A collection of hand-dug rabbit holes for curious burrowers. If you’ve got a problem you want us to dig into, then tell us a bit about it and we’ll see what we can uncover for you.
THE WIKI WARREN
“Eldridge, David. (2001). The impact of warrens of the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus L.) on soil and ecological processes in a semi-arid Australian woodland.”
[01]
[B-01] DIGGING FOR DIGGING’S SAKE
01
William Lyttle (1931 – June 2010) was an Irish eccentric, notable for digging an extensive network of tunnels under his home in De Beauvoir Town, London.[1]
Lyttle was dubbed "The Mole Man of Hackney" by the Hackney Gazette due to his digging, a nickname that was later adopted more widely by the press.[1][2]
Lyttle arrived in London from his home country of Ireland in the mid-sixties when he inherited 121 Mortimer Road in the London borough of Hackney from his parents. Records show Lyttle's occupation listed as civil engineer but no evidence exists that he was qualified or ever had a career in civil engineering.[3]
02
An autotelic[1] is someone or something that has a purpose in, and not apart from, itself.
The word "autotelic" derives from the Greek αὐτοτελής (autotelēs), formed from αὐτός (autos, "self") and τέλος (telos, "end" or "goal").
The Oxford English Dictionary cites the word's earliest use in 1901 (Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, I 96/1), and also cites a 1932 use by T. S. Eliot.[2]
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes people who are internally driven, and who as such may exhibit a sense of purpose and curiosity, as autotelic.[3] This is different from being externally driven, in which case things such as comfort, money, power, or fame are the motivating force.
03
"The Circular Ruins" (Spanish: Las ruinas circulares) is a short story by Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges. First published in the literary journal Sur in December 1940, it was included in the 1941 collection The Garden of Forking Paths (Spanish: El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan) and the 1944 collection Ficciones. It was first published in English in View (Series V, No. 6 1946), translated by Paul Bowles. Since publication, it has become one of Borges's best-known stories.[1]
The story is about a man who gradually dreams another man into existence in the ruins of an ancient temple. Though he is successful, the dreamer realizes at the story's conclusion that he himself is someone else's dream. Critics have interpreted "The Circular Ruins" as exploring themes of philosophical idealism, Gnosticism or kabbalism, and creativity.
04
In planning and policy, a wicked problem is a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize.[1] It refers to an idea or problem that cannot be fixed, where there is no single solution to the problem; "wicked" does not indicate evil, but rather resistance to resolution.[2] Another definition is "a problem whose social complexity means that it has no determinable stopping point".[3] Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems. Due to their complexity, wicked problems are often characterized by organized irresponsibility.
05
The term ideal machine refers to a hypothetical mechanical system in which energy and power are not lost or dissipated through friction, deformation, wear, or other inefficiencies. Ideal machines have the theoretical maximum performance, and therefore are used as a baseline for evaluating the performance of real machine systems.[1][2]
A simple machine, such as a lever, pulley, or gear train, is "ideal" if the power input is equal to the power output of the device, which means there are no losses. In this case, the mechanical efficiency is 100%.
Mechanical efficiency is the performance of the machine compared to its theoretical maximum as performed by an ideal machine.
[B-02] INACTION > REACTION > ACTION
01
The politician's syllogism, also known as the politician's logic or the politician's fallacy, is a logical fallacy of the form:
We must do something.
This is something.
Therefore, we must do this.
The politician's fallacy was identified in a 1988 episode of the BBC television political sitcom Yes, Prime Minister titled "Power to the People", and has taken added life on the Internet.[1]
The syllogism, invented by fictional British civil servants, has been quoted in the real British Parliament.[2][3] The syllogism has also been quoted in American political discussion.[4]
02
Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov (Russian: Станисла́в Евгра́фович Петро́в; 7 September 1939 – 19 May 2017) was a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defence Forces who played a key role in the 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident.[1]
On 26 September 1983, three weeks after the Soviet military had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Petrov was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko nuclear early-warning system when the system reported that a missile had been launched from the United States, followed by up to four more. Petrov judged the reports to be a false alarm.[2]
His subsequent decision to disobey orders, against Soviet military protocol,[3] is credited with having prevented an erroneous retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its NATO allies that would have likely resulted in a large-scale nuclear war.
03
Pilot-induced oscillations (PIOs), as defined by MIL-HDBK-1797A,[1] are sustained or uncontrollable oscillations resulting from efforts of the pilot to control the aircraft.
They occur when the pilot of an aircraft inadvertently commands an often increasing series of corrections in opposite directions, each an attempt to cover the aircraft's reaction to the previous input with an overcorrection in the opposite direction.
An aircraft in such a condition can appear to be "porpoising" switching between upward and downward directions. As such it is a coupling of the frequency of the pilot's inputs and the aircraft's own frequency.
In order to avoid any assumption that oscillation is necessarily the fault of the pilot, new terms have been suggested to replace pilot-induced oscillation. These include aircraft-pilot coupling, pilot–in-the-loop oscillations and pilot-assisted (or augmented) oscillations.[2]
04
In the philosophy of language and linguistics, a speech act is something expressed by an individual that not only presents information but performs an action as well.[1] For example, the phrase "I would like the mashed potatoes; could you please pass them to me?" is considered a speech act as it expresses the speaker's desire to acquire the mashed potatoes, as well as presenting a request that someone pass the potatoes to them.
According to Kent Bach, "almost any speech act is really the performance of several acts at once, distinguished by different aspects of the speaker's intention: there is the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, such as requesting or promising, and how one is trying to affect one's audience".[2]
05
Participatory action research (PAR) is an approach to action research emphasizing participation and action by members of communities affected by that research. It seeks to understand the world by trying to change it, collaboratively and following reflection. PAR emphasizes collective inquiry and experimentation grounded in experience and social history. Within a PAR process, "communities of inquiry and action evolve and address questions and issues that are significant for those who participate as co-researchers".[1] PAR contrasts with mainstream research methods, which emphasize controlled experimentation, statistical analysis, and reproducibility of findings.
[UB-03] BEGGING TO DIFFER
USER : ANONYMISED
PROBLEM [SIMPLIFIED] :
HOW DOES A PERFECTIONIST BETTER COLLABORATE WITH A PRAGMATIST?
PARAMETERS :
OPTIMISM / PRAGMATISM
CONSTRUCT / REPAIR
INFLUENCE / IMPLEMENT
COLLABORATE / CRACK ON
01
Simon & Garfunkel were an American folk rock duo comprising the singer-songwriter Paul Simon and the singer Art Garfunkel. They were one of the best-selling music acts of the 1960s. Their most famous recordings include three single USA number-one charting hits — "The Sound of Silence" and the two Record of the Year Grammy winners "Mrs. Robinson" and "Bridge over Troubled Water"— as well as "Homeward Bound", "I Am a Rock", "Scarborough Fair/Canticle", "A Hazy Shade of Winter", "America", "The Boxer" and "Cecilia".
Simon and Garfunkel met in elementary school in Queens, New York City, in 1953, where they learned to harmonize and Simon began writing songs. As teenagers, under the name Tom & Jerry, they had minor success with "Hey Schoolgirl" (1957), a song imitating their idols, the Everly Brothers. In 1963, they regrouped and were signed to Columbia Records as Simon & Garfunkel. Their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (1964), sold poorly; Simon returned to a solo career, this time in England. In 1965, a remixed version of "The Sound of Silence", became a US AM radio hit, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
02
A superorganism, or supraorganism,[1] is a group of synergetically interacting organisms of the same species. A community of synergetically interacting organisms of different species is called a holobiont.
The term superorganism is used most often to describe a social unit of eusocial animals in which division of labour is highly specialised and individuals cannot survive by themselves for extended periods. Ants are the best-known example of such a superorganism. A superorganism can be defined as "a collection of agents which can act in concert to produce phenomena governed by the collective",[2] phenomena being any activity "the hive wants" such as ants collecting food and avoiding predators,[3][4] or bees choosing a new nest site.[5]
In challenging environments, micro organisms collaborate and evolve together to process unlikely sources of nutrients such as methane. This process called syntrophy ("eating together") might be linked to the evolution of eukaryote cells and involved in the emergence or maintenance of life forms in challenging environments on Earth and possibly other planets.[6] Superorganisms tend to exhibit homeostasis, power law scaling, persistent disequilibrium and emergent behaviours.[7]
03
Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose.[1][2] Open-source software may be developed in a collaborative, public manner. Open-source software is a prominent example of open collaboration, meaning any capable user is able to participate online in development, making the number of possible contributors indefinite. The ability to examine the code facilitates public trust in the software.[3]
Open-source software development can bring in diverse perspectives beyond those of a single company. A 2024 estimate of the value of open-source software to firms is $8.8 trillion, as firms would need to spend 3.5 times the amount they currently do without the use of open source software.[4]
04
Flipism, sometimes spelled "flippism", is a personal philosophy under which decisions are made by flipping a coin. It originally appeared in the Donald Duck Disney comic "Flip Decision"[1][2] by Carl Barks, published in 1953. Barks called a practitioner of "flipism" a "flippist".[3][4]
An actual coin is not necessary: dice or another random generator may be used for decision making.
Flipism can be seen as a normative decision theory, although it does not fulfill the criteria of rationality.
In the original 1952 comic book, Donald Duck meets the eccentric Professor Batty, who persuades Donald to make decisions based on flipping a coin at every crossroad of life:[5] "Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!" Donald soon gets into trouble when following this advice. He drives a one way road in the wrong direction and is fined $50. The reason for the fine is not his bad driving, but rather the fact that he relied on a coin to do his thinking instead of deciding for himself.[6]
05
Engineering tolerance is the permissible limit or limits of variation in:
a physical dimension;
a measured value or physical property of a material, manufactured object, system, or service;
other measured values (such as temperature, humidity, etc.);
in engineering and safety, a physical distance or space (tolerance), as in a truck (lorry), train or boat under a bridge as well as a train in a tunnel (see structure gauge and loading gauge);
in mechanical engineering, the space between a bolt and a nut or a hole, etc.
Dimensions, properties, or conditions may have some variation without significantly affecting functioning of systems, machines, structures, etc. A variation beyond the tolerance (for example, a temperature that is too hot or too cold) is said to be noncompliant, rejected, or exceeding the tolerance.
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01
ideal machine
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