This is a reference to Kubrick's 2001: a space odyssey where Dave rushes from the command deck down to the pod bay, asks HAL for an update to Poole's status and then asks him to rotate b-pod, or Betty (conflated from the novel), so he could get in it and exit the Discovery to retrieve Poole. The three EVA space pods aboard the XD-1 Discovery were lettered a, b and c; the book notes the crew called them Anna, Betty, and Clara. C-pod is never used in the movie. A-pod is lost with Frank Poole. B-pod winds up in a Louis XVII decor hotel suite with under-lit flooring and a large bed.

Rotate b-pod please HAL.

I have a completely obsolete degree in psychology with minor in anthropology and a minor-minor in History and Philosophy of Science. My subsequent career is in newspaper and magazine production, publication management, digital archiving and teaching digital production at the university and polytech level. I'm an experienced graphic designer.

My lifelong itch is Kubrick's 2001: a space odyssey, which I saw first in 1968 and on the subject of which there are only about 7,532^[1] people on the planet who might know more than me. It's not an infatuation as such, more of a springboard to other subject areas.

I pay attention to advances in psychology, per my degree, but I have maintained an elevated interest in human origins over the years, and have taken up paleoanthropology as a serious study over the past decade. This new itch is propelled by the abundance of new archaeological finds, and new analytic tools .. not least of which are the growing corps of genetic tools and techniques at our disposal.

In the process of researching and writing papers, and developing narratives to explain the fossil record to a lay audience, or better yet kids, I have come to rely on wikipedia. This can only proceed further for me by becoming involved in the editing process, to give back and to help refine the quality of the material — for which my current knowledge begins to equal and in a few places, here and there, exceed (2016). So it goes.