December 28

Trefoil.

Better Than News

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  Full Metal Babysitting is an American teen comedy-drama war film directed by Stanley Kubrick and Chris Columbus, starring Elisabeth Shue, Keith Coogan, Matthew Modine, and Vincent D'Onofrio.

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  Alien Bride Nation is an American science fiction action-comedy adventure film directed by Rob Reiner and Graham Baker, starring Mandy Patinkin, James Caan, Carey Elwes, Robin Wright, Terence Stamp, and Christopher Guest.

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  Guadalcanal Diary 2: A Three Hour Tour is a World War II comedy war film about seven castaways who put aside their differences and fight with the United States Marines in the Battle of Guadalcanal.

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  Children of the Gorn is a science fiction horror film about a starship captain (William Shatner) who is transported to an abandoned Nebraska town that is inhabited by a cult of murderous children who worship a reptilian alien that lives in the local quarry.

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  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.

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  The Ten Axioms is a 1956 epic set theory revisionist historical film about a Jewish set theorist (Charlton Heston) who discovers a paradox in the Ten Commandments which threatens to undermine all monotheism.

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  The Andromeda Galaxy robbery (also known as the Great Andromeda Galaxy robbery) was a coordinated attack upon the Andromeda Galaxy using a previously unknown exploit involving coriolis effect. The robbery was activated by parties as yet unidentified (11 May 2021) using hijacked laser guide stars.

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  2001: A CAPTCHA Odyssey is a 1968 science fiction film about user interface design and identity confirmation directed by Stanley Kubrick.

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  The Great Replacement is a 1963 science fiction war film about a group of military asylum inmates who believe that they are being replaced by dark-skinned alien monsters.

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  G.I. Joe Undersea Meals for One is a line of lunchbox foods designed for consumption during human-shark combat.

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  There is no answer. There is only the Song.

Are You Sure

• ... that Francesco Maria Grimaldi was the first to make accurate observations on the diffraction of light (although by some accounts Leonardo da Vinci had earlier noted it), and coined the word 'diffraction'?

• ... that John von Neumann's last work, an unfinished manuscript written while in the hospital, was later published in book form as The Computer and the Brain?

• ... that the carnivorous dirigible (Dirigible horribilis) is a grazing ruminant airship, neither carnivorous nor horrible?

On This Day in Fiction and Nonfiction

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  1612: Galileo became the first person to observe the planet Neptune, although he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star.

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  1663: Mathematician and physicist Francesco Maria Grimaldi dies. Working with Riccioli, he investigated the free fall of objects, confirming that the distance of fall was proportional to the square of the time taken.

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  1882: Astronomer, physicist, and mathematician Arthur Eddington born. He will become famous for his work concerning the theory of relativity.

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  1895: Wilhelm Röntgen publishes a paper detailing his discovery of a new type of radiation, which later will be known as x-rays.

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  1902: APTO industrial chemists classify the Hazmatterhorn as a Crime Against Chemical Constants. Although derived from the word Matterhorn, the term Hazmatterhorn is applicable to any mountain of hazardous materials.

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  1903: Mathematician, physicist, and computer scientist John von Neumann born. He will be a key figure in the development of the digital computer, and develop mathematical models of both nuclear and thermonuclear weapons.

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  2016: Mathematician Anne Penfold Street dies. She specialized in combinatorics, authoring several textbooks; her work on sum-free sets became a standard reference for its subject matter.

Topic of the Day

Batman

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  The Dark NFT is a 2008 superhero NFT film about the Joker (Heath Ledger), a deranged database engineer who threatens to delete all the non-fungible tokens in Gotham City.