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Είσαι πρωτοετής;... Καλώς ήρθες! Μπορείς να βρεις πληροφορίες εδώ. Βοήθεια για τους καινούργιους μέσω χάρτη.

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με προσοχή στα ονόματα των αρχείων!

[Karaμazoβ]

Moai

[...]

Since the island was treeless by the time the Europeans first visited, the movement of the statues was a mystery for a long time; pollen analysis has now established that the island was almost totally forested until 1200 CE. The tree pollen disappeared from the record by 1650, and the statues stopped being made around that time.

[...]

Source: Wikipedia

τσεκαρε επισης και αυτά τα αρθρα για τον πολιτισμό της Νησου του Πάσχα: τους πρωτους αποικους, την ακμη και την κατασκευη των αγαλμάτων, την οικολογική καταστροφή και την τελική πτώση.

https://www.thmmy.gr/smf/index.php?topic=11088.0

[Κάρβουνο]

Psophometer

In telecommunications, a psophometer is an instrument that provides a visual indication of the audible effects of disturbing voltages of various frequencies. A psophometer usually incorporates a weighting network. The characteristics of the weighting network depend on the type of circuit under investigation, such as whether the circuit is used for high-fidelity music or for normal speech.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psophometer

[Exomag]

Source Multiplayer Networking

Multiplayer games based on the Source Engine use a Client-Server networking architecture. Usually a server is a dedicated host that runs the game and is authoritative about world simulation, game rules, and player input processing. A client is a player's computer connected to a game server. The client and server communicate with each other by sending small data packets at a high frequency (usually 20 to 30 packets per second). A client receives the current world state from the server and generates video and audio output based on these updates. The client also samples data from input devices (keyboard, mouse, microphone, etc.) and sends these input samples back to the server for further processing. Clients only communicate with the game server and not between each other (like in a peer-to-peer application). In contrast with a single player game, a multiplayer game has to deal with a variety of new problems caused by packet-based communication.

Network bandwidth is limited, so the server can't send a new update packet to all clients for every single world change. Instead, the server takes snapshots of the current world state at a constant rate and broadcasts these snapshots to the clients. Network packets take a certain amount of time to travel between the client and the server (i.e. the ping time). This means that the client time is always a little bit behind the server time. Furthermore, client input packets are also delayed on their way back, so the server is processing temporally delayed user commands. In addition, each client has a different network delay which varies over time due to other background traffic and the client's framerate. These time differences between server and client causes logical problems, becoming worse with increasing network latencies. In fast-paced action games, even a delay of a few milliseconds can cause a laggy gameplay feeling and make it hard to hit other players or interact with moving objects. Besides bandwidth limitations and network latencies, information can get lost due to network packet loss.

To cope with the issues introduced by network communication, the Source engine employs multiple techniques such as data compression, interpolation, prediction, and lag compensation -- all of which are invisible to the client.


Basic networking
The server simulates the game in discrete time steps called ticks. By default, the timestep is 15ms, so 66.666... ticks per second are simulated, but mods can specify their own tickrate. During each tick, the server processes incoming user commands, runs a physical simulation step, checks the game rules, and updates all object states. After simulating a tick, the server decides if any client needs a world update and takes a snapshot of the current world state if necessary. A higher tickrate increases the simulation precision, but also requires more CPU power and available bandwidth on both server and client. The server admin may override the default tickrate with the -tickrate command line parameter, though tickrate changes done this way are not recommended because the mod may not work as designed if its tickrate is changed.

Clients usually have only a limited amount of available bandwidth. In the worst case, players with a modem connection can't receive more than 5 to 7 KB/sec. If the server tried to send them updates with a higher data rate, packet loss would be unavoidable. Therefore, the client has to tell the server its incoming bandwidth capacity by setting the console variable rate (in bytes/second). This is the most important network variable for clients and it has to be set correctly for an optimal gameplay experience. The client can request a certain snapshot rate by changing cl_updaterate (default 20), but the server will never send more updates than simulated ticks or exceed the requested client rate limit. Server admins can limit data rate values requested by clients with sv_minrate and sv_maxrate (both in bytes/second). Also the snapshot rate can be restricted with sv_minupdaterate and sv_maxupdaterate (both in snapshots/second).

The client creates user commands from sampling input devices with the same tick rate that the server is running with. A user command is basically a snapshot of the current keyboard and mouse state. But instead of sending a new packet to the server for each user command, the client sends command packets at a certain rate of packets per second (usually 30). This means two or more user commands are transmitted within the same packet. Clients can increase the command rate with cl_cmdrate. This will increase responsiveness but requires more outgoing bandwidth, too.

Game data is compressed using delta compression to reduce network load. That means the server doesn't send a full world snapshot each time, but rather only changes (a delta snapshot) that happened since the last acknowledged update. With each packet sent between the client and server, acknowledge numbers are attached to keep track of their data flow. Usually full (non-delta) snapshots are only sent when a game starts or a client suffers from heavy packet loss for a couple of seconds. Clients can request a full snapshot manually with the cl_fullupdate command.

Responsiveness, or the time between user input and its visible feedback in the game world, are determined by lots of factors, including the server/client CPU load, simulation tickrate, data rate and snapshot update settings, but mostly by the network packet traveling time. The time between the client sending a user command, the server responding to it, and the client receiving the server's response is called the latency or ping (or round trip time). Low latency is a significant advantage when playing a multiplayer online game. Techniques like prediction and lag compensation try to minimize that advantage and allow a fair game for players with slower connections. Tweaking networking setting can help to gain a better experience if the necessary bandwidth and CPU power is available. We recommend keeping the default settings, since improper changes may cause more negative side effects than actual benefits.


Entity interpolation
By default, the client receives about 20 snapshot per second. If the objects (entities) in the world were only rendered at the positions received by the server, moving objects and animation would look choppy and jittery. Dropped packets would also cause noticeable glitches. The trick to solve this problem is to go back in time for rendering, so positions and animations can be continuously interpolated between two recently received snapshot. With 20 snapshots per second, a new update arrives about every 50 milliseconds. If the client render time is shifted back by 50 milliseconds, entities can be always interpolated between the last received snapshot and the snapshot before that.

Source defaults to an interpolation period ('lerp') of 100-milliseconds (cl_interp 0.1); this way, even if one snapshot is lost, there are always two valid snapshots to interpolate between. Take a look at the following figure showing the arrival times of incoming world snapshots:

The last snapshot received on the client was at tick 344 or 10.30 seconds. The client time continues to increase based on this snapshot and the client frame rate. If a new video frame is rendered, the rendering time is the current client time 10.32 minus the view interpolation delay of 0.1 seconds. This would be 10.22 in our example and all entities and their animations are interpolated using the correct fraction between snapshot 340 and 342.

Since we have an interpolation delay of 100 milliseconds, the interpolation would even work if snapshot 342 were missing due to packet loss. Then the interpolation could use snapshots 340 and 344. If more than one snapshot in a row is dropped, interpolation can't work perfectly because it runs out of snapshots in the history buffer. In that case the renderer uses extrapolation (cl_extrapolate 1) and tries a simple linear extrapolation of entities based on their known history so far. The extrapolation is done only for 0.25 seconds of packet loss (cl_extrapolate_amount), since the prediction errors would become too big after that.

Entity interpolation causes a constant view "lag" of 100 milliseconds by default (cl_interp 0.1), even if you're playing on a listenserver (server and client on the same machine). This doesn't mean you have to lead your aiming when shooting at other players since the server-side lag compensation knows about client entity interpolation and corrects this error.


[...]



Source: Wikipedia

[Grecs]

 The Tuskegee syphilis experiment[1] was an infamous clinical study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the U.S. Public Health Service to study the natural progression of untreated syphilis in rural African American men who thought they were receiving free health care from the U.S. government.[1]
 
 The Public Health Service, working with the Tuskegee Institute, began the study in 1932. Investigators enrolled in the study a total of 600 impoverished sharecroppers from Macon County, Alabama; 399 who had previously contracted syphilis before the study began, and 201[2] without the disease. For participating in the study, the men were given free medical care, meals, and free burial insurance. They were never told they had syphilis, nor were they ever treated for it. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the men were told they were being treated for "bad blood", a local term for various illnesses that include syphilis, anemia, and fatigue.
 
 The 40-year study was controversial for reasons related to ethical standards; primarily because researchers knowingly failed to treat patients appropriately after the 1940s validation of penicillin as an effective cure for the disease they were studying. Revelation of study failures by a whistleblower led to major changes in U.S. law and regulation on the protection of participants in clinical studies. Now studies require informed consent (with exceptions possible for U.S. Federal agencies which can be kept secret by Executive Order),[3][not in citation given] communication of diagnosis, and accurate reporting of test results.[4]
 
 By 1947, penicillin had become the standard treatment for syphilis. Choices available to the doctors involved in the study might have included treating all syphilitic subjects and closing the study, or splitting off a control group for testing with penicillin. Instead, the Tuskegee scientists continued the study without treating any participants and withholding penicillin and information about it from the patients. In addition, scientists prevented participants from accessing syphilis treatment programs available to others in the area.[5] The study continued, under numerous US Public Health Service supervisors, until 1972, when a leak to the press eventually resulted in its termination on November 16.[6] The victims of the study included numerous men who died of syphilis, wives who contracted the disease, and children born with congenital syphilis.[7]
 
 The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, cited as "arguably the most infamous biomedical research study in U.S. history,"[8] led to the 1979 Belmont Report and the establishment of the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP).[9] It also led to federal laws and regulations requiring Institutional Review Boards for the protection of human subjects in studies involving human subjects. The Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) manages this responsibility within the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).[10]

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Study_of_Untreated_Syphilis_in_the_Negro_Male

[Exomag]

Moai

[...]

Since the island was treeless by the time the Europeans first visited, the movement of the statues was a mystery for a long time; pollen analysis has now established that the island was almost totally forested until 1200 CE. The tree pollen disappeared from the record by 1650, and the statues stopped being made around that time.

[...]

Source: Wikipedia

τσεκαρε επισης και αυτά τα αρθρα για τον πολιτισμό της Νησου του Πάσχα: τους πρωτους αποικους, την ακμη και την κατασκευη των αγαλμάτων, την οικολογική καταστροφή και την τελική πτώση.

https://www.thmmy.gr/smf/index.php?topic=11088.0

Δε ξέρω γιατί, αλλά αυτά τα αγάλματα πάντα μου έφερναν στο μυαλό εξωγήινους

[Αιμιλία η φτερωτή χελώνα]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company#Banana_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiquita_Brands_International
κλπ κλπ

τρωγοντας μπανανα τσικιτα θυμηθηκα τις αλητειες τους

[Exomag]

Faunus

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Faunus was the horned god of the forest, plains and fields; when he made cattle fertile he was called Inuus. He came to be equated in literature with the Greek god Pan.

Faunus was one of the oldest Roman deities, known as the di indigetes. According to the epic poet Virgil, he was a legendary king of the Latins who came with his people from Arcadia. His shade was consulted as a god of prophecy under the name of Fatuus, with oracles in the sacred grove of Tibur, around the well Albunea, and on the Aventine Hill in ancient Rome itself.

Marcus Terentius Varro asserted that the oracular responses were given in Saturnian verse. Faunus revealed the future in dreams and voices that were communicated to those who came to sleep in his precincts, lying on the fleeces of sacrificed lambs. W. Warde Fowler suggested that Faunus is identical with Favonius, one of the Roman wind gods (compare the Anemoi).

Consorts and family
A goddess of like attributes, called Fauna and Fatua, was associated in his worship. She was regarded sometimes as his wife, sometimes as his sister. As Pan was accompanied by the Paniskoi, or little Pans, so the existence of many Fauni was assumed besides the chief Faunus. In fable Faunus appears as an old king of Latium, son of Picus, and grandson of Saturnus, father of Latinus by the nymph Marica. After his death he is raised to the position of a tutelary deity of the land, for his many services to agriculture and cattle-breeding.

Faunus was known as the father or husband or brother of Fauna, and of Latinus by the nymph Marica (who was also sometimes Faunus' mother). Fauns are place-spirits (genii) of untamed woodland. Educated, Hellenizing Romans connected their fauns with the Greek satyrs, who were wild and orgiastic drunken followers of Dionysus, with a distinct origin.


Festivals
The Christian writer Justin Martyr identified him as Lupercus ("he who wards off the wolf"), the protector of cattle, following Livy, who named his aspect of Inuus as the god who was originally worshiped at the Lupercalia, celebrated on the anniversary of the founding of his temple, February 15, when his priests (Luperci) wore goat-skins and hit onlookers with goat-skin belts.

Two festivals, called Faunalia, were celebrated in his honour—one on the 13th of February, in the temple of Faunus on the island in the Tiber, the other on the 5th of December, when the peasants brought him rustic offerings and amused themselves with dancing (Peck 1898).

A euhemeristic account made Faunus a Latin king, son of Picus and Canens. He was then revered as the god Fatuus after his death, worshipped in a sacred forest outside what is now Tivoli, but had been known since Etruscan times as Tibur, the seat of the Tiburtine Sibyl. His numinous presence was recognized by wolf skins, with wreaths and goblets.

In Nonnos' Dionysiaca, Faunus/Phaunos accompanied Dionysus when the god campaigned in India.


Equation with Pan
With the increasing Hellenization of literate upper-class Roman culture in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, the Romans tried to equate their own deities with one of the Greeks', applying in reverse the Greeks' own interpretatio graeca. Faunus was naturally equated with the god Pan, who was a pastoral god of shepherds who was said to reside in Arcadia. Pan had always been depicted with horns and as such many depictions of Faunus also began to display this trait. However, the two deities were also considered separate by many, for instance, the epic poet Virgil, in his Aeneid, made mention of both Faunus and Pan independently.


Later worship
Faunus was worshipped across the Roman Empire for many centuries. An example of this was a set of thirty-two 4th-century spoons found near Thetford in England in 1979. They had been engraved with the name "Faunus", and each also had a different epithet after the god's name. The spoons also bore Christian symbols, and it has been suggested that these were initially Christian but later taken and devoted to Faunus by pagans. The 4th century was a time of largescale Christianisation, and the discovery provides us with evidence that even during the decline of traditional Roman religion, the god Faunus was still worshipped. In Gaul, Faunus was identified with the Celtic Dusios.



Source: Wikipedia

[Exomag]

Cthulhu

Cthulhu is a fictional cosmic entity who first appeared in the short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. The character was created by writer H. P. Lovecraft.

Spelling and pronunciation
Cthulhu has also been spelled as Tulu, Clulu, Clooloo, Cthulu, Cthullu, C'thulhu, Cighulu, Cathulu, C'thlu, Kathulu, Kutulu, Kthulhu, Q’thulu, K'tulu, Kthulhut, Kutu, Kulhu, Kutunluu, Ktulu, Cuitiliú, Thu Thu, and in many other ways. It is often preceded by the epithet Great, Dead, or Dread.

Lovecraft transcribed the pronunciation of Cthulhu as "Kthûl'-hloo" (IPA: [ˈχɬʊl.ɬuː] ?). S. T. Joshi points out, however, that Lovecraft gave several differing pronunciations on different occasions. According to Lovecraft, this is merely the closest that the human vocal apparatus can come to reproducing the syllables of an alien language. Long after Lovecraft's death, the pronunciation /kəˈθuːluː/ kə-THOO-loo became common, and the game Call of Cthulhu endorsed it.


Appearance
In "The Call of Cthulhu", Lovecraft describes Cthulhu as "A monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind." Cthulhu has been described as a mix between a giant human, an octopus, and a dragon, and is depicted as being hundreds of meters tall, with human-looking arms and legs and a pair of rudimentary wings on its back. Cthulhu's head is depicted as similar to the entirety of a giant octopus, with an unknown number of tentacles surrounding its supposed mouth. Cthulhu is described as being able to change the shape of its body at will, extending and retracting limbs and tentacles as it sees fit.


Publication history
H. P. Lovecraft's initial short story, "The Call of Cthulhu", was published in Weird Tales in 1928 and established the character as a malevolent entity hibernating within an underwater city in the South Pacific called R'lyeh. The imprisoned Cthulhu is apparently the source of constant anxiety for mankind at a subconscious level, and also the subject of worship by a number of human religions (located several places worldwide, including New Zealand, Greenland, Louisiana, and the Chinese mountains) and other Lovecraftian monsters (called Deep Ones and Mi-Go). The short story asserts the premise that, while currently trapped, Cthulhu will eventually return. His worshipers chant "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" ("In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.")

Lovecraft conceived a detailed genealogy for Cthulhu (published as "Letter 617" in Selected Letters) and made the character a central figure in corresponding literature. The short story "The Dunwich Horror" (1928) refers to Cthulhu, while "The Whisperer in Darkness" (1930) hints that one of his characters knows the creature's origins ("I learned whence Cthulhu first came, and why half the great temporary stars of history had flared forth.").[8] The 1931 novella At the Mountains of Madness refers to the "star-spawn of Cthulhu", who warred with another race called the Elder Things before the dawn of man.

August Derleth, a correspondent of Lovecraft, used the creature's name to identify the system of lore employed by Lovecraft and his literary successors: the Cthulhu Mythos. In 1937, Derleth wrote the short story "The Return of Hastur", and proposed two groups of opposed cosmic entities:

   ... the Old or Ancient Ones, the Elder Gods, of cosmic good, and those of cosmic evil, bearing many names, and themselves of different groups, as if associated with the elements and yet transcending them: for there are the Water Beings, hidden in the depths; those of Air that are the primal lurkers beyond time; those of Earth, horrible animate survivors of distant eons.

According to Derleth's scheme, "Great Cthulhu is one of the Water Beings" and was engaged in an age-old arch-rivalry with a designated Air elemental, Hastur the Unspeakable, described as Cthulhu's "half-brother". Based on this framework, Derleth wrote a series of short stories published in Weird Tales 1944–1952 and collected as The Trail of Cthulhu, depicting the struggle of a Dr. Laban Shrewsbury and his associates against Cthulhu and his minions.

Derleth's interpretations have been criticized by Lovecraft enthusiast Michel Houellebecq. Houellebecq's H P Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life (2005) decries Derleth for attempting to reshape Lovecraft's strictly amoral continuity into a stereotypical conflict between forces of objective good and evil.

The character's influence also extended into recreational literature: games company TSR included an entire chapter on the Cthulhu mythos (including statistics for the character) in the first printing of Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook Deities & Demigods (1980). TSR, however, were unaware that Arkham House, who asserted copyright on almost all Lovecraft literature, had already licensed the Cthulhu property to the game company Chaosium. Although Chaosium stipulated that TSR could continue to use the material if each future edition featured a published credit to Chaosium, TSR refused and the material was removed from all subsequent editions.


Legacy
The Californian spider species Pimoa cthulhu, described by Gustavo Hormiga in 1994, is named with reference to Cthulhu.

Two microorganisms that assist in the digestion of wood by termites have been named after Cthulhu and Cthulhu's "daughter" Cthylla: Cthulhu macrofasciculumque and Cthylla microfasciculumque, respectively.



Source: Wikipedia

[Karaμazoβ]

Cthulhu

Cthulhu is a fictional cosmic entity who first appeared in the short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. The character was created by writer H. P. Lovecraft.

[...]

Source: Wikipedia

Ξεκινησες Lovecraft?

[Exomag]

Cthulhu

Cthulhu is a fictional cosmic entity who first appeared in the short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. The character was created by writer H. P. Lovecraft.

[...]

Source: Wikipedia

Ξεκινησες Lovecraft?

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120424134523/creepypasta/images/1/1b/Kraken-cthulhu.jpg

Οι τρεις τόμοι με τα άπαντα του Lovecraft βρίσκονται στη βιβλιοθήκη μου, και τους ξαναπιάνω που και που

(βέβαια δεν είναι και το πιο uplifting πράγμα που μπορείς να διαβάσεις )

[Karaμazoβ]

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egY8rUpxqcE" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egY8rUpxqcE</a>

"Sinatra Doctrine" was the name that the Soviet government of Mikhail Gorbachev used jokingly to describe its policy of allowing neighboring Warsaw Pact nations to determine their own internal affairs. The name alluded to the Frank Sinatra song "My Way"—the Soviet Union was allowing these nations to go their own way.

This was a major break with the earlier Brezhnev Doctrine, under which the internal affairs of satellite states were tightly controlled by Moscow. This had been used to justify the invasions of Czechoslovakia in 1968 as well as of the non-Warsaw Pact nation of Afghanistan in 1979. By the late 1980s, structural flaws within the Soviet system, growing economic problems, the rise of anti-communist sentiment and the effects of the Afghan war made it increasingly impractical for the Soviet Union to impose its will on its neighbors.

The phrase was coined on 25 October 1989 by Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennadi Gerasimov. He appeared on the popular U.S. television program Good Morning America to discuss a speech made two days earlier by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. The latter had said that the Soviets recognized the freedom of choice of all countries, specifically including the other Warsaw Pact states. Gerasimov told the interviewer that, "We now have the Frank Sinatra doctrine. He has a song, I Did It My Way. So every country decides on its own which road to take." When asked whether this would include Moscow accepting the rejection of communist parties in the Soviet bloc. He replied: "That's for sure… political structures must be decided by the people who live there."

The "Sinatra Doctrine" has been seen as Moscow giving permission to its allies to decide their own futures. In fact, it was a retrospective policy, as Soviet allies had already acquired much greater freedom of action. A month before Gerasimov's statement, Poland had acquired its first non-communist government since the 1940s. The government of Hungary had opened its border with Austria in August 1989, dismantling the Iron Curtain on its border. As Hungary was one of the few countries that East Germans could travel to, thousands travelled there so that they could flee across the newly-opened border to the West. To the great annoyance of the East German government, the Hungarians refused to stop the exodus.

These developments greatly disturbed hardline communists such as the East German leader Erich Honecker, who condemned the end of the traditional "socialist unity" of the Soviet bloc and appealed to Moscow to rein in the Hungarians. Honecker faced a growing crisis at home, with massive anti-government demonstrations in Leipzig and other East German cities. Shevardnadze's speech and Gerasimov's memorable description of the new policy amounted to a rebuff of Honecker's appeals. The message was: "don't bother us with your problems, work them out yourselves."

The proclamation of the "Sinatra Doctrine" had dramatic effects across the Soviet bloc. The beleaguered East German government had hoped for a Soviet intervention to defend communism in East Germany and elsewhere. However, the announcement of the "Sinatra Doctrine" signalled that the Soviet Union would not aid the East German communists.A few weeks later the Communist governments of East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria were ousted, and two months later the Communist rulers of Romania suffered the same fate, signalling an end to the Cold War and to the division of Europe.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinatra_Doctrine

[Exomag]

Mercury(II) thiocyanate

Mercury(II) thiocyanate (Hg(SCN)₂) is an inorganic chemical compound, the coordination complex of Hg²⁺ and the thiocyanate anion. It is a white powder. It is best known for its former use in pyrotechnics, as it will produce a large, winding “snake” when ignited, an effect known as the Pharaoh’s Serpent.


[...]


Pharaoh's serpent
Mercury thiocyanate was formerly used in pyrotechnics causing an effect known as the Pharaoh's serpent or Pharaoh's snake. When the compound is in the presence of a strong enough heat source, a rapid exothermic reaction is started which produces a large mass of coiling serpent-like solid. An inconspicuous flame which is often blue but can also occur in yellow/orange accompanies the combustion. The resulting solid can range from dark graphite grey to light tan in color with the inside generally much darker than the outside.

This property was discovered by Wöhler in 1821, soon after the first synthesis of mercury thiocyanate: "winding out from itself at the same time worm-like processes, to many times its former bulk, a very light material the color of graphite...". For some time, a firework product called "Pharaoschlangen" was available to the public in Germany, but was eventually banned when the toxic properties of the product were discovered through the death of several children mistakenly eating the resulting solid.

A similar, although less extreme, effect to the Pharaoh's serpent can be achieved using a firework known as a black snake. These are generally benign products, usually consisting of sodium bicarbonate or a mixture of linseed oil and naphthalenes.


[...]



Source: Wikipedia

[Karaμazoβ]

Mercury(II) thiocyanate

Mercury(II) thiocyanate (Hg(SCN)₂) is an inorganic chemical compound, the coordination complex of Hg²⁺ and the thiocyanate anion. It is a white powder. It is best known for its former use in pyrotechnics, as it will produce a large, winding “snake” when ignited, an effect known as the Pharaoh’s Serpent.


[...]


Pharaoh's serpent
Mercury thiocyanate was formerly used in pyrotechnics causing an effect known as the Pharaoh's serpent or Pharaoh's snake. When the compound is in the presence of a strong enough heat source, a rapid exothermic reaction is started which produces a large mass of coiling serpent-like solid. An inconspicuous flame which is often blue but can also occur in yellow/orange accompanies the combustion. The resulting solid can range from dark graphite grey to light tan in color with the inside generally much darker than the outside.

This property was discovered by Wöhler in 1821, soon after the first synthesis of mercury thiocyanate: "winding out from itself at the same time worm-like processes, to many times its former bulk, a very light material the color of graphite...". For some time, a firework product called "Pharaoschlangen" was available to the public in Germany, but was eventually banned when the toxic properties of the product were discovered through the death of several children mistakenly eating the resulting solid.

A similar, although less extreme, effect to the Pharaoh's serpent can be achieved using a firework known as a black snake. These are generally benign products, usually consisting of sodium bicarbonate or a mixture of linseed oil and naphthalenes.


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Source: Wikipedia

 


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Irreducible complexity


Irreducible complexity (IC) is an argument by proponents of intelligent design that certain biological systems are too complex to have evolved from simpler, or "less complete" predecessors, through natural selection acting upon a series of advantageous naturally occurring, chance mutations.[1] The argument is central to intelligent design, and is rejected by the scientific community at large,[2] which overwhelmingly regards intelligent design as pseudoscience.[3] Irreducible complexity is one of two main arguments used by intelligent design proponents, the other being specified complexity.[4]
Biochemistry professor Michael Behe, the originator of the term irreducible complexity, defines an irreducibly complex system as one "composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning".[5] Evolutionary biologists have demonstrated how such systems could have evolved,[6][7] and describe Behe's claim as an argument from incredulity.[8] In the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, Behe gave testimony on the subject of irreducible complexity. The court found that "Professor Behe's claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific community at large."[2]