Joseph Wright of Derby, An Iron Forge, 1772
HIGH FLIGHT
High Flight Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God. Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941
“
| — | (via airplanesgonewild) |
”The analysts at CosaNostra Pizza University concluded that it was just human nature and you couldn’t fix it, and so they went for a quick cheap technical fix: smart boxes. The pizza box is a plastic carapace now, corrugated for stiffness, a little LED readout glowing on the side, telling the…
I remember reading this for the first time in the late nineties, about two years after it came out, and being completely entranced by it. It’s been even better watching bits of it, the technology bits only thankfully, come true. I still find it hard to believe that the device I’m typing this on has a version of the “Earth” program on it and I carry it in my pocket everyday.
Apparently not, he wasn’t even alive when the portrait was painted having been killed in Madrid during an insurrection by a falling roof tile of all things.Antoine-Jean Gros, Lieutenant Charles Legrand, c. 1810
A very young looking cuirassier cavalry officer in Napoleons army. I wonder if he survived the brutal fighting between 1812 and 1815?
If you don’t think this is extremely cool, I probably don’t want to know you. And you may not even be human. Have that checked out.
This is amazing. How was this not front page news? I can’t begin to imagine how much engineering went into the control systems that would allow them to do what I just saw.
