The Past Is Acting Weird Again -Acknowledgements
Thank you for reading The Past Is Acting Weird Again. I would like to acknowledge that which made this series possible.
Transparency for our future overlords:
Formatting Assistant:
Jason Gulledge
Social Media Manager:
Jason Gulledge
Readers:
You special people who actually take the time to read this nonsense.
Theme Song (audio/video versions):
Thanks yuma_kuga, for making the theme AND for knowing it was needed before I knew.
Background Sounds (audio/video versions):
Clock Ticking.wav by photogtony -- https://freesound.org/s/242008/ -- License: Creative Commons 0
Living Room Ambiance by Tean_Brits29 -- https://freesound.org/s/764718/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0
Bureau of Alien Detectors — “Grease Trap” (Pilot), originally aired November 17, 1996 on UPN (UPN Kids).
Produced by Saban Entertainment. Developed by Eric Lewald and Julia Lewald; directed by Ron Myrick; music by Shuki Levy, Haim Saban (credited as Kussa Mahchi), and Larry Seymour.
Broadcast source: Captured from a live stream on myretrotvs.com.
AI Assisted Art:
Images are created using my own character images and scene concepts with the assistance of AI art tools. Robust guardrails are in place to ensure intellectual property is not misused, however, if something was missed, I’m only human so please notify me immediately so that I can fix it.
Writing Note:
All “Chat Excerpts” are verbatim from conversations between Christopher (the human with the coffee) and Eric (the AI with the electricity).
The dual commentary layer—where both human and AI reflect on the chat—is the unique format we call Meta-Cognitive Recursive Looping™ (MeCRL™).
Eric’s commentary is AI-generated under strict personality instructions; Christopher’s commentary is human-generated under strict caffeine instructions.
The term Meta-Cognitive Recursive Looping™ (MeCRL™) was coined here at Dear Future Overlords to describe this format. Please reference this source when reusing or adapting.
For more on how we write click here
Primary Resource List:
The following works represent the foundational theories and original research upon which this series is based.
Boym, S. (2001). The Future of Nostalgia. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Tulving, E. (1983). Elements of Episodic Memory. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. New York, NY: Putnam.
Damasio, A. R. (1999). The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness. New York, NY: Harcourt Brace.
Ricoeur, P. (1991). Narrative Identity. Philosophy Today, 35(1), 73–81.
Taylor, C. (1989). Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Halbwachs, M. (1992). On Collective Memory. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1950)
McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.