April 19
Better Than News
The Man From K.E.S.S.E.L. is an American science fiction buddy television series about a pair of space pilots (Robert Vaughn and David McCallum) who work for K.E.S.S.E.L., a secret interplanetary smuggling ring.
The Alien Team is an American science fiction action-horror television series about six former members of a fictitious United Humans Army Special Forces unit working as soldiers of fortune aboard the commercial space tug Nostromo.
Do Bishops Dream of Origami Chess? is a science fiction mystery film directed by James Cameron and Ridley Scott, and starring Sigourney Weaver, Harrison Ford, Lance Henriksen, and Edward James Olmos.
The Golden Ratio Girls is an American mathematical sitcom about three older Goddesses who share a home in Etruria.
Right Triangle Club is a 1999 American black comedy mathematics lecture film hosted by Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.
Beyond Plausible
Naval Strength Body Wash is an alleged ration of high-proof aged rum secretly provided to certain "in the know" personnel in the Royal Navy for use as a body wash.
In Other Words
"Cairns" is a rhythm and blues song about man-made piles of stones. It was a hit for the American girl group the Brownies in 1962, and in 1963 the Beatles recorded the song for their debut album.
"When Will I See Eschaton" is a song released in 1974 by pre-Apocalyptic soul group The Earth Debris, from their third album Triple Threat
Are You Sure
• ... that mathematician, monk, and academic Michael Stifel published his Ein Rechenbuchlin vom EndChrist. Apocalyps in Apocalypsim ("A Book of Arithmetic about the AntiChrist. A Revelation in the Revelation") anonymously in 1532, predicting that Judgement Day would occur and the world would end at 8am on October 19, 1533, and that the German saying "to talk a Stiefel" or "to calculate a Stiefel" (Stiefel is the German word for "boot"), meaning to say or calculate something based on an unusual track, can be traced back to this incident?
• ... that the Flying bison (Bison pterobonasus) is a large, even-toed ungulate in the genus Bison within the subfamily Bovinae, distinguished from other Bovinae by two pairs of strong, transparent wings, and that the wings are used mainly for short bursts of flight, such as jumping across canyons, or engaging in courtship displays?
• ... that acclaimed chemist Glenn T. Seaborg developed the extraction process used by the Manhattan Project to isolate the plutonium fuel for the second atomic bomb; that Seaborg e advised ten US Presidents — from Harry S. Truman to Bill Clinton — on nuclear policy, and was Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission from 1961 to 1971, where he pushed for commercial nuclear energy and the peaceful applications of nuclear science; and that throughout his career, Seaborg worked for arms control, being a signatory to the Franck Report and contributing to the Limited Test Ban Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty?
Selected Anniversaries
1567: Mathematician, monk, and academic Michael Stifel dies. Stifel was an Augustinian who became an early supporter of Martin Luther.
1860: On his phonautograph machine, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville makes the oldest known recording of an audible human voice.
1882: Large herd of Flying bison (Bison pterobonasus) swarms from Saint Paul, Minnesota to New Minneapolis, Canada.
1912: Chemist Glenn T. Seaborg born. Seaborg will share the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the synthesis, discovery, and investigation of transuranium elements.
2016: Theoretical physicist, theoretical chemist, and Nobel laureate Walter Kohn dies. Kohn developed density functional theory, which makes it possible to calculate quantum mechanical electronic structure by equations involving the electronic density.
2019: The Minicon 54 Great Nerd Giveaway begins. By the end of Minicon 54, hundreds of nerd items will have found new homes, generating an abundance of fun in the process.
Topic of the Day
Books
Twenty Must-Wash Books is a 2023 television series about book hygiene techniques for the amateur book restorer.
The Cider House Roulette is a novel by American writer John Irving about a young man growing up under the guidance of a gambler and casino owner.
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.
