On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 21:31:55 -0800 (PST), in a place far, far away,
Jim Kingdon made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

The third in a trilogy, and I think that I'm overwraught, or at least
overWrighted...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,106062,00.html

It does seem like a bit much to read them all 3 in a row. Like,
"haven't I seen this part before"?

If you think reading them was tough, think about writing them all
(about thirty-five hundred words total) inside forty-eight hours...

It was a challenge to come up with three essays on the same topic
right on top of each other without being somewhat redundant, and
obviously it was somewhat insurmountable. But I did try to have a
different theme for each one.

National Review: "The Wright's achievement wasn't flying an airplane,
but landing one."

TCS: "The difference between science and engineering, and why rocket
scientists generally aren't, but the Wrights were airplane
scientists."

Fox: "In avoiding risk, we almost ensure failure." In some ways,
that's the most important message.

And of course, the Langley vs Wright theme (analogy with government
versus private theme) prevailed throughout.

Just a little excursion into what passes for the writer's mind...

The Fox News one may be the best of the bunch, going into the bits
about incremental testing and such. Although the Tech Central Station
musings about whether the Wrights or Langley were more scientific is
also good.

The Fox one was the last. The other two were written to be published
this morning, when I wasn't sure what the president was going to say.
My Fox deadline was a little later, and I'd had time to digest
everything else I'd been thinking about before writing it. Also, I
managed to slip in at the last minute the news about SpaceShipOne,
even though there was nothing notable about Bush's speech (though I
enjoyed his little dig at the NYT about "a million years." It doesn't
quite top their Goddard gaffe, which was basic physics, but the timing
of it was delectable).