I want to create a great Encyclopedia, containing within it all the knowledge humanity will need to rebuild itself in case the worst happens—an Encyclopedia Galactica, if you will.

Hari Seldon, Forward the Foundation, by Isaac Asimov

“you think rocks are cute”

Still in disbelief that of all the elements from the books to include in the show, Foundation decided to canonise the salt mines?????

I did, of course, reach my post limit so it affords me time to write something that's been on my mind. Twitter. lets take a minute and step back to see a bigger picture, if you will. A social media website that was a victim of a hostile takeover by a billionaire capitalist to clear out antifascist or left leaning ideologists like myself and let me tell you I jumped ship pretty quickly. Now I understand you may be weary of hearing about old muskbucket and the twitter titanic but really, hear me out. He did a hostile takeover to vacillate his right wing cronies. we all know it, I say it out loud. Under the guise of "free speech" (which is a phrase many fascists use but rarely afford to others)

then a few weeks later and old trumpidump comes out saying his main platform is gonna be trans rights. which then in florida the Guantánamo kid starts banning books and going after trans rights starting with the young because that's how they did abortions. now....if a billionaire can be coaxed/forced (because I think he was actually) to buy a whole damn website just to burn it down OR make it the bastion of the far right voice, then who is to say they won't be coming for us here at tumblr? we fucking stand for everything they are against. I could go through a list of what I mean but you have to see what I mean. scroll thru your dash and imagine desantas reading it. ok. keep up now. because pretty soon they gonna put the choke hold on us. right now, the supreme court, packed with fucking nazis, is gonna decide if a social media site can be sued for what you do and say on it.

when they came for facebook I didn't care cause it sucks.

when they came for twitter I didn't care because I wasn't part of that....

but then they came for tumblr.....

sound familiar? it fucking should.

If they are going to ban the fucking velveteen rabbit what makes you think they would allow their kids to kick about on the most pro-everything left leaning website to ever exist in these "united states" hmm? lets even go beyond that and include all the western leaning countries. I wholeheartedly recommend every minor to not allow their parents, teachers, clergy, or anybody else with no shoelaces know they have a tumblr. I know that's harsh as shit, innit. well its the same clandestine war they are waging against you. Im saying it now, while I can. While im still allowed to say it.

bla blah you're paranoid, you see that shit everywhere.

that's because it IS everywhere. I would tell you to wake the fuck up but christ, don't call nobody woke. that'll start a fight in the dollar store line any day.

so to cut my rant short.....lets all keep our eyes on the ball. Don't let it consume you as the dreaded election approaches, I will be guarding my own mental health and peace paramount because Im old and close to death. they love that, I can't vote against them then. But you youngins sure can AND you have the power to drive this ship now and I for one would be tickled pink to die on trans island. can you tell Im from the 70s? lol. their most vilified citizen, I like to think. nixons nemesis. reagans nightmare. but all bullshit aside, think about it. think about what we have here, a free exchange of ideas and likes. the fucking freedom to read marx, to each other if we so desire. to know real history. and maybe just maybe to vote every fucking billionaire off the planet. Im telling you to look out because they don't like that. not one little bit.

all I can think is somehow tumblr has once again miraculously flown under the radar. how? I dunno. I bet there's a thousand "nazi computers" scraping the web for everything we freely talk about. We must be on the radar....but why are no V2 rockets coming? they holding a card to their chest? waiting for the right time? wait till the Guantánamo kid finds out about us. They want to torch and shoot up synagogues, drag shows and black churches, why the hell would they allow this website to be near their kids? why not?

pssssst. hey kids......looks left and right....Im a socialist. pro lgbtq pro feminism and Im not a fucking racist. and I would die for my principals and for your existence.

thats why gotdammit.

Hari Seldon on April 1st announcing that the Encyclopedia Galactica Project was a ruse also he's deleting psychohistory sayonara you weaabo shits

»we’ll sing the body electric until machine and soul are one.« — the android and the engineer are in love 🪐

like real people do - hozier / human - dodie / mystery of love - sufjan stevens / lifening - snow patrol / jupiter - sleeping at last / ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space - spititualized / at my most beautiful - r.e.m. / そのいのち - kaho nakamura / gretel - alex g / yellow - coldplay / love like you - rebecca sugar / new soul - yael naim / we are golden - mika / you’re my best friend - queen / hey man (now you're really living) - eels / alive with the glory of love - say anything / close to me - the cure / let's talk about spaceships - say hi / just impolite - plushgun / creature - half•alive / bulletproof heart -my chemical romance / feeling this - blink 182 / electric love -  børns / dissolve me - alt-J / this bright flash - m83 / sweet disposition - the temper trap / heaven or las vegas - cocteau twins / space age love song - a flock of seagulls / the system only dreams in total darkness - the national / strange currencies - r.e.m. / livin’ thing - electric light orchestra / starlight - muse / paradise - wild nothing / golden brown - the stranglers / blue monday - flunk / awake - tycho / encyclopedia (galactica) - weaver at the loom / more like you - orla gartland / livewire - oh wonder / pink in the night - mitski / all I need - radiohead / 21 M◊◊N WATER - bon iver / jóga - björk / soulvaki space station - slowdive / no one said it would be easy - cloud cult / the big ship - brian eno / intro - m83 / constellations - enter shikari / soundings in fathoms - the lonely forest / a different kind of human - aurora / ____45_____ - bon iver / open you eyes - snow patrol / dear future historians... - enter shikari

listen here.

i think ford prefect would've fucking loved wikipedia but i need to make one thing clear and its that the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy is NOT space wikipedia. the encyclopedia galactica is space wikipedia. the thing you have to understand is that the guide isn't just an electronic space encyclopaedia, it is a FUNNY electronic space encyclopedia. it has knowingly inaccurate entries and bad advice bc its purpose is being fun even at the cost of being a functional encyclopedia. wikipedia won't even let toby fox's picture be changed to him covered in foam. what im saying is that the guide can not be real until we have SILLY wikipedia and the masses just aren't brave enough yet for that one.

god you know if i was a doctor who companion i'd be stocking up on so many souvenirs any time we went to the future or an advanced alien planet. like time to get a neural implant copy of encyclopedia galactica year 5.5/apple/26 edition. get cybernetic vocal cords so i can sonic screwdriver stuff by humming at it. and you KNOW i'd get myself a vortex manipulator somehow. plus a coat with pockets that are bigger on the inside.

Martin Freeman (27/366)

2016

*Probably one of my favorite photos of MF with a fan. **"Don't Panic" is a phrase from the cover of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams:

"It is said that despite its many glaring (and occasionally fatal) inaccuracies, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy itself has outsold the Encyclopedia Galactica because it is slightly cheaper, and because it has the words 'DON'T PANIC' in large, friendly letters on the cover".

(*lost in thought at the implications of the concepts i just read in an Orion's Arm Encyclopedia Galactica article that was written before my birth*)

The Daily Dad

Things you might want to know, for Jun 10, 2023:

The First In-Depth Study on ‘Blue Balls’ Reveals a Lot about Sex — “Men are full of shit and women are gullible” isn’t particularly revealing.

Artifact — So I’m playing around with Artifact —the new AI-infused news reader from the people who made Instagram— and much of it mundane stuff… largely indistinguishable from Google News. It does deliver at least one very interesting, unusual feature, though: it looks at the title of every article it recommends, and if it seems clickbaity, Artifact uses generative AI to rewrite the title. This is a delightful behavior, returning me to a lost time when headlines actually tried to convey information.

One man’s nearly 40-year, 8-bit quest to finish his teenage Commodore 64 RPG — I’d love to do something like this. I won’t, but I’d love to.

Toxic ‘manosphere’ podcaster claims ‘all women are whores’ — I have no idea why young men are falling for this shit. I get that they’re targeting the average teenaged boy’s innate sense of persecution and lack of empathy, but aren’t we supposed to be teaching them the rudiments of critical thinking at some point? And what kind of self-respecting dude wants to be part of something called the “manosphere” anyway? Can’t we do better? “Oh yeah, man, I listen to all the podcasts in the Schlongscape!” “I used to be a feminist until my girlfriend dumped me and I discovered the Pro-state!”

It's One of History's Most Famous Experiments. The Drawings Are Hilarious.

A Nintendo Switch Like This Should Frankly Be Illegal — They’re not wrong. That is excessively cute.

’Cracker Barrel Has Fallen’: Far-Right Melts Down Over Pride Month Ads — I’ll be ordering breakfast this weekend. (The smoked breakfast sausage is unreal.)

What Did the Ancient Romans Smell Like? — Considering how fond they were of dumping bodies in the Tiber, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say “I really don’t want to know.”

How to Host a Large Language Model Locally — I propose that we establish The Galactica Protocols for LLMs and all future intelligence enhancers and simulators. “AI”s —I’m half-convinced to stop using that term— should live on home microservers, firewalled from the world.

I just bought the only physical encyclopedia still in print, and I regret nothing — I’ve got to admit, it’s a fucking beautiful set of books. And I’m sentimental about World Book… I remember nervously rifling through the “S” volume in the back of my 4th grade class, devouring the entry for “sexual intercourse” over and over. If I recall, it said something like, “The penis enters the vagina. This is usually pleasurable for both parties.” Way to set those expectations, World Book!

Motorbunny Buck Review: Worth Every Penny — I always wanted a Sybian, and this looks like the logical evolution of a 40 year old design.

Data Shows Most Switch Owners Are Women, Gamers React Poorly — Duh. On both counts.

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Year I Started Masturbating’ on Netflix, A Raucous Romp About Discovering Pleasure

Male Primate Masturbation May Have Evolved to Prevent STIs

Pat Cooper, ‘Analyze This’ and ‘Seinfeld’ Star, Dead at 93 — Aw. We’re going to be losing more and more of the secondary Seinfeld cast in the decade to come, and I’m not happy about it.

Reddit CEO Says Keeping Explicit Content on the Site Is a ‘Constant Fight’ — TL;DR: Reddit is cracking down on porn, and this is the first move in a longer process. I don’t expect them to repeat Tumblr’s mistake, but they’re going to start tightening the reins to minimize any bad press as they go public.

Exclusive: Donald Trump admits on tape he didn’t declassify ‘secret information’

New Accessory Turns Your Nintendo Switch Into A Steam Deck — If you liked the fixed form-factor of the Switch Lite but went with the full-sized Switch for its screen and the HDMI-out, this gizmo looks like a solid best-of-both-worlds scenario.

“Ultimately ended in the Six Minute War”

im going to start a foundation email subscription but it alternates between encyclopedia galactica subscriptions and news articles by chetter hummin

What kinds of birds and trees would you like to talk about most?

Any non-human life that isn't very closely associated with humans, including (in no particular order):

Plants (especially plants like grasses), with an emphasis on plants that could not have existed at the end-Cambrian Explosion and/or not as animals but as things-that-make-things (such as bacteria),

Mollusks and mollusk-ish things, including (in no particular order): corals, sea sponges, the sea cucumber, and all of the various "marine life" groupings in the Encyclopedia Galactica,

Fungi, especially mushrooms and the more "alien"-looking kinds of fungi, including (in no particular order): puffballs, lichens, puffballs that are a bunch of lichen-shaped things, the various kinds of mushrooms that are in a category called "mushrooms" that includes puffballs, but excludes stupendous things like puffballs that are also a bunch of lichen-shaped things

Cetaceans, especially whales (especially the kinds of whales in the "whales" group), plus other kinds of large aquatic marine mammals like dolphins, narwhals, belugas, and walruses, especially in the contexts of hunting and communication,

Large ocean-living fish-like things,

Other marine and/or deep sea creatures, especially those which would have been unknown to us or which are so different from anything currently alive that we would not recognize them as closely related,

Bees and wasps (and other insects which humans cannot easily recognize as animals -- especially the big "bugs" we tend to call beetles because they resemble their relatives the grubs)

Certain animals which humans have invented categories for, like the cephalopods, certain kinds of insects, and various kinds of invertebrates. In some cases, for historical reasons (such as the evolution of birds and mammals from a common ancestral group), it is even harder to tell how "animal-like" some of these things are. But as far as human experience goes, some of these are clearly not "animals" in any relevant sense.

A variety of strange non-animal life, such as extremophile bacteria, extremophile extremophile extremophile bacteria, and so on.

Other non-living things such as trees and birds which I haven't mentioned yet. I want to be clear that I mean "other than humans." In particular, I intend to talk about non-human social life like the behavior of ants, the "flowers" that "birds" make, and so forth, in an appreciative, "yes, these are all very interesting things and not just things about humans" way.

My Grishaverse research got out of hand and I feel like I’m compiling the Encyclopedia Galactica.

Anyway, this is the list of alcohol drinks I have found so far. The kvas debacle wasn’t really necessary, since we have champagne and whiskey. 

absinthe beer brandy brännvin (Fjerdan version of brandy) champagne cherry wine gin honey mead kvas (vodka) lager rum sweet iced wine whiskey (several mentions of Kerch whiskey) wine

I have a headcanon that somebody once jokingly called vodka kvas, and it stuck and in time spread throughout the whole Ravkan territory. Or maybe vodka bottles got wrongly labeled as kvas (maybe by mistake, maybe to avoid taxes) and the result was the same. Or maybe there was a tsar who introduced prohibition and people were pretending to drink kvas when they were, in fact, drinking vodka. Which reminds me of Some Like it Hot:

WAITER: What'll it be, sir?  MULLIGAN: Booze.  WAITER: Sorry, sir, we only serve coffee.  MULLIGAN: Coffee?  WAITER: Scotch coffee, Canadian coffee, sour-mash coffee...

If you have other ideas, I’d be delighted to read them. :-)