“Ceterum Censeo Delenda Est Podcast”
Joanne and I stayed in a hotel one night last week and I was delighted to discover a pancake robot while enjoying the continental breakfast.
I know that sounds pretty damn cool, but it was disappointing. Do you have a mental picture of a pancake robot? Whatever it is, I’d wager it isn’t a box. This one looks like a box.
Today the feeling is more akin to bewilderment. I searched for a picture of the pancake robot and got a truly absurd number of hits. There are lots of pictures and cartoons that look like that mental picture from before. Another that looks like a 3-D printer making love to a hot plate. Also, an annoyingly catchy song that even has its own video. I did not see any of that coming. Well, mostly.
But let’s get back to Daneel and Giskard, the more traditional science fictional robots who never seem to make pancakes even though they could.
In this episode, we continue our odyssey through the excellent Robots and Empire and talk about Part 4: Aurora, or, if you prefer Chapters 11 through 14, The Old Leader, The Plan and the Daughter, The Telepathic Robot, and The Duel.
Together we’ll see how Amadiro and Mandamus’ plan to destroy Earth starts to come together, Vasilia’s machinations to regain possession of Giskard, and watch in real-time as Daneel evolves into the first-ever 4-laws robot, saving Giskard from Vasilia and in turn, Giskard saving Daneel from destruction! It’s great and you’ll want to join us!
Also, there is some Latin. There may even be pancakes.
Stars End: A Foundation Podcast 
Our moon is more exceptional than you think.
First of all, Charon and Pluto is a poor counterexample because, after all, Pluto is not a planet, and Charon is a tiny 754 mile wide object.
That our moon is the result of a collision with a Mars sized object is a reason for it to be rare, not common. To create a moon like ours while leaving the earth with a moderate axial tilt and a stable orbit required that the colliding object had the right mass, composition, speed, angle of impact and collide at the right time when the earth was neither too hot and liquid like nor too cold and solid.
Finally, the presence of a large moon was never intended to be the prime way of identifying earth. Though left unsaid, the search for earth would naturally be limited to planets that by dint of Star type, orbital position and eccentricity and other factors was a good candidate for supporting life. The presence of an appropriate moon was a way pruning the list of possible earths, not the primary identifier.
The latest thinking is that the percentage of potentially life supporting planets that might have a moon like satellite would be well under one percent. I suspect the actual number is far lower than that, but as of now that is just speculation.
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