User:Lx 121/WikiMediaWatch/(v.ii) 2009.06

WikiMediaWatch (v.ii) 2009.06

Wittig (& Friends)'s Magazine/Wiki/Blog of WikiMedia

WELCOME!

This is a small experiment of mine; a kind of monthly Wikimedia digest.

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Feeling creative? Join another experiment of mine, the Artist's Working Group on Wikimedia Commons.

=JUNE 2009=



June 12-13

Asbian's Pick: Perfect World
Perfect World (, commonly abbreviated as PW and W2), is an MMORPG developed by Beijing Perfect World. It has been released in several different areas in different versions already. The Malaysian version has now been released worldwide in an English-language format. Perfect World International, the official English version of the game, opened its teaser site on July 15, 2008, and launched its closed beta August 19, 2008. The open beta began on September 2, 2008. The International Version is specifically built to accommodate North America, Europe, and other English-speaking territories. In addition, the Multilanguage-Version is being prepared and will be available in the 3rd quarter of 2008. Perfect World Korea is currently still under development.

Perfect World is heavily based on Chinese mythology, and is set in the mythical world of Pangu. The simulated day and night, and flight is a key component in exploring the game world.

(read more... )

June 11

User:0Ihavenousername0's Pick: Nixie tube
A nixie tube is an electronic device for displaying numerals or other information. The glass tube contains a wire-mesh anode and multiple cathodes. In most tubes, the cathodes are shaped like numerals. Applying power to one cathode surrounds it with an orange glow discharge. The tube is filled with a gas at low pressure, usually mostly neon and often a little mercury and/or argon, in a Penning mixture.

Although it resembles a vacuum tube in appearance, its operation does not depend on thermionic emission of electrons from a heated cathode. It is therefore called a cold-cathode tube (a form of gas filled tube), or a variant of neon lamp. Such tubes rarely exceed 40 °C (104 °F) even under the most severe of operating conditions in a room at ambient temperature.

The most common form of nixie tube has ten cathodes in the shapes of the numerals 0 to 9 (and occasionally a decimal point or two), but there are also types that show various letters, signs and symbols. A related device is the pixie tube, which uses a stencil mask with numeral-shaped holes instead of shaped cathodes. Some Russian nixies, e.g. the IN-14, used an upside-down digit 2 as the digit 5, presumably to save manufacturing costs as there is no obvious technical or aesthetic reason.

Each cathode can be made to glow in the characteristic neon red-orange color by applying about 170 volts DC at a few milliamperes between a cathode and the anode. The current limiting is normally implemented as an anode resistor of a few tens of thousands of ohms. Nixies exhibit negative resistance and will maintain their glow at typically 20 V to 30 V below the strike voltage. Some color variation can be observed between types, caused by differences in the materials and gas mixtures used. Longer-life tubes that were manufactured later in the nixie timeline have mercury added to reduce sputtering resulting in a blue or purple tinge to the emitted light. In some cases, these colors are filtered out by a red or orange pigment coating on the glass.

(read more... )

June 7-8

Black Holes
For other uses, see Black hole (disambiguation).



In general relativity, a black hole is a region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing, including light, can escape its pull. The black hole has a one-way surface, called an event horizon, into which objects can fall, but out of which nothing can come. It is called "black" because it absorbs all the light that hits it, reflecting nothing, just like a perfect blackbody in thermodynamics. Quantum analysis of black holes shows them to possess a temperature and Hawking radiation.

Despite its invisible interior, a black hole can reveal its presence through interaction with other matter. A black hole can be inferred by tracking the movement of a group of stars that orbit a region in space which looks empty. Alternatively, one can see gas falling into a relatively small black hole, from a companion star. This gas spirals inward, heating up to very high temperature and emitting large amounts of radiation that can be detected from earthbound and earth-orbiting telescopes. Such observations have resulted in the scientific consensus that, barring a breakdown in our understanding of nature, black holes do exist in our universe.

(read more... )

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
June 6-7

D-Day
The Normandy Landings were the first operations of the Allied invasion of Normandy, also known as Operation Neptune and Operation Overlord, during World War II. The landings commenced on June 6, 1944 (D-Day), beginning at 6:30 British Double Summer Time (UTC+2). In planning, D-Day was the term used for the day of actual landing, which was dependent on final approval.

The assault was conducted in two phases: an air assault landing of American, British and Canadian airborne troops shortly after midnight, and an amphibious landing of Allied infantry and armoured divisions on the coast of France commencing at 6:30. There were also subsidiary 'attacks' mounted under the codenames Operation Glimmer and Operation Taxable to distract the Kriegsmarine and the German army from the real landing areas. '''

The operation was the largest single-day amphibious invasion of all time, with 160,000 troops landing on June 6, 1944. 195,700 Allied naval and merchant navy personnel in over 5,000 ships were involved. The invasion required the transport of soldiers and materiel from the United Kingdom by troop-laden aircraft and ships, the assault landings, air support, naval interdiction of the English Channel and naval fire-support. The landings took place along a 50 mi stretch of the Normandy coast divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.

(read more... )