We are Ken Jennings and John Roderick.

We are receiving this message.

We are Ken Jennings and John Roderick. We speak to you from our present, which we can only assume is your distant past, the turbulent time that was the early 21st century.

Fearing the great cataclysm that will surely befall our civilization, we began this

monumental reference of strange and obscure human knowledge.

These recordings represent our attempt to compile and preserve wonders and esoterica that would otherwise be lost.

So whether you're listening from an advanced civilization or have just reinvented the technology to decrypt our transmissions,

this is our legacy to you.

This is our time capsule.

This is the omnibus. Oh, You have accessed entry 461. RV1620, certificate number 502042-04.

Ferdenand-daya.

Have you ever considered that if we're talking to listeners millions of years in the future that even the continents of this planet will not look like they did in our time?

I have considered that. How recently? I think about

the futurelings... I think about it all the time and I imagine... So do you believe that there's a

universal grammar?

Are you a Chomskyite?

Do you believe that there is some kind of fundamental language?

I think I don't.

Because a million years from now, future things have to be communicating via a completely different methodology.

It's going to be flashing lights or colors or smells.

There can't possibly be language as we know it, and so they have to be translating this

into some sort of squid ink language.

...