October 5
Better Than News
The Twilight Gnome is an American science fiction horror anthology television series created and presented by Rod Serling which features stories about gnomes.
Undercover Reds is an American epic historical comedy-drama film which explores the lives and careers of wise-cracking spy couple Jane and Jefferson Red, and their friendship with journalist John Reed.
Logan's Silent Running is a 1976 American science fiction ecological utopia film which depicts a future society where everyone who reaches the age of 30 is transported to an orbital ecological preserve.
The Silence of the Aliens is an American science fiction horror film about a young FBI trainee (Jodie Foster) who is hunting an alien serial killer, "Nostromo Bill" (Ted Levine), who lays his eggs in human victims.
Strychnine House is a horror-pharmacology television series about a house possessed by a malefic supernatural bottle of strychnine tablets.
Quest for Firestarter is a 1981 prehistoric horror-adventure film about the struggle for control of destructive psychic powers by early humans.
"The Trouble With Triffids" wins the Caldecott Medal for Children's literature.
The Morning Comes Will Not Be Revolutionary is a song by Gil Scott-Heron and Hall and Oates.
Secret Reagent Man is a British-American television series about a spy (Patrick McGoohan) and a musician (Johnny Rivers) who team up to advance chemistry worldwide. Periodically guest starring Dmitri Mendeleev.
Blow-Off is a 1966 psychological thriller film about a landscape maintenance worker who believes he has unwittingly captured a murder in scattered leaves.
Beyond Plausible
The Netrix is a 1995 science fiction crime thriller film starring Sandra Bullock and Hugo Weaving.
Psaltry on Precinct 13 is a 1976 crime drama musical thriller film directed and scored by John Carpenter.
"Someone Shaved My Beef Tonight" is a song by Elton John.
In Other Words
Today We Rinse, Tomorrow We Boil is a rice-and-pasta mystery novel in the Salty MacTavish Mystery Series.
Cocaine A.I. is a 2023 science fiction horror film about an artificial intelligence which goes on a cocaine-fueled rampage.
The Wonders of London: Public Toilets is the second episode of the first season of the British history musical television series The Wonders of London starring Dick van Dyke and Mary Poppins.
Are You Sure
• ... that the Viking 2 spacecraft conducted biology experiments in search of life on Mars, and that the results were surprising and interesting?
• ... that statesman and prelate Paolo Sarpi (14 August 1552 – 15 January 1623) was also an experimental scientist, a proponent of the Copernican system, and a friend and patron of Galileo Galilei?
• ... that the House of Malevecchio is responsible for nearly all of the crimes against mathematical constants committed during the Renaissance?
• ... that mathematician and philosopher Maria Gaetana Agnesi (16 May 1718 – 9 January 1799) was the first woman to write a mathematics handbook, and the first woman appointed as a Mathematics Professor at a university?
• ... that mathematician Benjamin Peirce (4 April 1809 – 6 October 1880) made contributions to celestial mechanics, statistics, number theory, algebra, and the philosophy of mathematics; and that Peirce famously stated: "Mathematics is the science that draws necessary conclusions"?
Selected Anniversaries
1607: Assassins sent by Pope Paul V attempt to kill Venetian statesman and scientist Paolo Sarpi, who survives fifteen stiletto thrusts.
1713: Philosopher, art critic, and writer Denis Diderot born. He will be a prominent figure during the Enlightenment, serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the Encyclopédie along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert.
1750: Maria Gaetana Agnesi receives a response from Pope Benedict XIV on the publication of her book, Instituzioni Analitiche, a two volume presentation covering algebra, calculus and differential equations. The pope will send her a gold medal and a wreath laid with precious stones, and name her honorary professor at the University of Bologna.
1910: Mathematician Nathan Jacobson born. He will conduct research on the structure theory of rings without finiteness conditions--a subject closely related to the theory of algebras--which will transform the approach to classical results and break ground for solutions to problems inaccessible by previous methods.
1976: Viking program: The Viking 2 orbiter primary mission ends at the beginning of solar conjunction. The extended mission will commence on 14 December 1976 after solar conjunction.
1985: Mathematician Karl Menger dies. He worked on mathematics of algebras, algebra of geometries, curve and dimension theory, game theory, and social sciences.
1985: Mathematician and statistician Harald Cramér dies. He helped found probability theory as a branch of mathematics, writing in 1926: "The probability concept should be introduced by a purely mathematical definition, from which its fundamental properties and the classical theorems are deduced by purely mathematical operations."
2017: Dennis Paulson of Mars celebrates the forty-first anniversary of the end of the Viking 2 orbiter's primary mission, at the beginning of the solar conjunction.
Topic of the Day
The Dark Knight of the Tweet is a violence-themed concept album by the Joker.
The Six Million Dollar Tweet is an American science fiction and action television series, running from 1973 to 1978, about a former astronaut, USAF Colonel Steve Austin, who is rebuilt with superhuman social media proficiency due to bionic implants and is employed as a secret influencer by a fictional transdimensional corporation.
Dr. Strangemusk is a 2022 American black comedy documentary film that satirizes the fears of Elon Musk weaponizing Twitter.