all the atomic secrets. —"Los Alamos From Below", 1975, Feynman talk atUCSB, last tale.
US 2214646, Walker, Bernard F., "Metal coated plastic material and method of producing the same", issued 1940-09-10, assigned to Metaplast Corporation
Richard Feynman secretly emptiedEdward Teller's locked desk drawer and then asked Teller to show him the contents of the locked drawer. Teller: "I'd be very glad to show it to you," puts the key in, opens it, looks in, and says, "if you hadn't already seen it yourself." Feynman: "The trouble with playing a trick on a highly intelligent man like Mr. Teller is the time it takes him to figure out from the moment he sees there's something wrong until he understands exactly what happened is too damned small to give you any pleasure." —Richard Feynman,"Los Alamos From Below", 1975, Feynman talk atUCSB, at 33:20.
"To theManx Shearwater that, taken from his nest off the coast of Wales and carried three thousand miles across the Atlantic to Boston, was back in twelve days".Anderson, E. W. (1966).Principles of Navigation. American Elsevier. p. front.LCCN66-11436.OCLC1712952.
"Joan Marku said something about family honor being sacred inKosovo, that it was some kind of old code of justice that went back centuries. I'm gonna look all that up on Wikipedia."Detective Lt. Michael Tao, scientific investigation specialist, inLiving Proof, Part I, ofThe Closer.
"Sincerity — if you can fake that, you've got it made." —George Burns[12]
"Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made." —George Burns[13]
"That's my story, and I'm sticking to it." Lots of misguided information about the origin. Some claim thatWrong Way Corrigan said it for his 17 July 1938 flight to Ireland. Corrigan published the bookThat's my Story (E. P. Dutton) in 1938 but it is not clear the book has "stickin' to it". However, the 1935 Fred Astaire—Ginger Rogers screwball comedyTop Hat has the essential phrase.Madge Hardwick says, "If that's your story, Horace, you stick to it."
The setup: Horace had a fling in Paris, but his wife Madge does not know about that. Bachelor Jerry is chasing Dale, but Dale mistakenly believes Jerry is Madge's husband Horace. Dale has told Madge that Horace is chasing her. Madge is surprised that Horace has the energy/skill to chase Dale, but she believes Horace is chasing Dale. Horace and Jerry have just arrived and meet Madge.
M: Horace
H: How do you do? Madge, darling.
M: My, your passion frightens me. Been practicing?
H: Yes. Well, scarcely. No. Madge, what do you think has happened to me?
M: I know. You got your first long trousers.
H: Madge, please. There's something down here that I have to investigate... and Jerry thinks that I... Maybe I better tell it anonymously.
M: You know, it sounds as if you were about to confess something, Horace.
H: Does it? What would I have to confess?
M: You really want to tell me about Dale Tremont, don't you?
H: Yes, Yes, but then again, no. You see, as a matter of fact, I haven't even met her yet.
M: Oh, you haven't met her?
H: No.
M:Well, if that's your story, Horace, you stick to it. I... I suppose you weren't even in the park, either.
H: The park, my dear girl, it happened in the zoo. What? The zoo.... Yes. The zoo was in the park. How did you know I was there?
M: Oh, a little bird told me.
H: The stork? I think, after the trip, I better clean up a bit.
"Common sense is not so common."François-Marie Arouet akaVoltaire.Cite error:There are<ref> tags on this page without content in them (see thehelp page).
Donald Knuth gave a wonderful talk about his attempt to make a good psuedo random number generator – an attempt that quickly found afixed point so the generator just emitted the same number at each call.
Manuel Blum gave an hour-long one-slide lecture that included how to make a biased random number generator less biased.
Ages ago, a professor was lecturing about image processing. Studies showed that serif fonts were easier to read, and that's why newspapers printed with fonts such as Times. He went on to explain how the serifs made character components more prominent: a serifed stem didn't wash out at the bottom. Studies showed that serif fonts could be read at greater distances — something that is important for highway signs. Of course, he pointed out that all the highway signs out there are sans serif.
I think I've only read one book on typography and a few bits of advice here and there. By and large, I just use the default settings and layout that the application offers. Or the guidance of experts. Dan is a wizard at that stuff: he told me why gutter margins are smaller. Dan would talk about people going font-happy and producing tortured layouts. Charles was happy to leave the layout and font selection to his publisher: they were professionals and made everything look beautiful.
That book on typography had a list of common mistakes. One point was use black ink. High contrast makes text easier to read. I've seen plenty of books that didn't do that, and it makes my eyes hurt just looking at a page.
Another point was body text should use a serif font. Helvetica is pretty, and you can read a paragraph or two without much trouble, but it's not fun to read a lot. The classic layout is sans serif for the headings and serif for the body.
Of course, Wikipedia does it backwards. Serif headings and sans serif body text. Go figure. Several years ago, I was reading a court case on FindLaw.com when I was asked for comments about the site. I complained that it was using a sans serif font for its body text. A month later I noticed that it had switched to a serif font.
Arguably, there's was a reason for sans serif fonts on low resolution computer screens, but I don't think that holds today.[17]
Sadly, displaying mathematics formulas seems to have a tortured existence.HTML5 has been touted for some time, and with it is the promise of nativeMathML andSVG.
Many years ago, I downloadedDesign Science's free MathML rendering engine,MathPlayer. I looked at MathML then, but it was clear I would stick with TeX. Wikipedia uses TeX: expressions are described in TeX syntax, and then a renderer converts them to an image. The formulas cannot be copied and pasted because they are just images. The images give a good visual result in displays, but the inline result is poor:. The size, baseline, and font are different. Consequently, a lot of (simple) inline math is being replaced with character markup: sin 2πx. Copy and paste sort of works, but there are still some quirks: TeX-style math uses a serif font, but the character markup is sans serif. More recently, the{{mvar}} and{{math}} templates have fixed that by switching to a serif font:sin 2πx. So, the world is improving.
Even with the TeX-style image-based math, there were improvements. Editors were starting to add<math alt="description"> to improveaccessibility. There were even talk page discussions about improving the alt text. Then some screwy things happened. A bug was introduced in<math> processing that messed up the display, so several articles got well-meaning but poor workaround edits to "fix" the display. Things should be fixed where they are broken. A little later something went wrong withalt= processing, and it affected those who were usingMathJax. The result was thealt= descriptions were being deleted as a workaround. It seems wrong to be diking out accommodations.
Recently, I read a note seeking guinea pigs for MathML rendering on WP.[1] Consequently, I took another look at math rendering and found it is taking steps forward and backward.
Using theFirefox browser, theMathML Torture Test webpage shows some sad results.Donald Knuth did a fabulous job withTeX's rendering, and MathML is trying to catch up. As a result of visiting the page, I downloaded some more math fonts.
On another front, some special-purpose code that uses Unicode characters to render some mathematical expressions showed the new math fonts did not render the same as some other Unicode fonts. Some digging showed that math fonts need a special math table, but the specification for that table is currently proprietary.[2] Proprietary tables in an open specification? Sigh. Well, more fonts have to be better. Using a Windows 10 machine showed its native fonts had better Unicode coverage, but the glyph sizes varied widely (even within a single font), and some extension bars looked thinner than what they were designed to extend (well, at least they were there; they weren't part of Microsoft's earlier recommendation).
Viewing theMathML Torture Test webpage with theMicrosoft Edge browser brought a shock: Edge does not support MathML. Furthermore, Edge does not allow extensions yet, so third parties (such as Design Science) cannot support MathML. Moreover, Internet Explorer 10 does not permit Design Science's MathPlayer to run, so MathML support in Microsoft browsers has essentially disappeared.[3] Other browser companies are dropping out. TheGoogle Chrome browser dropped support of MathML a year ago (ca November 2013).[4] Also poking around turned up criticism of MathJax.[5] MathML support is declining rather than growing.
Update April 2024. Chromium readded MathML support in January 2023.[6] Consequently, MathML support exists in Chrome and Edge.
I'm not a fan of XML, and MathML is XML. XML is a language for interchange; it is not a system for real work. XML may allow iteration and manipulation, but it is not meant to be a substitute for a large database. Not only that, MathML is really two different specifications: one for presentation and one for content. The presentation format is an odd, half-step, context sensitive, affair. The MathML renderer must look at the text of an element (some Unicode character or characters) and consult a dictionary to get information about how to render that element.[7] The content format might be better as justScheme syntax (shades of early symbolic algebra programs:James Robert Slagle's 1961 SAINT (Symbolic Automatic INTegrator),William A. Martin's 1966Symbolic Mathematical Laboratory,Joel Moses's 1967Symbolic Integration, andMacsyma). Even if MathML is poor andschizophrenic, a browser that can display math formulas is better than one that cannot.
In the middle 1960s,William A. Martin wrote a symbolic mathematics program inLisp.[8] A portion of that system would draw an expression on the plotter. The system recursively calculated the sizes of subexpressions, used those sizes to choose appropriate sizes for symbols such as integral signs and parentheses, and then positioned the representation to make a larger unit. Simple and elegant. Knuth came along a bit later, studied how math was typeset, and gave us TeX. I don't like its substitution semantics, but it has many good features.
You gotta love it.Cambridge University putsStephen Hawking's 1966 PhD thesis,Properties of expanding universes, on its website. The rush to access the work was so great that the website crashed. Hawking stated, "It's wonderful to hear how many people have already shown an interest in downloading my thesis - hopefully they won't be disappointed now that they finally have access to it!"[3]
Ken comes in one day and announces that he can tell which of three formatting programs were used to compose a paper. There's some disbelief, but Ken can do it. He explains he looks at the last line of a justified paragraph; each program used a different justification method. One program used a minimum spacing between words until the line bumped into the right margin; it would break the line before the bump word and expand the word spacing to reach the margin. Consequently, the last line of a paragraph always looked crowded. The second program would maximally space the words until it bumped into the margin; it would keep the bump word and shrink the word spacing to make the line fit. Its last line always looked expanded. The third program used an average space until it hit the right margin; then it would decide whether to shrink the spaces and keep the bump word or to expand the spaces and drop the bump word. Its last line of a paragraph always looked reasonable.
Ken comes in another day and claims he can tell which technology somebody used to write a paper: computer terminal, high resolution screen, or printed paper draft. He explained that the computer terminal only showed about a paragraph at a time; if the paper showed coherence over a paragraph but not a page, it was written on a terminal. If the paper showed coherence over a page but not the entire paper, it was written on high resolution screen that showed a page at a time. If the paper was coherent, then it had been printed out.
US military'sM-209 Hagelin cipher machine; commercially the C-48. Products of SwissCrypto AG.
Kahn wroteThe Codebreakers, a fabulous 1967 book that enthralled many in the computer science community. Kahn mentions a that a known-plaintext attack on theM-209 can succeed with 200 characters.
Diffie & Hellman (1979) wrote an invited paper about cryptology; the paper was reprinted two years later.Diffie & Hellman (1981, p. 25) describes theM-209 and states that it was still used in 1979. They state thatKahn (1967, p. 431) outlined an attack on the machine, Jim Reeds at UC Berkeley wrote about such an attack, and thatRobert Morris (cryptographer) andDennis Richie implemented an attack. Wayne G. Barker also published a book describing an attack on the M-209 (Barker 1977). Diffie and Hellman then describe their attack on the cipher.
After that description, they describe some findings. Morris had found a known plaintext attack on the M-209 needed only 75 characters. (Diffie & Hellman 1981, p. 26) Diffie and Hellman conclude, "These improvements allow known plaintext attacks to succeed with 50 to 100 characters of text, and ciphertext only attacks to succeed with 1000 to 2000 characters of text." (Diffie & Hellman 1981, p. 27)
I was so surprised at the claims that I wrote a trivial version. If I threw 20,000 characters of encrypted text at my simple version, it would spit out readable text without any help.
I remember hearing a report that the decryption was helped byMuammar Gaddafi always being referred to by a glorified phrase. Searching, I found this phrase
"His Excellency Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Brother Leader of the Revolution of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya"
It has many characters. It would not require the NSA to have a backdoor into Crypto AG.
Barker, Wayne G. (1977),Cryptanalysis of the Hagelin Cryptograph, Cryptographic series, Aegean Park Press,OCLC3902917 (ISBN9780894120220 for 1978/1981 paperback)
Diffie, Whitfield;Hellman, Martin E. (March 1979), "Privacy and Authentication: An Introduction to Cryptography",Proceedings of the IEEE,67 (3):397–427
Diffie, Whitfield;Hellman, Martin E. (1981), "Privacy and Authentication: An Introduction to Cryptography", in Davies, Donald W. (ed.),Tutorial: The Security of Data in Networks, IEEE, pp. 18–48,LCCN81-82819, EHO183-4
US 1197167, Zeisberg, F. C., "Process of Concentrating Nitric Acid", published October 15, 1914, issued September 5, 1916, Du Pont Nitric Acid Patent
US 4487938, Boileau, Jacques; Emeury, Jean-Marie L & Kehren, Jean-Paul, "Tetranitroglycoluril and method of preparation thereof", published September 21, 1982, issued December 11, 1984, says "Cyclotrimethylene trinitramine or RDX or Hexogen was first synthesized in 1916 by Brunswig (German Pat. No. 299,028) but its value as an explosive was only recognized by Von Herz in 1920 (British Pat. No. 145 791). It came into significant use only during World War II."
GB 145791, von Herz, Edmund, "Improvements relating to explosives", published 1920-07-02, issued 1921-03-17
DE 299028, Brunswig, "Verfahren zur Herstellung von Sprengstoffen und Detonationsüberträgern", issued October 15, 1916
DE 104279, Test, "Hunoz", issued October 15, 1916 Can find patents before and after 104280, but not 104280.
DE 104280, Test, "Hunoz", issued October 15, 1916 Can find patents before and after 104280, but not 104280.
DE 104281, Test, "Hunoz", issued October 15, 1916 Can find patents before and after 104280, but not 104280.
US 2859215, Spomer, Roland J., "Process for preparation of cyclonite", published 19 April 1956, issued 4 November 1958
unknown (March 1953),Japanese Explosive Ordnance (Bombs, Bomb fuzes, Land mines, Grenades, Firing Devices and Sabotage Devices), vol. TM 9-1985-4, Departments of the Army and Air Force
Tierney, J.; Rader, C. M.; Gold, B. (March 1971). "A digital frequency synthesizer".IEEE Transactions on Audio and Electroacoustics. AU-19 (1):48–57.doi:10.1109/TAU.1971.1162151.
US 4485347, Hirasawa, Shigeichi & Horiguchi, Akira, "Digital FSK Demodulator", published August 17, 1981, issued November 27, 1984
USS Tang (SS-306) rescued A. R. Matter[20].Richard O'Kane didn't like the guy's gung ho nature (a surprise for O'Kane). Chinn volume 5 has a picture of Matter but no explanation of what he did.
After theweapon is fired,air races into the barrel once thebullet has left the muzzle. This vacuum can pull in trace amounts of materials from the environment.
Police can useblood andtissue which have entered a gun barrel through blowback in an investigation.
Blowback can also refer to the combination of gasses, dirt, and debris (unburnt powder, metal shavings) that most firearms produce upon firing. This can cause great irritation to the eyes and most ranges or organizations suggest or require the use of safety glasses when firing pistols.
Repeated atBlowback as "vacuum effect created in the barrel of a firearm when it is discharged".
Scattered all over the internet... not just Wiki mirrors
"When a firearm is discharged in contact with or in close proximity to a victim, blood blowback may be found in the bore of the rifle, pistol, or shotgun. This is because the vacuum caused by the passing projectile sucks blood into the bore."http://www.evidencemagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=363
"Blowback from the muzzle cloud. The major portion of gunshot residues are emitted from the muzzle of the weapon and some of these residues may flash back and be deposited on the firer.", Gunshot Residue (GSR): Analysis,http://chemstone.net/Forensics/GSR.html
Van Gogh'sYellow House (painting). Yellow House was destroyed during WWII, but neighboring building is still there. Railway bridge in the distance is also still there, but disused and overgrown. Detail in stone work matches.
Van Gogh's railway bridge. Looks like bridge is updated.
Not a controversy, but I requested deletion of an article byUser talk:PowerGDS. That request was promoted to speedy deletion and a challenge to the user name. User added another article, and I requested speedy deletion. Articles deleted and user permanently blocked.
ExactScan; article primarily edited by SPAUser:Many Tries and85.183.32.166; geolocate identifies latter as recent forum spammer (see, for example, 22 September 2011 comment at bottom offreecode project claiming open source project is just trial version of commercial product without open source); ExactScan, ExactImage, andRené Rebe are common topics.
When discussing DAB forUltra,User:Username1234567891011 moved the pages in the middle of the discussion. His user page showed some other problems. While considering whether to talk or report (learning about article renaming policy), the user was indef'd.
United States Copyright Office (July 2006)."Renewal of Copyright"(PDF). Circular 15. Retrieved29 April 2017.
"Copyright in a new version of a previously copyrighted work (such as an arrangement, translation, dramatization, compilation, or work republished with new matter) covers only the additions, changes, or other new material appearing for the first time in that version. The copyright secured in a new version is independent of any copyright protection in material published or copyrighted earlier, and the only authors of a new version are those who contributed copyrightable matter to it."
Pauling, Linus (1941).General Chemistry. Pasadena, California: California Institute of Technology.OCLC24773302. (275 pages)
Pauling, Linus (1944).General Chemistry. Pasadena, California: California Institute of Technology.OCLC14984937. (239 pages)
Pauling, Linus (1947).General Chemistry: an introduction to descriptive chemistry and modern chemical theory. San Francisco, California: W. H. Freeman.OCLC641179587. (618 pages)
Pauling, Linus (1939).The Nature of the Chemical Bond and the Structure of Molecules and Crystals: An Introduction to Modern Structural Chemistry. The George Fisher Baker non-resident lectureship in chemistry at Cornell University. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.OCLC563949755. (429 pages)
Pauling, Linus (1940).The Nature of the Chemical Bond and the Structure of Molecules and Crystals: An Introduction to Modern Structural Chemistry. The George Fisher Baker non-resident lectureship in chemistry at Cornell University (2nd ed.). Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.OCLC972979306. (450 pages)
Pauling, Linus (1960).The Nature of the Chemical Bond and the Structure of Molecules and Crystals: An Introduction to Modern Structural Chemistry. The George Fisher Baker non-resident lectureship in chemistry at Cornell University (3rd ed.). Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.OCLC989555738. (644 pages)
South Bend Lathe published many versions ofHow to Run a Lathe. Revised Edition 55 has a copyright notice for 1914, 1916, 1917, 1919, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1924, 1926, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1934, 1935, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1944, 1952, 1956, and 1958. The versions upto 1926 should be out of copyright. Apparently, the 56th edition was published in 1966. In 2009, the brand was sold to Shiraz Balolia, the founder ofGrizzly Industrial, Inc., so any copies of the book from Grizzly should be legitimate.
South Bend Lathe, Inc. (1958).How to Run a Lathe: The Care and Operation of A Screw-Cutting Lathe (55th revised ed.). South Bend, Indiana: South Bend Lathe.
This book should be in copyright. Published 1964 through 1977 with notice. Copyright term is 95 years after publication. No registration or renewal requirement.
Moore, Wayne R. (1970).Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy. Bridgeport, CT: The Moore Special Tool Company.LCCN73-127307.
That puts me in post-1978 database (1959 + 27 = 1986). Searches for title "Cryogenic Engineering", person "Scott Russell", and registration "A384310"/"A00000384310" did not produce any matches.
Scott, Russell B. (1959).Cryogenic Engineering. Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc.LCCN59-9765.
Journal copyrights are different from book copyrights.Photos and journal articles are often published in a larger publication, and the copyright procedures are different.I'm not familiar enough now.
The flag raising onIwo Jima by XXX.There's an argument that either the photographer or AP failed to renew the copyright, so the image is now public domain.I'm skeptical.There's a deletion argument on Commons.
There's a weaker argument that some newspapers published the image without a copyright notice.I consider that a small technical error, and it may be covered with the newspaper claiming its own copyright.
S Chandrasekhar: The Man Behind the Legend,page 134
Chandra had a copy of the photo on his office wall. The passport photo was taken in Brittain in 1919. Chandra went to India in 1936. Chandra's brother actually made the photographic copy of the passport image. Hardy to Chandra: "I was extremely glad to have the photograph, which seems to me an extremely good one. He looks rather ill (and no doubt was very ill): but he looks all over the genius he was."
Presumably, wife had no dealings with English photographer. Hardy published his book in England, but got his image from Chandra rather than the English photographer.
Chandra: A Biography of S. Chandrasekhar, Kameshwar C. Wali (photo + Ramanujuan's 1917 suicide attempt)page 262
Chandra: "I like to say that photograph was one of my most important discoveries."
"Ramanujan and Friends" (group, summer, 1916)
I cannot find definitive group shot; R apparently heavyset.
Three images in article were copied from a book. I nominated for deletion on Commons. Contributor claimed to be the author of the book, but did not know whether he still held the copyright. Files deleted after a long time.
In 1939, when the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum was officially opened, there were special Hall of Fame postcards picturing honored members. Various publishers have been utilized over the years to produce cards for the Hall of Fame. One set we have listed was issued in 1995 and is complete for all players inducted through and including 1995 except for Sam Thompson. The other set is the latest just released this year which has all inductees to 2009. Each card is a photographic reproduction of the member's official Hall of Fame plaque. The back is in standard postcard format and contains player name, year of election and electorate, date of printing, the manufacturer (Mike Roberts Color Productions in nearly every case) and copyright information on the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum. Note: a sampling of three cards are pictured.
Ansel Adams (1902–1984) took the iconic photographMoonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico. Copies of that photograph have sold for over $600,000. Reports have stated that the photograph was taken in 1940, 1941, 1942, or 1944. The last date is wrong because the photograph was published in a 1943 book. Astronomers David Elmore and Dennis di Cicco became interested in the date, and in 1991 both agreed that the photograph was taken 1 November 1941 4:49 pm. In 1941, USSecretary of the InteriorHarold Ickes had hired Adams for six months to take pictures of land controlled by the Department of the Interior.[26] Assume the picture was taken during those 6 months; further assume that the picture includes land controlled by the Department of the Interior (theCarson National Forest is in the background, but it is controlled by the Department of Agriculture). Who would own the copyright on the negative? A straight print of the negative is uninteresting; when he made a print, Adams would spend a long timedodging and burning to enhance details. Who owns the copyright on the prints?
If a photographer sets up some equipment, but an animal comes along and presses the shutter, there is no US copyright.Macaque selfie. Does that mean a wildlifecamera trap image cannot be copyrighted in the US? A store owner sets up a security camera that happens to capture theMiracle on the Hudson. Does the store owner have a copyright? Google bolts a camera and GPS unit on a car and drives around town. The driver isn't composing shots but rather just driving in the legal lanes like everybody else. Can Google claim a copyright? What if Google puts the pictures into an organized collection?
DuringWorld War II, DameLaura Knight (1877–1970) received several short-term commissions from theWar Artists' Advisory Committee (WAAC); she painted some fabulousWorld War II propaganda images for the United Kingdom. Some claim that the work is in the public domain because it was created by the United Kingdom government. However, theImperial War Museums (which received the majority of the WAAC collection when WAAC disbanded) claim images such asCorporal J. D. M. Pearson, GC, WAAF (1940) (Art. IWM ART LD 626) (Joan Daphne Mary Pearson) were created by Laura Knight, are under copyright, and must be licensed.[27] (Copyright situation can be different for herA Balloon Site, Coventry (1943) (Art. IWM ART LD 2750).)
Langmuir, Irving (September 1915), "The Pure Electron Discharge and Its Application in Radio Telegraphy and Telephony",Proceedings of the IRE,3 (3):261–293,doi:10.1109/JRPROC.1915.216680,ISSN0731-5996 (follow doi to see abstract; IEEE wants $13 from members or $33 from non-members)
The IRE became the IEEE.
In 1984, the IEEE republished the article
Langmuir, Irving (May 1984), "The Pure Electron Discharge and Its Application in Radio Telegraphy and Telephony",Proceeding of the IEEE,72 (5):613–624,doi:10.1109/PROC.1984.12900,ISSN0018-9219 (no abstract; follow doi to see image of first page; States copyright 1915 IRE; IEEE wants $13 from members or $33 from non-members)
In 1997, the IEEE republished the article
Langmuir, Irving (September 1997), "The Pure Electron Discharge and Its Application in Radio Telegraphy and Telephony",Proceeding of the IEEE,85 (9):1496–1508,doi:10.1109/JPROC.1997.628726,ISSN0018-9219 (published version has "Classic Paper" below title, states reprinted from September 1915, has changed page numbers and new publisher ID numbers; the same abstract as stated in the 1915 doi record; IEEE asserts a copyright date of 1997 and states the charge to copy the article is $10.00.)
SVG is poor format for technical bilevel bitmaps such as QR code. Fundamentally, the images are bitmaps; they have no slanted or curved lines; bitmaps can be scaled. SVG may offer some advantage with metadata, but the SVG files are bloated compared to PNG. Discussion atWP:SVG help#SVG versions of technical bitmaps. I reverted to PNG pix atQR code andda:QR Code.
I'm not directly involved, butthis unblock request is a difficult case. Generally, if somebody requests and unblock and there is minimal support, then they are unblocked with a second chance. Initially, I thought an unblock would be a good idea because three admins supported it. I initially voiced my support, but I also wrote down some ideas that troubled me. Those comments gnawed at me, so shortly thereafter I reversed my opinion. It didn't feel right to support an unblock with so many issues even with the supporters. Turns out, the request was also difficult for one of the supporters: seethis edit.
For an RfA, I first take a quick read of the questions and stats. I look for some things that will give a quick answer. Strong clue in Q1 through Q3 and some stats to back it up can be a quick support. Little experience, not showing clue, or wanting the bit to work in admin area with little experience, can be a fast oppose. Generally, I want to see two plusses for a support or two minuses for an oppose.
If there's no fast decision, then I'll sit on the RfA for a few days to see what turns up. It takes time to investigate a candidate, and I have other things to do. If the !vote is lopsided when I come back, then I may skip the whole affair. If the !vote is on the bubble, then I may look further.
Content has become more important in my decisions.
I park my car downtown and start walking to an appointment, but I notice water is welling out of the street. It makes the asphalt bubble, and standing on the bubble feels a little spongy. I continue on, but as I walk by the fire station, I report the leak. When I get back, there are barricades in place but no work crew yet. I don't know what happened, but it's fixed the next time I pass by.
Just down the street from my home, a crew is working on a water main leak. It has also bubbled the asphalt, but the water is emerging at the joint between the asphalt and the concrete sidewalk. The crew wants to locate the leak, so they drill small holes in the asphalt. They've made a line of fountains, and the highest fountain is directly over the leak.
I took the bus downtown, spent the day, and now I'm walking home from the bus stop. A couple blocks from home, there's a lot of water flowing in the gutter. A lot of water. And it leads just passed home. Nobody is there, so I call it in. Public Works knows about it; it's just taking time for a crew to get there. Finally, a guy starts listening for the leak. He has a stereo street stethoscope. He listens for a bit, then he moves the head resting on the street a short distance, and listens some more. He finds the location. One of the other workers wants to try it out, so the first explains what to do. And he cautions the other worker to take the stems out of his ears before moving the head.
I'm walking to work from the Square, and as I reach the plaza, I notice a large crowd. I don't know what's up. As I continue down the sidewalk, a small group of people leave the plaza and head toward a car parked on the street. The timing is such that our courses intersect, and I notice it is presidential candidateMike Dukakis. He reaches out, shakes my hand, and says, "Tell me your name." Wow, what a great thing to say. Here's a candidate who wants to know my name. It sounds incredibly personal, but I know its not.
I walked my normal route to work. I took the side street, walked through somebody else's parking lot, crossed the railroad tracks at the back of the lot, and followed the right-of-way to the main drag. From there I walked into our parking lot, and just as I got to my building, one of the lab directors was escorting some VIP outside. I stared at the guy because he looked familiar, and while I was staring at him, he came over and started shaking my hand. All I could say was, "You look like GovernorJerry Brown." I'm shaking his hand, but I'm thinking I have absolutely nothing to say to ex-Governor Moonbeam.
I've finished up downtown and start heading back. My path takes me by the federal courthouse. There is a gaggle of TV news crews in the courthouse breezeway. I'm curious, so I walk up to them and ask what's going on. I'm told there's going to be a verdict in theClint Eastwood handicap-access trial. So I go through the courthouse doors, through the metal detector, and up to the courtroom. I see Eastwood and recognize the plaintiff's attorney. I'm there for the verdict in Eastwood's favor. People start filing out, but I stay and listen to a bit of the post-verdict drama. Finally, I get up, leave the courtroom, and start heading for the elevators. I press the down button, but as I wait, Clint Eastwood strolls up. He's left his attorneys behind -- they are involved in a conference at the deputy marshal's desk about 15 feet away. So I get a private audience with Eastwood for about 10 minutes. He tells me about the case, reading movie scripts, and why he decided to spend $1M to fight the case instead of letting his insurance company settle it for $50K. He cocked his finger pistol and didDirty Harry.
I'm flying out of SJC, and I'm going to take the Airporter at the Santa Clara Transit Station. As I walk up to the stop, I notice a distinguished-looking gentleman already waiting. While I'm admiring his appearance, I notice he looks familiar. Finally, it clicks. I walk up to him and suggest that he isGerald Uelmen. He admits he is, and we start chatting. I tell myself not to bring up theO. J. Simpson murder case; it would be poor form. Instead we start talking about a local murder trial that concluded a couple days before, and Uelmen asks what I know about the case. I'd stumbled across the preliminary hearing, been intrigued by the cellphone issue, and written a letter to counsel. I found out when the D's radio expert was going to testify at trial, so I caught that -- with the added benefit of seeing the accused take the stand immediately afterward. The case solidified the notion of reasonable doubt for me. The radio testimony put him near the crime scene and away from where he said he was. Random intruders do not kill somebody in the kitchen, clean up the kitchen, and then stage the death at the bottom of the basement stairs. To be found not guilty, two unlikely events would have to have happened, and that is just not reasonable. After I say my piece, Uelmen says he's been asked to do the appeal. The bus comes, we get on, and we continue talking on our way to the terminals. Then Uelmen brings up that he coined, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit" and fed it toJohnny Cochrane. OK, OJ is on the table. I tell him he should have won the motion to excludeMark Fuhrman's search. Uelman agrees, but then offers the insight that you take things the way they come, and that it was better that he lost his motion. If he had won the motion, then there would not have been a glove, Fuhrman would never have taken the stand, andF. Lee Bailey would not have had his cross that impeached Fuhrman.
