Robert Geoffrey

Peering at an entire universe through a drinking straw.
(Tweeting on books, films, music, poetry, wine, architecture, science, sport and Bond)

[Robert Geoffrey @Emrayfo]

Steven Keaton (played by Michael Gross) gives fatherly advice to his son Alex (played by Michael J Fox), in the last ever episode of Family Ties, while family friend 'Skippy' looks on. #gettingbondwrong #bondwrong
@bondwrong @TheTchaikovsky #FamilyTies #QoS #JamesBond

[Robert Geoffrey @Emrayfo]

@drolkrad_ehT @OnDisasters Because the stuntman refused to operate the jetpack unless they met him wear a helmet, so then James Bond had to.

[Francisco Cunha @OnDisasters]

And yes, boys and girls, that thing you saw on 007 ThunderBall was for real

Meet the Bell Rocket Belt from the early 60s. This small propulsion device enables a person to fly short distances using low rocket power with non-combusting gas.

(as a note, a thing that always cracks me up on this scene: where did he get the helmet?)

[Historic Vids @historyinmemes]

A German king allowed the women of a captured city to leave with whatever they could carry—but he never expected what came next..

In 1140, King Conrad III laid siege to the town of Weinsberg in what is now southwestern Germany, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. Before capturing the city, he granted the women safe passage and allowed them to take with them whatever they could carry on their shoulders.

Rather than gathering their valuables, the women emerged carrying their husbands. Faced with their ingenuity, Conrad reportedly laughed and chose to honor his promise, declaring that a king should always keep his word.

The women who saved both their husbands and their city became known as the Treue Weiber von Weinsberg (“Loyal Wives of Weinsberg”). The ruins of the castle still stand today and are known as Weibertreu (“Wifely Loyalty”) in memory of the famous story.

[Ellie in Space 🚀💫 @esherifftv]

One of the astronauts just announced for Artemis III, Luca Parmitano, once came terrifyingly close to dying during a spacewalk.

In 2013, water began leaking into his helmet during a spacewalk outside the ISS. The leak got so bad that his eyes, ears, and nose were submerged, leaving him nearly blind and struggling to breathe as he fought his way back to the airlock. NASA later described it as one of the most serious spacewalk incidents ever.

Now, more than a decade later, Parmitano is selected for Artemis III pilot.

From nearly drowning in space to helping lead humanity’s return to the Moon. What a remarkable full-circle moment.

[Lockheed Martin Space @LMSpace]

Meet your @NASA Artemis III crew, the next astronauts to fly aboard Orion!

[The Critical Drinker @TheCriticalDri2]

Just Hugh Laurie eloquently destroying another clueless "journalist". What a perfect start to the week.

[Ankor Inclán @ankorinclan]

Una niña pelirroja con vaqueros, una construcción de LEGO en las manos y una sonrisa que no está posando para nadie. Esa imagen lleva más de cuarenta años siendo uno de los anuncios más citados de la historia de la publicidad.

Se llamaba Rachel Giordano. Tenía unos siete años cuando la fotografiaron para la campaña de 1981. El titular decía simplemente: What it is is beautiful. Lo que es, es hermoso. Sin mencionar si era niña o niño. Sin color rosa. Sin instrucciones sobre qué debía construir.

Lo que muchos recuerdan como un gesto revolucionario de LEGO en realidad era la continuación de algo que la empresa danesa llevaba haciendo desde los años 50: vender sus piezas como un juguete universal. Los sets se llamaban Universal Building Sets. La creatividad era el producto, no el género del comprador.

Lo interesante llegó después.

En los años siguientes, LEGO fue derivando hacia una segmentación por géneros cada vez más marcada. En 2012 lanzó LEGO Friends, una línea diseñada específicamente para niñas, con colores pastel, figuras femeninas estilizadas y sets de cafeterías, salones de belleza y boutiques. Las críticas fueron inmediatas.

Fue entonces cuando alguien rastreó a Rachel Giordano, la niña del anuncio de 1981. La encontraron: tenía 37 años y era médico. En una entrevista con Adweek en 2014 fue directa: en 1981 los LEGO eran universales y la creatividad del niño producía el mensaje. En 2014, era el juguete el que le decía al niño quién debía ser.

LEGO escuchó, al menos en parte. En 2021, en el 40 aniversario del anuncio original, la empresa lo recreó para el Día Internacional de la Mujer bajo el nombre Future Builders y se comprometió públicamente a eliminar los estereotipos de género de sus productos y campañas.

El anuncio de 1981 no era radical para su época. Se volvió radical cuando la industria fue en dirección contraria.

[Mr PitBull Stories @MrPitbull07]

In 1961, a man with an 8th-grade education picked up a pencil in his prison cell and accidentally changed American history forever.

Clarence Earl Gideon was a poor drifter with weathered skin, gray hair, and a lifetime of bad luck behind him. He bounced between odd jobs, cheap rooms, and occasional jail time, barely surviving from one day to the next.

When he stood trial in a Florida courtroom in 1961 for allegedly breaking into a pool hall, he had no money and no lawyer.

The evidence was weak. Someone claimed they saw him near the building with coins in his pocket. A little cash and some beer had been stolen.

That was enough.

Before the trial began, Gideon made a simple request.

“Your Honor, I request this court to appoint counsel to represent me.”

The judge refused.

Florida only provided lawyers for capital cases, not for poor men accused of smaller crimes. So a man who never finished middle school was expected to defend himself against trained prosecutors.

He tried anyway.

He questioned witnesses.
Argued his innocence.
Did everything he could.

The jury found him guilty in minutes.

Five years in prison.

Most people would have accepted defeat. Gideon didn’t.

Inside the prison library, he slowly taught himself the Constitution. He read about the Sixth Amendment and became consumed by one question:

How could justice exist if only rich people could afford real defense?

After Florida courts rejected him, Gideon sat down in his prison cell with a pencil and wrote directly to the United States Supreme Court. Five handwritten pages. Misspelled words. Shaky handwriting.

But the message was clear:

This is not right.

Against impossible odds, the Supreme Court agreed to hear his case.

They assigned him attorney Abe Fortas, one of the best lawyers in America. Fortas argued something painfully obvious: if even great lawyers hire attorneys when accused of crimes, how could an uneducated man defend himself alone?

On March 18, 1963, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Gideon’s favor.

Every poor defendant charged with a serious crime now had the constitutional right to an attorney.

The decision changed the American justice system forever.

Gideon received a new trial, this time with a lawyer. The prosecution’s case quickly fell apart. Witnesses were exposed as unreliable. Doubt flooded the courtroom.

The verdict came back:

Not guilty.

After more than two years behind bars, Clarence Earl Gideon walked free.

He died poor years later, buried at first in an unmarked grave. But his words survived him.

Today, every time someone hears, “If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you,” they are hearing the echo of one man sitting alone in a prison cell with a pencil in his hand.

Clarence Gideon proved that sometimes history changes because one ordinary person refuses to stay silent.

[Robert Geoffrey @Emrayfo]

@ToonTownDano @nordweasle @calvindyson I bet they'd have lots of actors playing 'James Bond'.

[Robert Geoffrey @Emrayfo]

@papaluigi77 @calvindyson What?

[Do You Expect Us To Talk? @ExpectUsToTalk]

Does anyone have a spare £400, so we can buy this book of incredible colour images from Hitchcock's PSYCHO 😲

https://t.co/T5rFLIrurZ

[OMEGA @omegawatches]

Meet the Seamaster Diver 300M Chronograph 007 First Light, worn by a young James Bond in the new action-adventure video game.

#OMEGA
#Seamaster
#BondWatch
#EarnTheNumber
#007FirstLight

[Alex Boge @alexboge]

Fast forward to the modern world: The tech changed, but the geometry didn't. See: Radar 📡

Modern naval architecture is still dictated by the physical curve of the Earth - and yes, that means the oceans themselves are undeniably curved.

Why do you think multi-billion dollar navies jam massive, heavy radar arrays at the absolute highest point of their masts?

Because radar operates on a strict line-of-sight path. If the oceans were a flat plane, a radar antenna sitting three inches above the waves could scan the entire Atlantic. You'd save billions in engineering.

Instead, real-world engineers have to fight a giant hill of water. They accept massive, top-heavy engineering risks that actively threaten a ship's stability just to elevate sensors over the planetary dip blocking their view.

It gets even better: atmospheric pressure actually bends radio waves downward slightly. To calculate the exact radar horizon, engineers use a "4/3 Earth radius" model, giving radar a 15% boost beyond optical sight.

But even with the atmosphere literally bending physics to help us see around the corner, you still can't cheat reality.

The seas are curved, the Earth is a globe, and the horizon is proof. 🌎

[Alex Boge @alexboge]

If the Earth were flat, the crow’s nest would have been the most pointless, high-altitude torture chamber in naval history. 🏴‍☠️

For centuries, sailors willingly climbed 75+ feet into the freezing air, enduring violent, stomach-churning sways caused by the mast's lever-arm effect.

They didn't do this for the view. They did it because they understood a physical reality that flat-earthers still struggle with today: spherical geometry.

If the world were a flat plane, a sailor on the deck with a telescope or “spyglass” could see an oncoming ship at the exact same distance as a lookout on the mast.

But the horizon isn't an optical illusion - it’s the effect of curvature of the Earth. The surface of the waters follow the curvature of the planet below: curved.

Let’s look at the undeniable nautical math (Distance in NM ≈ 1.17 × √Height in feet):

• From the deck (~10 ft eye height): The horizon is only about 3.7 NM away.
• From the crow’s nest (~75 ft eye height): That horizon pushes out to roughly 10.1 NM.

That’s nearly triple the visibility range.

In the Age of Sail, that extra 6.4 nautical miles was a decisive military advantage. At a standard cruising speed of 6 knots, spotting the enemy 6 miles earlier gave a captain an entire hour of strategic lead time!

An hour to secure the weather gage. An hour to choose whether to engage, flee, maneuver, or set an ambush before the enemy even knew you were there. It was the literal difference between life and death.

The "Sail Obstruction" Cop-Out:
Flat Earthers might claim crow's nests were just built to see over the sails. It's an empty argument. If blocking the view was the only issue, you could solve it safely and cheaply by placing one lookout at the bowsprit and one at the stern taffrail. No dangerous, top-heavy structures required.

The crow's nest existed primarily for one reason: to cheat the curvature of the Earth. Something Flerfs refuse to admit.

[Fake History Hunter @fakehistoryhunt]

Some say one of these is a modern forgery but I disagree, these are clearly the same picture:

[Robert Geoffrey @Emrayfo]

@BMelograno @Updated_Jennie Lol *someone not *dinnertime. Damn autocorrect.

[Robert Geoffrey @Emrayfo]

@BMelograno @Updated_Jennie I reckon dinnertime used a face app to put their face on Daniel Craig's head.

[Black Hole @konstructivizm]

Harrison Schmitt leaps into the Lunar Roving Vehicle at Station 9 near Van Serg Crater during the third and final EVA of Apollo 17 at the Taurus-Littrow landing site.With the energy of a true field geologist, Schmitt bounds into the rover, LRV sampler in his right hand, while the seismic charge transporter sits ready behind the seat — tools that would help unlock the Moon’s hidden subsurface secrets.Captured by Commander Gene Cernan with a Hasselblad camera, this iconic photo perfectly captures the spirit of lunar exploration: astronauts working, driving, and discovering across the rugged beauty of the https://t.co/j1ixiaAmx3 the last mission of the Apollo program, Apollo 17 represented its pinnacle — combining human mobility via the rover with serious scientific fieldwork. The crew traveled farther, explored more, and returned with a richer haul of samples and data than any previous mission.
Image Credit: NASA

[Robert Geoffrey @Emrayfo]

@BMelograno @Updated_Jennie Who is that in your gif? Is not Daniel Craig.

[Pulp Librarian @PulpLibrarian]

Australian retrofuturism. That's a genre we don't see enough of.