На севере Польши, в поселке Редзиково, в среду, 13 ноября, официально открыли базу противоракетной обороны США Aegis Ashore.

Пентагон представил новую серию воздушных и морских беспилотников в рамках программы Replicator - масштабного проекта, направленного на ускорение поставок беспилотных систем вооружений в вооруженные силы США.

Алексей Зимин скончался на 53-м году жизни за рубежом – первым о его смерти сообщил гастрожурналист Роман Лошманов, а чуть позднее это сделала еще и Ксения Собчак.

Современная онлайн-среда связана с великим множеством самых разнообразных угроз, и одной из таких угроз является доксинг, подразумевающий раскрытие личных данных человека без его согласия. Как же появилось это неприятное явление, откуда злоумышленники могут добывать личные данные добропорядочных граждан, и есть ли хоть какие-то способы защиты от доксинга?

«Пиковая дама». П. И. Чайковский.
Пермский театр оперы и балета.
Дирижер Владимир Ткаченко, режиссер Владиславс Наставшевс, художники Владиславс Наставшевс и Валерия Барсукова.

Рационально об иррациональном — можно начать сразу с вывода об октябрьской премьере Владиславса Наставшевса и Владимира Ткаченко по «Пиковой даме» Чайковского в Пермском театре оперы и балета. Намеки, ассоциации, приметы, штрихи, видения — все вроде бы в полутонах и неопределенности, в колебаниях смыслов и неясности представлений о намерениях, а, тем не менее, видеоряд строит спектакль жесткий и расчетливый.

Screen Junkies took the opening of the movie Wicked this week as an excuse to go back and do an Honest Trailer for a movie made in 1939. They don't have to explain The Wizard of Oz to us because we've all seen us (or should have by now), and there's not much they can criticize about the filmmaking. However, they reframe the absurd story through a modern eye to be about a young girl with a serious concussion who accomplishes her mission through murder, theft, and consorting with strange men.    

By the way, Wicked is another of the many recent movies that explore the tragic early life and motivations of an existing movie villain to make them appear sympathetic and allow us to feel better about liking them. See also: Maleficent, Joker, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Cruella, Minions: The Rise of Gru, and the Star Wars prequels.

The New York Post reports that an Ecuadorian restaurant has opened in the Corona neighborhood of Queens. Le Casa Del Guy -- "the house of the guinea pig" -- has become famous for its focus on a staple of Ecuadorian cuisine: the guinea pig.

Guinea pigs raised for food are usually larger than those raised to be pets, weighing about two and a half pounds and measuring sixteen inches long. They can be quite expensive, sometimes over $100 a plate. That's because the restaurant management has to have the guinea pigs shipped from Ecuador then inspected. It might be cheaper to raise them domestically.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: La Casa del Cuy

Okay, that headline is a lot, but it is about as succinct a summary as I can provide. Sora News 24 has the full story.

A taishoku daikou is a company that a worker in Japan will hire to inform his/her current employer that he is quitting. This is apparently a thriving industry in Japan for cultural reasons that elude my understanding.

Momuri is the name of one such company that has processed over 20,000 resignations. Recently a rival firm contacted Momuri and informed it that a Mormuri employee was quitting. This particular employee had, prior to his employment at Mormuri, been a customer who had hired Momuri to help him quit the job that he had at the time.

You follow that?

Photo: Lukas Bieri

All aboard the Quarantrain! A large setup of miniature trains in a realistic setting is always a treat, and you have to admire the craftsmanship and dedication of those who make them. Jim Merullo did that with some extra goodies during the pandemic lockdown. He upgraded a previously-abandoned HO scale train layout with scenes that bring us all in on the joke. The first scene he made for what he calls the Quarantrain was a recreation of a classic Gary Larson Far Side comic. Making a standing cow was not easy- he had to combine parts of four cows to get it right. Another scene that caught my eye is an illustration of the Trolley Problem.

Will the switch operator do nothing and kill half a dozen children, or divert the train and kill a nun? See more of these unique scenes from the Quarantrain at Merullo's website. He also posted at thread at Bluesky explaining how he constructed the Quarantrain.  -via Everlasting Blort

Have you ever heard a radio announcer say, "That was (song) from the movie (title)," and you thought, "Wow, I've always loved that song, but I never knew it was from a movie." It may well have been from a movie you never saw or never even heard of because it wasn't all that great. Plenty of film productions commission songs specifically for the film, and even more find appropriate but unreleased songs to use that are then released in conjunction with the film. That leaves us with a lot of songs that became hits from movies that flopped so badly we don't even remember them -or maybe the film is just too old.  

Back in 2014, you couldn't escape the Pharrell song "Happy." It was the biggest song of the year, won two Grammys, and we posted about it quite bit. Yet few people recall that is was written for the 2013 movie Despicable Me 2. The movie was honestly a hit, but it was aimed at children. Even more obscure is the origin of the song "Unchained Melody," which was a big hit for the Righteous Brothers in 1965 and you might associate it with the 1990 film Ghost. However, it was written for the 1955 prison movie Unchained, and that's how it got its title.

Some of your favorite songs may have been spawned by a movie you've never seen. Read up on 21 of those songs, with videos, at Cracked.

"Drowned Town is about the ebb-and-flow of water, rivers, lives, time, and stories. My playlist reflects that back and forth in eras, genres, and moods."

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I wrote a whole post about what it’s like to wear a mask all day at work, and then deleted it because it sounded like I’m not grateful to have survived long enough to have that choice. But I am grateful. This is not the world I imagined, but I get to be alive in it.