May 17

Better Than News

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  The Nixie Economy: How black market Nixie tubes fuel the underground economy is a study of the economic and historical significance of Nixie tubes, with an emphasis on the underground and semi-illicit computational activities carried out by a self-organizing network of Nixie manufacturers, dealers, and users.

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  Citizen Palpatine is an epic quasi-biographical science fiction film directed by Orson Welles and George Lucas.

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  Exorcist of Steel is a superhero horror film directed by William Friedkin, based on the novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty.

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  No Country for Old Mimics is a science fiction crime thriller film directed by Guillermo del Toro and Joel and Ethan Coen.

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  It Takes a Chief is an American soap opera buddy comedy television series starring Malachi Throne as Noah Bain, a U.S. government bureaucrat, and Robert Wagner as his willful subordinate.

Beyond Plausible

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  Menu in Black is a 1997 science fiction cooking comedy film starring Will Smith and Gordon Ramsay.

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  Steganographic analysis of Confessions of a Quantum Artist-Engineer (1) unexpectedly reveals "at least two-hundred and fifty-six kilobytes" of previously unknown Gnomon algorithm functions.

In Other Words

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  The Rock 2: Lethal Conception is a 1996 American action-romance thriller film about a biochemical warfare engineer (Nicolas) and his lover (Vanessa Marcil), who must break into Alcatraz and stop a gang of terrorists from detonating their baby.

Are You Sure

"Celestial Airfield Seer" is an anagram of "Eric Alfred Leslie Satie".

• ... that throughout his career, mathematician Jacques-Louis Lions insisted on the use of mathematics in industry, with a particular involvement in the French space program, as well as in domains such as energy and the environment; and that Lions was appointed director of the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) from 1984 to 1992?

• ... that Strainer in a Strained Land is a 1961 science fiction guide to kitchenware by Robert Heinlein?

• ... that "Celestial Airfield Seer" is an anagram of "Eric Alfred Leslie Satie"?

Selected Anniversaries

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  1765: Mathematician, astronomer, and geophysicist Alexis Clairaut dies. His work helped to establish the validity of the principles and results that Sir Isaac Newton had outlined in the Principia of 1687.

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  1902: Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais discovers the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient mechanical analog computer.

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  1973: Watergate scandal (nonfiction): Televised hearings begin in the United States Senate.

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  2001: Mathematician Jacques-Louis Lions dies. He made contributions to the theory of partial differential equations and to stochastic control.

Topic of the Day

Sharon Stone

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  Raging Casino is an American biographical sports gambling film written and directed by Martin Scorsese.

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  Basic Aspic is a 1992 neo-noir erotic cooking film about a San Francisco police culinary detective (Michael Douglas) who investigates the brutal recipes of an enigmatic caterer (Sharon Stone).

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  Fatal Recall is a 2021 automotive industry training film about the hidden costs of recalling vehicles. Narration: Sharon Stone, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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  Basic Instinct 3: Rise of the Bene Gesserit is a 2006 science fiction erotic thriller film about a novelist and suspected Bene Gesserit witch who manipulates a dedicated Suk physician into betrayal of his Imperial conditioning.

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  Fetal Recall is a science fiction action drama film based on the novel of the same name by Philip K. Dick and Frank Herbert.