Helium + Party Balloon + Camera = Aerial Photography
Earlier this year, a high school class in Catalonia attached a plain digital camera (shockproofed & w/ remote shutter) to a large helium balloon and when they let it go,
the thing went up over 19 miles off the sea level. Needless to say, the pictures came out fuckin’ amazing. While it cost them about a thousand euros for the fancy science project, getting your camera up in the air isn’t exactly like rocket science.
This dude apparently got his camera 600 ft high for less than 50 bucks and here’s how:
- Pick a camera (preferably lightweight & cheap) and shockproof it (like this).
- Hook up your camera to a remote shutter trigger; set it up on a flat board.
- Fill up a 40” party balloon with helium (each lifts approx. 8oz); don’t let it go.
- Attach camera setup and party balloon to kite strings / fish lines (upto 600 ft).
- Find optimal grounds (where it’s less windy) and let it gently rise; take some pictures.
But I gotta throw it out there, I haven’t tried this out myself yet, so take my words with discretion.
Green Tokyo Gundam Project
In celebrating the 30th anniversary of popular anime
Mobil Suit Gundam, engineers in Tokyo built a life-size, 1/1 scale model of a RX-78 Gundam robot (known as the Real G) at a park in Odaiba Island. The massive statue stands tall at 59 foot (18m) and features a remote-controllable head unit, 50 different light emitting units and 14 mist dispensers for visual effects and possibly, for watering the park lawn. The robot will stay in Shiokze Park from 7/11 - 8/30, so if you’re in Tokyo this summer, check it:
Materials used: Reinforced Fiberglass Plastic, Steel
…And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Shit We Left Behind
Thanks to massive fields of penguin poo across the Antarctica, scientists are supposedly able to trace the migratory patterns of Emperor penguins via satelite image feeds. Apparently, British biologists have found at least 38 breeding colonies (including 10 new ones) along the Antarctic coast, all of them highlighted by large brown stains in the all-white terrains.
“We can’t see actual penguins on the satellite maps because the resolution isn’t good enough. But during the breeding season the birds stay at a colony for eight months,” said Peter Fretwell of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). “The ice gets pretty dirty and it’s the guano stains that we can see.”
I had a dream that I was at the Source Award…
…and I was chillin’ with T-Pain and we was sippin’ on Patron all night… Xzibit showed up and he hooked me up with a toaster in my Honda… Sisqo was there too and I bought his mixtape for a dollar, which I regretted almost immediately… And Tupac was trying to start shit ‘cause I was kind of mackin’ it with Left Eye, then Jackie Chan showed up and he was like “yo, we gotta bounce.”
Lucid dreaming is kind of possible on the Internet, thanks to Google image and simple java drawing programs.
The World’s First Glow Pup
Ruppy, the world’s first glow-in-the-dark puppy, came to life recently, when a team of South Korean scientists extracted fibroblast cells found in sea anemons, which were then virally injected into the puppy’s nucleus. Apparently, Ruppy is genetically designed to produce a florescent protein that glows red under UV light.
Thanks to science and stem cell research, we can anticipate all sorts of mammals loaded with radiant genes in the near future, like self-illuminating cows and pigs (seriously, they’re working on it). What to do with a little puppy that glows in black light? Hit the raves, duh.
