February 24

Juggler.

Better Than News

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  I, Ham Legend is a 2007 American post-apocalyptic action foodie film directed by Francis Lawrence and starring Will Smith as USDA meat inspector Robert Neville.

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  Saw: Home Alone is an American Christmas comedy horror film written by James Wan and John Hughes, and starring Macaulay Culkin and Cary Elwes.

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  Hogan's Andersonville is an American television sitcom set in a Confederate prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during the American Civil War.

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  Jurassic Bat is a science fiction superhero film directed by Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan.

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  Cretaceous Office Supplies is an unlicensed transdimensional corporation which provides office supplies and associated support services to the Cretaceous period (the longest geological period of the entire Phanerozoic). Now offering "It's Nearly K–Pg Boundary Time!" rush delivery within a half-million years — Guaranteed.

Beyond Plausible

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  The Shop of Things to Come is a science fiction consumer society novel by British writer H. G. Wells about a future shopping expedition which ends in madness, death, and the Final Checkout.

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  Alien: Rise of the Sales Assistants is a 2023 science fiction legal drama film about a group of low-paid workers who bring suit against the Weyland-Yutani transplanetary corporation.

In Other Words

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  "Walk On By Under the Boardwalk" is a song first recorded by Dionne Warwick and the Drifters.

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  It Takes a Green is an American ecology-crime television series starring Malachi Throne.

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  "The Enemy Within You Without You" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles about the American television series Star Trek.

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  Middle-earth Farm is an allegorial novel by George Orwell and J.R.R. Tolkien.

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  Hellcheeser is a 1987 British supernatural horror film about a cheese-based snack food which summons the Cheddarbites, a group of extra-dimensional, sadomasochistic beings who cannot differentiate between Cheetos and Doritos.

Are You Sure

• ... that inventor and artist Jacques de Vaucanson built a Digesting Duck automaton with over 400 moving parts in each wing alone, and that the duck could flap its wings, drink water, seemingly digest grain, and seemingly defecate, although what the duck defecated was not the same as what it ate; and that Vaucanson is credited as having invented the world's first flexible rubber tube while in the process of building the duck's intestines?

• ... that America's Got Talents is a televised American weights and measures competition?

Selected Anniversaries

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  1709: Inventor and artist Jacques de Vaucanson born. Vaucanson created impressive and innovative automata; was the first man to design an automatic loom; and built the first all-metal lathe.

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  1755: Artist and social critic William Hogarth’s satirical print, "An Election Entertainment," is published. It contains a Tory sign bearing the inscription "Give us our eleven days." This refers to the fact that eleven dates were removed from the calendar when England converted to the Gregorian calendar on September 14, 1752.

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  1810: Chemist, physicist, and philosopher Henry Cavendish dies. He discovered "inflammable air", later named hydrogen.

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  1842: Osman Hamdi Bey dies. He was an administrator, intellectual, art expert, painter, and archaeologist.

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  2001: Mathematician, engineer, and information scientist Claude Shannon dies. He is known as "the father of information theory".

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  2006: Premiere of America's Got Talents, a televised American weights and measures competition.

Topic of the Day

Star Wars

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  The Mothership is a play by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. It is loosely based on George Lucas' 1977 film Star Wars.

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  The Empire Sews Back is a 1980 American epic space tailoring film a battle between the malevolent Galactic Garment Factory, led by the Emperor, and the Rebel Apparel Alliance, led by Princess Leia.