RIP Neil Armstrong

also he took a picture of an earthrise which has done more for the environmental movement than any number of fools lining up w/ lattes in manhattan traffic

When Neil Armstrong was on his way to the Moon, the New York Times printed a correction, for mocking a rocket pioneer in 1920

RIP

Many xposts: Matt, you could say the same thing about every soldier who fought for their country. how about the fact that Neil had the stones to do a job that had every chance of killing him & his crew. Have you watched the test footage? They may have been pawns in your eyes but don't think that dimishes their feats in any way

Do not feed the moon trolls today.

RIP Neil. One small step indeed.

he did it for 5000 years of humans too

http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/500269/500269,1306661017,2/stock-vector-egyptian-sun-boat-78156865.jpg

the roach is the pawn of the military industrial complex stealing fire from the gods in the solar barge

that should be the "roach in the solar barge"

You mean: The scarab is rolling the sun across the sky like a ball of shit.

Can someone delete dylannn's posts and block him from this thread, plz? Is that doable? I mean, we've been to the moon and all, so surely we can do this.

― Johnny Fever, Saturday, August 25, 2012 7:45 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

board sanitiser: can't recommend enough for those persistent stains

It's not exclusively N.A., obviously, but I've enjoyed watching "For All Mankind" - and paging through its companion coffee table book - with my kids. They have no idea of the time, effort, courage and money it took to achieve what they did, let alone bring back those movies and pictures, and yet they could still connect on a primal level with the beauty and wonder of the images.

i was kidding, i think he just holds the sun like dung as it sails across the sky?

but the pharoahs built solar barges to sail to the sun on when they died

iirc akhenaten compared man and god to vermin and sun

so the moon mission is actually a holy quest

a moonship journey, if you will

tender spots! we all need our saints. i agree that symbolically the earth images run counter to the mission. doesn't make the hero-worship any less nauseating. and it doesn't make me nihilistic to point out that calling the moon landing a great accomplishment is completely ideological. xps

otoh space is cool

oh okay so you don't have any heroes or saints? or are yours just not nauseating like the ones us proles worship?

we all need our saints.

just because:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq5gjfN5lns

http://gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs/182376_o.gif

i'm not above hero worship but i try to recognize its limits, what it actually accomplishes and when it becomes something else usually en masse and i hope/trust at my best we can all do this. xp

Thing about US propaganda and the moon and all that. The cultural narrative to me has always seemed more or less that it was fulfilling Kennedy's dream, which was from a cool and nice and idealistic time before he was assassinated. Neil was pretty humble about his role in all of it, which is something i greatly admire, and he had the skills and wits to pull of some much-needed last minute SAVING THE DAY type actions, so that seems pretty heroic too. Undermining it by saying it's just a product of US propaganda just seems like empty "Sheeple!" talk. If the mission was to go to the moon and shoot missiles at Russia along the way i would be cynical. But this didn't involve physically attacking another country, and him evoking "One giant leap for mankind" rather than "One giant leap for America" sort of takes away from that propaganda talk anyways. All in all, a pretty righteous dude. Pretty much everyone I've read about the was involved in the mission saw it as something bigger than themselves, and bigger than the Cold War.

ok maybe not all of us.

that was glib and lame. i guess i made my point. anyway roll on being inspired everyone.

calling the moon landing a great accomplishment is completely ideological

But it WAS a great achievement. I don't have a horse in this race, I'm not American and I'm not blind to the fact that you guys have done an awful lot of terrible, horrible things (hey, so have we! Woo!). But to deny that PUTTING A HUMAN BEING ON THE MOON is a great accomplishment is just insane.

if a carefully staged engineering exercise is really your idea of a great accomplishment than i'm just... sad i guess.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZDB4_y8Nbf0/UDkqyIVJfLI/AAAAAAAAn_c/GscZ2uuovRI/s640/Scan10001.JPG

Neal Stephenson, Neil Armstrong, Neil Gaiman

you're definitely sad, yeah

i mean it's basically the same as the 1980 olympics but replace hockey fans with technophiles xp

you distrust the "en masse" idea because your game is to look down on the majority of people

congrats

Matt P, I am confused, what would your idea of a great accomplishment be? I find it very strange that you can't conceive of engineering something that can travel outside of the Earth's atmosphere as a great accomplishment. What have you got against engineering? I mean, are you also not impressed about discovering the theory of relativity because 'oh, well, if you consider doing a bit of maths a great accomplishment then I'm just... sad'?

a moonship journey, if you will

― the late great, Saturday, August 25, 2012 4:04 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

indeed

meanwhile we're about to destroy ourselves and our planet but going somewhere and coming back is a great accomplishment.

i mean the physical part of a journey can be an important element in transformation--i guess the earth pictures tease at the possibility of a transformation.

fast forward to 2012 and our vision of the future is mining asteroids.

xp i distrust ideology, which majorities are usually constructed in order to reinforce. i trust human decency and sharing/enabling life. doesn't usually whip everyone into a fervor unfortunately.

more xps engineering is a tool with potential, not an accomplishment.

I appreciate how there's always someone willing to turn every thread into a teachable moment. God's work. God's work.

also all technology flies like that. you think columbus was looking for *THE TRUTH*

maybe he was looking for THREE CHORDS.

― KARLOR CAN FUCK ANYTHING! AND HE WILL AND HAS!!! (Eisbaer), Saturday, August 25, 2012 9:41 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Where's a 'like' button when you need it?

you really got to stop using that royal we matt

Hang on a second, Matt. YOU were the one who reduced the act to the tool. The tool is what gave people the ability to do the thing we're talking about. So don't go "ugh, it's just engineering" in response to "why isn't it an achievement?" and then go "engineering is just the tool" in response to "well, why isn't engineering impressive?" You've just nullified your first response, and need to re-think and answer again.

This thread has reminded me that I need to start showing up more random funerals and telling the grieving families that the decedent's life was a sham.

guys couldn't we at least have waited at least a day before shitting up the thread

hey you're right, what can i say i grew up religious, i'll work on that. xp

I mean I realize that this is ILX SOP but guys

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Hang on a second, Matt. YOU were the one who reduced the act to the tool. The tool is what gave people the ability to do the thing we're talking about. So don't go "ugh, it's just engineering" in response to "why isn't it an achievement?" and then go "engineering is just the tool" in response to "well, why isn't engineering impressive?" You've just nullified your first response, and need to re-think and answer again.

― emil.y, Saturday, August 25, 2012 3:00 PM (59 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you're right, i'm not being clear. going to the moon was an accomplishment. it was hard. lots of odds.

guys, I don't even think Matt P has even been to the moon
this explains a lot 4 me

have only skimmed the thread, but did we talk anywhere about his recent interview? the circumstances of it were really fascinating, partic considering how bizarre everyone had assumed he'd become on account of being a 'recluse' or whatever; i heard excerpts on the radio & he spoke so humbly & impressively about his work - which is what he'd considered it, talking abuot how his main thought on stepping onto the moon was that they had a job to do, had checklists.

meanwhile we're about to destroy ourselves and our planet but going somewhere and coming back is a great accomplishment.

chill dude, we already tore up your ticket

silent runnings

http://thebottomline.cpaaustralia.com.au/

xpost yeah i kinda love that watered down john maus run there

I appreciate how there's always someone willing to turn every thread into a teachable moment. God's work. God's work.

tbf this is how all human culture and "fun" works, fuiud