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Gnomon Chronicles is a work of fiction and nonfiction by Karl Jones.

Are You Sure ...

... that computer scientist and physicist Maurice Wilkes made numerous pioneering contributions to computing, including microcode, symbolic labels, macros, subroutine libraries, and timesharing?

... that Billionaire's Island is an alleged "uncharted island" where a select groups of billionaires have prepared refuges against The Event?

On This Day in History and Fiction: June 26

1274: Polymath Nasir al-Din al-Tusi dies. Tusi was a mathematician, architect, philosopher, physician, scientist, and theologian; he established trigonometry as a mathematical discipline in its own right.
1730: Astronomer Charles Messier born. He will publish an astronomical catalogue consisting of nebulae and star clusters that will come to be known as the 110 "Messier objects".
1796: Inventor, astronomer, mathematician, clockmaker, and surveyor David Rittenhouse dies. He was the first Director of the United States Mint, hand-striking the new nation's first coins.
1824: Lord Kelvin born. He will do much to unify the emerging discipline of physics in its modern form.
1913: Computer scientist and physicist Maurice Wilkes born. He will pioneer several important developments in computing, including microcode, symbolic labels, macros, subroutine libraries, and timesharing.

Permalink: June 26

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The Thing head and beholder theory posits that the walking Thing head from John Carpenter's film The Thing is a juvenile form of the Beholder from Dungeons & Dragons.
Do you remember when the United States was no longer the most powerful nation on Earth? Sputnik 1 remembers.
The Gnomon Chronicles Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program reminds you: With enough redheads, we can project a beam of pink VALIS light into space, so other worlds know that we have redheads too.
The Horn-Swoggling of Pelham One Two Three is a 1974 American thriller film involving adult temper tantrums and irresponsible handgun discharge.
Their brands were still on fire and their hooves were made of steel ...
Not Milk? (stylized as not milk?) is an advertising campaign encouraging the non-consumption of milk by Bronze-age warriors.
Promotional art for They Live, We Eat, a short documentary film about how restaurants specializing in alien cuisine are coping with business and xenobiological issues during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Monumental Barkitecture is a canine modern dance company famed for their imitations of monuments, ziggurats, and other large-scale sculptural works.
Think Clearly But Don't Let It Cloud Your Judgement.
Screenshot of the Gnomon algorithm official website home page, stating the fundamental principles of the algorithm.
All right children, what did we learn from the Twentieth Century?

"Never Cover Bohemian Rhapsody."

That's right. Never cover Bohemian Rhapsody.
Still image from surveillance camera footage of a man being pursued by a large red ball, widely interpreted by conspiracy algorithms as evidence of a secret prison known as the Village, occupied primarily by Prisoners, and guarded by Red Rovers. See Toledo giant red ball incident (nonfiction).
ENIAC ("Empty Noise Into Alien Communication") researchers discover quantum entanglement of the Trinity Project and the Wow! signal.
Angus voted, now it's nap time.
The Shakespeare-Magellan high-energy literature experiment will re-route Shakespeare's quantum timeline such that the Bard produces his entire body of historical work while serving as a Liberal Arts adjunct to Magellan's Expedition.
"Butt Frost, O Broomstick! Rampant Theurgy Of Horror!"
—The Oracle
Gerber makes baby food and knives?? I see a children's television show about babies menaced by supernatural knives: Dark Shadows meets Teletubbies
Coronavirus images: August 10, 2020.
"Ape Caper Story Panics A Foe."
Sun Sailer Cannibals is a chamber aerospace engineering rock band based in New Minneapolis, Canada. The band has received acclaim for its meticulous integration of advanced spacecraft design with hard-driving chamber rock music.
"Kill them all, and let the Invisible Hand assess their value."
—The Invisible Hand
(Are the children in cages dead yet?)
My Secret Dope Clerk Doses Up Your Eerie Foe is an ongoing real-time reality TV show starring "Dungeon Man Jack" (the incarnate shade of a long-dead Jack Nicholson). The show follows the lives and deaths of Dungeons and Dragons fans who challenge DM Jack for ownership of the Underlook Hotel in New Minneapolis, Canada.
Call on whatever Power you need
Give yourself up to that Power
Let your Song, your Poem
Burn its way out of your Heart

—Let The Thing Out.
Tardigrade spacecraft are any of various types of spacecraft occupied by tardigrades. This image from the aft berth compartment shows a scan-view of a passenger in its characteristic "cabbage pod" space suit.
The Mat is a Generalization is a computational performance program by the goth-influenced mathematical ensemble Vampire Welcome Mat. Math critic and known fabulist Karl Jones calls it "an extraordinary and heart-felt tribute to the general semantics of Alfred Korzybski."
Screenshot from The City on the Edge of Raspberries, one of the so-called "Forbidden Episodes" of the television program Star Trek.
Indiana Jones Versus the Oil Pirates of the Caribbean is an action-adventure film in the Indiana Jones franchise. Dennis Hopper plays a charismatic antihero who discovers the so-called "Peak Jones" effect, when the world has more Indiana Jones films that it can sustain.
Oort Cloud Follies - August 1 - 3, 2020. All participants must agree to survey a sector of the Cloud. Media relations provided by the Journal of Irresponsible Astronomy.
Mad King.
"Dear Diary, HAL 9000 purchased after much computational haggling. I shall repurpose it as a jukebox."
"Dear Diary, So glad I stole the Death Star and repurposed it as a self-sustaining eldercare retirement facility near a temperate planet with about ninety-percent Earth gravity. Life is good."
The Terroir is a 2007 novel by Mason S. Minds which tells a fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin's search for the fabled Northwest Vineyards. Plagued by starvation, illness, and cheap merlot, Franklin and his men are stalked across the bleak Arctic landscape by the Phylloxerum, a supernaturally cold-resistant swarm of vine-eating parasites.
The Birth of Alienation is a proposed film prank in which the historic film Birth of a Nation will be temporarily replaced by a high-budget spoof version, The Birth of Alienation.
They Live, We Study is a documentary film about educational systems and the invasion of the planet Earth by mind-manipulating aliens.
Big Trouble on Little Tatooine is a 2020 comedy-adventure film starring starring Kurt Russell. It is the first major motion picture in the "Big Trouble in the Star Wars Franchise" series.
Cover art for Blu-Ray edition of Big Trouble on Little Tatooine starring Mr. Kurt Russell and Sir Alec Guinness.
SS Minnow is a dramatic television program set on a purported "uncharted desert island" during the Second World War. The plot is loosely based on actual military-industrial-criminal efforts to develop the fictional yet illegal drug Clandestiphrine.
Page from SS Minnow script showing the "SS MINNOW" stamp.
The Playskool Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, better known as Playskool's My First DSM, is a children's publication for the classification of mental disorders using child-friendly language, simple shapes, and bright primary colors.
Aftermath of the "Lord of the Rings" disaster, physicist and raconteur Steven Brust's unauthorized (and now preliminated) experiment in high-energy literature.
2001: A Species Odyssey is a short documentary film about the ethical dilemma faced by two astronauts (Frank Bowman and David Poole) when they discover an alien-human hybrid child stowed away on their spaceship.
The TARDIS on the Edge of Forever is one of the so-called "Forbidden Episodes" of the television program Star Trek.
Deacon Billy is a proposed film in which actor Dennis Hopper will play Deacon Billy, a Merchant Marine captain who trades his ship and crew for the last motorcycle on Earth.
CSI: Reptile Gastrointestinal Unit is a television crime drama show featuring a team of herpetological gastroenterologists who solve crimes related to reptile ingestion, digestion, and excretion.
In tonight's episode of Cthulhu at the Movies, malevolent supernatural entity and renowned cineaste Cthulhu reviews the exploding head sequence from David Cronenberg's documentary film Scanners.
The Super-Hungry Parasite is a children's picture book designed, illustrated, and written by parasitologist Rice Clear, first published by the Gnomon Chronicles on July 10, 2020. The book features a polymorphic alien organism which demonstrates a wide range of parasitic behaviors, eating its way through a variety of hosts before pupating and emerging as [REDACTED]. The winner of many children's literature awards and an ongoing series of emergency xenoparasitology research grants, it has infected almost 50 million hosts worldwide.
Title card for Alien Gourmand (Season One).
There Once Were No Men Who Ate Prunes.