November 11

Better Than News

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  Gravity's Expendables is a 1973 novel by American writer Thomas Pynchon about a team of elite mercenaries tasked with stealing a Nazi secret weapon. It was adapted for a 2010 film starring Sylvester Stallone.

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  Teilhard Cider is a philosophical beverage fermented from planetary "sphere of reason" apples.

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  Open Season 2: Revenge of the Cervidae is an animal adventure horror docudrama film about deer that stalk and kill humans.

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  Blue Lace Hooks is a 1958 erotic thriller film starring Lana Turner and Red Buttons.

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  Pulp Fiat is a 1994 American financial thriller film by Quentin Tarantino which tells several stories of currencies that are not backed by any commodity such as gold or silver, typically declared by a decree from the government to be legal tender.

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  Ace Neptune, Sub Detective is a comedy action-adventure film starring Jim Carrey and Jacques Cousteau.

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  Mesopelagium is a restaurant in New Minneapolis, Canada specializing in seafood from the mesopelagic zone.

Beyond Plausible

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  The Man from P.U.T.T.E.R. is a golf technothriller television series about P.U.T.T.E.R., a secret organization using golf as a cover for international counter-espionage operations.

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  Slurried Bulldozer is a brand of high-fiber breakfast cereal.

In Other Words

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  "Like a Crustacean" is a song by the Bangles.

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  "Everybody Wants Toast is a song by Van Halen.

Are You Sure

• ... that astronomer Vesto Melvin Slipher (11 November 1875 – 8 November 1969) performed the first measurements of radial velocities for galaxies, providing the empirical basis for the expansion of the universe?

• ... that the Liberty Bell Ruby was stolen in a heist on this day from a jewelry store in Delaware?

Selected Anniversaries

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  1675: Mathematician Gottfried Leibniz demonstrates integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = ƒ(x).

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  1875: Astronomer Vesto Melvin Slipher born. He will perform the first measurements of radial velocities for galaxies, providing the empirical basis for the expansion of the universe.

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  1904: Mathematician and academic J. H. C. Whitehead born. During the Second World War, he will work with the codebreakers at Bletchley Park.

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  1930: Physicist Hugh Everett III born. He will propose the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum physics.

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  1965: Math photographer Cantor Parabola warns that crimes against mathematical constants are on the rise.

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  2005: The Venus Express successfully performs its first trajectory correction maneuver.

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  2014: Materials engineer and academic Philip G. Hodge dies. He studied the mechanics of elastic and plastic behavior of materials, contributing to plasticity theory including developments in the method of characteristics, limit-analysis, piecewise linear isotropic plasticity, and nonlinear programming applications.

Topic of the Day

War

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  Young Nations At War is a dramatic anti-war film starring the United States of America, England, and Germany, with an all-star supporting cast including Russia, Japan, and Italy.

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  Playskool's My First Nuclear Football an Executive toy briefcase, the contents of which are to be used by the President of the United States to authorize a nuclear attack while away from fixed playgrounds, such as the White House Cardboard Box Fortress.

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  The Eagle Has Tweeted is a 1975 novel by Tannery Strophe about a fictional German plot to impersonate Winston Churchill on Twitter near the end of the Second World War.

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  ISIS-K is an advanced, vitamin-fortified combat breakfast cereal manufactured by Chef Grand Tarkin under license from the Great Sol System Co-Prosperity Sphere.

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  "Sweet Tooth, Soldier?" was a World War Two era health program initiated and run by the United States Army in an effort to reduce sugar abuse by soldiers.

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  "(You're) Having My Bomb Bay" is a song by [REDACTED].

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  A Boy on His Beach is a 2021 post-apocalyptic science fiction musical starring Don Johnson, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, and Anthony Perkins, based on the 1957 novel of the same name by This Unweary Novel.

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  I believe in Chuck, not Lance is a short documentary film about cultural patterns of tool use among higher primates, emphasizing the use of tools as weapons by Homo sapiens.

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  The war between consensus reality and reality is an ongoing high-energy literature research project.

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  We interrupt Young Nations At War to bring you Wide Wide World of Microwave Weapons.

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  The Armistice Day Decorations Committee is a provisionally licensed transdimensional corporation which discovers, synthesizes, and installs anti-war decorations in historical combat environments.