Just a concept now (although one that can be demonstrated), buildings of the future might be put together by flying robots. Which sounds like a great idea, but I’d still want a real human building inspector! -via Geeks Are Sexy

Screaming Monkey Slingshot – $5.95

Has workday stress got you down? Is it time to unleash the flying monkeys? You need the Screaming Monkey Slingshot from the NeatoShop. This hilarious plush monkey screams as he zooms through the air. Hey, don’t knock it till you try it. Letting loose the flying monkeys certainly seemed to make the Wicked Witch of the West feel better.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Cubicle Toys and awesome Wizard of Oz items!

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]]> http://www.neatorama.com/2011/11/04/screaming-monkey-slingshot/feed/ 0 http://www.neatorama.com/2011/10/18/the-physics-of-flying-banners/ http://www.neatorama.com/2011/10/18/the-physics-of-flying-banners/#comments Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:32:26 +0000 John Farrier http://www.neatorama.com/?p=54592

Have you ever seen a small airplane dragging a banner behind it? Picking up those banners requires some surprisingly demanding piloting skills because the banners tend to throw the aircraft off-balance:

Most of the planes that carry these signs are rather small, and attempting to take off with the sign already in tow would throw off the plane’s center of gravity, preventing it from getting airborne. Carrying the furled up sign in the cockpit or (typically tiny) payload runs the very real risk of getting it tangled up with the aircraft itself, resulting in disaster. In short, the plane can’t take off with the sign already attached. [...]

As seen in this video (but you will have to look closely), the plane flies toward a pair of uprights, dangling a hook about 25 feet behind. The sign is attached to a big loop, which itself lays across a pair of uprights. When the plane flies over the uprights, the hook grabs onto the loop, lifting it — and the sign — skyward. In order to pull off the maneuver, the plane needs to get rather close to the ground — sometimes, no more than 30 or 40 feet above the surface. While the whole process is risky (and there have beenterrible accidents), it really is the only option available.

You can read the rest at Dan Lewis’s Now I Know, a daily email service of neat, odd stories.

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Glow In The Dark Flying Piggy – $2.45

Are you a over-ambitious dreamer? Do you scoff at the impossible? Forget falling asleep under ordinary glow in the dark stars. You need the Glow In The Dark Flying Piggy from the NeatoShop because you are a doer. These winged plastic pigs are stuck to your bedroom ceiling to remind you that:

• Unattractive men do marry supermodels
• People do win the lottery
• And pigs do fly

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fun Wall Decor.

Link

This is a time-lapse video showing what it’d be like to fly over Earth, starting at the Pacific Ocean in the Northern Hemisphere and moving towards Antarctica. Add some epic John Williams! Yes, I did just spend a minute or two living vicariously as Super(wo)man.

Video link -via Discover

Flying Clownfish Air Swimmers - $39.95

We are excited to announce that Air Swimmers are back in stock at the NeatoShop. Now you can get your very own remote controlled balloon shaped like either a Clownfish (shown) or Flying Shark.  Hurry! We have a very limited supply of these fantastic remote controlled balloons.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Toys & Games!

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The Terrafugia Transition has received exemptions from the NHTSA that make it legal to drive on the road. With polycarbonate windows instead of automotive safety glass and tires not normally considered street legal, it has nevertheless passed muster for both the sky and the highway in terms of weight and safety. Alex last reported on Terrafugia’s innovation on June 29th, 2010 and the company has been doing  lots of fine tuning since then to attain the proper licensing and exemptions needed to ensure these roadable aircraft are ready for delivery by the end of 2012.

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Flickr user Mr. Thinktank posted this “invention” for levitating cats.

Cats love anti gravity. I bet you didn’t know that. This device was invented by Swedish immigrant Per Karlsson in the early 50s, and a small series was produced in Wellington for a while. But people didn’t go for it as much as Karlsson had hoped; maybe because they didn’t fancy having the cat hover around too much. In case you’re wondering what the little cap with the “antlers” is the cat is wearing on its head, it’s the mind reader. The cat steers the machine with her thoughts, because, how else would she.

The picture is part of a marvelous set of photographs in his Flickr set Old Anti Gravity Cruisers of New Zealand. Link -via Everlasting Blort

(Image credit: Flickr user Mr. Thinktank)

Ah, flying. It’s certainly not as glamorous as it used to be. Indeed, as @xenijardin tweeted out, Southwest is just like the chicken bus of the sky.

But enough grousing: if we gotta fly, then we gotta fly. Endure the indignity of TSA searches (or at least have a creative fun of it), then get crammed in with hundreds of fellow sufferers flyers and, of course, sit on the tarmac for hours (or worse, toilet). But this all doesn’t mean that we get to be rude (sorry, Steven Slater, the passenger didna mean it!)

No sir, civility has to be maintained. That’s why we’re alerting you to this article on the ethic of flying by The Wall Street Journal travel writer Scott McCartney of The Middle Seat. Starting with the ever important question of who gets the armrest:

1. You’re in the middle seat, between two strangers. Who gets the armrests?

Anne Loew, veteran flight attendant: The folks in the aisle seat can lean toward the aisle, and the window-seat passenger has the window to lean on. The poor middle-seat passengers are suffering enough–they get both armrests.

Gordon Bethune, former Continental Airlines chief executive: They do.

James Vesper, frequent traveler: The middle seat gets both arm rests.

Richard Wishner, frequent traveler: You share. The bigger guy gets the forward part of the armrest.

Anna Post, etiquette expert: There is no innate winner of the arm-rest battle. If I’m in the middle seat, I try to claim one. They are not both yours for the duration.

Kirk Hanson, Santa Clara University ethics professor: Fairness requires the allocation of at least one arm rest to each traveler. Therefore, the side seats get the "outbound" armrests away from the middle seat. The middle passenger gets both armrests, in part as compensation for the dreaded middle seat.

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For their new TV series How Hard Can It Be?, the people of National Geographic have created a 16 feet by 16 feet house inspired by the Pixar movie Up that can fly for real, thanks to 300 helium-filled weather balloons.

My Modern Met has the photos: Link – via Gizmodo

That’s a real life "Mother Goose". Jessica Meir of University of British Columbia is teaching her gosling to fly:

Meir traveled to the Sylvan Heights Waterfowl Park in North Carolina to seek the bar-headed geese for her study, arriving just in time for the hatching of this year’s bar-head recruits. Because she was the first person or thing that the goslings set eyes upon after they were born, the imprinting process was set in motion and Meir began her role as "Mother Goose."

Over the last seven months, Meir has spent her days with the gaggle, bonding with them and taking them on walks and outings. And when the birds began flying, she began leading flight-training sessions on a scooter with a bird at her side, at speeds ranging from 20 to 35 mph (32 to 56 kph).

It is hard to miss the excitement in Meir’s eyes as she cruises down the road on her scooter, the wingtip of one of her goslings brushing her shoulder at times, as she stares into the eye of this magnificent bird in the midst of flight, just inches away from her.

Link

Remember Li Wei, the artist who burst into the blogosphere’s consciousness a couple of years ago with his awesome photographs of people falling out of tall buildings?

Well, he’s back. And this time, it’s all about people flying: Link

The swift is being treated at an Israeli animal hospital and it is thanks to this ingenious device – which resembles a mobile in a child’s bedroom – that he can practise flying.

Fitting snugly into a red tube-like vest made of bandages and gauze pads, Sisso has holes for his head, wings, feet and tail.

A string is fixed to the harness and attached to the ceiling which allows him to whizz around a room at the Ramat Gan Safari Park Animal Hospital without falling to the floor.

However, until the muscles in his weakened right wing become strong enough, he will be kept indoors and in the sling.

Sisso will be freed when he can fly normally again. Link -via mental_floss

Things are bad. But now’s the time to focus on the good news. (Yes, it goes beyond surviving the destruction of your aircraft.) Although gravity is against you, another force is working in your favor: time. Believe it or not, you’re better off up here than if you’d slipped from the balcony of your high-rise hotel room after one too many drinks last night.

Or at least you will be. Oxygen is scarce at these heights. By now, hypoxia is starting to set in. You’ll be unconscious soon, and you’ll cannonball at least a mile before waking up again. When that happens, remember what you are about to read. The ground, after all, is your next destination.

This post is not for the faint of heart. Link -via Metafilter

Amy Alkon of Advice Goddess Columns disagrees with Southwest’s apology. She wrote this op-ed at the Los Angeles Times on how parents with unruly kids are "stealing from the rest of us":

There is a notion, reflected in numerous blog comments about the incident, that other passengers should "just deal" and "give a kid a break." This notion is wrong. Parents like Root and others who selfishly force the rest of us to pay the cost of their choices in life aren’t just bothering us; they’re stealing from us. Most people don’t see it this way, because what they’re stealing isn’t a thing we can grab on to, like a wallet. They’re stealing our attention, our time and our peace of mind.

More and more, we’re all victims of these many small muggings every day. Our perp doesn’t wear a ski mask or carry a gun; he wears Dockers and shouts into his iPhone in the line behind us at Starbucks, streaming his dull life into our brains, never considering for a moment whether our attention belongs to him. These little acts of social thuggery are inconsequential in and of themselves, but they add up — wearing away at our patience and good nature and making our daily lives feel like one big wrestling smackdown. [...]

I know, I know — because I am not a parent I cannot possibly understand how hard it is to keep a child from acting out. Actually, that probably has more to do with the way I was raised — by parents I describe as loving fascists. As a child, I was convinced that I could flap my arms and fly, but the idea that I could ever be loud in a public place that wasn’t a playground simply did not exist for me.

I hear claims that some children are prone to tantrums no matter how exquisitely they are parented. If this describes your child, there’s a solution, and it isn’t plopping him in a crowded metal tube with hundreds of people who can’t escape his screams except by throwing themselves to their deaths at 30,000 feet.

What do you think? Was Amy right? Link

(Photo: Karen T. Borchers / Mercury News)

I have always had a fascination with planes and fighter jets ever since my Dad used to take the family and I to the Dubai Airshow when I was really young where we got to watch some of the craziest and most talented pilots showing off their stuff. I remember once seeing the Blue Angels on display and they blew me away! Still to this day their stuff is top notch and gives me thrills to see them fly.

Lucky for us we get to see the view from one of their cockpits as they perform some hair raising maneuvers. I trust I won’t be the only one who gets goosebumps and a few butterflies in their stomachs as you get to see how amazingly close they get to each other and how in tune they are to each others positions. Mind you it’s almost 10 minutes of video!

* Also, if you are prone to motion sickness be careful watching this! Thank you SydneyClaire for reminding me to put a motion sickness warning!

** This is raw footage so the sound will be a little loud so please take care to drop the level just a bit after hitting play! Don’t want to hurt your ears!

Festo, has been shown here on Neatorama several times in the past and each time their robotics and bizarre creations blew our collective minds…our Neatorama Hivemind to be exact…but that’s a story for another time.

In this video you’ll get to see creepy blue LED robotic penguins swimming about in a large pool. Also, you’ll see it’s more lighter cousin who probably is the envy of every penguin in being able to fly/float and much more in terms of various robotic creations. Really fascinating stuff!

More info here – Link

For older Neatorama Festo links:

Festo’s Upside-Down Hot Air Balloon
AquaJelly and AirJelly
Air Ray: The Blimp With Wings
Meet Aqua Ray
Festo Airic’s Robotic Arm
Floating Fish Blimp

Here is a really neat PSA from the “International Fund for Animal Welfare” from Germany concerning the trafficking and buying of products made from protected and endangered animals such as the Elephant. Air Dumbo now landing!

From 20 miles above the Earth’s surface, their handmade spacecraft took compelling photographs of the planet from above which they recovered when they found the landed balloon just over five miles from where they launched it.

The pupils’ incredible school science project has already caught the attention of the University of Wyoming in the US, and the Meteotek team keep those interested updated with regular blogs and updates to their Twitter feed.

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It looks awesome but will it fly … or will it blend? I do believe this is what we all wanted as a kid … lucky guys!

A group of daredevils set sail on the ultimate magical childhood dream adventure today, traveling in a flying car for a 42 day journey from London to Timbuktu — a place that’s had a mystical, “middle of nowhere” reputation for decades. The ‘Parajet Skycar’ can change from ground to flying mode in a mere 3 minutes, and will make the epic 3,600-mile (5,800-kilometer) journey by both land and air.

Link

National Geographic Magazine has just announced the winners of their 2008 International Photo Contest. Amongst the fantastic entries is this particularly amazing shot by Jose Fernandez:

This is a shot of three eagles fighting over a fish in Homer, Alaska, from March 2008. You can see the fish at the top of the image flying by itself, but it was caught in its fall by another eagle.

See the gallery of winning photos here: Link – Thanks Marilyn!

This is probably the world’s smallest personal helicopters. Unfortunately I don’t have any information on the designers of these flying toys but it sure would be nice to have one.

Videos: Dailymotion; Youtube