Lights, Camera, Jackson!
May 31, 2010
This kids got a future! Kid Critic known as Lights Camera Jackson:
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The Google Job Experiment
May 30, 2010
When top advertising creative directors Googled themselves, they got a message from the applicant asking for a job. Read more about the experiment here: http://bit.ly/c4Fx7n
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Walk on water (Liquid Mountaineering)
May 29, 2010
Liquid Mountaineering is a new sport which is attempting to achieve what man has tried to do for centuries: walk on water. Or to be more precise: running on water. We are developing the sport from scratch. By accident we found out that with the right water repellent equipment you can run across bodies of water, just like a stone skimming the surface.
Liquid mountaineering is performed by professionals under professional supervision. Accordingly I must insist that attempting to do so is dangerous.
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Man Goes Up?
May 28, 2010
By ROBERT BARR, Associated Press Writer
LONDON – In a goofy yet mesmerizing stunt, an American adventurer crossed the English Channel on Friday carried by a bundle of helium balloons, ending a quiet and serene flight by touching down in a French cabbage patch.
Jonathan Trappe, 36, of Raleigh, North Carolina, was strapped in a specially equipped chair below a bright cluster of balloons when he lifted off early Friday from Kent, in southeast England.
About five hours later, he lowered himself into a French field by cutting some of the balloons away.
“It was just an exceptional, quiet, peaceful experience,” Trappe told Sky News television, which covered the adventure.
Asked why he went, Trappe replied: “Didn’t you have this dream, grabbing on to a bunch of toy balloons and floating off? I think it’s something that’s shared across cultures and across borders — just this wonderful fantasy of grabbing on to toy balloons and floating into open space.”
However, the channel crossing wasn’t a matter of just grabbing a few balloons. Trappe says on his website that he made a scouting trip in March and gained clearance from French and British aviation authorities and from customs and immigration offices on both sides.
His equipment list didn’t stop at balloons and a chair, but included an aircraft transponder, oxygen system, aircraft radios, emergency locator beacon, in-flight satellite tracking and a radio tracker.
[Related: World's largest airship inflated to create monster 'stratellite']
“He had all the correct authorization and I believe he even gave something to the owner of the land where he came down by way of damages,” said a spokesman for French police.
Last month, Trappe claimed the record for the longest free-floating balloon flight after spending 14 hours blowing in the wind over North Carolina and traveling 109 miles. On another flight, his website says he ascended to 17,930 feet, just below controlled airspace.
“There are risks and we work to methodically reduce the risk so we can have a safe and fun flight,” said Trappe, who is certified for balloon flight by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. “Because really it’s only about dreams and enjoying an adventure, and that’s only enjoyable when it is safe.”
His crossing was much less eventful than the first balloon crossing of the English Channel in 1785.
The pioneering French balloonist Jean-Pierre Francois Blanchard and John Jeffries, an American doctor who paid for the flight, set off in a hydrogen balloon which started leaking in flight. The pair dumped all their ballast and most of their clothes into the water and just managed to stay airborne and land in Calais.
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Online:
http://www.clusterballoon.com/
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100528/ap_on_fe_st/eu_britain_balloon_man_10
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The latest version of the LittleDog Robot
May 27, 2010
This is the more advanced version of this robot, created by the University of Southern California. The robot is completely autonomous and trained by machine learning algorithms. The video is real-time, i.e., not sped up.
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Fish With Hands Discovered, But Species Face Extinction
May 25, 2010
by Jeff Kart, Bay City, Michigan
Credit: CSIRO
These fish, pardon the pun, need a hand. There are 14 species of fish with hand-like fins. And nine are in danger of extinction. Don’t you hate it when you discover something amazing, only to find out that it’s almost gone? Even though Endangered Species Day was just a few days ago, it’s always amazing to learn of new species that are endangered.
Such is the case here. CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia, says nine new species of handfish are described in research that says there’s an urgent need to better understand and protect the diversity of life in our oceans. The Pink Handfish, shown above, is one of the newly named species. It’s known from only four specimens and was last recorded off the Tasman Peninsula in 1999.
SLIDESHOW: Cutest Endangered Species
The Spotted Handfish is listed as endangered
“Handfishes are small, often strikingly patterned or colourful, sedentary fish that tend to ‘walk’ on the seabed on hand-like fins, rather than swim,” according to Daniel Gledhill, a taxonomist with the CSIRO Wealth from Oceans Flagship.
“Fifty million-years ago, they ‘walked’ the world’s oceans, but now they exist only off eastern and southern Australia.”
SLIDESHOW: See More Sea Life: Photographer Gets Within Inches of Whales
The Red Handfish is listed as vulnerable.
What’s going on? Peter Last from CSIRO says handfish are extremely vulnerable to environmental change, including introduced species, pollution, siltation, fishing, sea-temperature rise and coastal development.
VIDEO: Think the Handfish is weird? Check out the Top 5 Unearthly Insects
The Zeibell’s handfish
More on the nine handfish is available in a CSIRO podcast.
To learn more about endangered species, play the Know Your Endangered Species quiz on Planet Green.
And for more interesting sea life, check out Sharks Can Become Invisible
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/05/nine-fish-with-hands-discovered-almost-extinct-handfish.php
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London unveils creepy-looking mascots for 2012 Olympics
May 24, 2010
By Chris Chase
When the official logo of the 2012 London Olympics was released three years ago, the odd puzzle-piece design was the object of so much scorn that organizers were desperate to avoid similar criticism when they unveiled the mascots for the Games on Wednesday. With the introduction of Wenlock and Mandeville (above), London 2012 organizers realized their goal. The criticism of the mascots won’t be similar to the complaints about the logo. No, they’ll be much, much worse.
Look, I don’t know what to say. Olympic mascots have always been the object of scorn (remember Izzy?), but these two, uh, things take the absurdity to a whole new level. There’s a complicated backstory to the characters which was written by a children’s author. It explains why the mascots have one eye (it’s a camera lens to see the world) and yellow lights on tops of their heads (an homage to London taxicabs), but fails to tell the tale of why they look like early rejects from a Pixar movie. Plus, the fact that some details are explained only makes me wonder about the things that aren’t. Why does the one on the left look like it’s wearing an oven mitt? Where are their feet? What, are both those design features a metaphor for how we can’t run away from global warming?
Officials boasted that focus groups of children helped form the designs of the mascots, which makes total sense because this looks exactly like something a bunch of second-graders would create as a class project. It’s like Wenlock and Mandeville were pieced together from every child’s suggestion. “They should have one eye!” “It’d be cool if they did karate!” “Make them fly!” There was no filter. Instead of simple (like the only good Olympic mascot in history, Barcelona’s Cobi) London went for a design as complicated as can be.
The natural defense of the mascots is that they’re not designed for adults, but for the children who will convince adults to buy them a bunch of merchandise with said mascots. That’s a cop-out. Pandering to children isn’t an excuse for an uninspired design. The aforementioned Pixar caters to kids, yet its films still resonate with the older set.
Wenlock is named after Much Wenlock, a village in Shropshire which held an event in the 19th century which inspired the modern Games. Mandeville is named after the hospital at which the Paralympic Games were founded. Though both sound like Tolkein characters, the names are quite good and are the only thing that makes the mascots distinctly British.
London 2012 released a video explaining the pair’s orgins as well. Somehow, it makes them look even weirder than before:
The London Olympics open in 800 days.
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A fantastic 45-yard free kick from Paraguay
May 23, 2010
By Brooks Peck
Sunday’s match between Olimpia and Sol de America in the Paraguayan first division saw a late comeback by the visitors topped off with this tremendous free kick from distance blasted perfectly into the top corner by Sol de America’s Brazilian midfielder Inca.
The 80th minute effort, which gave Sol de America their second goal in just six minutes and a 2-1 win, appears to have caught the goalkeeper off guard, but there’s probably not much he could have done to stop that beauty anyway. Unless he filled the goal with cantaloupes or something, but that would have taken too long.
While a goal like this certainly isn’t unprecedented, it’s still quite impressive and worth a gold star for the day. If, you know, I had gold stars to give out for such achievements.
Video via Deadspin
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The Cape – Preview
May 22, 2010
Officer Vince Faraday was a good cop trying to clean up a corrupt city when he was framed for murder, left for dead, separated from his wife and son and forced into hiding. The Cape coming soon to NBC. For more go to www.nbc.com/the-cape
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