“The Space Shuttle Challenger, atop a mobile launch platform, slowly moves through Florida fog to Launch Pad 39A in preparation for its first liftoff, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, US, 30th November 1982" (via www.flickr.com/photos/sdasm...)

Yourself, but as a cartoon

OTD January 28 1964 A US Air Force T-39 Sabreliner (62-4448) jet from the 7101st Air Base Wing at Wiesbaden, West Germany, while on a training mission, strays into East German airspace. The T-39 is intercepted by two Soviet MiG-19 fighters and subsequently shot down after failing to respond

Today we rang the Bodley Bell in Duke Humfrey’s Library to mark the anniversary of Sir Thomas Bodley’s death in 1613 🔔 Nine rings for the man, and 67 for every year of his life. Rung by Ant Brewerton and Andrew Honey. #ThomasBodley #OnThisDay

Ok it is public now #NASA #aivation bsky.app/profile/kvue...

So a range of UK archives that resist placing their public collections in the public domain are nevertheless making them available for commercial AI exploitation?

Not a movie, but...

It takes a village to go Mach 2. This is the support for Scott Crossfield's (standing at the nose of the Skyrocket) Mach 2 flight in the Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket on November 20, 1953. You have a P2B-1S dropship, a couple of F-86 Sabre chase planes and a huge team on the ground. #avgeek #aviation

Just submitted my birds from this morning :)

Helmand, July 2009. Danish soldiers resting after 8 hours of breaching minefields and clearing houses. Seconds later, I had to wake them to move forward again. To claim allies weren't on the front lines is a lie and an insult to those who served and lost. We stepped up. That's what allies do.

Even if @spitfirefilly.bsky.social might not be the precise historian to help with this, her Luftwaffe researching network might know someone who could help out :)

I've scanned a new album from my collection, this time something quite special, its a wartime Luftwaffe album. So take a look, see if you can identify people, planes, locations, etc. I'll put it all together in an article online. Detective time!

Working today, so I read the NDS with my morning coffee. I'm all in favour of simplifying writing in public documents; less jargon & more straightforward/common word choices are always good. But it's just the *language* that should be at high school level, not, uh, everything else >.>

Non-Smoking was just a different row from Smoking. The only place people COULDN'T smoke was on the short walk from the plane to the terminal.

Two Tu-22M3 long-range supersonic missile carrier bombers (with the Kh-22/32 anti-ship missile) escorted by Su-35S and Su-30SM fighters performed a scheduled flight over the Baltic Sea. The duration of the flight was more than five hours. 📹MoD RF(Jan. 22) tvzvezda.ru/news/2026122...

To reap the many benefits of our amazing public libraries, we need an ambitious public library strategy backed by secure, long-term funding for core costs, inc. expert library teams who bring collections, digital and buildings to life. #LibrariesChangeLives. @cilip.bsky.social

It's been almost 3 years since this article and there's been no development of AI that weakens its argument at all. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

As a middle-aged let-me-get-my-reading-glasses type with slowing reflexes I am rarely tempted by games anymore, but this looks awfully seductive :) www.theguardian.com/games/2026/j...

Right, this is it, this is the sign I mean when I say "don't make me tap the sign"

The F-22 is such a good display; I encourage you mainlanders to get a glimpse if you can :)

Do they...fly with the fake scrotum attached, or do you have to attach the fake scrotum after your parachute landing? If so, is there a pouch for the fake scrotum? I kinda need a sack-sack for staff meetings, I feel it would be useful for various reasons.

1970s solar powered device used to intercept radar & communications signals. US intelligence planted it in a wooded area near Moscow, and a bug inside eavesdropped on radar and communications from a nearby Soviet airbase. The Spy Museum, USA.

Chessboard Concealment, East Germany (HVA), ca. 1961 A chessboard with a hidden locking mechanism. Inside, there are compartments for a URANUS 2 microdot camera. The Spy Museum, USA.

Share a television show that raised you

Self-care local F-15 reblog

This is fabulous, and I'm going to need someone to write at least a five-book series of murders solved by...Slater's Lady Cyclist Detectives. Thank you, please proceed.

I'm watching the old UK TV adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with Alec Guinness as Smiley...but I'd totally spaced (no pun intended) on who played Karla!

Self-care F-15 reblog :)

This guys beret is the most french looking thing, I've ever laid my eyes on. Liberté, égalité, fraternité et chapeaux énormes!

I have no idea if @postnatodepression.bsky.social is actually from Gore, and I know Gore and Geraldine are hardly neighbours, but your NZ research skills might help here :)

Slightly eyebrow raising cartoon from the Sheffield Weekly Telegraph 22 December 1917. #CartoonHistory

Starling murmuration, Whiixall, this evening.

Stop scrolling and post two characters who bring you happiness. (Every time this comes around I have to think of a new duo...)

Went to a meeting; came back to find someone had moved my keyboard and used my own post-it notes against me in an act of drive-by hate speech ;) (I'm not a worshipper in the Cult of Boyd!) Nobody I work with even knows who Boyd is, so this was some kind of incursion...hmmm...

So jealous, this'd be a lot of fun :)

Jose Calugas, Sr. was a Philippine Scout in the U.S. Army and served from 1930 to 1957. He earned the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions on January 16th, 1942 near Culis, Philippine Islands. Calugas was born in 1907 in the Philippines and died in WA state in 1998. www.army.mil/article/2663...

If aircraft are going to roar over at a less than 1000ft drowning out my sophisticated Miss Marple reruns on the TV they at least ought not to have the callsign "Daddy-11."

Invasion! Swarm! Poor little guys hardly did it on purpose

On the way to leaving the US we did a road trip so I could see Peak America. This included Wall Drug! Also: the Corn Palace, Crazy Horse/Mt Rushmore, monuments at Little Bighorn, the Badlands, Devils Tower, Deadwood, statues of Paul Bunyan/Babe the Blue Ox, & the souce of the Mississippi. Loved it!

Self-care F-15 reblog

I decided to dedicate my top spot of 2025 to Major 'Slab' Krakowian, who flew one of the most impressive and exciting fast jet displays I have ever seen with F-16C 4056. I'm sure no one will forget the Polish Air Force display, nor its pilot.

All real estate ads should be this good

this, by the way, is Richard Pearse's utility plane, a truly fascinating piece of engineering and of history, and also I cannot explain how the experience of seeing it in real life activates the part of the brain mice use when they see an owl www.motat.nz/collections-...

Please listen to this

Discworld QOTD, from Snuff

East Anglian snow may look pretty, but the roads...! ;) Nobody ploughs here, they grit main thoroughfares and that's it. Also the roads on base were worse than off, so CE needs to lift their game for Greenland ;) (The runways/taxiways, I know! I know!)

This was very well executed, but also the unasked for AI Overview when I Google Imaged it was as below. Should we warn George Clooney?!

Stromness this afternoon. The sun sets as another snow shower arrives.