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Ok wait let her speak

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A major subplot is that Moist needs to know the details of the existing sewer system (such as it is) to know how to hook up the sewage treatment plant. The trail of breadcrumbs eventually leads to the Unseen University, where the original plans and blueprints are locked deep in the bowels of the Library.

We learn that originally, the denizens of the city just dumped everything in the various creeks and streams that fed into the Ankh. When these got too foul, Tacitus ordered them bricked over and converted into enclosed culverts. This worked for a while, but gradually, the Ankh itself became too saturated.

After one particularly hot summer, when the stench rendered the city nearly uninhabitable. A massive overhaul was ordered, and Bloody Stupid Johnson was tasked with designing the new system. The original proposal had been to simply intersect the culverts with tunnels running parallel to the Ankh in order to divert the sewage downstream of the city, but Johnson saw this as not going nearly far enough. Instead, he designed a system that would literally leave future generations to deal with the problem: instead of going downstream, the sewage would be sent hundreds of years into the future.

Unfortunately, key components were installed backwards, so the sewage got sent into the past instead, causing the problem in the first place. Moist successfully arranges for the new treatment plant to be integrated into the system, cleaning up the Ankh throughout all time. So the people who say that the river has always been squeaky clean turn out to be correct as far as it goes. Except the river hadn't always been squeaky clean last week.

The Paris Olympics insisting that athletes compete in the Seine is so absurd it feels like something Terry Pratchett would want to make fun of. Like can you imagine him writing a Discworld story about a mad Ankh-Moorpark city official deciding to put on some ancient extravagant game, creating havoc in the city by bringing in all these foreigners to compete, and insisting the Ankh river, which is so filthy it's basically solid, is perfectly fine to swim in, because that's what they did in ancient times so that's how they're going to do it now. I feel like it would be a Night's Watch story about the people hired to clean the river and all the friends and horrors they discover along the way.

Good luck to all the athletes swimming in the poop water.

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Alpha Centauri is a binary system. Well, technically trinary, but Proxima Centauri is 0.2 light years away from Alpha Centauri A and B and much dimmer than either of them. A and B are both roughly the same size and brightness as our Sun (A is a bit bigger and brighter and B a bit smaller and dimmer), and they orbit a common center of mass at a distance that varies from roughly the distance of our Sun to Saturn at the closest or the distance from our Sun to Pluto at the most distant. An earth-like planet in orbit around one of these stars would have the other star in its "night" sky about half the year.

If I'm doing the math right, the other star will be bright enough in a clear night sky to light things up as bright as daylight on a cloudy day at closest approach, or moderately dim indoor lighting at the largest distance.

I like to think that that's what Crowley meant about Alpha Centauri not having any night life: with two suns, there's much less actual night there than on Earth.

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For anyone who's curious, the audiobook in question was God Emperor of Dune, where Leto was talking about an ancestral memory that took place in the ancient Middle East and acting smug that nobody knew what the heck he was talking about:

Our ancestor, Assur-nasir-apli, who was known as the cruelest of the cruel, seized the throne by slaying his own father and starting the reign of the sword. His conquests included the Urumia Lake region, which led him to Commagene and Khabur. His son received tribute from the Shuites, from Tyre, Sidon, Gebel and even from Jehu, son of Omri, whose very name struck terror into thousands. The conquests which began with Assur-nasir-apli carried arms into Media and later into Israel, Damascus, Edom, Arpad, Babylon and Umlias. Does anyone remember these names and places now? I have given you enough clues: Try to name the planet.

My wife has been watching S2 with me. Today, she excitedly told me that Shua was mentioned in the audiobook she's currently reading.

It's her very first Bildad the Shuite reference.

I'm so proud of her

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Wife: We should watch Good Omens sometime soon.

Me: [internal brain rot scream of joy] Yeah sure whatever cool.

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Looks like Gomez and Morticia, specifically the original newspaper comic version of them.

I see them everywhere 🫠

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David Tennant is evolving in response to environmental pressures.

Crowley would be the perfect person to face off against a weeping angel because his snakey eyes don't blink.

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Because most mammals aside from primates are red-green color blind, so brown or orange colorations blend is great with either green or brown backgrounds.

Stem tetrapods had four colors of cone cells, which are retained in birds, reptiles, and amphibians, but stem mammals lost two of the colors for some reason. But at some point in the primate lineage a third type of cone cells got re-evolved. So brown or orange camouflage is no good for hiding from apes or monkeys against a green background, nor for hiding from birds, lizards, or frogs, but it's perfectly serviceable for hiding from lions, bears, and wolves.

Why aren’t more animals that live in grassy areas green for camouflage? Horses? Cows? Zebras? Rodents? Why don’t they have the same color scheme as WWII-era infantry?

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The real question is, what did Gabriel wear before suits were a thing? Did he rock the Doublet and Hose look like Henry VIII? Or was is just robes until he discovered suits? Or did Gabriel invent suits and humans got the idea from seeing angels wearing them.

What if Heaven's uniforms were suits just because of Gabriel's personal fashion sense? He decided suits were the uniform because everybody looks good in a suit, right?

What if Aziraphale gets up there, decides he is going to wear his clothes, and all of a sudden the angels start showing up in comfortable daily wear?

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Apparently “what ho!” is a corruption of Beowulf’s “hwaet!”?? 

Now need a P.G. Wodehouse translation of Beowulf.

What ho! Have you heard of these chaps, Dashed good fellows with a spear and whatnot–

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Related: Jimmy Buffett is Warren Buffett’s second cousin.

TIL: The top-selling country music singer of all time, George Strait, is Jeff Bezos’ cousin.