August 7
Better Than News
Arrakishead is a 1983 surrealist science fiction horror allegory film about a dispossessed aristocrat who is left to care for his melange-addicted child in a barren desert landscape.
Dune: House Soprano is a crime drama television series revolving around interplanetary mob boss Baron Soprano (James Gandolfini), portraying his difficulties as he tries to balance family life with his role in the assassination of Duke Leto Atreides and subsequent events on Arrakis.
Dune Another Day: James Bond must locate a mole in Atreides intelligence who betrayed him, and a Harkonnen billionaire who is later revealed to be connected to a Sardauker operative that Bond seemingly killed.
The Incredible Mr. Biscuit is an American historical sports drama film directed by Gary Ross and Arthur Lubin, and starring Don Knotts and Tobey Maguire.
Do Little Androids Heal Electric Sheep? is an American musical science fiction animal adventure film directed by Richard Fleischer and Ridley Scott, and starring Rex Harrison and Harrison Ford.
Born Free 2049 is a science fiction animal rights film about a couple who raise an orphaned virtual lion cub to adulthood, and released it into the wilderness of the Internet.
Beyond Plausible
American Gangbird is a 2007 American ornithology buddy crime film about a thieving bird (Russell Crowe) who smuggles bright shiny objects, and an Audubon Society detective (Denzel Washington).
In Other Words
The TamagotchNFT is a handheld digital non-fungible token pet.
Are You Sure
... that The Man Who Replaced His Ears With Orchids is a 1975 floral industry training film about a brilliant but absent-minded surgeon whose obsession with orchids leads to frightening advances in medical botany?
Selected Anniversaries
1834: Weaver and merchant Joseph Marie Jacquard dies. He invented the Jacquard loom, an early type of programmable machine.
1957: Stokes nuclear weapon test conducted by the United States.
1958: Cryptologist and author Herbert Yardley dies. Yardley founded and led the Black Chamber, a secret American government cryptographic organization which broke Japanese diplomatic codes, furnishing American negotiators with significant information during the Washington Naval Conference of 1921-1922.
1974: High-wire artist Philippe Petit performs a high wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
1975: Math photographer Cantor Parabola takes retro-temporal pictures of Philippe Petit's high wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center, revealing unexpected correspondences with other timelines.
1976: Viking program: Viking 2 inserted into a 1500 x 33,000 km, 24.6 h orbit around Mars.
2010: Mathematician and statistician John Nelder dies. He contributed to experimental design, analysis of variance, computational statistics, and statistical theory. He also was responsible, with Max Nicholson and James Ferguson-Lees, for debunking the Hastings Rarities.
2017: Dennis Paulson celebrates twenty-first anniversary of Viking 2 entering Mars orbit.
Topic of the Day
Dune
Sandfall is a science fiction spy film starring Daniel Craig as a British MI6 agent who must discover the source of Melange, a drug which facilitates interstellar travel.
My Dinner With Atreides is a 1981 science fiction comedy-drama film about a disbarred Spacing Guild navigator turned restauranteur (Wallace Shawn) and a wealthy investor (Leto Atreides). The film's dialogue covers topics such as experimental drugs, the nature of Arrakis, and contrasts Wally's modest humanism with Leto's dynastic ambitions.
Lawrence of Arrakis is an an epic historical drama science fiction film directed by David Lean and staring Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, and José Ferrer.
Spice-Lord is a 2021 science fiction comedy film about a zoologist (Chris Pratt) who discovers a new species of worm which excretes a hallucinogenic drug.
Dune: House Ferret is a 2021 science fiction animal adventure film based on the best-selling autobiography of animal trainer Frank Herbert.
