Some photos are just too good. But sometimes you have to look real carefully. Indo-Myanmar Friendship Store! Yours in friendship. Oh, ah, eh, maybe not. We’ve annotated accordingly. Hap tap The Economist.
Original image:
Our take:
Category Archives: Photography
We can put this one in humanity’s win column
Some actual good news for once! We aren’t just a bunch of degenerate losers today! We did something cool. Something hard. Something worth doing.
We managed to put metal on a freaking comet. It’s pretty awesome. And the complexity of this mission is mind boggling, which makes it even more awesome.
Mankind has looked up at the stars and held comets in very special esteem since our beginning. They’re unique, bright, and a hell of a neat thing to look at. Particularly back during the times where folks didn’t have the internets and car chases to entertain them.
Folks throughout history have called comets “good omens”, “purveyors of doom”, “gods”, or “that weird fucking thing in the south sky”. Their sightings have influenced wars, changed our view of science, and helped shape our understanding of our floating rock’s place in this twisted universe.
Now we’ve been there too.
For those interested in the technical brilliance, we’ll turn it over to Professor Rollmops at Tragicocomedia who does an outstanding job of explaining this masterpiece:
http://tragicocomedia.com/2014/11/10/six-impossible-things-before-breakfast-rosetta/
And then we’ll turn it over to our little robot to show us what’s quite the photo, hopefully the first of many:
Anybody want to bet money, that later on, the robot takes a picture of this too:
If you gotta go…
Today President Obama presented the Medal of Honor to the family of Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Alonzo Cushing, hero of Gettysburg. I took this shot in 2012, from his gun position. If you can imagine 15 thousand gray coats from end-to-end, you get the idea.
I grew up reading about him, knowing his name. I have no idea why. Maybe his age, 22 years old, drew me? In a weird way, I’m not so sure about the medal though. His peers lived this war, who are we to overturn their decision? Alonzo’s brothers, William and Howard, also went early via the field of battle. It was a very different time then.
We don’t get to choose how we check out, and given the chance, Cushing and anyone else would have rather wanted to go home that day. But sometimes one’s life is the pain, suffering, and honor of a single afternoon. Sometimes we simply do what we were born to do. “Faithful unto Death” is on his tombstone.
Hopefully Cushing and his brothers are boozing it up in Valhalla to celebrate. Alongside all those they fought with and against. So that we could all be free tonight.
No, winter is not yet coming
Took this one, beginning of winter, back in 2005. We’re not there yet, but soon all the leaves will be off. Today felt like the first real cold day of the year. Up north, it snowed this morning. The first idiot Christmas ads hit television today. But it’s still Fall. Enjoy it.
The Arcturus Project 