I've got a Golden Record

My last bit of looking into Carl Sagan info led me to the Golden Record placed on the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft. I am not the first person to be enamored with this strangely poetic and beautiful gesture -- I think that was part of the point, but here are my thoughts anyway.

I am interested in what is actually ON the record, since I only have a vague idea.

There is an article from the New York Times called The Mix Tape of the Gods which I thought sounded good too.

According to wikipedia, you can get the CD from various libraries. "A CD-ROM version was issued by Warner New Media in 1992[9]. Both versions are out of print, but the 1978 edition can be found in many college or public libraries."

Anyway, the wikipedia article about it (Voyager Golden Record) is full of really intriguing and interesting ideas.

"thus the record is best seen as a time capsule or a symbolic statement rather than a serious attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial life."

"This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.”
— U.S. President Jimmy Carter

"After NASA had received criticism over the nudity on the Pioneer plaque (line drawings of a naked man and woman), the agency chose not to allow Sagan and his colleagues to include a photograph of a nude man and woman on the record. Instead, only a silhouette of the couple was included."

Random fact:
"After the Pioneer Program, NASA put a Golden Record aboard the two Voyager spacecrafts, which included a greeting "Hello from the children of planet Earth." That was recorded by then six-year-old Nick Sagan, Carl's son." (from a blog of random facts)