FoxTrot by Bill Amend for August 16, 2020

“Yup, just like how there’s another that says how many boys what to date you, Paige. In fact, there it is right now”

-I don’t see anything.

“Exactly”.

your thoughts must be kept to yourself, Jason, unless Paige is really interested in them

Maybe Carman and Winslow will lend you theirs when they return.

See Todays Prickly City

I like how Paige is smart enough to use Jason’s logic against him.

But would they spell it out in English or the local language?

The current constellations aren’t exactly connect-the-dots accurate anyway, so as long as you don’t mind things being a bit messy, you don’t have to leave Earth to see anything you want written in the sky.

Can’t they model the view of constellations from various vantage points?

That so-called ‘Big Bang’ is the most outrageous extrapolation ever made. Imagine I clocked you in a sprint at 100 meters at a speed of 20 mph. Should I assume you would be 480 miles away in one day? I think there is yet something undiscovered analogous to the quantum theory that will explain the origin of the universe. I’d work on it but I am too busy right now…… ;-)

Reminds me of a point made in John Scalzi’s “The Last Colony”. Where they can’t use the old constellations on new colony’s because they no longer line up like they use to. So they start to make new ones.

Jason, run that theory past Ancient Alien Theorists … they’ll believe anything.

Today’s classic Sunday strip we’re missing:

https://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/1998/10/04

Then again, “…from some vantage point in the Universe it might be seen to spell a very, very rude word…”

Isn’t Gzornenplatz a Street in Vienna?

I rarely wax serious or scientific here but as an amateur astronomy buff, constellations are about as useful as animal cloud shapes. They make for interesting stories and that is about it.

It also means there’s a chance the stars spell out how you’re both dweebs, but who’s counting?

You would think would be eager to put Jason a spaceship. Or put him on that one way trip to colonize Mars at least.

In space, no one can hear you scream.

Now I want some watermelon.

I recall a short story (sadly, cannot remember title or author, though Bradbury is a fair bet) that had a rich man fund that experiment after being told about it by a scientist friend. In a fairly short time the monkeys had produced, word for word, several of Shakespeare’s plays. The ending is rather poignant. The scientist went nuts, of course, and…

When i use this exact logic to dispel people who enjoy astrology, they don’t like that.

And by that logic, there may be a place where the stars spell out…on second thought, maybe I shouldn’t go there…! d;o)

And now I want a spaceship.

Near infinite is a meaningless statement.

The constellations are completely arbitrary so you point to any group of stars and call them anything you want.

It’s always a pleasure to see a FoxTrot gag that justifiably needs a whole Sunday page to work these days. Especially when it’s funny, too.

If there’s an infinite number of stars, and space is infinite, why does it get dark at night?

How much is ‘near infinite’?

Petition to add a dark mode to GoComics: https://www.change.org/GoComicsDarkMode

bill…..

Who needs a spaceship? Constellations are social constructs. Just connect the dots differently and you can see JASON IS GREAT from Earth.