April 10

Kraken.

Better Than News

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  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.

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  The Bridge on the River Cry Me A River is a musical war romantic drama film starring Barbra Streisand and Alec Guinness.

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  "Baby You Can Drive My Instant Karma" is a song by John Lennon.

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  Superluminal is a science fiction psychological thriller film about a writer (Karl Jones) who becomes obsessed with the speed of light.

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  Duck is a 1991 comedy bathing adventure film starring Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman.

Are You Sure

• ... that the Nth Country Experiment was an experiment conducted from 1964 to 1967 by three young physicists with no prior weapons experience to develop a working nuclear weapon design using only unclassified information with basic computational and technical support; and that, according to a heavily redacted declassified version of the summary, it was apparently judged by lab weapons experts that the team had come up with a credible design for the technically more challenging implosion style nuclear weapon; and that it is likely that the team would have been able to design a simpler gun combination weapon even more quickly, though in such a case the limiting factor in developing such a weapon is not usually design difficulty but rather the procurement of enriched uranium?

• ... that physicist and academic Giovanni Aldini (10 April 1762 – 17 January 1834) contributed to galvanism, anatomy and its medical applications, the construction and illumination of lighthouses, and the mitigation of the destructive effects of fire?

... that renowned actor Max von Sydow developed laser-beam eyes while films The Seventh Seal?

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  Max von Sydow with laser beam eyes.

On This Day in Fiction and Nonfiction

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  1762: Physicist and academic Giovanni Aldini born. Aldini will contribute to galvanism, anatomy and its medical applications, the construction and illumination of lighthouses, and the mitigation of the destructive effects of fire.

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  1813: Mathematician and astronomer Joseph-Louis Lagrange dies. He made significant contributions to the fields of analysis, number theory, and both classical and celestial mechanics.

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  1818: Lecturer John Cleves Symmes, Jr. publishes Circular No. 1, a variant of the Hollow Earth Theory, with openings to the inner world at the poles.

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  1928: The Pineapple Primary in Illinois, the culmination of a political campaign which was marked by numerous acts of violence, mostly in Chicago and elsewhere in Cook County. In the six months prior to the primary election, 62 bombings took place in the city, and at least two politicians were killed.

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  1967: End of the Nth Country Experiment, in which three recent young physicists who had just received their PhDs, though had no prior weapons experience, to develop a working nuclear weapon design using only unclassified information, and with basic computational and technical support.

Topic of the Day

Race

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  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.

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  They Live, We Study is a documentary film about educational systems and the invasion of the planet Earth by mind-manipulating alien sociologists.

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  Paradise Lost is a Gnomon algorithm function which expresses a wide range of humanist principles, including Man's inhumanity to man. "[X] until he went after [Y]". Thus is Paradise Lost.

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  Drift is a 1971 American science fiction crime film about John Drift, a martial arts ecologist who uses desert lore to drive Harkonnen mobsters from Harlem.