September 30
Better Than News
Frankenstein is a murder mystery novel by Agatha Christie, the first in her Mary Shelley Mystery Series.
Three Days of El Condor Pasa is a 1975 political musical film about a bookish CIA researcher (Robert Redford) who returns to his childhood home in the Andes, only to discover that all of the miners of the village, and many of their wives and children, have been murdered or disappeared by Operation Condor.
Queerosmith is a theoretical rock band comprising Queen and Aerosmith.
The beer can-can dance is a high-energy, physically demanding dance that became a popular beer-hall dance in the 1940s, continuing in popularity in French cabaret to this day.
The Coriolis Force Modern Dance Company debuts new work "Paleoglacial Sedimentary Particulate Deposit Patterns Reveal Evidence of Planetary Rotational Wobble".
Freedom from Worms is one of the "Four Freedoms" paintings by C. Enroll Workman.
Beyond Plausible
"The role of the artist is to not look away." —Akira Kurosawa
In Other Words
Plato was a warrior and statesman, and a slave-owner to boot. Given the chance, Plato would have locked us up in a cave and forced us to tend the elephant. ("Tending Plato's Elephant")
Are You Sure
... that the first known calculation of the golden ratio, expressed inversely as a decimal of "about 0.6180340", was written in 1597 by astronomer and mathematician Maestlin in a letter to Johannes Kepler?
Selected Anniversaries
1550: Astronomer and mathematician Michael Maestlin born. He will be a mentor to Johannes Kepler, and play a sizable part in his adoption of the Copernican system.
1882: Thomas Edison's first commercial hydroelectric power plant (later known as Appleton Edison Light Company) begins operation on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States.
1913: Mathematician Samuel Eilenberg born. He will co-found category theory with Saunders Mac Lane, and propose the Eilenberg swindle (a construction applying the telescoping cancellation idea to projective modules).
Topic of the Day
Philip K. Dick
Cop Has Fearsome Wild Mentality is an anagram of "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said".
"Did you step on a butterfly in Texas during a tornado while watching Jurassic Park in Brazil under the influence of JJ-180?" is a question which if you answer Yes you are probably a very confused unintentional time traveler under the influence of a fictional yet illegal drug such as Clandestiphrine.
"I've seen people you things wouldn't believe." —Roy Batty
The Gnomon Chronicles Society for the Advancement of VALIS (SAV) reminds you — With enough redheads, we can project a beam of pink VALIS light into space, so other worlds know that we have redheads too.
The Gnomon in the High Castle is a 1962 alternative history novel by Philip K. Dick in which the United States is ruled by sundials.
