Friday, January 27, 2012

Introducing General Zod

Editor's note -- Sad and Useless: the most depressive humor site on the net presents:

Movies from an Alternative Universe!
re-imagined by Peter Stults 
Stellar! 
John Wayne at his Most Patriotic!    Spencer Tracy is Pure Kryptonite!
Clint Eastwood is a convincing menace!
--Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times


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 k. a. gardner 

Movies from an Alternate Universe -- William Shatner and Natalie Wood in "Avatar" !!  via 



Sunday, January 15, 2012

And it's kooky!

Editor's note -- To celebrate the centennial of the late, great cartoonist’s birth, Google feature on Jan. 7th a deft ghoulish “Doodle” in honor of Charles Addams, the longtime New Yorker magazine contributor who was a master of the macabre and a brilliant wit of the weird.




“I think he was so far ahead of his time by realizing that horror was funny,” Robert Mankoff, the New Yorker’s cartoon editor.

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 k. a. gardner 
It's creepy! -- CHARLES ADDAMS GOOGLE DOODLE: Spooky ‘Addams Family’ logo celebrates macabre cartoonist








Monday, January 9, 2012

Giant elliptical galaxy

Editors note --  NASA's "image of the day" last Tuesday was taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 in July 2010.


NASA ellaborated, "Resembling looming rain clouds on a stormy day, dark lanes of dust crisscross the giant elliptical galaxy Centaurus A." 

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration
"Centaurus A contains the closest active galactic nucleus to Earth, at a distance of just over 11 million light-years. The center is home for a supermassive black hole that ejects jets of high-speed gas into space, but neither the supermassive black hole or the jets are visible in this image." 





 NASA 
[Image of the Day] Active Galaxy Centaurus A  


Sunday, January 1, 2012

On this day

Editor's note -- Emperor Julius Caeser consulted with the most prominent astronomers and mathematicians to design a calendar that aligned with the sun's orbit naming Januarius 1, 46 B.C. the first day of his Julian calendar. 


Romans celebrated with sacrifices to the two-faced god Janus, decorated their homes with laurel  branches and attended raucous parties.



Namesake for the Gregorian calendar


But Pope Gregory XIII reformed the calendar in 1582 because the year was too long. After 13 centuries, the vernal equinox had moved to the wrong day.
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 History Channel 

Julius Caesar had to add 90 extra days to the year 46 B.C. when he introduced the Julian calendar.