Looks like BB-8 to me.

Sounds a bit like Wakanda.

Uh, yes they do. All they time. What is the modern news cycle but a collection of individual sentences (often out of context) from longer speeches or documents, then repackaged as eye catching headlines?

If you want to get more literary, I invite you to read the words of Shakespeare and find out just how many of his individual sentences have passed into common wisdom and truth .

Western Australia did that too? I grew up in Queensland where the same thing happened. I still call it Peanut Paste all these years afterwards. Old habits die hard.

Quoting from the book (" The Horse and His Boy ")

"He saw, about five minutes’ walk away on his left, what must certainly be the Tombs, just as Bree had described them; great masses of mouldering stone shaped like gigantic beehives, but a little narrower. They looked very black and grim, for the sun was now setting right behind them.

...

There was something very uncomfortable about those great, silent shapes of stone.

...

The moon was shining brightly. The Tombs—far bigger and nearer than he had thought they would be—looked gray in the moonlight. In fact, they looked horribly like huge people, draped in gray robes that covered their heads and faces. They were not at all nice things to have near you when spending a night alone in a strange place. "

Maybe they'll program them in as lawn ornaments.

Odd looking design. They remind me of the tombs of the ancient kings in the Narnia stories.

My thanks to whoever actually read though the terms and conditions and found this. Having checked that the same T&C are in the Australian branch of Eventbrite (they are) I have posted this story on a couple of theatre discussion lists I'm involved with, and had a very grateful response. An eye opener for all concerned.

The herd shot round the world ...

I voted Amazon. I use Microsoft for desktop OS and the Office suite, Google for search and email, Facebook for keeping track of those friends of mine which use it, and Apple to manage my music collection and listen to it on my 2008 vintage iPod. I do have an Amazon account and have bought some products from them, but they are the one which I use the least and could most easily give up.

The SpaceX launch manifest begs to differ. Elon Musk may have Mars as his ultimate goal and be developing the hardware to do it, but in the mean time he is busy launching communication satellites, Iridium satellites, space station resupply, military payloads - anything and everything that people will pay him to launch. If NASA were to foot the bill, he'd be more than happy to land on the Moon.

Or to put it another way, you don't need luck, just money.

The other thing that is worth remembering is that there is a lot out there as well as podcasts. Over the years I have discovered and enjoyed many Radio serials. Though not currently updating these can have huge backlogs of old programs which can be found on the likes of Archive.org or elsewhere.

My favourite OTR shows are:

Comedy:

The Goon Show

I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue

I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again

Just A Minute

The Unbelievable Truth

Audio Drama (SF & fantasy):

Dimension X

X Minus One

The Mysterious Traveller

Mind Webs

Lights Out

I can see that this discussion is is one I'm going to have to go through in detail. I listen to a lot of podcasts, mostly on my daily commute (~ an hour each way). My current list is:

Science/Math:

Radiolab (WNYC)

Freakanomics

More or Less

Cheap Astronomy

Math Mutation

TEDTalks (Audio)

Audio Fiction:

All the Escape Artists podcasts: Escape Pod (science fiction),

Pseudopod (Horror),

Podcastle (Fantasy),

Cast of Wonders (Young Adult)

Welcome to Night Vale

19 Noucturne Boulevard (though no longer updating this has huge backlog)

ARTC

Decoder Ring Theatre

The Dunesteef

The Truth

Comedy:

The Irrelevant Show

Ask Me Another

Misc:

99% Invisible

The Allusionist

Imaginary Worlds

The also lost three astronauts in the Apollo 1 fire caused by a fire on the pad.

In answering this question for books it might be instructive to look at what happens in another artistic field, that of the movies. Although there are some major differences (Movies cost a lot more to make and therefore there aren't so many made each year for a start) the comparison might shed a little light.

With rating movies statistically there are a number of methods:

- Box office takings, such as Box Office Mojo

- DVD and Video sales

- Movie audience figures (when broadcast on television or similar)

- Industry awards, such as the Academy Awards or the Baftas

- Ratings from critics, such as Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic - Ratings from general users, such as IMDB

- and finally, "Best of" listings voted on by critics or interest groups.

I include the last not because it is really a very good statistical comparison as compared to any of the other methods, but because it is the only one analogous to the sorts of lists being considered in the Worlds Without End rankings.

To get a good statistical ranking for books or movies we need to get a comprehensive set of data that covers all (or most) of the entries, and which applies the same rankings to each. None of the rankings for Movies which I have listed really does that, but some do better than others in some ways at least. For example, ticket and unit sales cover all movies, though they have the problem that the number of people going to movies, and the price they pay per ticket, have increased over time so that the ranking metric isn't the same for all movies. It also has the disadvantage that ticket sales are not necessarily related to how good a movie is. Industry awards can probably be assumed to cover all movies released in a given year and therefore cover the whole population, but have the problem that the award givers may not cover all entries equally, and may be subject to bias. Critical judgement, whether from professional critics or members of the public, also have the problem of coverage - I personally cannot expect to be able to see every movie made, and the ones I do see will be affected by by things like advertising budgets which are not necessarily related to how good the movie actually is.

With books we do have some similar data sets. Figures for number of books printed, or sales on the likes of Amazon can be compiled, though these have the same problem of not being related to quality. I don't know of any compilation sites for professional book critics (anybody?), but there are sites such as Goodreads where members of the public can give their subjective rankings. Industry awards also exist, such as the Hugo or Nebula awards, but these have the disadvantage of being subject to politics (*cough* Puppies vs SJW anyone?). Finally, there are "Best of" lists, such as the ones cited by Worlds Without End.

Books have a problem compared to movies in that far more books get published than movies get made. While a good critic can expect to see all the movies that come out in a year (at least all those released theatrically), reading every book that is published is impossible. This eats into the quality of critical rankings out there, or even into Industry awards. Any "Best of the Year" list can't really hope to be definitive, because a book - especially a ground breaking, iconoclastic new classic - will take time to find a wide audience and be widely recognised.

For my money, I think the likes of Goodreads are probably the best bet as an objective, comprehensive and timely statistical source for rankings of books.