EMMYdiocracy
Mediocracy is a situation which can occur in a democracy in which mediocre people prevail. The society is then subordinated to a quasi-egalitarian ideology in which words and ideas are redefined by mediocre people, to be convenient for mediocre people. Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a frequent critic of mediocracy in contemporary Western countries. || This where the tag cloud goes if the tag cloud loads:
In the early years of space flight, both Russians and Americans used pencils in space. Unfortunately, pencil lead is made of graphite, a highly conductive material. Snapped graphite leads and particles in zero gravity are hugely problematic, as they will get sucked into the air ventilation or electronic equipment, easily causing shorts or fires in the pure oxygen environment of a capsule.
After the fire in Apollo 1 which killed all the astronauts on board, NASA required a writing instrument that wasn’t a fire hazard. Fisher spent over a million dollars (of his own money) creating a pressurized ball point pen, which NASA bought at $2.95 each. The Russian space program also switched over from pencils shortly after.
40 years later snide morons on the internet still snigger about it, because snide morons on the internet never know what they are talking about.
FUCKING THANK YOU.
(Source: yourresidentginger, via rjinswand)
Stirring Photos Chronicle the Final Years of the Space Shuttle Program
Majestic. See the full gallery on Raw File.
[Photos: Philip Scott Andrews]
(via rabbivole)
Jupiter and its moons Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, and the Earth’s moon all caught in the same photo.
god i hate it when the satellites of our hastily terraformed planet threaten to wreck all traces of civilization as we know it from this pitiful far flung rock
