Yuri’s Night

Yuri’s Night

Whose night???? Yuri’s. I just learned that April the 12th is the anniversary of Mankind’s first ever space-flight, by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1961, and also the launch of the first space shuttle exactly 20 years later. Many, many people will be throwing wild parties on Yuri’s Night, the kinds of parties where toasts are made to The Final Frontier… parties where people have Sudoku-type tournaments and where if you don’t wear spectacles you’ll feel a bit out. THAT kind of party. The coolest kind by far. Ok so I’m no good at Sudoku but SOMEONE has to make the sandwiches and pour the drinks, don’t they? To infinity and beyond!


I have nothing at all to say about the cartoon blasphemy brouhaha. But I do have a sort of parable:

In Terry Pratchett’s alternate universe there is a collective of omnipotent being-things called the Auditors. They hate life, because it’s messy. They can’t interfere with it, though, because that’s against the fundamental unwritten Rules. They would cancel life in an instant if it weren’t for those rules. What they can do, is play little tricks on it.
Thus: “The ascent of mankind must have been a boon to [the Auditors]. At last there was a species which could be persuaded to shoot itself in the foot.”

(From Thief of Time by TP)

That’s all.