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Man flies over South Africa in a chair tied to helium balloons [video]
31–40 of 55 posts
Re: Man flies over South Africa in a chair tied to helium balloons [video]
#32In 2008 a brazilian priest did the same in Santa Catarina. No one has ever saw him again after the launch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelir_Ant%C3%B4nio_de_Carli
Well, not to get too macabre, but people eventually did see (part of) his body, found floating in the ocean a few months later.
Re: Man flies over South Africa in a chair tied to helium balloons [video]
#33In 2008 a brazilian priest did the same in Santa Catarina. No one has ever saw him again after the launch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelir_Ant%C3%B4nio_de_Carli
Well, not to get too macabre, but people eventually did see (part of) his body , found floating in the ocean a few months later.
Also don’t want to mock the dead, but this note made me shake my head:
> His training for the stunt included jungle survival and mountain climbing courses, but apparently did not include instruction on use of his GPS - in a telephone call he made during the flight, he stated that if someone could just explain how to use his GPS he could relay his position to rescuers.
Re: Man flies over South Africa in a chair tied to helium balloons [video]
#34I know that man, he's Tom Morgan, founder of a company called The Adventurists. They are probably best known for organizing the Mongol Rally and the Rickshaw Run, among other charity rallies. I participated in the Mongol Rally 2009 and for me was the experience of a lifetime. This is their website if you are interested in learning more about them: https://www.theadventurists.com
I participated this summer and I would agree - it’s an amazing experience. The fact that the Adventurists still have a very personal approach with everyone taking part even though there were over 300 teams this summer is testament to how cool those guys are!
Re: Man flies over South Africa in a chair tied to helium balloons [video]
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Darwin Award Making fun of people dying. Fucking sick stuff. It's also logically crap. Often it's people (as in this case) doing things outside the normal. Things as hackers we should celebrate. It's also often people in extreme poverty just trying to make a living, aka the fucking sick part that we as rich educated people make fun of cause we don't have to do dirty things like recycle metal from unexploded ordnanc…
IIRC it's based on upvotes. And the most upvoted ones are also about criminals meeting prompt demise: http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1993-06.html
Top in 2017 -
Petty criminal, probable drunkard.
Workplace accident, I wouldn't say criminal.
Probable drunkard, not criminal (I also once made a ethernet ladder, yes it does not work well, no I didnt use it at a deadly height)
Not criminal, a bit silly. Funny because racism. I'd guess alcohol related.
Not criminal, probably alcohol involved, just a vehicular accident.
1 and 3 I'd also say involved mental illness. True if you want to be harsh we don't want the mentally ill or those susceptible to drug abuse to breed. I kinda think killing them off is not great why not just sterilize them?
Larry Walters who this story would have been inspired by (Not sure why people are saying the movie Up) also got a honorary Darwin award. He killed himself eventually. So he had issues I guess. But he was a legend as far as I'm concerned I'd prefer a world full of him over people making fun over people dying.
Re: Man flies over South Africa in a chair tied to helium balloons [video]
#36Launching high-altitude helium balloons has been the activity some friends and I do for fun. Over the course of 2 years+ we've been doing this, we had over a dozen of successful launches where we could retrieve the payload. For kids, this is a great inspiration and educational opportunity, especially for those who are interested in technology and programming. We used Arduinos and Raspberry pis in many components of t…
Are there any safety issues with this? Air traffic control? What if balloon bursts and payload falls to earth. What are the rules on launches?
It will surely burst when it reaches about 100k ft. We attach a parachute to the payload to make it descend gradually. Other than that, there is no control over where it's going to land. However, because the payloads are small styrofoam boxes, they don't pose a very serious danger in the rare case that they land on roads. Flight predictors are really surprisingly good at simulating where the payloads will land, so it's usually not a huge surprise.
We'd rather be safe than sorry. So far, nothing really bad has been reported in the HAB community. It will leave a bad stint if something blows up on someone's face.
Regarding authority, we often file a NOTAM-Notice to Airmen (https://sites.google.com/a/mtlsd.net/citizen-science/ib1/not...).
Re: Man flies over South Africa in a chair tied to helium balloons [video]
#37Launching high-altitude helium balloons has been the activity some friends and I do for fun. Over the course of 2 years+ we've been doing this, we had over a dozen of successful launches where we could retrieve the payload. For kids, this is a great inspiration and educational opportunity, especially for those who are interested in technology and programming. We used Arduinos and Raspberry pis in many components of t…
Sounds pretty cool. Is there a website/forum/place to start?
I didn't include a plug, but since you asked we have a website: http://hab.education/ which has video and some information. That website also links to a twitter handle and a facebook group. The founder of our group is extremely active on Twitter. The facebook group is quite active in terms of discussion too, with the obvious condition that you have to have a facebook account, something that I didn't think over very carefully when we built it.
Re: Man flies over South Africa in a chair tied to helium balloons [video]
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, a Brazilian priest attempted a similar feat in 2008[1]. He won the 2008 Darwin Award for it [2]. [1] https://gizmodo.com/5022283/sad-ending-flying-priest-found-d... [2] http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2008-16.html
> Darwin Award Making fun of people dying. Fucking sick stuff. It's also logically crap. Often it's people (as in this case) doing things outside the normal. Things as hackers we should celebrate. It's also often people in extreme poverty just trying to make a living, aka the fucking sick part that we as rich educated people make fun of cause we don't have to do dirty things like recycle metal from unexploded ordnanc…
I believe the adage is, 'Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.' The Internet is full of terrible things. There's a site that keeps track of spree killing totals and celebrates new high scores. Well, there was. I'm not sure it exists anymore and I'm too lazy to Google.
Re: Man flies over South Africa in a chair tied to helium balloons [video]
#39I so want to do this :)
Re: Man flies over South Africa in a chair tied to helium balloons [video]
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who are "they" exactly?
I assume they are "the people who makes these flights".
Well, smarty pants, who are these numerous persons who flew in their lawn chairs strapped to helium balloons to 15K feet? There must be heaps of them since they manage to keep ChuckMcM in a state of constant amazement.