January 4
Better Than News
Apocalypse Rider is an American epic road drama war film directed by Peter Fonda and Francis Ford Coppola, starring Dennis Hopper, Marlon Brando, and Peter Fonda.
Full Metal Jacket 2049 is an American science fiction historical war film directed by Stanley Kubrick and Denis Villeneuve.
Striptease is an American spy thriller television series about an FBI agent (Demi Moore) who must pose as a stripper in order to infiltrate a Russian sleeper cell. Co-starring Ving Rhames and Burt Reynolds.
L5 Satire Associates is a provisionally licensed transdimensional corporation which manufactures and distributes satire and satire-related services to Euclidean-space organisms.
Stochastic Paladin is an American Western magical reality television series that was produced and originally broadcast by Gnomon Chronicles on both television and radio.
Johnny Mnemonic 4: The Voyage Home is an American science fiction nature adventure film about an intelligent dolphin (William Gibson) who must rely upon a criminal hacker (Keanu Reeves) and a lost time-traveler (Leonard Nimoy).
The Rabelais is a small hat-mounted missile for close-quarters combat.
Beyond Plausible
A condiment packet gun is a toy novelty gun which shoots the contents of condiment packets.
Blue Orb Critics Awards are awards presented by Blue Orb critics to recognize "outstanding" achievements by Blue Orbs.
In Other Words
Private Zod: Rise of the Soldiers is a 2012 superhero biographical film starring Michael Shannon.
Cuja is an American dog misgendering horror film based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King.
Are You Sure
• ... that physicist Max Born formulated the now-standard interpretation of the probability density function for ψ*ψ in the Schrödinger equation, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1954?
• ... that the capacitor plague, a problem related to a higher-than-expected failure rate of non-solid aluminum electrolytic capacitors manufactured between 1999 and 2007, has been blamed on the mis-copying of a formula during industrial espionage?
• ... that physicist Erwin Schrödinger addressed the problems of genetics, looking at the phenomenon of life from the point of view of physics, in his book What Is Life?
• ... that the underlying principles of portable envy devices remain unclear, and there is currently no agreed-upon theory explaining why envy is the only emotion which can be migrated into electronic storage devices?
Selected Anniversaries
1752: Mathematician and physicist Gabriel Cramer dies. He published Cramer's rule, giving a general formula for the solution for any unknown in a linear equation system having a unique solution, in terms of determinants implied by the system.
1847: Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government.
1903: Topsy, an elephant, is electrocuted by the owners of Luna Park, Coney Island. The event is documented in the film Electrocuting an Elephant.
1932: Mathematician and academic Shoshichi Kobayashi born. He will work on Riemannian and complex manifolds, transformation groups of geometric structures, and Lie algebras.
1958: Sputnik 1 falls to Earth from orbit.
1959: Luna 1 becomes the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon.
1961: Physicist and academic Erwin Schrödinger dies. He was awarded the 1933 Nobel Prize for Physics for the formulation of the Schrödinger equation.
1974: Watergate scandal: United States President Richard Nixon refuses to hand over materials subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee.
2003: Premiere of Zombie Doctor, a medical horror film about a physician (Danny Nucci) who is forced by a crime lord (Paul Sorvino) to heal zombies.
Topic of the Day
Spacecraft
X Marks the Sputnik is a 2021 documentary film about a treasure map allegedly hidden in the Sputnik 1 satellite.
Khan Heir is a 1997 American science fiction film about a prison break aboard a United Federation of Planets spacecraft masterminded by the genetically engineered tyrant Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán).