There's Snarkmarket and Twitter and I'll be able to announce something else very soon, but Stephen Fry (by way of David Dobbs) has the very best answer.
Always remember: in the sky, after Copernicus, a constellation is an illusion:
Instead, it's a two-dimensional flattening of a three-dimensional reality. Actually, we should probably say a FOUR-dimensional reality. The light from stars at varying distances, leaving their sources at various times in the distant past, gets mistaken, from our earthbound point-of-view, as a simultaneous two-dimensional pattern.
BUT! That distortion, that accident, produces something extremely powerful -- both imaginatively and practically.
They help us navigate, and they tell us stories.
Thank you, Kottke readers, for putting up with my crazy constellations. And thank you, Jason.
