Microbyte

Microbyte About

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Microbyte

My site, at the moment, may look bare bones, but I assure you it isn’t, you just gotta look at the old version of the site. I write about many things, but currently I’m mainly writing about art, media, biology, space, tech, philosophy, and many more.

I try to write an article a week, at least, but I tend to be on the busier side, so I’m not as able to.

You can find me at macrobyt3@proton.me, or on Agora Road.

Thomas Cole

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

“ Art is the signature of civilizations. ”

⟶ Beverly Sills

Thomas Cole is one of my favorite artists. His pieces are amazing examples of Romantic artwork, alongside being good examples of the Hudson School and his landscapes mainly being of New York State. When you look at the above quote, I think you can also see that signature of the early US reflected in Cole’s works. A sense of yearning for what was and what will be, an idealization of nature, and knowledge of where we were, where we came from, which is almost unparalleled by a lot of modern works. I am especially a large fan of his sets, most of which I will detail here.

The Course of the Empire

This is one of my favorite works of his. It was initially intended to be a set of depictions for a patron to hang over his fireplace. He must have been one lucky man. The fourth image, Destruction, is by far one of the most famous. I’ve seen it numerous times when learning about the fall of the Roman Empire (this is definitely not Rome though). It shows the natural progression of an empire—savage to Arcadian to consummation (and the inevitable decadence)—which goes hand in hand. Additionally, it shows the weakness of any society to nature, following the mountain in the right of each image, a mountain which is unaffected by these temporary human whims. These paintings, I feel, are truly some of the most famous there are, and it is no wonder that these launched him into critical acclaim.

Thomas Cole was one of the creators of our national culture, one of the people who really gave America its own unique character, brought it from a conglomeration of states into a nation. And I feel that images like this especially helped, through portraying an idealistic American life—one in a log cabin (like Lincoln, later) with a family and plenty of land. We can again see those landscapes in the back too, drawing off the beauty of the Northeast to strengthen this new nation, to make it its own. You can see the self-sufficiency of the family, akin to the self-sufficiency of America as a whole. This image, like most of his, just has that je ne sais pas quoi. It just hits differently.

The Departure and The Return

These are another great example of his polyptychs. You see these knights set off, looking up, their horses looking up, the world basking in spring/summer, warm, everyone exuberant, galloping. And then, of the around 15 who depart, in autumn, the trees yellow, two return, trotting, one wounded. Similar to the next polyptych, I feel this is a good example of a folly of life, but one which will and does always happen, one which I don’t find it within me to truly condemn. That being a lust for war, as Hamilton put it succinctly, “I am either gonna die on the battlefield in glory or rise up.” People fantasize—and I’m not excluding myself from this—of war. And I just appreciate how this polyptych expands that.

The Voyage of Life

I feel this is another good coming-of-age polyptych from Thomas Cole. It does an astute job of portraying a baby’s to an old man’s life. From his serene birth going down the river, to his youth doubling back, his angel waving goodbye to him and him not looking back, looking at the mirage in the background, to having to double back, entering the rapids, the storms, coming by the same rock he was hewn from, before coming to an end by a great ocean, to be led into the heavens. I don’t have too much to say—I just really like this set.

These are really the main ones I’d like to show (not all the ones I like, just some good samples), but I highly, highly encourage everyone to check out his other works. Wikipedia has a good collection of them hosted online. They’re excellent.

This post was made as part of the Agora Road Travelogue!

Media February 2025

Sat, 01 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Printed Matter

I didn’t read too much last month, but I think what I read was decent enough, even though the majority was all of the same series.

Hello Summer, Goodbye

I got this book from someone giving it away and thought it would be like Hornblower and about nautical nonsense or something, but rather it turned out to be an interesting coming-of-age story. While it is, for the most part, relatively slow, I found it interesting that it was mainly written in a wistful, contemplative tone, which goes against the seemingly normal, not-too-introspective, but above-average intellectually, boy the story follows. I assumed it was Drove recounting the days he met his wife or something, but the actual twist at the end completely changed the book for me. The book gave me a book hangover comparable to when I finished The Mars Trilogy, which was around 15 times the length of the book (keep in mind I am referring to the magnitude of the impact, not the duration; the hangover from The Mars Trilogy lasted months). I really liked this book, and this is the only one here I would truly recommend (of course, I would recommend the others, but not on a literary pedestal, more on a narrative pedestal). It just conveys this sort of ineffable sense of sublimity and tragicness. Quite possibly another reason is that the cold really impacts people in this story (and forms a major plot point), and I read it when it was freezing, and my heating was partially broken.

Hornblower Books 9-11

Glad I finished the series, but I definitely miss being inside the mind of the great Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Hornblower, KB. When his Captain, Bush, died in Lord Hornblower, it really got to me emotionally. Hornblower is very relatable, and Forester did a great job immersing the reader into his mind. Upon Bush’s death, it feels as if someone you knew—your best friend, not his—died.

Also, the description of the climate in the West Indies, the hurricane and its consequences (I hadn’t realized how much they affected people before forecasting), and the cruelty and tragicness of Napoleon’s Hundred Days, with its meaningless death of Marie, goes hand in hand with one of my favorite books, Flight from Arras, with its discussion of war. And when he sacrifices his honor in memory of Marie, to prevent a second Hundred Days, it is truly a great moment in my opinion—the most heartrending thing he had ever done.

Movies

The Star Wars Trilogy

Some of my friends and I attempted to watch the three main trilogy movies back-to-back-to-back. I made it through all three, but the others all somehow managed to pass out at some point, much to my, and their, chagrin. I forgot how much I liked them, and they truly are classics for a reason. I knew a substantial portion of the lines—to an embarrassing amount. Not much is needed to be said on these; they simply are great.

We also, at a separate time, watched Rogue One, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith.

Rogue One

Rogue One is by far Disney’s best Star Wars movie (though I did like Solo—regardless of what so many people say about it—I think it was pretty good, but the sequels are vapid hot trash). Scarif is a lovely planet, and the fighting is extremely interesting. I love the tropics (it was below zero with around 4-5 inches of snow outside). The space battle outside of Scarif was amazing and definitely showed the potential of modern CGI used properly. The Hammerhead attack and the fighters smashing the closed dome were amazing.

My only qualms with the movie were adding the Death Star 2 pre-Alderaan strikes, but as they weren’t planet killers, that’s mainly just a minor nitpick. Also, the use of Tarkin—I think they should have just found a new actor and not CGI’d the dead previous actor. But a lot of the fighting, the explosion on Jedha, and the attack on that base controlled by Jyn’s father were really good as well.

Attack of the Clones / Revenge of the Sith

I still remember how into Natalie Portman I was when it first came out. As always, great movies, but a little long and drawn out. Not too much to say—I’ve watched them so much. Always gotta love the battle at the start of Revenge of the Sith, though, and the Order 66 scene. Really love all that cinematography.

Derek Zoolander

Another rewatch—a great comedy. It was a first for the friend I watched it with, which was surprising. As always, I was a huge fan of the portion where he moves his shaboingy around after the journalist (Pam?) comes in on him in the “massage” parlor.

A new site

Fri, 04 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A new site

This is a brief post, simply saying that I have revamped this site using Hugo, as before it was a PAIN IN THE ASS to transcribe ODF to HTML manually, but now, I can just do everything with one shell script, including uploading and everything just with a few clicks after writing, without the whole process, so I’ll probably actually end up writing more, but only one way to find out. My old site should still be accessible tho. My old site is still viewable from the main navbar.