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I'm reading the fantastic (albeit quite long) new biography of The Wright Brothers by David McCullough - amazon link[^]
I couldn't wait to get to their first flight. It's such an amazing tale of two brothers who set out to do something, who stayed strong through the failures and implemented the scientific method and home-made engineering skills to overcome a problem that people thought might be impossible.
McCullough is a true historian and although the book is long it really provides a great story and makes you feel like you are with the brothers as they fight to solve this problem.
Inspiring
I found it very inspiring in my work as a software developer.
Have any of you read it?
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Does it mention that they are widely credited for being the inventor of the aeroplane when they weren't actually the first to do so? There have been many people laying claim to this but the first, credible, independently verified instance was a New Zealand farmer called Richard Pearse (in March 1902);
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Just makes you wish this guy[^] had continued his experiments.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Stringfellow is mentioned, at least in passing. McCullough attempts to mention that others did claim powered flight before The Wright Brothers and other forms of flight of course. That's why I like McCullough he represents the subject from numerous angles. Though that is why his books are normally quite long too.
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It does refer to some skepticism and an interesting thing with Langley and the Smithsonian.
The very cool thing is that The Wright Brothers flew above the controversy by never publicly trashing Langley's efforts which were paid for with gov't funds.
Also, keep in mind the real invention is one of "controlled, powered flight". Other flyers did not create a system of controls with powered flight. Not sure about the person you mention. Will check out more. Thanks.
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The most interesting one is May 11th, 1903 where Pearse flew along the side of a river before turning to fly over it and turning again. He achieved a distance of roughly 1KM on this flight. An impressive feat.
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To be fair the wright brothers are not the only USians to claim to have invented things that were already invented are they
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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Indeed they are not! A bit like Columbus is not the first person to discover America (that would have been the lookout  )
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rubbish the first to discover America would have been Ugg, and not as some people are saying Ugg who got their even later than Ugg and no one says he discovered America
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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Or more likely, that would have been the Vikings - there is strong evidence to support their having visited many times.*
*That's discounting the people who already lived there who cannot claim to have discovered America because, as far as they were concerned, it was never lost.
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Oh yawn: do smileys not mean anything any more???
Nobody know who the first people to set foot on North America were but likely to have come across the land bridge connecting Russia with Alaska 40000 odd years ago and then migrated southwards. Just as peoples from Asia were likely to have begun the population of South America.
There are also remains of Viking settlements and extremely old Chinese artifacts get found all the time - well, every other third Sunday in March.
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Nope, and nor do triple question marks. I was hoping that someone would pick up the Pratchett paraphrase in my answer and run with it.
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local 1: where are we,
local 2: I don't Know, I do wish an explorer would discover us and tell us where we are
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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I've never read Pratchett. Not Sci-Fi. 
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The Long Earth? cannot think what that would be if not Sci-Fi
you should try his disc world though, few are disapointed
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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Thought he was sci-fantasy, swords-and-sorcery. I prefer Asimov, Clarke, etc. Hard sci-fi.
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maybe not hard like Asimov etc but as for sword and sorcery it more of a gentle p*** take of that style, take Cohen the barbarian - typical S&S hero, can defeat anyone, only he is 90 toothless with a bad back, the wizards whilst they can perform magic prefer to leave magic alone and have a good lunch (except those dangerous ones that built Hex)
Take one thing from a Pratchet novel and that would be that there is always a different way of looking at things, especially if you have a warped sense of humour
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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Ok: can you recommend a good starter novel? Seems like I may have been missing out.
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You can start with any, if you want a recomendation though mine would be Mort or maybe gaurds guards
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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He was a story teller who knew how to eke the best out of the language. His chosen field to show his love of the language just happened to be fantasy but I imagine he would have been equally at home in other styles. How can you not love an author who comes out with lines such as "Death rides a horse called Binky"?
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Ye.
What never ceases to amaze me is that they walked all the way down to the mountains of Mexican and the Andes and never seem to notice what is today the USA & Canada in between. To make it even more curious, any of them that didn't make south remained as Eskimos in the very north of Canada. What is even more amazing is that somehow large quantities of copper was mined around Michigan as long ago as 1500BC by people that seemed to disappear into thin air? (see link below).
After the Spanish were finished massacring the natives of South America there is unto 60% of the population of countries like Peru still native today. Only for the English prevented them getting near the tiny population of USA & Canada we would probably have less natives there than we have today?
http://www.philipcoppens.com/copper.html[^]
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It's interesting as an engineering feat.
Nothing else.
Just consider what the Wright Brothers did. The author isn't out to prove that no one else did it first.
Nor were the Wright Brothers. Why would you focus on such a thing? I think it reveals something. But I don't know or care what.  Smile and the world smiles with you.
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my comment was in response to those commenting on the fact that the Wright brothers were not the first to fly,
IMHO the one thing that enabled the Wright brothers flight was the design and construction of the engine every other aspect of the design was already in existence and was proven technology, so credit where its due the engine was remarkable for its power to weight and it alone was the success factor, that's and their ability to select the best of the existing tech that was already out there
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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