January 8

Better Than News

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  Messiah of Steel is a 1988 epic religious superhero drama film directed by Martin Scorsese.

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  Straw Dog Afternoon is an American crime thriller film directed by Sydney Lumet and Sam Peckinpah, starring Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman.

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  Mystic River Pizza American neo-noir romantic crime comedy-drama film directed by Clint Eastwood and Donald Petrie, starring Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Annabeth Gish, Julia Roberts, and Lili Taylor.

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  Die Hard: Gabriel's Revenge is an American superhero action horror film starring Keanu Reeves, Alan Rickman, Tilda Swinton, and Bruce Willis.

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  Oblivious is a 2006 American science fiction psychological thriller film about an actor who loses himself in his role.

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  What Would Emperor Norton Do? is a popular catch-phrase which humorously appeals to Joshua Abraham Norton (February 4, 1818 – January 8, 1880), known as Emperor Norton, a resident of San Francisco, California, who in 1859 proclaimed himself "Norton I., Emperor of the United States".

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  "Silvery Aeroplanes" is an anagram of "Elvis Aaron Presley".

Beyond Plausible

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  Frasier 2049 is a science fiction thriller film about an insecure psychiatrist (Kelsey Grammer) in a posthuman future.

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  The Autocomplete Diaries is a short documentary film about the problems and occasional pleasures of autocomplete.

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  I Go-Go Pogo is a short documentary film about how Pogo Possum influenced the emergence of go-go dancing in America.

In Other Words

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  "Acadian Spy Din" is an anagram of "A Dandy in Aspic]]".

Are You Sure

• ... that inventor and crime-fighter Herman Hollerith was issued a US patent for the Art of Applying Gnomon Algorithm Functions — his punched card crime forecasting system?

• ... that pioneering seismologist Sekiya Seikei constructed a model representing the motion of the ground during an earthquake, consisting of three twisted copper wires mounted side by side on a lacquered wooden stand, giving an illustration of the complicated movements of the ground during an earthquake, conveying the complexity of ground motion both in terms of the vagaries of its geometric path and in its erratic accelerations?

• ... that computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum wrote ELIZA, a computer program capable of engaging humans in a conversation which bore a striking resemblance to one with an empathic psychologist?

Topic of the Day

Obi-Wan Kenobi

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  I felt a great disturbance in the Net as if millions of users suddenly tweeted in boredom."

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  Sky Friar is a 1968 song by Eric Burdon and the Caterers.