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Greg Plefka

@gplefka.bsky.social

130 followers 390 following 380 posts

ad hoc thoughts.

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Greg Plefka @gplefka.bsky.social · Jun 21

“Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.”
-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Greg Plefka

@gplefka.bsky.social

Boom.

Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · Mar 11

This afternoon in 1958, a B-47E bomber accidentally jettisoned an unarmed 7,600-pound Mark-6 atomic bomb over Mars Bluff, South Carolina. The bomb’s conventional high explosives detonated on impact, severely damaging the home of Walter Gregg and leaving a crater about 70 feet wide and 35 feet deep.

The front page of the March 12, 1958, edition of the Florence Morning News featuring a two-deck banner headline, "ATOM BOMB WITHOUT WARHEAD DROPS IN MARS BLUFF SECTION." Three other headlines are visible below: "Six Injured By Explosion: Windows Shake," "Officials Say 'No Danger' of Atom Blast," and "Nobody Quite Believed It, Others Were Just Too Close." There are also two large black and white photographs, one of the large crater excavated by the explosion and another of the extensive damage to the Gregg's house.

The front page of the March 13, 1958, edition of the Florence Morning News featuring a two-deck banner headline, "AIR FORCE KEEPS SECRECY WRAPS ON CAUSE OF ATOM BOMB DROP." Two other related headlines are visible below: "Cleanup Crews Move Into Area," and "Bomb Claims Will Be Paid Off 'Quickly.'" A large black and white photograph also shows a low-level aerial view of the Gregg property, with the garage, workshop, bomb crater, and the area where the children were played all marked.

A color photograph of a a silver-colored historical roadside marker reading:

"ATOMIC BOMB ACCIDENT
MARS BLUFF, March 11, 1958

In 1958, in the midst of the Cold War, the U.S. Air Force accidentally dropped an atomic bomb nearby. The unarmed 7,600-lb., 10'8"-long bomb was aboard a B-47E bomber on a training mission headed for England. Its high-explosive trigger detonated on impact, making a crater as large as 35 feet deep and 70 feet across. (Continued on other side)"

A color photograph of a silver-colored historical roadside marker reading:

"ATOMIC BOMB ACCIDENT
MARS BLUFF, March 11, 1958

The bomb landed in the woods behind the asbestos-shingle sided home of railroad conducted Walter 'Bill' Gregg (b. 1921). Gregg, his wife, their three children, and a niece were injured by the concussion, which destroyed the house and outbuildings and did slight damage to buildings within a 5-mile radius."

In the background are signs by a road running perpendicular to the one next to which the marker is placed saying "ATOMIC BOMB CRATER SITE" and "CRATER RD."

January 7, 2026 at 7:59 PM

Reposted by Greg Plefka

Moby Dick

@mobydickatsea.bsky.social

all this is both foolish and unnecessary

January 4, 2026 at 9:47 PM

Greg Plefka

@gplefka.bsky.social

Ahmed Chalabi vibes.

January 3, 2026 at 4:40 PM

Reposted by Greg Plefka

Internet Archive

@archive.org

Welcome to the Public Domain, ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930) 🎖️

🎬 The third film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards is a realistic look at World War I. Experience the first filmed adaptation now in the #publicdomain.

Learn more ➡️ blog.archive.org/public-domai...

#PublicDomainDay

January 1, 2026 at 7:01 PM

Greg Plefka

@gplefka.bsky.social

i just realized what month it is...

January 1, 2026 at 6:34 PM

Reposted by Greg Plefka

Library of Congress

@librarycongress.bsky.social

Happy New Year! We love sharing these pro-book posters from the Works Projects Administration Poster Collection in the Library's Prints and Photographs Division. Of the 2,000 WPA posters known to exist, the Library of Congress's collection of more than 900 is the largest.

Poster for statewide WPA Library Project, Illinois, showing an illustration of a child pulling a sled full of books toward a house. Text reads: "January--A year of good reading ahead."

January 1, 2026 at 11:00 AM

Greg Plefka

@gplefka.bsky.social

January 1, 2026 at 3:06 AM

Greg Plefka

@gplefka.bsky.social

this video is now 20 years old.

December 31, 2025 at 5:06 PM

Reposted by Greg Plefka

The Atlantic

@theatlantic.com

Americans are now spending more time alone than ever, @dkthomp.bsky.social wrote in January. It’s changing our personalities, our politics, and even our relationship to reality.

Spend time with one of The Atlantic’s most-read stories of 2025: theatln.tc/1Dpgaik7

December 29, 2025 at 6:45 PM

Reposted by Greg Plefka

Pictures of Nixon

@picturesofnixon.com

December 25, 2025 at 3:51 PM

Reposted by Greg Plefka

Pictures of Nixon

@picturesofnixon.com

December 24, 2025 at 3:11 PM

Greg Plefka

@gplefka.bsky.social

Sure, why not. It feels like 2005 let’s take it all the way.

Tyler King @tyleraking.com · 15d

You’ve got roughly a week to figure out how to cryo-sleep through 2026. Or cure bird flu. Probably not enough time to do both.

‘It’s completely out of control’: Scientists warn bird flu could spark a human pandemic in 2026 — BBC Science Focus Magazine

Bird flu has been rampaging through wildlife and farm animals worldwide. Will it make the long-feared jump to people? December 24, 2025 When a highly pathogenic strain of bird flu strain of avian infl...

apple.news

December 25, 2025 at 3:36 PM

Reposted by Greg Plefka

Stephen Schwartz

@atomicanalyst.bsky.social

Tonight in 1991, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, resigned and peacefully ceded power to Boris Yeltsin as president of the new Russian Federation. The next day, the Supreme Soviet formally voted to dissolve itself and the 69-year-old Soviet Union.