April 7

Pinwheel Diagram.

Better Than News

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  Sushi Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 American science fiction black comedy film about an everyday short-order cook in Indiana whose life changes after an encounter with a UFO.

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  Oliver! is a 1985 American political comedy film about a Marine Corps officer (Oliver North) who poses as an orphan in order to expose an illegal weapons trafficking operation.

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  The Three Stigmata of Philosophical Zombies is a 1964 philosophy textbook by American sociologist Philip K. Dick.

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  Moby-Cthulhu is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for revenge against Moby-Cthulhu, the supernatural sea monster that on the ship's previous voyage bit off Ahab's soul at the knee.

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  The Birth of Alienation is a film prank in which the historic film The Birth of a Nation is temporarily replaced by a high-budget spoof version.

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  Metaphysical Vice is a police procedural religious poetry television series starring John Donne and Don Johnson.

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  Astronaut Farm is a 1954 aerospace political animal husbandry film set aboard the Eric Arthur Blair Memorial Space Station.

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  Suddenly Satellite is an advanced orbital satellite control system which also functions as a salad spinner.

Beyond Plausible

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  Erotic Maps of the Second World War is a collected volume of erotic maps, mostly of Europe, set during the Second World War, by author and military historian Anaïs Nin.

In Other Words

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  Fatal Recall is a 2021 automotive industry training film about the hidden costs of recalling vehicles. Narration: Sharon Stone, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Are You Sure

• ... that April 7 is National Abuse of Notation Day in the United States; and that while Canada does not have an official Abuse of Notation Day, the phrase "Every Day is Abuse of Notation Day" is often attributed to the mathematician-comedians of New Minneapolis, Canada?

• ... that computer scientist Donald Sarason pioneered the abstract treatment of contractive containment and established a fruitful connection between the spaces Hb and the ranges of certain Toeplitz operators?

• ... that astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher Hasan Tahsini (7 April 1811 – 3 July 1881) was first rector of the newly established Istanbul University, where he gave lectures on physics, astronomy and psychology; that in one experiment, Tahsini placed a pigeon underneath a glass bell and emptied the receptacle, suffocating the pigeon; that conservatives considered Tahsini's experiment as evidence of witchcraft; and that Tahsini was declared a heretic through a fatwa, dismissed from the university, and forbidden to give lectures?

• ... that physicist and academic Petrus Leonardus Rijke (11 July 1812 – 7 April 1899) explored the physics of electricity, and is known for the Rijke tube, which turns heat into sound by creating a self-amplifying standing wave?

Topic of the Day

Dune

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  The Dune Knight is 2008 action-ecology film starring Christian Bale and Timothée Chalamet.

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  The Fremen is a 2022 American superhero film about a dispossessed aristocrat (Robert Pattinson) who uncovers corruption in the Gotham Water Department while investigating the Sprinkler, a water thief who is targeting Gotham's elite.

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  2001: A Spice Odyssey is a 1968 science fiction stoner buddy film about an intelligent computer (Douglas Rain) who befriends a dispossessed aristocrat (Paul Atreides).

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  Tleilaxu Face Music is a short documentary film about recent advanced in synthesizer technology.

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  Dune, Where's My Cargo? is a science fiction comedy stoner film about Paul Atreides (Ashton Kutcher), who finds himself unable to remember where he parked his spice crawler after a night of Water of Life recklessness.