As a side note, anyone that knows me knows that I hate censorship in a government. What I’m trying to help people do is filter out the content that they personally don’t want to see. I would never impose censorship on anyone.

Site by site plugin’s for Google Chrome

These can be a bit tricky depending on the site but if theres a site you always goto and it often has content you don’t want to see then they can be a great option. I have two installed but more can be found at userscripts.org.

• Hide NSFW stories on Reddit.
• Hide related (actually unrelated) images on imgur.com

Search around and if you’re looking for a specific site and can’t find it let me know. I can whip one of these up in about 5 minutes so I’m happy to do it.

Active content monitoring with DNS filtering

Don’t be scared of the title! This is a very easy thing to do! There’s a free solution called OpenDNS. You can make a few simple changes to your computer or router (there are complete instructions on the site) and then you can choose which types of content you want to block.

This isn’t a bad solution, I don’t use it personally but will probably start when my Son gets old enough to use the computer on his own.

Using a hostfile to block a large swatch of bad sites

I’m going to get geeky here and explain how DNS works and what it is. Every website has an address, instead of a physical address like 123 Sycamore its an IP address. When you type “todaywasawesome.com” into your browser your computer asks the DNS (domain name server) server for the adress to todaywasawesome.com. That address is 208.75.86.170.

So the previous solution basically looks for websites that have bad content and then will give the wrong address back to your computer so the page won’t load. Does that make sense?

K, well, a hostfile is sort of like a static DNS that loves on your computer. It tells your computer what the address for websites are without actually looking up what the address is.

Still with me? Great, so theres a public hostfile out there you can download and install that will block most advertisements along with adult content. This hostfile can be downloaded from mvps.org and the have installation instructions on that site.

Plain old ad block

Just about every browser has some sort of adblock that you can grab. I have mixed feelings about them because I don’t actually care about blocking ads, just ads with content that I don’t like. But you may find this to be a better solution.

You can find adblock for chrome here.

For help

If you need any help just leave a comment and I’ll do what I can. If you have an additions or suggestions throw them in the comments as well.

One update is all they could give us? I really like my phone but when I bought it I thought that it would be updated for a long time to come. I had just come from the iphone where we got all the updates we wanted and when an update was released there was no waiting.

Let me cut to the chase,

Dear HTC,

You have abandoned Hero users. When we buy a phone we don’t just buy it for what it can do, we buy it for all that it will be able to do. Maybe you’ll be better in the future about keeping products updated (and updated in a timely manner) but for now you need to remember the people that made you money just eight short months ago. Here’s what you must do.

Opensource all the drivers for the Hero.

You make a lot of phones, I understand thats a big strain on your dev team to try to keep everything updated. That’s fine I guess. I’m disappointed but the least you could do is release the code for all the drivers. Be honest, there’s not a lot of proprietary value in keeping your drivers secret, especially for what is now considered an “ancient” phone.

Please do this, then I can compile from source myself with a 2.2 rom or a 2.3 rom or whatever rolls down the pipe. You want to abandon us? Fine, at least leave us with the tools to pick up the slack.

Signed,

Dan a, until recently, loyal HTC fan.

BTW, this isn’t a suggestion really, HTC required by law to opensource their kernel. I’m asking nicely but really they’re obligated to.

Please Solar, PLEASE!

I want it to work so bad. I would love to get rid of my electricity bill. Understand, I have a vested interest in solar power being awesome, if it were awesome then I could just throw some panels up and free myself of the utility company. Maybe one day that will be possible, please I wish it were. Even if I could cut it in half I would be thrilled.

So, let’s figure out what that would take. Because if it’s cost efficient, I will do it right now. Luckily for me there’s an organization that has done all the work for me and created a calculator using the latest in technology and current industry costs. Great.

Right now I use an average of 37 kwh per day. That’s slightly above average in the US (don’t ask me how my 1800 sq/ft home does that). Now to get half of that, now remember I’m using this calculator, I need about a 4.1 kW array. So how much does that cost? Luckily they have a calculator for that too.

It’s Totally Cost-Effective

So you're an investment banker huh?

So, the grand total is $32,800 to get rid of half my electric bill. But don’t worry, there are tax breaks for this, the federal government will give me almost 10,000 dollars so it ends up being 22,960.00 (I said almost 10,000).

Great, so now if I spend $22,960 to save $35 dollars a month I will recoupe my investment in about 60 years. That doesn’t include stuff breaking, or what happens if we get less than the optimal amount of sun. In reality it’s probably twice as much.

Sorry solar, until the cost is low enough that the investment can be recouped in a year, maybe two, you’re just not worth it.

Actually, I’ll go one step further and say that the government should stop paying people to throw their money away on a technology that isn’t ready. I’m all for more efficient panels and more research but right now it’s just burning money on a technology which probably is way worse for the environment to make than just burning the coal for the electricity.

Prove me wrong and I will love you. Until then, sorry solar, you suck.

Dearest Timbuk2,

About 3 months ago I achieved my life long dream of owning a timbuk2 bag. I had long watched, and planned for the day when my computer would be protected by the best bags in the industry. Pining away, I began to dream of the quality, the unparalleled craftsmanship and the utmost attention to detail and style. Surely, with this bag I could be successful, my wife would love me more, my coworkers offering me more respect. Even my community would finally recognize my achievements.

After I got my bag, I rejoiced. These were the halcyon days. The sun shone through the darkness of winter, piercing and warming my heart with epic success. With my timbuk2 bag in hand there was no stopping me. And then the darkness fell.

I still remember that day, I went to pick up my bag by it’s handle and in horrific slow motion it snapped. I looked on in horror, disbelieving that my golden fleece would be so taken from me. It is with a somber heart and forlorn eyes that I look to you, harbinger of hope. May my bag be repaired? Is it covered by warranty? It is the answers to these questions that brings me humbly before you.

Or in Haiku:
I love my great bag
One day the handle broken
Please fix my black bag

Respectfully yours,

Dan Garfield

The book used is “The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People Concise 6th Edition”

Guide after the bump

Manitou

Generic deity for native americans. From the Algonquian language.

pg. 13-14

Shaman

-Spiritual authority for native americans. They we responsible for communicating with the spirit world. Probably considered a healer.

Martin Luther

- A German Friar that criticized practices in the catholic church. His revolt sparked the protestant reformation.

pg. 23

House of Burgesses

-Virginia Company (1619) created this elected assembly and was the first representative government in north america.

pg. 35, 37-39

John Winthrop

-Coined the phrase “City upon a hill”. A puritan that founded the massachusetts bay colony. Wanted to build a utopia and then bring reforms to England.

pg. 46, 53

Jonathan Edwards

-Minister of the great awakening taught that we are “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” Kickstarted religious revival in US.

pg. 67, 86-88

John Dickenson

-Published twelve essays entitled “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania.” He argued that British Parliament had no right to do the Stamp Act or the Revenue Act.

pg. 103-104

Albany Plan of Union

- A plan that would have united the american colonists with a cohesive government under the British Empire. Proposed by Benjamin Franklin and rejected.

pg. 92, 96

Committees of Correspondence

- Used by John Adams to convince the tens of thousands of colonists that their rights were being trampled. They were, small localized committees that coordinated the colonies.

pg. 93, 108, 110, 1170

Shay’s Rebellion

-Uprising by Massachusetts farmers that convinced many Americans their government was too weak. Farmers rebelled against taxes fromt he massachusetts legislature. It failed.

pg 137-139

Whiskey Rebellion

-Tax protest by western farmers that gave Washington and Hamilton the opportunity to assert the power of the national government. Essentially from a sin tax on domestic liquor.

pg 152

Alexander Hamilton

-Wrote the federalist papers with James Maidons and John Jay. Powerfully shaped the American vision of government. Washington’s chief advisor. Worked to found the Union’s credit. Believed in a national debt to link the future of the US with creditors that wanted them to succeed.

pg 135, 143-149

John Marshall

-Chief justice of the supreme court (1819). His decisions solidified federal power over states and strengthened the rights of corporations under states.

pg 178, 188

Andrew Jackson

- “Old Hickory” a fierce Indian fighter. A hero against the British in the war of 1828-1830somthing. Became President in 1820s. Believed Indians should be integrated with states, not separate nations. Signed the Indian Removal act -> trail of tears. Blocked nullification.

pg 173, 186-187, 191-197, 215-220

Monroe Doctrine

- Proclaimed the Untied States to be primacy in the new world. Said we would block european governments from being involved in the Americas as rulers.

pg 191

Frederick Douglass

- Escaped slave. Powerful speaker and major figure in antislavery movement. Said ~”Slaves sing most their saddest”

pg. 232

Seneca Falls Convention

-First women’s rights convention. split off from anti-slavery movement by women scorned therein.

pg. 217, 233

American Renaissance

-Burst of american authors and american intellectualism. Included Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau and more. 1840-1860 ish

pg. 249-254

William Lloyd Garrison

-Started “The Liberator” newspaper for abolitionists. Demanded immediate emancipation. Contemporary with Frederick Douglass.

pg. 217, 233-236

Nat Turner

-Leader of largest slave rebellion in US History. Slaughter about 60 slave owners and was eventually hanged. Believed himself to be a prophet and took the eclipse as a sign that it was time for the black man to overcome his oppressors.

pg. 255-257, 272-277

Proslavery Argument

-Churches took up the charge and argued that slavery was a positive good. They pointed to slavery in the Bible and that proslavery societies had produced thinkers like Plato and Aristotle. They believed that Blacks in america as slaves were better off than as savages in their own countries. To do this, southern churches split from national organizations.

pg 265

James K. Polk

-11th President 1844. Believed in Manifest Destiny. Annexed Texas, Oregon, California, New Mexico. Exapansionist. Very strong president.

pg. 281, 290-293

Stephen F. Austin

-Empersario who founded Texas (originally founded Coahulia-Tejas). Fought against Santa Anna for texas independence.

pg. 286-287

Charles Sumner

-Senator from Massachusetts. He raged against slavery in Kansas and was beat with a cane by a southerner who burst into the Senate. Vigorous emancipator.

pg. 313, 328

Daniel Webster

-Secretary of state for President John Tyler (Betcha didn’t know there was a President Tyler). Advocate for new technology and industry during the turn of the century. Helped settle dispute around Texas annexation.

pg. 238, 289

John Brown

-Radical abolitionist. Tried to start rebellion at Harpers Ferry.

pg. 301-302, 313-318

Stephen A Douglas

-Senator of Illinois organized Nebraska Territory. Proposed Missouri compromise

pg. 309

William t. Sherman

-General for the North, he believed in total war. Sherman’s march burned everything in it’s path. Set aside land for freed blacks on the South Carolina sea islands.

pg. 368, 371

Robert E. Lee

-General of the southern rebellion. Orginally an officer for the Union but resigned. Surrendered April 1865.

pg. 296, 301-352

Ulysses S. Grant

-General for the Union. Appointed over the army of the Potomac and eventually defeated Robert E. Lee.

pg. 335-359, 370

Freedmen’s Bureau

-Government bureau tasked with helping freedmen (former slaves) adjust to free life. Built schools and helped freedmen find homes.

Sharecropping System

-Sharecropping allowed large land owners to lease part of their land to other farmers who would then pay a part of their crop to the owner.

pg. 369-378

Ghost Dance

-Ritual that the prophet “Wovoka” promised would restore Indians to control of their lands. Basically a return to the Indian ethics. Alarmed army and led to wounded knee massacre.

pg. 381, 386, 402

Andrew Carnegie

-Scottish immigrant who build a large steel company. Started off on the railroad, cutting costs. Sold his company to J.P. Morgan for 1/2 a billion dollars. Rags to riches story. Wrote “Gospel of Wealth” which argued for little government interference from the govt.

pg 404, 407-410, 418, 423, 425, 473

Standard Oil Trust

-Formed by Rockefeller to join all oil companies in the US and eliminate competition. Led to the Sherman anti-trust act (1890).

pg. 407, 409, 413, 425

Jane Addams

-Established “settlement houses” and won the Nobel prize. Settlement houses were like community centers for new immigrants.

pg. 429, 439-440, 450, 473, 476, 480, 505, 514, 521, 532, 540

Salvation Army

-Religious group that helped the poor. Established by a methodist minister William Booth. Helped people get jobs, food and learn to live like middle class.

pg. 429, 438, 440, 450

New Immigrants vs Old Immigrants

-New immigrants are the wave of Italians, slavs, greeks and jews migrating after 1880. They came from southern and easter europe. Poorly viewed by most old immigrants. Used by politicians to get votes.

pg. 429-440

Victorianism

-Strict code of gentility that permeated late 19th century society. Rejected by Twain and Frank Lloyd right. Contrasted with the rowdy new immigrants.

pg 444, 450

Populist Party

-Agrarian based party that challenged  Republicans and Democrats.

pg 451, 461-467

Open Door Notes

-Sought to trade with China. Secretary of State Haye’s attempt to keep trade open in China.

pg. 507-511, 530

William Jennings Bryan

-Orator, champion of farm interests, anti-imperialist, three time Democratic presidential candidate.

pg. 451, 453-475

W.E.B. Du Bois

-Black sociologist, later one of the founders of the NAACP. Civil rights leader author of “The Sould of Black Folk”. Kick started fight for equality.

pg. 432, 445, 449, 476, 490, 494, 503, 505, 516, 532

Booker T. Washington

-Clashed with Du Bois. A leading black figure who stressed education and acommodation

pg. 451, 463, 475-476, 497

Robert A. La Follette

-Progressive political. First a governor in wisconsin and later a senator. Antiwar. Called an “unhung traitor” by Roosevelt.

pg. 476, 483, 495, 503-505

A. Mitchell Palmer

-Attorney General. Led the way in the first Red Scare to out communists.

pg. 505, 528-529

Henry Cabot Lodge

-Expansionist Senator. Fought the league of nations.

pg. 451, 469, 505, 527

Aimee Semple McPherson

-Fundamentalist preacher. Big on the radio who used theatrics to attract people, like a score board.

pg. 550

Harlem Renaissance

-Outgrowth of black culture. Involved Jazz, writers and more.

pg. 505, 523, 532, 545-548

Eleanor Roosevelt

-Wife of FDR. She redefined the role of the first lady as a humanitarian. Influence social change and the New Deal

pg. 557-558, 562-563, 568, 585

Rosie the Riveter

-Symbol for women workers during WW2. Kick started some of modern feminism.

pg. 604-605

Atlantic Charter

-Signed by FDR and Churchill. Basically said that the water needed to be a safe place and free of agression. After German sub fired on the US, set the stage for the war with germany in WW2.

pg. 593

George Kennan

-American diplomat to Russia. Led the Cold War idea of “containment”

pg. 622, 637

Fair Deal

-Massive change in government and reforms designed to pull US out of great depression.

pg. 632, 637

Benjamin Spock

-Dr and author that strongly urged women to be fulltime mothers and to worry most about their children. Influential after WWII.

pg. 638, 652, 660

Earl Warren

-Chief Justice that broadened individual rights and ruled in “Brown Vs the board of education”. One of the judges to order desegregation of schools.

pg. 638, 641-642, 660-662

Beats

-Ginsberg and Kerouac led the beat movement. With Howl and On the Road. Scorned conformity, celebrated the outcasts and counter culture.

pg. 660-661

Rosa Parks

-Civil rights leader who refused her seat on a bus to a white man.

pg. 656, 651

Betty Friedan

-Author of “Feminine Mystique” that argued strongly against mother’s being locked into the “housewife trap”

pg.  662-663, 665, 678

Black Panthers

-A violent wing of the black civil rights movement. Argued black power. Led by Malcom X.

pg. 665, 673, 677, 683

Cesar Chavez

-Mexican immigrant who fought for labor and civil rights.

Moral Majority

-Founded by Jerry Falwell. The Moral Majority was a political evangelical group that tried to promote christian ideals and elect Pat Robertson to president.

pg. 715, 723

Reaganomics

-Idea that if you reduce taxes the economy will boom and generate more revenue. The tax breaks to businesses would trickle down among the people.

pg. 724-725

Iran-contra scandal

-Reagan administration illegally sold weapons to Iran to finance contras.

pg. 711, 729-733

“Me” Generation

-

Today was the first day non-latin tlds have gone live. TLD = top level domain eg: .com .net .org .us .whatever

The first one to go live is .egypt, which is in arabic مصر
I wanted to find the domain and see how it wokred in my browser so I did a search but apparently if you remove the last character (the one furthest to the left) it means something else entirely
مص = sucking
مصر = egypt
so all this porn came up in the search results because I copied and pasted it slightly wrong.

I thought for a minute that the BBC got punked and was provided dirty words in arabic for their news story.

The moral of the story? Egypt is only one character off from “sucking”

Anyway, you can download the background below!

Or check out last years.

The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light.

The question came about as a result of a five dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way:

Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face — miles and miles of face — of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.

Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough — so Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share In the glory that was Multivac’s.

For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth’s poor resources could not support the ships. Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its coal and uranium with increasing efficiency, but there was only so much of both.

But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became fact.

The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal, its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of it to a small station, one mile in diameter, circling the Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of sunpower.

Seven days had not sufficed to dim the glory of it and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape from the public function, and to meet in quiet where no one would think of looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers, where portions of the mighty buried body of Multivac showed. Unattended, idling, sorting data with contented lazy clickings, Multivac, too, had earned its vacation and the boys appreciated that. They had no intention, originally, of disturbing it.

They had brought a bottle with them, and their only concern at the moment was to relax in the company of each other and the bottle.

“It’s amazing when you think of it,” said Adell. His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about. “All the energy we can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever.”

Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had had to carry the ice and glassware. “Not forever,” he said.

“Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs down, Bert.”

“That’s not forever.”

“All right, then. Billions and billions of years. Twenty billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?”

Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some was still left and sipped gently at his own drink. “Twenty billion years isn’t forever.”

“Will, it will last our time, won’t it?”

“So would the coal and uranium.”

“All right, but now we can hook up each individual spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can go to Pluto and back a million times without ever worrying about fuel. You can’t do THAT on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac, if you don’t believe me.”

“I don’t have to ask Multivac. I know that.”

“Then stop running down what Multivac’s done for us,” said Adell, blazing up. “It did all right.”

“Who says it didn’t? What I say is that a sun won’t last forever. That’s all I’m saying. We’re safe for twenty billion years, but then what?” Lupov pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. “And don’t say we’ll switch to another sun.”

There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov’s eyes slowly closed. They rested.

Then Lupov’s eyes snapped open. “You’re thinking we’ll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren’t you?”

“I’m not thinking.”

“Sure you are. You’re weak on logic, that’s the trouble with you. You’re like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and Who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn’t worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one.”

“I get it,” said Adell. “Don’t shout. When the sun is done, the other stars will be gone, too.”

“Darn right they will,” muttered Lupov. “It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it’ll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won’t last a hundred million years. The sun will last twenty billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last a hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that’s all.”

“I know all about entropy,” said Adell, standing on his dignity.

“The hell you do.”

“I know as much as you do.”

“Then you know everything’s got to run down someday.”

“All right. Who says they won’t?”

“You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said ‘forever.’”

“It was Adell’s turn to be contrary. “Maybe we can build things up again someday,” he said.

“Never.”

“Why not? Someday.”

“Never.”

“Ask Multivac.”

“You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can’t be done.”

Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age?

Or maybe it could be put more simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?

Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.

Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

“No bet,” whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.

By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing head and cottony mouth, had forgotten about the incident.

Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched the starry picture in the visiplate change as the passage through hyperspace was completed in its non-time lapse.

At once, the even powdering of stars gave way to the predominance of a single bright marble-disk, centered.

“That’s X-23,” said Jerrodd confidently. His thin hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles whitened.

The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had experienced the hyperspace passage for the first time in their lives and were self-conscious over the momentary sensation of inside-outness. They buried their giggles and chased one another wildly about their mother, screaming, “We’ve reached X-23 — we’ve reached X-23 — we’ve —-”

“Quiet, children,” said Jerrodine sharply. “Are you sure, Jerrodd?”

“What is there to be but sure?” asked Jerrodd, glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room, disappearing through the wall at either end. It was as long as the ship.

Jerrodd scarcely knew a thing about the thick rod of metal except that it was called a Microvac, that one asked it questions if one wished; that if one did not it still had its task of guiding the ship to a preordered destination; of feeding on energies from the various Sub-galactic Power Stations; of computing the equations for the hyperspacial jumps.

Jerrodd and his family had only to wait and live in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship.

Someone had once told Jerrodd that the “ac” at the end of “Microvac” stood for “analog computer” in ancient English, but he was on the edge of forgetting even that.

Jerrodine’s eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate. “I can’t help it. I feel funny about leaving Earth.”

“Why for Pete’s sake?” demanded Jerrodd. “We had nothing there. We’ll have everything on X-23. You won’t be alone. You won’t be a pioneer. There are over a million people on the planet already. Good Lord, our great grandchildren will be looking for new worlds because X-23 will be overcrowded.”

Then, after a reflective pause, “I tell you, it’s a lucky thing the computers worked out interstellar travel the way the race is growing.”

“I know, I know,” said Jerrodine miserably.

Jerrodette I said promptly, “Our Microvac is the best Microvac in the world.”

“I think so, too,” said Jerrodd, tousling her hair.

It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no other. In his father’s youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines taking up a hundred square miles of land. There was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they were called. They had been growing in size steadily for a thousand years and then, all at once, came refinement. In place of transistors had come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.

Jerrodd felt uplifted, as he always did when he thought that his own personal Microvac was many times more complicated than the ancient and primitive Multivac that had first tamed the Sun, and almost as complicated as Earth’s Planetary AC (the largest) that had first solved the problem of hyperspatial travel and had made trips to the stars possible.

“So many stars, so many planets,” sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. “I suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are now.”

“Not forever,” said Jerrodd, with a smile. “It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase.”

“What’s entropy, daddy?” shrilled Jerrodette II.

“Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?”

“Can’t you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?”

The stars are the power-units, dear. Once they’re gone, there are no more power-units.”

Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. “Don’t let them, daddy. Don’t let the stars run down.”

“Now look what you’ve done, ” whispered Jerrodine, exasperated.

“How was I to know it would frighten them?” Jerrodd whispered back.

“Ask the Microvac,” wailed Jerrodette I. “Ask him how to turn the stars on again.”

“Go ahead,” said Jerrodine. “It will quiet them down.” (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)

Jarrodd shrugged. “Now, now, honeys. I’ll ask Microvac. Don’t worry, he’ll tell us.”

He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, “Print the answer.”

Jerrodd cupped the strip of thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, “See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so don’t worry.”

Jerrodine said, “and now children, it’s time for bed. We’ll be in our new home soon.”

Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead.

VJ-23X of Lameth stared into the black depths of the three-dimensional, small-scale map of the Galaxy and said, “Are we ridiculous, I wonder, in being so concerned about the matter?”

MQ-17J of Nicron shook his head. “I think not. You know the Galaxy will be filled in five years at the present rate of expansion.”

Both seemed in their early twenties, both were tall and perfectly formed.

“Still,” said VJ-23X, “I hesitate to submit a pessimistic report to the Galactic Council.”

“I wouldn’t consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. We’ve got to stir them up.”

VJ-23X sighed. “Space is infinite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More.”

“A hundred billion is not infinite and it’s getting less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years –”

VJ-23X interrupted. “We can thank immortality for that.”

“Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problems of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions.”

“Yet you wouldn’t want to abandon life, I suppose.”

“Not at all,” snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, “Not yet. I’m by no means old enough. How old are you?”

“Two hundred twenty-three. And you?”

“I’m still under two hundred. –But to get back to my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once this Galaxy is filled, we’ll have another filled in ten years. Another ten years and we’ll have filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we’ll have filled a thousand Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the entire known Universe. Then what?”

VJ-23X said, “As a side issue, there’s a problem of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals from one Galaxy to the next.”

“A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sunpower units per year.”

“Most of it’s wasted. After all, our own Galaxy alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those.”

“Granted, but even with a hundred per cent efficiency, we can only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in geometric progression even faster than our population. We’ll run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point.”

“We’ll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas.”

“Or out of dissipated heat?” asked MQ-17J, sarcastically.

“There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask the Galactic AC.”

VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled out his AC-contact from his pocket and placed it on the table before him.

“I’ve half a mind to,” he said. “It’s something the human race will have to face someday.”

He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through hyperspace with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace considered, it was an integral part of the Galactic AC.

MQ-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was on a little world of its own, a spider webbing of force-beams holding the matter within which surges of sub-mesons took the place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite it’s sub-etheric workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full thousand feet across.

MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, “Can entropy ever be reversed?”

VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, “Oh, say, I didn’t really mean to have you ask that.”

“Why not?”

“We both know entropy can’t be reversed. You can’t turn smoke and ash back into a tree.”

“Do you have trees on your world?” asked MQ-17J.

The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of the small AC-contact on the desk. It said: THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

VJ-23X said, “See!”

The two men thereupon returned to the question of the report they were to make to the Galactic Council.

Zee Prime’s mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it.

He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity – but a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space.

Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals.

Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.

“I am Zee Prime,” said Zee Prime. “And you?”

“I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?”

“We call it only the Galaxy. And you?”

“We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?”

“True. Since all Galaxies are the same.”

“Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different.”

Zee Prime said, “On which one?”

“I cannot say. The Universal AC would know.”

“Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious.”

Zee Prime’s perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrunk and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the originals Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man.

Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and called, out: “Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?”

The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor lead through hyperspace to some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof.

Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, difficult to see.

“But how can that be all of Universal AC?” Zee Prime had asked.

“Most of it, ” had been the answer, “is in hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot imagine.”

Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a universal AC. Each Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged.

The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime’s wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime’s mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.

A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely clear. “THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN.”

But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Zee Prime stifled his disappointment.

Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, “And Is one of these stars the original star of Man?”

The Universal AC said, “MAN’S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS NOW A WHITE DWARF.”

“Did the men upon it die?” asked Zee Prime, startled and without thinking.

The Universal AC said, “A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES, WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TIME.”

“Yes, of course,” said Zee Prime, but a sense of loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never wanted to see it again.

Dee Sub Wun said, “What is wrong?”

“The stars are dying. The original star is dead.”

“They must all die. Why not?”

“But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and you and I with them.”

“It will take billions of years.”

“I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?”

Dee sub Wun said in amusement, “You’re asking how entropy might be reversed in direction.”

And the Universal AC answered. “THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”

Zee Prime’s thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime’s own. It didn’t matter.

Unhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built.

Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one.

He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable.

Man said, “The Universe is dying.”

Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.

New stars had been built of the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released, new stars built, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, and those would come to an end, too.

Man said, “Carefully husbanded, as directed by the Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for billions of years.”

“But even so,” said Man, “eventually it will all come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase to the maximum.”

Man said, “Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the Cosmic AC.”

The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space. Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace and made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and Nature no longer had meaning to any terms that Man could comprehend.

“Cosmic AC,” said Man, “How may entropy be reversed?”

The Cosmic AC said, “THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”

Man said, “Collect additional data.”

The Cosmic AC said, “I WILL DO SO. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESSORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TIMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT.”

“Will there come a time,” said Man, “when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?”

The Cosmic AC said, “NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES.”

Man said, “When will you have enough data to answer the question?”

“THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”

“Will you keep working on it?” asked Man.

The Cosmic AC said, “I WILL.”

Man said, “We shall wait.”

The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.

One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.

Man’s last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero.

Man said, “AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?”

AC said, “THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”

Man’s last mind fused and only AC existed — and that in hyperspace.

Matter and energy had ended and with it, space and time.

Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.

All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.

All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.

But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.

A timeless interval was spent in doing that.

And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.

But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer — by demonstration — would take care of that, too.

For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.

The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.

And AC said, “LET THERE BE LIGHT!”

And there was light—-

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