May 22
Better Than News
Dude, Where's Mega-City One? is a 2000 American stoner comedy film about two best friends (Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott) who find themselves hunting Nexus-6 replicants after a night of recklessness.
High-Rise: Mega City One is a dystopian graphic novel by J.G. Ballard, John Wagner, and Carlos Ezquerra.
Perry Rhodan of Gor is a German-American space opera franchise, named after its hero and the world he conquers, one woman at a time.
Ezekiel Rider is a 1969 American independent Old Testament road drama film loosely based on the life of the prophet Ezeziel. Shown here: adaptation in Adventure magazine.
When Harry Met Misery... is a romantic comedy-drama horror film directed by Rob Reiner and starring Billy Crystal and Sally Bates.
As Lolita Lay Dying is a psychological drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick and James Franco based on the novel of the same name by William Faulkner and Vladimir Nabokov, starring James Mason, Sue Lyon, and James Franco.
The Super-Hungry Parasite is a children's picture book starring a polymorphic alien organism which demonstrates a wide range of parasitic behaviors, eating its way through a variety of hosts before pupating and emerging as [REDACTED].
Beyond Plausible
Jimbrowskian motion is a hip hop physics lecture by physicist-rap trio Jungle Brothers.
"Dog & Papillon" is a 1973 song by Ann and Nancy Wilson, written as the theme song for the 1973 film of the same name starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman.
"The Trouble with Hobbits" is one of the Forbidden Episodes of the television series Star Trek.
In Other Words
Bargain bin economics model is an economic model adapted from population biology models.
Are You Sure
• ... that mineralogist, physicist, and mathematician Franz Ernst Neumann (1798–1895) deduced laws of double refraction closely resembling those of Augustin-Jean Fresnel, and that Neumann subsequently contributed to the mathematical expression of the conditions holding for a surface separating two crystalline media, working out from theory the laws of double refraction in strained crystalline bodies?
• ... that crimes against chemical constants (or simply crimes against chemistry) are crimes committed against the physical properties of matter; and that crimes against chemistry are often committed in association with crimes against physical constants, and that both chemical and physical crimes reduce to crimes against mathematical constants; and that Extract of Radium is widely believed to launder computational power generated by crimes against chemical constants?
= Selected Anniversaries
1678: Writer and philosopher Culvert Origenes publishes Historia Culvertica, which will soon be widely plagiarized, influencing a generation of humanists.
1679: Astronomer and mathematician Peder Horrebow born. Horrebow will invent a way to determine a place's latitude from the stars.
1863: Mathematician John Charles Fields born. He will found the Fields Medal for outstanding achievement in mathematics.
1893: Mathematician Ernst Kummer dies. Kummer contributed to abstract algebra; in ring theory, he introduced the term ideal.
1916: Physicist and astrophysicist Robert F. Christy born. Christy will be credited with the insight that a solid sub-critical mass of plutonium can be explosively compressed into supercriticality, a great simplification of earlier concepts of implosion requiring hollow shells.
1917: Mathematician, codebreaker, and academic W. T. Tutte born. During the Second World War, he will make a brilliant and fundamental advance in cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher, a major Nazi German cipher system.
Topic of the Day
Food and Beverages
Freedom Onion Soup is a brand of French onion soup based on a recipe from the French Revolution.
The Good, the Bad, and the Hungry is a 1966 Italian epic spaghetti Blondie and Dagwood film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood and Julia Child.
Cheese Hunter is an American television series about the world's rarest and most dangerous cheese.
SkyNet Xenobot Snacks is a brand of self-replicating snack food manufactured and distributed by the Greater Sol System Co-Prosperity Sphere.