Today’s episode is a minipod, a smattering of time travel, future travel, and news about the show.

In this episode we hear a bunch of messages from listeners: what folks think about past futures we’ve been to, and future futures we should travel to.

We also cover some show news! So, in bullet point form:

I mean come on check out these tote bags!

The last thing I do in the episode is reveal a few of the hidden references from this season. A lot of you have asked what you should be looking for, so hopefully this will help!

In episode 2, Love At First Sexbot, the names of the different sex robots are references to particular people and characters. The Hadaly is named after a mechanical woman invented by a fictional Thomas Edison in the 1886 novel The Future Eve. She’s one of the first female robots to appear in literature.

The Leopold is named after Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose name lives on in the term “masochism.”

And here’s probably the hardest one from that episode: Margot’s Discount Closet Solutions is named after a character from a Ray Bradbury short story called “All Summer in a Day.” That one was hard, I admit.

In the mosquito episode, two of the names are references to Animorphs characters, and the repeated use of the number 18 points to the book in which the Animorphs turn into mosquitos.

That’s often what you’re looking for. Other times it’s quotes and clips I play. So, go forth and find them!

Flash Forward is produced by me, Rose Eveleth, and is part of the Boing Boing podcast family. The intro music is by Asura and the outtro music is by Broke for Free. Other music used in this episode is by Ryan Lit and Decktonic.

If you want to suggest a future we should take on, send us a note on Twitter, Facebook, by voicemail at (347) 927-1425 or by sending an email or voice memo to info@flashforwardpod.com. We love hearing your ideas!

And if you want to support the show, there are a few ways you can do that too! We have a Patreon page, where you can donate to the show. But if that’s not in the cards for you, you can head to iTunes and leave us a nice review or just tell your friends about us. Those things really do help.

That’s all for this future, come back next week and we’ll travel to a new one.