August 14

Better Than News

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  The Screwtape Letters is a fantasy Christian apologetic satire film directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. It is based on the book of the same name by C. S. Lewis.

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  Mission: Impossible — Rain Man is a road comedy-drama spy thriller film starring Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman.

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  Coriolis is a 2011 American action-Shakespeare film loosely based on William Shakespeare's physics textbook Coriolis about an inertial or fictitious force that acts on objects in motion within a frame of reference that rotates with respect to an inertial frame.

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  "Uninitialized" is a song by the techno-linguistic thrash band Semiotic Tendencies.

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  Rear Gambrel is a 1954 American mystery thriller film about a recuperating news photographer (James Stewart) who believes he has witnessed a building code violation.

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  "Bele and Lokai" is a song by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney from their Star Trek themed album Let That Be Your Last Living in Perfect Battlefield.

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  "Oysterday" is a song by acclaimed British pearl divers and rock band the Seaswells.

Beyond Plausible

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  The Three Stigmata of All-Star Weekend is a 1964 science comedy-drama crime novel by American sociologist Philip K. Dick. A film version starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. was released in 2023.

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  Modern Subs is a 1936 American part-talkie satirical romantic black comedy film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin in which his iconic Little Tramp character struggles to survive in a modern, industrialized submarine.

In Other Words

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  Touch of Yentl is an American romantic noir musical drama crime film starring Barbra Streisand, Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, and Mandy Patinkin.

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  The Shop of Things to Come is a science fiction consumer society novel by British writer H. G. Wells about a future shopping expedition which ends in madness, death, and the Final Checkout.

Are You Sure

... that Boss Dog is an organic golem designed and manufactured by Symbionts Can Do to mimic the mechanical robot dog Spot from Boston Dynamics?

Selected Anniversaries

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  1552: Statesman, scientist, and historian Paolo Sarpi born. He will be a proponent of the Copernican system, a friend and patron of Galileo Galilei, and a keen follower of the latest research on anatomy, astronomy, and ballistics at the University of Padua.

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  1777: Physicist and chemist Hans Christian Ørsted born. He will discover that electric currents create magnetic fields, which was the first connection found between electricity and magnetism.

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  1888: Engineer and inventor John Logie Baird born. He will be one of the inventors of the mechanical television.

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  1909: Inventor, engineer, and philanthropist William Stanley dies. He designed and manufactured precision drawing and mathematical instruments, as well as surveying instruments and telescopes.

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  2014: Scientists announce the identification of possible interstellar dust particles from the Stardust capsule, which returned to Earth in 2006.

Topic of the Day

Moon

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  "Everybody Wants to Rule the Moon" is a song by Robin Williams (credited as "Ray D. Tutto") and the English pop rock band Tears for Fears.

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  The Moon is a Harsh Mistress but You Like It Rough is a 1966 science fiction novel by American writer [REDACTED] about a lunar colony's sexual abstinence revolt against absentee rule from Earth men.

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  "Some Blood Moon to Love" is a song by Queen 1.1.

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  Moon Cube is Okay is a 2022 coming-of-age film about a Chinese lunar rover (Yutu-2) which discovers a mysterious cube-like object on the moon.