ෞ Center of the Universe
We recently received feedback from some of our subscribers.
- They open it because they like keeping the inbox clean.
- They do not read it because it is too long.
- They forget to open it because emails don't come regularly.
We are so fortunate to have such frank people as our subscribers.
Most people never share their honest feedback with you. Why would they risk saying something that could hurt your feelings? Why risk being called an asshole?
Instead, they just decide to ignore it and distance themselves from you. If you asked them directly, they can just say some nice and empty things, like "no, you're great," "don't worry about it," and "it's going to be okay."
The only people who might give you real feedback are your mom, your significant other, or your best friend. And unless it's your best friend saying something, you would probably just get defensive and snap back at your mom or significant other.
So you, our subscribers, are like our mom, significant other, and best friend.
And this is our non-defensive, honest, heartfelt response:
- Strive for short and regular
noise: We're going to try. Short and regular sound a lot like a signal rather than noise, but if it makes you spend 5 minutes to give your brain some dumbing influence, we'll do it. - Give us feedback: You can now reply to this email. Or if you're reading this on
our website, you can just write to us atyichael.and.yelliott@gmail.com. Or if you want to be anonymous, you can submitthis form. - We don't give a fuck: Honestly, we're still just going to generate whatever we think is uninformative, informal, and infirm. We're not beholden to you. You're not the center of the goddamn universe, okay?
In case you think you are the center of the universe, read on, dear subscriber, to finally realize the truth. And learn the wisdom that comes from it.
(ﾉ°Д°)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
– ƴΐ⍧ի⍲e⌊ ⅋ yӭ𐦤⚇⍕⍑
random_sampling
some things from the whole thing; excerpts
You're not the Center of the Universe
Galileo was the original feminist icon for telling a room full of white men that they aren’t the center of the universe
In 1610, Galileo was ready to spill the tea to the patriarchy but they weren’t ready to drink it. Being thrown in jail for telling a board of white men that they weren't the center of the universe was one of the earliest examples of civic gaslighting.
Galileo was actually a feminist icon and deserves praise for his bravery in taking on an entire society of men with, let's say, "traditional values." He looked them in their eyes and proved, mathematically, that they actually weren't the center of the universe. If anyone reading this has had the grit and nose-blindness to hang out in a sweaty mathematics PhD lounge for more than a few minutes, you'll know how naive this was. What did Galileo expect from his colleagues?
Wow, Galileo, your observations are totally chill and definitely aren't sacrilegious in our society where we go to church twice per day and enjoy the privilege of being completely ignorant to our own insignificance. Our current beliefs are mid and your findings slay. I put this 10-pound wig on my head every day because I'm always open to being humbled by straight facts.
Clearly, Galileo hadn't heard of the Salem witch trials. If he had, he might have known that the only way to get his findings accepted was to slyly lead his colleagues into thinking they had made the discovery themselves. Being told you're not the center of the universe is hard to hear when you're a douche, but owning a significant scientific discovery can soften that blow. Let's play out a scenario where Galileo doesn't get thrown in jail for his discovery:
"Gentlemen, colleagues, you all look so wonderful and handsome today."
The crowd murmurs affirmatively. Members of the board nod at each other approvingly.
"Your outfits are fabulous! Not even the royal family of the Britons could match your excellent taste and sense of style."
We are looking rather dashing today aren't we? Hmmm hmmm.
"Following your lead, I have used my invention, the telescope, to track the motion of the stars at night and the sun throughout the days. However, my feeble mind is simply to small and weak to process this data. I am seeking help from you intelligent nobles to make sense of these big, hard numbers."
Ah hah! We certainly are good with numbers aren't we? Poor, small, weak Galileo. He's so cute how he always observes the sky with his undersized telescope. Let us take pity upon him and investigate his data.
It would then be Galileo's responsibility to sit and smile as his wigged-up homies broke out their prehistoric calculators and furiously crunched numbers while using feather pens to draw multitudinous triangles on thick scrolls. For hours, he must sit in silent observation, giving guidance between waves of compliments,
"Wow, Sir John! Your penmanship is simply unmatched! The grand scale of your feather and the care with which you strike characters across the page is a spectacle fit for the eyes of God. By the way, your mathematical lessons have left me with great inspiration and although I can't get it perfect every time, I do sometimes arrive at correct answers. Might I ask, would this fraction you've calculated not resolve the equation if you took the star itself to be the orbital reference point? Oh silly me! How could I know such a thing? Carry on, carry on, don't pay my mumblings any of your valuable attention."
Eventually, the room would have converged on a discovery, the exact one that Galileo had already made. Without a shred of credit, they would have reveled in their insight and given boisterous pats on the back all around. The findings would have been published and Galileo could have left a mark on the world without a trace of heresy. Who's doing the gaslighting now, bitch?
The Royal Society totally threw shade on Galileo and put him in jail which was not the vibe. Eventually, they realized his findings were snatched and when faced with the option of keeping Galileo in prison, they said, “I can’t even,” so they released him. Galileo was free to slay once again and for that, we are thankful.
convoluted_kernels
adding a thing to a thing; remixes
Where is the center of the universe?
The universe used to be a wild place before we knew the truth.
Imagine living 2,500 years ago.
You probably knew your little city-state. But within a few hours of walking, you'd be completely lost. The world would feel like a metaverse being algorithmically generated and revealed to you as you walked. You would feel like walking on a 2D screen, with no sense of what lies beyond.
To quell the bubbling sense of fear and disorientation, you would probably try to make some sort of a map. You may not have the adventurous soul of an explorer like those space-obsessed billionaires, but you definitely would want some certainty about where the hell you are in the universe.
That's how people felt. So they made some maps to understand their place in the universe.
Here are some of our favorites from the Wikipedia article "Early World Maps."
c. 500 B.C.
Source: WikipediaAnaximander (c. 610-546 BCE) is credited with having created one of the first maps of the world. He missed about 70% of the world, but he got the general shape right. He also chose good, legible fonts. Quite presumptuously, as ancient Greeks tend to be, he called it Periodos Ges, or 'World Survey'.
4th century
Source: WikipediaOkay, this is way too long for digital screens. Here's the chopped-up version:
This one is was a itinerarium of cursus publicus, or a Ancient Roman travel guide. Besides the fact that no one will be able to hold this and read it, it looks nice. Way too long, but the roads are a nice touch.
14th century
A thousand years later, this Catalan World Atlas seems to show even more confusion about the world. We have no idea how to read it, but it looks like a really fun board game. It was also doing a very progressive thing:
Unlike many other nautical charts, the Catalan Atlas is read with the north at the bottom. As a result of this the maps are oriented from left to right, from the Far East to the Atlantic.
So progressive that, it flipped the world along the x-axis and the y-axis. Basically, just using this would've been a challenge in itself.
Also 14th century
We're also progressive, so we're not just going to be some euro-centric dipshits here. This one is from Asia. It is awesome, because China and Japan are tiny, and I'm from Korea.
16th century
Back to Europe, Medieval Christians thought Jerusalem as the center of the world. That's totally useless if you're trying to actually navigate the world, but hopefully it was useful for getting into heaven.
People were definitely confused about the center of the world. No wonder why they tried to get some consolation by thinking of themselves as the center of the universe. Romans thought "all roads lead to Rome" and Chinese call themselves jung-guo, which literally means "Central Country."
But as we'll find out in the next section, they were wrong.
There is no center of the universe
The universe is still a wild place now that we know the truth.
Source: Dr. Baird, NASA.According to sCiEnCe, there is no center of the universe. Your egocentric mind may not be able to grasp it, but it's true. Here's some scientist explaining it:
The idea of a Big Bang acting like a giant fireworks explosion hurtling matter and energy outward is pervasive, but misleading. As bizarre as it sounds, it wasn’t “stuff” that exploded outward, it was space itself! In essence, the Big Bang happened everywhere.
Because it is space itself that is expanding, there is no center of that space. Here's another scientist expounding on it:
You might be tempted to say that the location of the Big Bang is the center of the universe. But because space itself was created by the Big Bang, the location of the Big Bang was everywhere in the universe and not at a single point. The major aftereffect of the Big Bang was a flash of light known as the Cosmic Background Radiation. If the Big Bang happened at one location in space, we would only see this flash of light coming from one spot in the sky (we can see a flash that happened so long ago because light takes time to travel through space and the universal scale is so big). Instead, we see the flash as coming equally from all points in space.
Our four-dimensional ego-centric mind can't make sense of it, but as the scientist says:
When thinking about cosmology, always remember the words of British biologist J.B.S. Haldane: “The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than we can suppose.”
The universe sounds like a QUEER QUEEN just slayin' away. No wonder we're in awe.
Contributors to Wikimedia projects
pressure_censor
things that sense & get incensed by signals; shorts
The Mormons are Fucked
Do I even need to expand on this.
You can visit the Center of The Universe
It's in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Eric Grundhauser
quotes.txt
Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence.
– David Foster Wallace
Every time we start thinking we're the center of the universe, the universe turns around and says with a slightly distracted air, "I'm sorry. What'd you say your name was again?"
– Margaret Maron
Simply see that you are at the center of the universe, and accept all things and beings as parts of your infinite body. When you perceive that an act done to another is done to yourself, you have understood the great truth.
– Laozi
Love is an earthquake that relocates the center of the universe.
– Mike Mason
sound.wav
Jungle music is a staple of the UK rave and sound system culture of the 90s. The drumming is often characterized by variations of the Amen Break played between 160-180 bpm. The drums are usually sampled but when played live, something magical happens. Check it.
prompts.bib
- 𝕮𝖔𝖛𝖊𝖗: Galileo the feminist icon
/imagine Galileo as drag queen slaying ethnocentrism - 𝖆𝖗𝐭𝖎𝖋𝖆𝐜𝐭 1: Dudes in the Vatican
/imagine a group of business executives in traditional 17th century fancy garb sit in a sphere in the center of a vacuous celestial plane:: a sphere contains a group of fancy 17th century european business executives in a small sphere in the center of the universe --v 5.1 - 𝖆𝖗𝐭𝖎𝖋𝖆𝐜𝐭 2: Galileo compliments Sir John
/imagine a fawning galileo telling his esteemed colleague that he loves his feather pen so much and he thinks his handwriting is really good:: galileo is blushing while watching his colleague write in a royal court in the 17th century:: photorealistic 4k 8k galileo is hanging out with his colleague who has a nice feather pen DSLR DLSR --v 5.1