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Bad Weather Brings Down Lawn Chair Balloonists
Kent Couch and Fareed Lafta had their dreams of setting a world's record for the longest two-man cluster balloon flight dashed by bad weather and not kids with bb guns as you might expect. The men tied 350 balloons to lawn chairs and planned on flying from Bend, Oregon to Montana. The pair flew for about 30 minutes before having to land. From the article: "A post at the Facebook page for the project said wind had turned the balloonists around and pushed them back toward the town of Prineville, Oregon, and that thunderstorms heading toward the area were 'simply too much' for the balloons."
wonder whether or not evolution has even started happening yet.
It's not as bad as the summary sounds. They had the rigs outfitted a little better than just an aluminum chair duct-taped to some ballon strings. Also, both of them had parachutes in case of emergency.
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What brain-dead gas supplier sold these idiots enough helium to attempt this stunt? Don't they know that there's a worldwide helium shortage - that even now, a new restriction of He allocation has cut gas levels available to suppliers to 50-70% of last year's levels, and He prices on what's left have doubled?
Those of us who use helium for our jobs don't appreciate it being wasted on this crap. If these morons want to float on lawn chairs, use hydrogen - that'll get even more people watching them, and maybe when the first two or three go up in fireballs people will stop doing this idiotic stunt.
Helium is still obviously too cheap then, you'll just have to patiently wait till market forces correct the prices, so no kid will ever have a magically floating balloon again. (Not for less than $20 at least)
Well, without failed forks, false starts, and unfruitful developments evolution would not work...
When Homo erectus appeared on the evolutionary scene I'm sure there were plenty of knuckle walkers commenting things like "Oh, walking around with his head up he'll miss all the juicy bugs on the ground." and "Standing that tall he will run into a tree limb and kill himself." Of course in those days moderation was a rock to the head so they may not have expressed their opinions to others.
When the failures stop, evolution has stalled. Progress is made by people that are willing to do something, even if it turns out sub-optimally.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Welcome to capitalism, we don't do rationing of scarce resources, we simply raise prices. Anyone willing to pay the premium can blow it on whatever they want.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.