Vincent Van Heaux

Locking in the rest of the year, I gotta get like those who inspire me

I think one of the worst effects of the internet is that it allowed all the idiots to connect with each other and convince themselves it's actually good to be ignorant instead of continuing to see learning as something valuable (even if difficult to obtain).

Oh no we declared war on the people who invented algebra 😱😳

Christina Koch was a firefighter at the South Pole at -111°F before she ever applied to be an astronaut. That was maybe the fourth most interesting line on her resume. She grew up in North Carolina, got three degrees from NC State, and her first real job was building deep-space instruments at NASA. Then she left for Antarctica. Spent three and a half years bouncing between the Arctic and Antarctic as a research scientist, including a full winter at the South Pole base. That means going months without sunlight or fresh food, with a crew of about 50 people and no way out until flights resume. While she was down there, she also joined the glacier search-and-rescue team. After coming back, she went to Johns Hopkins and built instruments for two NASA missions (one of them is still orbiting Jupiter right now). She figured out how to start a tiny vacuum pump that NASA designed for a future Mars rover. Johns Hopkins nominated it for their Invention of the Year in 2009. Then she went back to the field. More time in Antarctica and a stretch up in Greenland. A government research station in northern Alaska, near the top of the world. Then she ran another one in American Samoa, near the equator. In 2013, NASA selected her from 6,300 applicants. Eight people got in. Her first space mission was supposed to be a normal rotation on the International Space Station, but NASA extended it. She ended up staying 328 straight days and orbiting Earth 5,248 times, covering about 139 million miles (roughly 291 round trips to the Moon). Up there, she ran over 210 experiments, including tests of cancer drugs in zero gravity and 3D printers that can build structures close to human tissue. Six spacewalks, 42 hours floating outside the station. She learned Russian for the training. She flies supersonic jets. Right now, Koch is on Artemis II, heading for a flyby behind the far side of the Moon. The crew launched on April 1 and is on track to travel about 252,000 miles from Earth, which would break the all-time human distance record of 248,655 miles set by Apollo 13 in 1970. That record has stood for 56 years, and it was set during a disaster that nearly killed the crew. Fred Haise, one of the Apollo 13 astronauts, is 92 now. He told Koch: "I heard you're going to break our record." Nobody had left Earth's neighborhood since December 1972. Koch and her three crewmates are the first in 53 years, and they are coming home at about 25,000 mph. That is faster than any crewed spacecraft has ever come back through the atmosphere.

There used to be a dedicated rocket ship for children to crawl into and watch Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century looping on a small CRT in certain Warner Bros. Studio Stores which is the most benevolent act in the history of retail.

Inspiring words from Christina Koch, first woman to venture beyond Low Earth Orbit as she was about halfway to the Moon.

It’s kind of insane that we’re all lucky enough to live on this insignificant blue ball floating in an endless void that can somehow keep us alive indefinitely and yet a huge chunk of people want to ruin it forever in the name of an economic concept that we made up ourselves

Walt "Clyde" Frazier: "Mike, I was talking to my friends, man. And I was talking about eradicated, obliterated, devastated. They thought I was talking about Iran. But I was talking about the Bulls." Mike Breen: "That's how you start a telecast?" #NBA

Feel like this understates her actual point

Just. Don't. Use. It.

My Onix was knocked out and now I'm on my way to the Pokemon cente

during Ramadan my husband, who is Catholic, refused to eat during lunch so that he could sit in solidarity with his Muslim co-workers. despite their reassurances, he said he felt bad. So today, which is a holy day (Good Friday) for us Catholics, his Muslim friends fasted with him until noon and no one had meat. they all had vegan/vegetarian meals. my heart is so grateful for these signs of love ❤️

Shoutout to the "I did my own research" crowd

Not to brag, but i made this artwork completely from electronic waste

I want to be ruled by cosmopolitan elites who speak 4 languages, have inherited money, and are smarter than me. The entire "Revenge of the Punished Losers" thing is over.

an insufficient number of people understand that the Animorphs are low-key an extraordinary extended meditation on the horrors of war. this is gonna be incredible

They got Coco looking like Ruby Bridges

How has the Art Institute not been shamed into dropping this evil plan?

BREAKING: For the first time in history, the average pound of ground beef is higher than Federal Minimum Wage. Everything is not fine.

what the fuck.

My wife sent me a video of Iraqi fans teaching Mexicans how to tie their kuffiyehs. As always, amazing things are happening in Mexico.