I just discovered the "Discovery: Wings" channel, by Discovery Channel but all about airplanes and flight in general. Awesome.

I was watching an episode of this show called Strange Planes, about the catapults on aircraft carriers and how the idea was first used by the Wright brothers to get their underpowered (12hp) airplanes in the air. It showed some old, very grainy film of one of their first flights (I had no idea there were moving pictures at the time). It was like one frame per second, but it really drove home how much of a step forward this must have been. Watching that big, fragile biplane float up off the ground carring its human passenger seemed truly incredible. I could really feel the excitement at seeing this machine carry someone off the ground in a (somewhat) controlled manner. Can you imagine reading that headline in the newspaper, and realizing the possibilities this development will create for humanity?

It was also really interesting seeing two emerging technologies juxtaposed so nicely — I could picture somebody excitedly documenting that weird new flying contraption on one of the new "moving picure recorders." It's just a nice example of the sort of explosive blooming out of technology we've seen during the last 150 years or so.

And then to dull my excitement, one of the commercials halfway through the show talked about how "Discovery: Wings" is becoming "The Military Channel" on January 10. Bah. "Crap, he discovered something he really likes! Quick, turn it into something he hates."