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At a flat-earth conference in May, Mad Mike Hughes will announce details of "an Antarctic expedition with the goal of reaching the edge of the world...to prove once and for all that this Earth is flat." But before that, he's heading for outer space.

An anonymous reader quotes PhillyVoice: If you recognize the name Mad Mike Hughes, it's likely because he strapped himself into a rocket last March and traveled three-tenths of a mile into the heavens in the name of Flat Earth awareness. (See for yourself!) Well, nearly a year to the date after that momentous achievement, the limousine-driving daredevil and gubernatorial candidate has announced he's building upon the lessons learned last year and pushing the limits even further...

We caught up with him Thursday afternoon on the phone from California where he was "putting decals on the rocket right now!" Before any sort of Antarctica excursion, he's planning for a May 9 launch either in New Mexico "or the middle of the ocean if the government tries to stop me..." He hopes to reach the Kármán line, some 62.8 miles above Earth where space begins. "That way, we'll see what shape this rock really is," he said.

"More people will watch this than those who watched the fake moon landing. It will be an incredible, incredible event. People will see what I'm seeing for three hours up there and back and they'll be able to make up their own minds.... I'm the only guy capable of actually proving what shape this rock is, and that's by going up into space to do it."
The Science Channel is now filming Hughes' progress. (Here's a slick trailer for an upcoming documentary called "Rocketman".)

And Hughes says he's also claimed the legal entities that famous people are operating under, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffett, putting these powerful people in a precarious position because now "they can't even exist..."

"I have a lot of court cases going on."

A bit of housing insulation material, a battery, a motor and propellor, a radio receiver and transmitter, and servos to control the motor and a pair of ailerons, and you're ready to fly the Brooklyn Aerodrome way. This isn't a tiny radio-controlled paper airplane, but a big bruiser with a 1:1 power to weight ratio (which means it can climb like a bat out of hell) and enough guts to fly in reasonably windy conditions while carrying a camera -- except we'd better not mention cameras, since Brooklyn Aerodrome creations, whether kits or plans, are obviously intended tohelp you build model airplanes, not drones. Timothy ran into project proponent Breck Baldwin at a maker faire near Atlanta, surrounded by a squadron of junior pilots who may someday become astronauts on the Moon - Mars run -- or at least delivery drone controllers for Amazon. (Alternate Video Link)

darthcamaro writes "At the recent DEF CON conference over the weekend, vendor were selling all kinds of gear. But one device stood out from all the others: the Wi-Fi Pineapple — an all in one Wi-Fi hacking device that costs only $80 (a lot cheaper than a PwnPlug) and powered by a very vibrant open source community of users. Pineapple creator Darren Kitchen said that 1.2 Pineapple's per minute were sold on the first day of DEF CON (and then sold out). The Pineapple run Linux, based on OpenWRT, is packed with open source tools including Karma, DNS Spoof, SSL Strip, URL Snarf, Ngrep, and more and is powered by g a 400MHz Atheros AR9331 MIPS processor, 32MB of main memory and a complete 802.11 b/g/n stack. Is this a tool that will be used for good — or for evil?"