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$50 Aerial Digital Photography from a Balloon
jizmonkey writes "This guy built
a balloon to
take digital aerial photographs from thousands of feet up. It cost
less than $50 altogether, including the image sensor, controller, and
balloon. The circuit is surprisingly straightforward: just a hacked Vivitar
minicamera, a 555 timer
chip driving a relay through a voltage regulator, and a one-meter
party balloon like the ones you see at used car dealerships. It just so
happens that the entire circuit, strapped to a piece of a pizza box and
tied to a really long string, is light enough to be lifted by the balloon.
What could low-cost aerial photography be used for? I'm sure some people have
some ideas...."
...how long will it be before he gets sued by Barbra Streisand?
Bash script for FP whores
Since most are private - no public access - then .... well .... here's the soution
I guess after you publish a 6th grade book report as a review, there's no point left in pretending to have any shame.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
You have the perfect "It was an alien spacecraft that crashed" story which the government tried to cover up by saying it was a photography balloon.
Pictures of healthy people doing fun things outdoors in the sun!??!
NOOOOO!!!!1 THIS IS SLASHDOT
Naked Sunbathing
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
You know what every guy is thinking...some sweet shots of your neighborhood babe suntanning!
this criticism from a guy named "larry bagina?"
/.
Too funny. Only on
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
I just had a vision of releasing prisoners early, and using this balloon/camera thingy to track their every move. It hovers over them all the time, and feeds pictures back to some central point so their whereabouts can be monitored at all times. They're free to go wherever the rest of us can go, but they have this camera hovering over them all the time until their sentence is up. Think of the savings in jail accomodation!
Then the fatal flaw hit me: the ex-con goes for a job interview, holding a 1m balloon with a camera suspended below it, on a piece of string, in an office trying to describe how he'd be a great employee.
The local bad guys' public bar would look like a fairground, full of shiny balloons. "Mum, can we go play in that new inside park?" would be the cry from the kindergarten set.
Or imagine a typical NBA game. With the number of balloons that would be floating over the players, nobody would be able to watch the game. Hold on - there's no reason the balloons couldn't contain advertising.
Well, actually that's several fatal flaws, but I still think it has "weird and cool" merits that override the "it's a really, really dumb idea" issues. This idea has a really great application somewhere, but I just can't see it at the moment.
Gotta get more sleep tonight
Wait, so this involves going outside? Forget that.
matguy(.com)
Congratulations, you just turns something extrenely awesome and fun into something painful and boring. You work for the government right?
sig:
See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
Where you live, you call somebody who uses a crosswalk a square.
Where I live, we call people who don't walk the extra 10 feet to the crosswalk an ambulance.
BTW, I live in San Francisco.
Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!
Total (Balloon) Information Awareness. That's right. I can see you, right now. By the way, put that down, it's disgusting.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
Set them up and use them for Airborne recon of M$ and RIAA Headquarters, and if the returned pictures show the HQ below, you press a button to release a small canister of urine, or other disgusting liquid of your choice.
Just a sec, there's some guy in a black trenchcoat at the door...
Of course, you should check also check out "$240 Worth of Pudding," but now I'm off topic....
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.