Wolmania - Friday, October 15, 2021
Hello, dear reader, and happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends. This week's newsletter is a classic hodgepodge but you'll likely be pleased to know that only one of these items has anything to do with space. I hope you enjoy the issue and - dare I say it - maybe learn a little something, too.
Item 1: a link
This is a kind of silly video, and some might even argue that it’s a media recommendation rather than a link, but on the other hand surely we can all agree that it’s very fun to watch people in 1980s athletic wear throw javelins. If you’re like me you’ll spend most of the time boggling at how all the officials seem to stand around right in the landing zone.
Item 2: a list
Guitar Strings, Ranked:
- A
- Low E
- D
- B
- High E
- G
(Standard tuning)
Item 3: a media recommendation
Foundation
“Based on the award-winning novels by Isaac Asimov, Foundation chronicles a band of exiles on their monumental journey to save humanity and rebuild civ…”
We’ll never know how that auto-generated summary excerpt concludes, but I think you get the point. The Foundation books (which I loved as a kid) are emblematic of old-school sci-fi: white dudes imagining what other white dudes would do if they had more power and resources, and also there are robots (shaped like white dudes). The story is basically that a dude who’s really good at math comes up with some math that predicts future geopolitical events with amazing, some might even say, absurd, accuracy - and his math says that the galactic empire is doomed to collapse. The galactic empire doesn’t like this, and as you might expect some hi-jinx ensue.
Thankfully we’ve made a little progress on representation and inclusion since Asimov’s time, and the white dude who adapted Foundation for Apple TV+ has managed to update it to reflect a broader spectrum of humanity (and robots). The show moves at a, uh, deliberate pace, but I’ve been enjoying it so far and if you think you might like it based on this description, you probably will.
(There’s also a companion podcast hosted by the great Jason Concepcion.)
[Asimov portrait shamelessly stolen from the great Stu Watson.]
Item 4: a photograph
See ya!
Thanks for reading. By the time you read this I will be off on vacation for a bit, so the next issue will either be really good or a low-effort trifle thrown together in 15 minutes. We'll all find out together next week.
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