December 12

Better Than News

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  When You're Smiley is a 2018 spy novel by John le Carré. Plot: spymaster George Smiley is called out of retirement to investigate the death of Louis Armstrong. Smiley learns that Armstrong had discovered information that will lead to a final confrontation with their mutual nemesis, the Soviet intelligence officer Karla.

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  O Snow Crash, Where Art Thou? is a 1992 science fiction novel by American writer Neal Stephenson. It was adapted for film in 2000 by the Coen Brothers.

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  You're Tripping Balls, Charlie Brown a 2006 American adult animated science fiction thriller film written and directed by Richard Linklater. It is loosely based on the short story "You're a Good Man in the High Castle, Charlie Brown" by American sociologist Philip K. Dick.

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  Snoopy vs. Godzilla is an epic comedy kaiju film.

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  One C.H.O.M.P. at a Time is an American television sitcom about a young inventor (Valerie Bertinelli) who creates C.H.O.M.P.S. ("Canine HOMe Protection System"), a robotic dog for use as part of a home protection system.

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  "Back on the Supply Chain Gang" is a song by Chrissie Hynde and the Department of Corrections.

Beyond Plausible

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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.

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  "Unobtainum must be obtained, or the Empire is doomed." (From "Avatar, Avatar", one of the "Forbidden Episodes" of the television series Star Trek.)

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  Matrix of Theseus is a 1999 dystopian science fiction philosophy lecture narrated by Keanu Reeves.

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  "A Man With No Phone" is a song by the folk rock band America.

In Other Words

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  Bigger truths have smaller truths
  Within their facts to bind 'em
  And those facts have smaller facts
  And so on, till you find 'em.
  —"Siphonaptera 2"

Are You Sure

• ... that astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt (4 July 1868 – 12 December 1921) discovered the relation between the luminosity and the period of Cepheid variable stars?

• ... that Break In at Tiffany's is a 1961 American romantic heist film about Holly Getlightly (Audrey Hepburn), a naïve, eccentric café society con artist who falls in love with a struggling safecracker?

Selected Anniversaries

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  1204: Rabbi, philosopher, astronomer, and physician Maimonides dies.

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  1685: Mathematician John Pell dies. He expanded the scope of algebra in the theory of equations.

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  1862: USS Cairo sinks on the Yazoo River, becoming the first armored ship to be sunk by an electrically detonated mine.

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  1901: Guglielmo Marconi receives the first transatlantic radio signal (the letter "S" in Morse Code), at Signal Hill in St John's, Newfoundland.

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  1921: Astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt dies. She discovered the relation between the luminosity and the period of Cepheid variable stars.

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  1966: The Beatles release Dr. Robber.

Topic of the Day

Alien (film)

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  Tantrum is a 1979 shopping fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott 1.1 and written by [REDACTED] which follows an ensemble case of shoppers aboard the commercial space shopping mall Nostromo who encounter the eponymous Tantrum, an aggressive and deafening child set loose on the ship.

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  McRib is a 1991 science fiction fast-food film about an alien sandwich which invades the Earth.

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  Rosemary's Alien is a 2012 American horror science fiction film about a pregnant women (Mia Farrow) must choose between bearing the Devil's child and bearing an alien child.

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  Sleeping Beauty: Resurrection is a 1997 science fiction horror romance film about a space-traveling princess (Sigourney Weaver) who is awakened from hyber-sleep by a deadly alien prince.