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Man flies over South Africa in a chair tied to helium balloons [video]

theguardian.com

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Re: Man flies over South Africa in a chair tied to helium balloons [video]

#51
post #17
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, tell me about it. There was a tragic accident at my school, when a structure collapsed and killed several students, because it had insufficient engineering oversight. But, eh, Darwin Awards had to make a joke, so they collectively gave it to all the victims, who were getting up at the crack of dawn to volunteer on a group project, and following all the safety rules they were given.

That's weird because it directly contradicts most rules of Darwin Awards, that the people must be mature (well I don't know what kind of school it was), that they must be the ones responsible for their death (from what you say, the engineering is what killed students later) and that it must be because of "extraordinary misjudgment" on the part of the people both responsible and victims (who are supposed to be the sam…

I dug into it a bit further, and apparently the story is that the Darwin Awards used to be more crowd-sourced, but as a direct result of the incident I'm referring to, they instituted heavy moderation and apologized for any distress caused by their seeming approval of a tasteless article. So it's a little more forgivable than I realized. My opinion gelled back when the story was still in progress, but I didn't hear about the conclusion.

If you want to read the details, just google "aggie bonfire", or "darwin award aggie bonfire".

Re: Man flies over South Africa in a chair tied to helium balloons [video]

#52
post #33
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry, I've upvoted you, but apparently you were downvoted because you're BLAMING THE VICTIM. How about that? You're not allowed to note or comment reasonable things anymore.

Re: Man flies over South Africa in a chair tied to helium balloons [video]

#53
post #52
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sorry, I've upvoted you, but apparently you were downvoted because you're BLAMING THE VICTIM. How about that? You're not allowed to note or comment reasonable things anymore.

More specifically, I quoted the linked Wikipedia article.

Re: Man flies over South Africa in a chair tied to helium balloons [video]

#54
post #53
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I've upvoted you, but apparently you were downvoted because you're BLAMING THE VICTIM. How about that? You're not allowed to note or comment reasonable things anymore.

More specifically, I quoted the linked Wikipedia article.

Wikipedia is blaming the victim. Should be taken down.

Re: Man flies over South Africa in a chair tied to helium balloons [video]

#55
post #21
post #5

Earlier 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

I still very much enjoy this one about Ronald Opus: http://www.darwinawards.com/legends/legends1998-16.html
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