Some AI slop, scenes from the Museum Of Natural History and other parts of NYC, 2 bandshots and the Museum of Science moose.

"Lameth, you must know," continued the chancellor, pontifically, "pwesents a new and most intwesting addition to my pwevious knowledge of the 'Owigin Question."'

"Which question?" asked Hardin.

"The 'Owigin Question.' The place of the owigin of the human species, y'know. Suahly you must know that it is thought that owiginally the human wace occupied only one planetawy system."

"Well, yes, I know that."

"Of cohse, no one knows exactly which system it is – lost in the mists of antiquity. Theah ah theawies, howevah. Siwius, some say. Othahs insist on Alpha Centauwi, oah on Sol, oah on 61 Cygni – all in the Siwius sectah, you see."

"And what does Lameth say?"

"Well, he goes off along a new twail completely. He twies to show that ahchaeological wemains on the thuhd planet of the Ahctuwian System show that humanity existed theah befoah theah wah any indications of space-twavel."

"And that means it was humanity's birth planet?"

"P'haps. I must wead it closely and weigh the evidence befoah I can say foah cuhtain. One must see just how weliable his obsuhvations ah."

Hardin remained silent for a short while. Then he said, "When did Lameth write his book?"

"Oh – I should say about eight hundwed yeahs ago. Of cohse, he has based it lahgely on the pwevious wuhk of Gleen."

"Then why rely on him? Why not go to Arcturus and study the remains for yourself?"

Lord Dorwin raised his eyebrows and took a pinch of snuff hurriedly. "Why, whatevah foah, my deah fellow?"

"To get the information firsthand, of course."

"But wheah's the necessity? It seems an uncommonly woundabout and hopelessly wigmawolish method of getting anywheahs. Look heah, now, I've got the wuhks of all the old mastahs – the gweat ahchaeologists of the past. I wigh them against each othah – balance the disagweements – analyze the conflicting statements – decide which is pwobably cowwect – and come to a conclusion. That is the scientific method. At least" – patronizingly –"as I see it. How insuffewably cwude it would be to go to Ahctuwus, oah to Sol, foah instance, and blundah about, when the old mastahs have covahed the gwound so much moah effectually than we could possibly hope to do."

Hardin murmured politely, "I see."

I have a friend who, in my opinion, is way too slow to present arguments we can debate, and tends to lapse into either into "Appeal to Authority" - citing who believes someone, or even worse "everyone knows" - or Ad Hominem.

I was trying to locate this passage that I was half remembering - thought it might have been George R R Martin's "Tuf Voyaging" (recommended!) but it was Asimov writing in this terrible aristocratic parody form.

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The opposite of "the elephant in the room" is "the centipede in the room": something that's not actually an issue but everyone is freaking out aboutz

Saw Nolan's "The Odyssey" last night... it was - Epic (pun intended but regretted) - catching in a sorta historically respectful way the feelings of being literally lost at sea, encountering weird and gruesome and horrifying things - the movie really got into the visceral nature of things. And then a lot of themes of Odysseus feeling responsible for the deaths of this men but also regret for what happened to Troy (a modern lens interpretation, but still)

I've seen a fair bit of The Odyssey in the past year or so - this movie, Kate Hamill's stage production, and the musical "Penelope" ... also the Orpheus reinterpretation "Eurydice".

I always think of this poem:

Ithaka
By C. P. Cavafy

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon--don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon--you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you're seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind--
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

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best worse joke pickupline I came up with - "are you on a perilous journey from troy to ithica? 'cause you're the only Odd-I-See 😃 "

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I assure you that joke is not as bad as Lynette thinks. I got to thinking about the design language of Star Wars' "second tier" of droids, and some of their possible influences...

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airnow.gov - this seems like a good resource to know about if you're near or downwind of the forest fires. purpleair is considered much better

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$1 Trump Coins Being made what a blatant disregard for widely known and accepted law.

Oh it's a "commemorative coin"? Yeah, that's like Vanilla Ice saying he didn't steal from Under Pressure, see, it goes "bump bum bump badda BUM bump" not "bum bum bump badda bum BUMP"

And then his bullshit response "very unusual but I was honored by it," and "its very cute they gave me a coin."

Right. "Cute". And not your idea and/or tailored to his idiot predilection for putting golden something on everything, like a dog talking its walk

Repetition is the only form of permanence that nature can achieve.

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50 funniest tweets ranked...

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a trophy for trump - but is it gold enough?