Forget paragliding and BASE-jumping, if you seek aerial thrills, try repairing a transmission antenna, “Broadcast Tower Repairman’s Free Climb Captured on Video:”
“Stairway to Heaven (Climbing Towers)”
Author Laura Munson posted this ode to “Techies” on her These Here Hills blog, sending out lit love to we fader-jockeys & freq-benders who eng the on-air audio industry:
Those behind-the-scenes souls who fly low under the radar and like it that way. Designing sets, lighting stages, filming show offs, minding their soundboards. I loved them in high school, and in college, and now I’m loving them all over again in radio stations as I travel around doing interviews.
Techies are a special breed. I think it has something to do with so long ago giving up on the thought of being “cool.†And because of that, to me they define “cool.†They possess a particular brand of freedom. Often, they have what they call “radio faces.†And they say it smiling, because they know that traditional good looks can be as much a “curse†as a “blessing.†These are people who wear Coke-bottle glasses rather than bothering with contacts, and have un-fussed-over hair, big noses, skyline teeth. These are people with huge smiles and vast minds. Who have maybe spent less time looking in the mirror trying to change what they see, and more time with books, or listening to current events, or sitting on old couches in Green Rooms discussing the state of Humankind…
—Laura Munson, “Techies,” THESE HERE HILLS
We luv ya back, Laura.
via fellow techie/DJ Beth Anne of MT Pubradio.
Sez Gizmodo:
I can think of no finer way to waste Friday afternoon than spending 10 minutes of the company’s time watching bullets striking various objects at one million frames per second… For a special treat, load the clip around 7:30 in to watch what happens when a hollow point bullet strikes what looks like cement.
1 million fps Slow Motion video of bullet impacts made by Werner Mehl from
Kurzzeit
That’s a 7mm hunting bullet hitting a target at 603 m/s and a 7mm hollow point at 595 m/s, filmed by Kurzzeit, makers of “Professional measurement equipment” in Germany. They’ve posted several High Speed Videos, and there’s more high speed slow motion in Matt Rece’s video gallery.
via Gizmodo.
Nuthin’ like a good gas crisis to spurn some excitement for energy conservation— the Aptera electric and hybrid vehicle, 300 miles-per-gallon, extended range models, “composite safety cage similar to Formula-1 cars,” exceeds 85 mph, 0-60 mph in under 10 seconds, “designed from the ground up as an electric vehicle;” that’s just some of its innovations.
The car had a cameo in this Touchstone Energy ad:
This video shows a “pack animal” robot designed to crawl up mountains, on ice, through snow, carrying 340 lbs. The way this “animal” adapts to terrain is unbelievable. Created ( by Boston Dynamics, an engineering company “Dedicated to the Science and Art of How Things Move.” If you have no interest in futuristic army technology or the replacement for Sherpas, then have a nice day; otherwise, brought to by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, here’s The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth, “Boston Dynamics Big Dog:”