Virtual Skydive

StarEmperor writes: "The folks at Goddard Space Flight Center have created virtual zoom-ins from space to various cities using composites of satellite images."

Comments

Skydiving should not be countenanced

[alewando]

It's nice to see technology being used in a neat (if not particularly innovative) way, but is skydiving something we should be promoting?

Skydiving is a dangerous sport. It's a sport completely without merit: why would any sane individual jump out of a perfectly good airplane. Like anorexics who starve themselves amidst an abundance of food, skydivers ought to seek medical attention for the perverse pleasure they seek via this crime against the order of the universe. Like drunk drivers who must spend hours at hospital emergency rooms seeing the actual damage done by drunk driving, skydivers should be forced to spend time with pilots who've suffered catastrophic physical or emotional injuries when bailing out of downed aircraft. Perhaps then they'd repent of their ways.

I admit, it's better that we should engage in virtual skydiving than actual skydiving, just as perhaps at bottom it's better to be engaging in pornographic anime than engaging in actual tentacle rape. But nevertheless, virtual skydiving must inevitably serve as a gateway activity; the thrill experienced during virtual skydiving will soon seem insufficient, and people will switch to harder and more dangerous pastimes like virtual bullrunning and virtual shuffleboard.

What's more, vitual reality is itself a danger: people will lose themselves in virtual worlds and neglect the reality they occupy and the obligations and commitments they have. Children will go hungry as their parents engage in virtual diversions. Debauchery and obscenity will run rampant as people are freed from having to locate actual fellow human beings who share their perversions: pederasty and coprophilia will reach all-time highs as the nation's moral fiber is flushed down the drain like so many digested raisin-bran muffins with cream cheese and a slice of canteloupe.

Will we be able to face ourselves in that world? Or will we be able to tear ourselves free from the grasp of our fantasies and horrors? There's a reason why The Matrix is a dystopian vision of the future: could we imagine living in a world where the pinnacle of humanity's advancement is Keanu Reeves? As the world descends into madness and suffering, who will remind us which pills to take? Will love and compassion melt from our breast like butter on a tin roof or marmalade on a toasted English muffin?

No. A thousand times, no. We must not allow this to come to pass. We must not allow an abomination such as virtual skydiving to commandeer our imaginations and human potential. We must, for the sake of the children, never stop trying to build a world where what goes up stays up instead of plummeting to the ground at a high speed until it's suddenly cushioned by a nylon netting dragging against gaseous atmospheric particles. To fail in this endeavor would be to threaten the very existence of all that is good.

I have seen the enemy and her face is skydiving.

Thank you.

Alien Tech

[selectspec]

Of course, the images are NASA intercepts from Alien transmissions!!!! . My God people, wake up to the charade being played by our government here. Aliens are real! How else could you explain Ted Copple and Barbra Walters?