November 23
Better Than News
Charlie and the Jedi Factory is a 2005 science fiction musical fantasy film about an orphan moisture farmer who dreams of finding one of five golden light sabers hidden inside chocolate bar wrappers which will admit him to the eccentric and reclusive Willy Wonka's magical Jedi factory.
The Red Tamagotchi is a 1998 drama film directed by François Girard and starring Samuel L. Jackson, Carlo Cecchi and Sylvia Chang. It spans four centuries and five countries as it tells the story of a mysterious red-colored handheld digital pet that was created in Japan by Akihiro Yokoi of WiZ and Aki Maita of Bandai.
Space elevator siege ladder is a 2022 proposal to repurpose the Rider-Waite Space Elevator as a low earth orbit siege ladder.
Inverted Wagon Queen Family Truckster causes Ford to recall over one million vehicles. Ford will recoup the losses selling misprinted stamps to collectors.
Say Nothing is an American horror-comedy film starring John Cusack and Emily Blunt.
"Runnin' Down a Modern Times" is a song by Tom Petty.
Beyond Plausible
Beyond Lebowski is an American sports noir thriller film starring John Turturro.
Star Trek: Fire Birds Insurrection is a science fiction military action film starring Nicolas Cage and Patrick Stewart.
In Other Words
Prince of Lava is a 1987 American supernatural comedy stoner film about a group of industrial chemistry students who assist a Catholic priest in investigating an ancient lava lamp discovered in a monastery, which they come to find is a sentient, liquid embodiment of chemical polarity.
Are You Sure
• ... that theoretical physicist and academic Johannes Diderik van der Waals (23 November 1837 – 8 March 1923) was awarded the 1910 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids?
Selected Anniversaries
1553: Physician and botanist Prospero Alpini born. He will travel around Egypt, serve as the fourth prefect in charge of the botanical garden of Padua, and write several botanical treatises covering exotic plants of economic and medicinal value.
1720: Clockmaker Jean-André Lepaute born. He will be an innovator, making numerous improvements to clockmaking, especially his pin-wheel escapement, and his clockworks in which the gears are all in the horizontal plane.
1837: Theoretical physicist and academic Johannes Diderik van der Waals born. He will win the 1910 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids.
1847: Engineer Charles Renard born. Renard will pioneer the design and construction of airships. He will also propose a set of preferred numbers now known as the Renard series.
1924: Edwin Hubble's discovery, that the Andromeda "nebula" is actually another island galaxy far outside of our own Milky Way, is first published in The New York Times.
Topic of the Day
Steve McQueen
The Thomas the Apostle Crown Affair is a 1968 American heist film about a millionaire businessman-sportsman (Steve McQueen), whose theft of a Gutenberg Bible draws unwanted attention from an independent insurance investigator (Fate Dunaway) and a restless Apostle (Thomas).
The Bullitt is a 1958 neo-noir action horror film starring Steve McQueen.
The Great Replacement is a 1963 science fiction war film about a group of military asylum inmates who believe that they are being replaced by dark-skinned alien monsters.