Man flies over South Africa in a chair tied to helium balloons [video]
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
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 the payload, from the tracker to the data logger. They get to program and control the behavior then test the hard/software so I personally think it's a great way to hook them up with computers and really understand them. This is one of those instances of "doing crazy stuff" kids are interested in.
For adults, it involves many fun aspects too. Specifically for geeks, the best feature is the optimization of weight, reliability, and features for the payload. Some people did get crazy with party balloons that carry impossibly light and efficient payloads that last for over a year with full tracking and sensory information. It can get surprisingly technical when you want to communicate with the payload reliably from the ground (over the radio wave). You'd be baffled and outraged when it was reported that with all the amazing things we could do, we didn't know peep about a missing airplane. The little phone in our pocket knows and tracks every step we take, you'd think - what's so hard about keeping communication with an object in the line of sight? I think all we don't appreciate enough is how advanced and amazing our cellular network is. When you have cellular communication, you have everything, the economy of scale is real and it works. With (amateur) radio, it's a different story: Many times we'd had flawless successes communicating with the payload, sometimes we just couldn't do it for some mysterious reason with the same equipment. I've grown to be much more sympathetic to people who have to work with that vast amount of distance, space, and power envelop when it comes to tracking some flying object on the sky, let alone on/under the sea.
As a side note, I can't imagine launching such a huge object such as yourself tied to a cluster of balloons to the sky could be something the authority is too fond of.
What are the rules on launches?
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...).
If its the grammar, my amazement comes from not one story of someone trying this stunt including extra oxygen. Many of the stories include the notion of a pellet gun to shoot individual balloons for altitude control. That sets up an additional failure mode where you pass out from lack of oxygen before you can shoot a balloon. That people fail to consider and plan for the failure modes of this stunt is always amazing to me.
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
Helium is scarce enough to stop using it for this kind of purposes.
When he landed his quote to the press before his arrest was:
"It was something I had to do. I had this dream for twenty years, and if I hadn't done it, I think I would have ended up in the funny farm."
This is called Cluster Ballooning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_ballooning
Guinness Book of World Records even has a category. I told my Dad I wanted to do it and he almost grounded me right then and there.
> 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.
[1] https://gizmodo.com/5022283/sad-ending-flying-priest-found-d...
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 ordnances cause rich.
Can you link to your story on their website in order to contact them and withdraw the award since it breaks the rules?
If you want to read the details, just google "aggie bonfire", or "darwin award aggie bonfire".
For some reason, many kinds of deaths are protected from mockery by society, but not adventure accidents. Those are fair game and bring out the cruel uncaring side of otherwise seemingly nice people.
If the Darwin awards included death from alcoholism or suicide, any mention of them would be blotted out from the "polite" internet like HN. Somebody will probably complain about me linking mental illness to accident deaths just to enforce the social more that we must not disrespect certain arbitrary groups of people but other groups are fair game.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-41306122
Yet properly equipped mountaineers can get unlucky and die anyway. The difference between death by hypothermia because you climbed a mountain in only your underpants and being well equipped but getting hit by an avalanche? In the first case the coroner has a verdict of "death by misadventure" because you took unnecessary risks.
Examples of irresponsible behavior : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-368792...
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/news/2017/08/08/croatian-mounta...
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.