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Gliding Into the Stratosphere
iAlex writes "Apparently flying around the world in a balloon isn't enough for Steve Fossett. Currently he is attempting to exceed the sailplane altitude record of 49,000 feet. The intention is to fly a two seat glider into the stratosphere on a mountain wave while wearing a pressure suit. Later on the intention is to exceed 100,000 feet in a pressurized glider. There is also a Wired article." Here's a nutshell description of the plan and a primer on mountain waves.
That last line should read:
Here's a description of the nutcase's plan
I'm so rich that I think I'm going to blow my money on breaking records for my personal glory rather than trying to help people in need or advancing technology to help everyone.
Seriously, I can't help but think that Mister Fosset could get significantly more head-rush for his money by doing something like sky-diving than building vast, record-breaking projects that have very little effect on advancing technology. Imagine for a second that, rather than attempting to circle the globe in a baloon eight or nine times, he had held back a few years, used the money to improve his balloon technology, and tried again with better technology than the same technology over and over again.
I'm a very firm beleiver that throwing money at problems doesn't make them go away, but if he had spent *half* the funds from his balloon venture on something like inner-city literacy campaigns or AIDS research, I can't help but feel like the world would be a better place.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
"Mountain Waves" had something to do with mountains attending sporting events. That would be sweet.
Read Justin Timberlake's "I banged Britney" homepage
tcd004
I think that this is a reasonably good demonstration of how money can't really buy you real sense of satisfaction or common sense for that matter. I'm astounded that anyone can have either that much time on their hands, money to waste or lack of a sense of self-preservation.
Death is a Bad Thing, umkay?
According to:
http://www.avpress.com/n/frsty2.hts
One of the companies providing components for him has been indicted for fraud. Turns out they were giving the Air Force some parts that were supposed to be clean room O2 grade components, eg, no waste that could react w/ pure Oxygen.
It seems they gave the parts an alcohol bath before delivery, then tried to fib their way out of it.
Whoops....
Hope his glider doesn't explode. That'd be ironic.
This guy reminds me of a comment I heard a long time ago, "He has more money then brains." Ever hear of collecting art or cars?
I'm a BBS orphan in a blogging world.
Some record breaking events are wonderful for the human race (first to fly across the ocean, first in space, first on the moon, breaking the sound barrier, etc...). These records open up science to a new realm that all of society will eventually benefit from.
Ballooning across the world (quick rant: honestly, it wasn't "across the world", because he did it on a very southern part of the globe. I can go to the south pole, walk in a circle, and claim I walked around the world!)? Having the highest flying glider?
Surely there's better things that can be done with that money...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I know its not doable due to basic physics. Still, a geek can dream.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
NASA, being hesitant to waste any of their very very expensive space & upper atmosphere craft have secretly brought on a contractor to test what would happen if an aircraft made of very expensive materials lost pressure in the stratosphere and plummeted to the earth.
The competeing schools of thought have theorized many possibilites, but there remains only one way to test it... to crash such an aircraft
In unrelated news, NASA's experiment dropping a pressurized balloon cabin from high altitudes failed when a $5 blow-bolt froze, and would not release the heated cabin. No sources have yet come forth to find out what manner of monitoring NASA will have onboard these "crash tests"
- Jones
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
Maybe he'll run into Rocketguy Brian Walker, and it'll be a 2-for-1 Darwin Award.
What else do we expect from wealthy people seeking meaning and excitement nowadays?
Haven't all the great philanthropic quests been completed by Bill Gates?
sPh
I love the speculation in the last paragraphs of the Wired article "The Omarama attempt may also yield new scientific information. . . " Reminds me a great deal of the stories about John Glenn's "mission" on the space shuttle, and all the "science" they would gather from sending an older man into space.
I think it'd be a blast to ride the glider, and if I had the money and the skill I'd try it too, but to sell one man's stratospheric ego trip as an important mission of science is just silly.
Someone should tell Steve Fosset about an invention called the "aeroplane". For a fraction of the cost he is incurring now, he can fly around the world as many times as he wants. And what's more, he will get complimentary peanuts too!!!
All your favorite sites in one place!
Bob Bell - I apologize.
sPh
Man falls from highest recorded height wearing a blue pressurized jumpsuit.
See kids? When you do not get enough oxygen to your brain it destroys living cells and makes it difficult to think normally. It's much cheaper to huff a can of spray paint then to float at the edge of the atmosphere.
(Note to mods this is a joke not a troll).
I've figured it out:
He's trying to commit suicide, but in a way that will get him noticed.
The balloon attempt failed when the original charted course over hostile SAM sites was foiled by adverse winds.
However, this time he's got some control.
And even if -this- fails, he's got plans to take a satellite with him.
With my dying breath, I curse Zoidberg!
*shrug*
/really/ likes this sort of deal, and probably isn't too averse to the media attention either.
Fun is highly subjective -- maybe he
In any event, he's spending it, which to some degree is better for other people than merely hoarding it (putting money back into the economy -- it's not like inflation is the biggest concern right now).
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Personally, I don't think this should qualify as circumnavigating the globe. Magellan's route almost 1500 years ago is a heck of a lot more impressive.
"Why should we leave America to go to America Junior?" - H. Simpson, on visiting Canada
I think this glory-seeking, self-congratulatory stunting is really inappropriate.
If he had a societal concience he would take the zillions of dollars he is spending on this show-boating and give back to his community, in the form of a scholarship trust fund, or a new health care clinic, etc.
When I see this guy on the front page of the newspaper, it makes me really angry. I mean, who really cares if some rich guy goes high up into the atmosphere?
I don't want to be here.
Why in the world was this posted under 'science' ? I see nothing related to research, scientific advancement or academia in this story.
Indeed.
Just think... if you worked hard to make millions of dollars, how would you like it if those who didn't kept telling you how to spend your money? Really, isn't the point of becoming wealthy; to do what you want with your wealth? If we made it such that anyone who becomes wealthy must give their wealth to others, would anyone choose to become wealthy? Isn't that the root of capitalism and freedom?
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Why is the media so on about this millionaire and his 'adventures'? I think the real record he's going for is the highest newspaper column inches to importance ratio.
I can't believe people take this stuff seriously. For those who flunked physics (apparently the entire Slashdot readership), I'll spell it out for you.
Gliders cannot fly. Airplanes only go up because their jet engines push off the atmosphere. The wings allow them to glide to conserve fuel. In a pure glider (i.e., a plane with no engines), you can pretty much just slow down your descent, and maneuver a little bit on the way down. Trying to get a sailplane into the stratosphere is going to be about as successful as trying to throw a paper airplane into orbit.
It's basic conservation of energy. The higher you go, the more gravitational potential energy you have. The difference has to come from somewhere, and gliding ain't it.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Sigh. You just had to give the wave tutorial link showing the single-engine aircraft thrashing about in the nasty turbulence of a rotor cloud. Try this link from a soaring perspective instead. Wave is the best type of lift and can only really be appreciated in a sailplane.
An issue for Fossett will be the aircraft's stall speed increasing as his altitude increases (thin air up high). I don't know the specs on his DG505 sailplane, but I'd guess at >50K' the stall speed gets darn close to Vne (max. not to exceed true airspeed).
In the spirit of Marvel comics, let's hope that Mr. Fosset finally succeeds in going "up, up, and away..."
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
I see a lot of similarity in the two paths, except that they are plotted on different map projections. The only major difference I see is that Magellan had to go south from spain to get to the short-distance-cause-its-near-the-pole route.
Also note that Fosset did it without stopping. I count at least eight places where Magellan's expedition went to shore.
A legparnasom tele van angolnaval.
> If we made it such that anyone who becomes wealthy must give their wealth to others, would anyone choose to become wealthy? Isn't that the root of capitalism and freedom?
.. well, you obviously dont think too highly of your fellow humans' ability to compromise with the general will of society and desire to live a fairly socially frictionless life.
This is the most idiotic thing I've ever heard; its a shame I hear it so often.
We are not saying, "Okay, you made your money, and now you can't spend a cent of it." We're saying, "Spend away, and spend it on something that makes you feel good, but see if you can find something that makes you feel that that *also* helps other people."
Nobody said anything about not being able to spend your wealth, and if you think the only motivation for getting wealthy is being able to spend your money on *ANYTHING*, thats
"Old man yells at systemd"
Steve Fossett is an example of what happens when rich people aren't smart enough to create their own (evil?) empire with their resources cou(GATES)gh!! but have an ego that requires them to put their name on something (e.g. record books) that will last longer than their meager existence.
That said, it is his money. Who am I to complain?
-- Scientist: You aren't going to leave me here, are you? Boagh! Thump...
Reading the posts so far, I notice a lot of what I can only describe as 'sour grapes'. (see Aesop's fables)
Most of us spend drab, dreary, lives merely trying to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads. If we had double our income we'd go on holiday more, buy a better car, move to a nicer neighbourhood, etc.
If we had ten times our income, we'd do pretty much the same, perhaps with a little empire building or nut squirrelling on the side.
If we had a thousand times our income then of course we'd be made but we'd have to start finding imaginative uses for the cash.
We could address world poverty, couldn't actually achieve very much in that area but we could make ourselves feel better by donating a couple of million each year.
Steve Fosset is in a position nowhere near good enough to fix world poverty but plenty good enough to achieve ambitions that many of us would have if only we weren't so busy merely staying alive.
He gives us something to look forward to, something to admire, something that will probably still be being commented on in a thousand years.
Don't knock it, how do you know that you wouldn't do the same thing in his shoes.
Second, this is as good a reason as any to develop new light weight space suits for space travel.
Third, there is still a hell of a lot of meterology that remains unknown at those altitudes. Sailplanes have made it up to roughly Flight level 450, but they had to stop climbing because the pilots weren't equipped to go much higher. Nobody really knows how high mountain waves can take us.
This is a better exploration for Steve Fossett than his balloon stunts. If he's successful not only will he have made new discoveries, but he may also have found a way to get humans in to orbit very inexpensively.
When you think about all the stupid things people waste their money on, I think one can excuse Steve Fossett for actually planning and executing an aviation Nerd's fantasy trip.
Nearly fifty percent of all graduates come from the bottom half of the class!
I have flown a glider gaining altitude with out redusing speed, which in your over simplified view is imposible.
The air you mentioned passing over his wings moves (wind) at many altitudes, sometimes up and down. The way you fly a sailplane up, is to circle in air that is rising faster than you are falling relative to the air.
BTW the best (clear) days for glider flight, are the worst for powered flight. All that rising air generates that choppy ride that all those wimps who need engines hate.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
A long time ago, the spirit of adventure pushed man to attempt the seemingly impossible. Surfing to the freakin stratosphere without an engine isn't exactly what I'd call an easy task.
I guess all we care about these days is ROI.
All work and...???
-=sig=-
That's what I would say.
sPh
Sorry, I meant almost 500 years ago.
"Why should we leave America to go to America Junior?" - H. Simpson, on visiting Canada
>the pursuit of happiness
.. so if that's right, and the government is supposedly held accountable to the public in a democracy, isn't it hypocritical to suggest that the public has no place in determining what kind of weath receives protection?
Not at the cost of others' happiness. If you want to get technical and say that him masturbating his money away shouldn't make other people unhappy, I suggest you do some reading on physcology - not having access to basic needs while others' cavhort playfully around the atmosphere significantly reduces the happiness and morale of the have-nots much more than the happiness provided to the have-it.
I'm sure there are shitloads of other things he'd love to do, and if you can't make a *reasonable* compromise (and I do believe its a reasonable request given sufficient public support were he asked to contribute back into the economy in more meaningful, progress-inducing way) with society at large, you have no right to defence when the mob shows up with pitch forks and torches. I'm assuming that you agree that it is the role of government to protect his right to his wealth (the only true function of government in a pure capitalist system)
"Old man yells at systemd"
Perhaps this one will do him in and the Oracle Big Brother he's developing for the government will never see the light of day.
There may be no "I" in team, but there's also no "F" in way.
True, but he was following the ocean because he that was the only way to sail. Fossett didn't have that restriction - his balloon sails over land just as well as sea. Now I will admit that he was at the mercy of the air currents, but I guess I'm not willing to say just because the air currents took him on a short route that it qualifies.
"Why should we leave America to go to America Junior?" - H. Simpson, on visiting Canada
I suggest you read Marx's Communist Manifesto. You'll love it!
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
What I want to know is why is it news when somebody rich does something? I remember all those stupid balloon stunts by Richard Branson and his ilk. Finally somebody soloed around the world and I thought the madness would stop. But no. Now we are treated to the escapades of millionaire morons in gliders or space capsules. If they want to flush their money, let 'em. But stop giving them airtime for pointless records. Let them set new speed or new fuel efficiency records in a commercially useful aircraft, or new cargo dirigible records or something that is of use to the world. Then give them press. But these "accomplishments" don't need to be celebrated. Or even noted.
And can somebody tell me why there's a space between the "o" and the "n" in "taxation" in the first paragraph? At least it shows up that way in the preview and I don't get it.
--
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Q:How many libertarians does it take to stop a Panzer division? A:None. Obviously market forces will take care of it.
I humbly disagree. First, I think the guy is an idiot. Bar-none, waste of time, blah blah.
But, the people I know without money to meet basic needs don't give a shit about this guy in the least. They are too busy trying to get their basic needs met. The only people bitching about it are the ones trying to find ways to spend money they can't afford to spend.
The difference is, their needs are met and they resent not being able to do the same damn things as him.
He was following the rules.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
It never ceases to amaze me at the things the /. collective can come up with.
Here's a guy who is risking his life doing something no one has ever done before, being busted on because he isn't sending 10,000 children in Africa to school, or because he gets all sort of publicity hyped up about his attemps.
And yet, people on here will praise the next dork who comes along and cuts a hole in his computer's case. Oooo, maybe he's got a neon light in it. Thats really innovative, nothing like the boring, redundant attempt to fly an unpowered machine higher than virtually any human alive will ever go.
Maybe I should repent because I burned through $300 worth of brake pads and $200 worth of gas a couple weeks ago driving my car around on a race track. Thats, God, twelve or thirteen children I could've sent to school. Shame on me.
Quit buying Nintendo games then.
This is the most idiotic thing I've ever heard...
Really? Why? Look how wonderfully the idea of institutionalized redistribution of wealth worked for the former Soviet Union, or any other number of their Eastern Bloc satellites.
Really, the *most* idiotic thing ever is that good old Socialist^H^H^HLiberal ideal that wealth is "distributed", not earned. Were that to be true, I certainly would have a lot less incentive to actually work a decent-paying job.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
The "taxatio n" problem is cause by an attempt to fix an annoying problem. Some people type really long phrases without spaces. These phrases can't be word wrapped on IE. Some friends of the first posters post words 500 characters long. It can make reading comments almost impossible.
'SBEMAIL!' is better than a goat!!
You know, I think that it would be nice for him to spend some of his money on philanthropic persuits as well, but it is his money and his decision. How smart would he be if he decided to base his spending habits on the advice of people who haven't managed to save any of their own money. Kinda stupid. Besides, I think that a lot of people put too much attention on trying to make the rich give their money to the poor. Most of the time, if they wanted to do that, they would have been doing it all along and therefore wouldn't be as rich, and you would leave them alone. The attention needs to be on the average people. It isn't going to do a lot of good if every multi-billionaire gave a couple of million dollars to the needy, but what if 100 million average people gave 50 bucks? I like the post that someone had earlier to have every slashdotter donate $1, then we wouldn't need his money.
And if "they" can tell one of the richest men in the world what to do with his money, "they" sure as hell can do it to any one of us.
What is music when you despise all sound?
I fly RC aircraft, mainly small sailplanes, etc. This talk of mountain waves reminds me of dynamic soaring, which is a technique birds (and sailplaners) use to increase speed -- without flapping wings.
:)
In fact, sailplanes can often reach 150 MPH using this technique. And thats with no propellor. Needless to say, it's fast and exciting. Also, for those of us who like it when things go "boom", a critical failure at 150 MPH is always fun
big 'ol realplayer dynamic soaring video
thelocust[dot]org
"Obviously we can't go around the equator"
...
Why the hell not - it seems the ideal. Ability to stay on the equator due to winds etc, the equator should be the goal, not explained away with the words "obviously not"
sPh
Thanks for the tip on the trollbusting. I knew about that particular troll but didn't think about the solution.
Q:How many libertarians does it take to stop a Panzer division? A:None. Obviously market forces will take care of it.
Thanks for the link. Seems he played by the rules. So I guess I'm not all that impressed by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale rules themselves. Maybe they know best, but I think someone who follows a true great circle deserves recognition.
"Why should we leave America to go to America Junior?" - H. Simpson, on visiting Canada
He should be really careful about hitting a wormhole up there. It happened to a guy named Crichton, and he got shot into a strange place with aliens.
What? Farscape ISN'T real? Bummer...
Black holes are where God divided by zero
sPh
Those greedy SOB's. They could help hundreds of people, but instead they wasted their time and money trying to fly. Humans aren't supposed fly, if we were we've have wings!
There is a big difference between stiving for perfect equality (which I'm not) and striving for less inequality (which I happy admit) at the cost of whatever happens to 'motivate' the latest multimillionaire.
:P
Man, being against wealth run amok and being told you might be communist is like telling a non christian that they are obviously Satanists.
There are alternatives; you don't have to relegate yourself to only offering the extreme ends of the scale as the only possible solutions, thank you very much.
Course, maybe you were just baiting me.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Yeah well, if you can show me a just planet, I'll admit we're earning our wealth.
Until you can prove that reality mirrors the idealistic mechanics of a perfectly capitalist free market system, I will continue to battle against the broken pieces of capitalism.
You have a 'just world' view, but get over it. The world ain't fair, and thus even tho wealth is 'earned', its not neccessarily earned as a result of the mechanics of pure capitalism and free market economics.
Thanks for reducing me to a label. I'm simply against extremes. I'm against communism, and I'm against capitalism run amok. There's a reason why 'everything in moderation' tends to be a truism in the physical world.
OH, BY THE WAY:
Institutionalized distribution of weath implies wealth distributed by a central state. If you understood my point, it was that if a PUBLIC, ie, lots of people who are *not* centrally organized make a stand on the weight of the distribution of wealth within a society , thats about as far from institutionalized distribution of wealth as you can get.
Of course, it seems the only way people can think about any alternative to laissez faire economics is to pull a McCarthy and start coughing *communist*. Open your brain and start thinking about who drives what parts of the economy - if its a small boat of people who are really successful at capitalism, their influence on the market begins to *become* exactly that of institutionlized distribution of wealth. That is, a small centralized group of people determining how the wealth trickles about the economy. I'd feel sorry for your limited viewpoint on what sorts of systems are available out there except for I understand that pity tends to make people more stubborn and more prone to self-censorship.
Thusly, I will congratulate you on understanding that institutionalized distribution of wealth tends not to work, but also offer the suggestion that you read up on other types of economies that are possible (you might start with Polyani?). Please just keep reminding yourself that once certain entities in a free-market become powerful enough, they essentially become a centralized institutionalized method of the distribution of weath - nearly indistinguishable from communism, but with the 'carrot' offered in front of your nose saying, 'hey, one day you might get this powerful, so its not really communism, is it?'
"Old man yells at systemd"
> But again, who cares?
Thanks. I was starting to think I'm the only person bored 5417less with the incessant media coverage of how some rich fart pisses off his money.
I eagerly awaited the completion of his balloon trip, but only because I thought that would be the last I heard of him.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
A small correction; Magellan's expedition was around 1500, i.e. about 500 years ago.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I received my license flying at Minden, Nevada... which is, I think, the home of the current altitude record. The 49,000 foot record was flown without a pressure suit but with oxygen; anything above about 13,000 feet MSL is done on oxygen.
/. posters have any idea of the concentration required just to keep a glider aloft for longer than it would normally take to glide back to earth. It's not at all unusual to get a sailplane above 13,000 feet (which is why virtually all sailplanes come equipped with an oxygen system... unlike most powered planes).
Flying a sailplane (glider) is one of the most intense things I've ever done. Few
Glider pilots fly for the personal satisfaction of pitting their skills against gravity and nature. It's non-polluting except for the ten minutes or so it takes to get the glider to 3,000 feet above ground level, it's relatively inexpensive (my sailplane - with a 39:1 glide ratio cost me $12,000 including trailer and instrumentation).
But an altitude record which now requires pressure suits and/or pressurized aircraft takes more money than most of us have available. This guy is truly risking his life for a project that, in my mind, is valuable if only for the fact that its challenging. The collection of data on using the atmosphere to perhaps save fuel on future airliners is even more incentive.
So hell, I say "bravo" to anyone willing to go try it.
PS: My other hobby is white water kayaking... and I'll be 60 years old next March.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Yeah well, if you can show me a just planet, I'll admit we're earning our wealth.
...once certain entities in a free-market become powerful enough, they essentially become a centralized institutionalized method of the distribution of weath - nearly indistinguishable from communism, but with the 'carrot' offered in front of your nose saying, 'hey, one day you might get this powerful, so its not really communism, is it?'
You are absolutely correct-we are not earning our wealth. Well, not all of us, anyway. Some of us would rather depend on the generosity of the state to sustain themselves. Unfortunate, but true.
Until you can prove that reality mirrors the idealistic mechanics of a perfectly capitalist free market system, I will continue to battle against the broken pieces of capitalism.
No, capitalism isn't perfect. I have never claimed that it was. However, the flaws of capitalism are not arguments for socialism. We could play this quixotic game all day long, but it won't get anyone anywhere.
Thanks for reducing me to a label. I'm simply against extremes. I'm against communism, and I'm against capitalism run amok. There's a reason why 'everything in moderation' tends to be a truism in the physical world.
Good for you. Seriously. Sorry if you felt that you were personally being reduced to a label. My intent was to condemn the ideal itself, not the idealist.
Institutionalized distribution of weath implies wealth distributed by a central state. If you understood....thats about as far from institutionalized distribution of wealth as you can get.
OK, I'm listening. What's the point here, exactly? What does 'making a stand' entail? That they can suggest to people how they can spend their money? Well, certainly, they can do that. It's just that a lot of the time, the "suggestions" turn to "preaching", if you know what I mean.
Open your brain...I'd feel sorry for your limited viewpoint...I understand that pity tends to make people more stubborn and more prone to self-censorship.
Exactly how is attempting to insult my intelligence/condescending tone/etc. supposed to bolster your argument? Bad move. Fire away to your heart's content, but it'll get you nowhere.
And finally....
This is debatable, to say the least. Examples that refute it are too numerous to mention-Dave Thomas (founder of Wendy's) comes to mind immediately.
As for the "carrot" analogy, I suppose the socialist "remedy" would be 'hey, it's just the proverbial carrot, you probably can't get it, so why don't we just do you a favor and remove any chance you might have had?'
I'll take my chances in the garden, thanks.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
Simple explanation: there are vertical currents in the atmosphere, just like there are horizontal ones (we call those winds). All a glider pilot has to do is to stay out of sink, and find lift. The lift can be thermal (warm air rises), slope (wind blowing against a ridge goes up) or wave (stronger winds across long mountain ranges generate standing waves on their lee side extending upwards to many times the height of the mountain).
How do you think the current glider altitude record of 50,000 feet was achieved?
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
Don't kid yourself. Either you believe that a person has a right to acquire and spend wealth as they see fit (barring causing injury to others) or you believe society should tell them how to spend it.
If you believe that you have the right to tell anyone how they should spend any of their wealth, why would you stop until they've spent it all on "humanitarian" causes? Where do you draw the line? Are people allowed to be 50-60-70% wealthier than the median family? Once you start redistributing the wealth were would you draw the line?
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
Ok, then. If that is the case then why would you expect him to show any logic in his spending habits. If the only reason that he is rich is because he was a lucky sob with a silver spoon in his mouth, then who would fault him for spending it on $200 screwdrivers or whatever his whims tell him.
Either way, whether he earned his money or it was handed to him (BS), its his to spend/waste as he sees fit.