Surprises

You know that surprise you get when you sit on a toilet when the seat’s up? Please say you do, don’t leave me hanging here. OK, I’ll assume you’re nodding now. Well for the first time in my life I found out that it’s every bit as surprising when the lid is down.

That is all.

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Joe Kittinger

Joe Kittinger holds the record for the highest parachute jump*. In 1960 he ascended to 103,800 feet under a balloon before jumping, in the process also setting the record for highest balloon ascent.

I was watching a documentary that mentioned this, and highlighted a factoid that hadn’t occurred to me before. Kittinger was so high up that approximately 99% of the Earth’s atmosphere was below him, and for the first part of his trip what he was falling through wasn’t a great deal thicker than space. On the ground it’s esy to cycle at a speed that sends the wind rushing past your ears, but for the first part of his jump it was basically silent, because there was hardly any wind to rush. I would say that it must have been quite unnerving, except that with the whole plummeting towards the earth at 600 miles per hour with a malfunctioning glove thing going on the lack of noise might not have been a major factor.

(*I’ve heard claims that other military parachutists have since gone higher, but have seen no evidence).

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