January 7
Better Than News
Stardust Liaisons is a period romantic fantasy adventure film directed by Stephen Frears and Matthew Vaughn.
"Coppertunities (Let's Mint Lots of Money)" is a song by English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Coins from their debut studio album, Planchets (1986).
"Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My NFT" is a song by the English rock band the NFTeatles.
First Dark Knight is an American medieval superhero film based on Arthurian legend.
Beyond Plausible
Gilligan's Barbie is an American fantasy comedy-romance survival reality television series.
Local Hobo is a 1983 Scottish corporate espionage thriller film about a curmudgeonly vagrant who is recruited by an American oil company to spy on the fictional village of Ferness.
In Other Words
Beneath the Naked City of the Apes is an American science fiction police procedural television series.
"Take On Buffalo Gals" is a song by Pete Seeger and A-ha.
Are You Sure
• ... that engineer Sandford Fleming proposed a single 24-hour clock for the entire world after missing a train because its printed schedule listed p.m. instead of a.m.?
• ... that experimental physicist Chien-Shiung Wu conducting the Wu experiment (1956), which contradicted the hypothetical law of conservation of parity?
• ... that electrical engineer Zénobe Gramme invented the Gramme machine, a type of direct current dynamo capable of generating smoother (less AC) and much higher voltages than earlier dynamos, and that the Gramme machine was thefirst usefully powerful electrical motor that was successful industrially?
• ... that the Reis Telephone can establish a stable transdimensional communications channel with people who have been dead for six hours or longer?
Selected Anniversaries
1610: Galileo Galilei makes his first observation of the four Galilean moons: Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa, although he is not able to distinguish the last two until the following day.
1610: Rogue mathematician and alleged supervillain Anarchimedes remotely monitors Galileo Galilei's discovery of Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa. Galileo will later that his observations of the Galilean moons were corrupted by Anarchimedes' actions.
1827: Engineer and inventor Sandford Fleming born. He will propose worldwide standard time zones.
1834: Scientist and inventor Johann Philipp Reis born. He will invent the Reis Telephone.
1882: Pharmacist, inventor, and industrialist Ignacy Łukasiewicz born. He will build the world's first oil refinery and invent the kerosene lamp.
1939: Physicist Marguerite Perey identifies francium, the last element first discovered in nature, rather than by synthesis.
1943: Electrical engineer Nikola Tesla dies. He made pioneering contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.
2001: Premiere of The Lord of the Sprinkles, an epic high-fantasy film about a baker (Sauron) who creates the One Sprinkled Donut to rule the appetites of Men, Dwarves, and Elves.
2012: Mathematician Herbert Saul Wilf dies. Wilf specialized in combinatorics and graph theory.
Topic of the Day
Dune
Calaladan is a 2021 musical romantic comedy science fiction drama film about an aspiring actress (Emma Stone) and a jazz pianist (Ryan Gosling) who befriend a young aristocrat (Paul Atreides).
Forbidden Cosplay of the Bene Gesserit is a 1984 American epic science fiction role playing film about the forbidden love between a dispossessed young aristocrat and his witch-priestess mother.
Spicecrawler is a 2014 American neo-noir science fiction thriller film about a stringer who records violent events late at night on Arrakis and sells the footage to a Spacing Guild news station, exploiting the relationship between Bene Gesserit journalism and consumer demand.
"If I Were A Harkonnen" is a song by Tim Hardin and Frank Herbert.
Three Days of the Sand Mouse is a science fiction spy thriller film directed by David Lynch and Sydney Pollack, starring Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, and Sting.