Sure I give him all the credit he deserves. But If it had happened to me that I got a bullet between my eyes under such circumstances and I would live to to tell AND I could keep on going all at the same time- I would thank my personal guardian angel on my bare knees. And If I were one of the passengers on that ride, I'd thank tany help for somehow miraculously not having killed the guy who got the bullet between his eyes. - Usually that does kill.

That's all.

Chihuly all the way.

Still it looks great.

Some Guardian Angel is sitting aside completely exhausted and finished and he or she definitely has earned its wings to heaven...

And that pilot hase done his part for the rest of his life- After such a feat, he can retire for his next severeal lives...

Respect. Deep respect.

"Perhaps the more startling aspect of the video to a modern viewer is the realization that a century ago people walked, ran, drove, rode bicycles and horses wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted in the streets."

What do you mean....?

Apart from the horses - but even those can occasionally still be seen in some European cities- That observation of people moving like exactly that still are a totally normal everyday picture.

Just come over once and apparently you will get a cultureshock....

This New Zealand guy with his "extraordinary" machine ruises all over the internet. The suggestion is made that this New-Zealander has invented this kind of craft.

But in fact there's totally nothing new- This kind of marriage between hovercraft and a ground effect wing the WIG or wing-in-ground effect wing is old news.

Aircraft with ground effect wings have been around since at least the late 1930's. But in some aspects it can even be traced back to before the first World War.

Hovercrafts with ground effect wings just like this New-Zealand one have been flying around for some 20 years now in several parts of the world. You can even get them as a kit all prefabricated to assemble in your own garage and deliverable in different stages of prefab for you to finish.

I've always understood that Darth Vader was partly modelled on a kind of dark parodied Worldwar 2 black German SS uniform long coat and Stahlhelmet.
The whole Star-Wars universe was modelled as much as possible on stereotypical Good and Bad images and models that most people would be able to relate to. And so it did if we look at the huge popularity that thing had- even now after all those years, Star Wars is powerful, is known by many and still has followers into the absurd with "reallife" Jedi-cult and all.

Saddam was also an admirer of the SS. And so if he was also a fan of Star-Wars, it seems highly possibly that he tried to take the best of all that he saw in heroeic empire-building imagery.

I have periods of insomnia and or sleepparalysis and or exploding head. If I have stressed periods in my daytime life, I can be sure to get at least one of these things. To me the most frightening combination is exploding head and sleepparalysis, because sometimes I really cannot find out what the loud noise was- One has to move to look around and that is impossible. So that gives this nightmarish sensation that something has gone terribly wrong just outside one's view. And that makes that when this has happened some nights on end, I just dare not go to sleep so I keep awake while I'm in bed. Or I awaken in the middle of the night completely freaked out because I believe I just heard this explosion or because I think I'm paralysed- both of which mostly are then not the case.

The oly thing that really helps is to have as much a stressless life as possible with lots of excercise, without the use of chemicals, pills, powders or drugs.

I'm afraid I can't quite follow this man...

Alex most likely they used a small bow-drill with a stone-tipped drillbit. Even back in those days they used that same kind of drill in the goldsmith's art. They had several herbs to sedate the patient, so all in all it will not have been all that different from some dentists-practices as you see them in China, Africa or even South America.

So? Tovarice you make pRoBLem aBout Notting...!
- F1Rst Aussi Vodka Bad Vodka- We Need All RunWay now...
- 2nd - Yoe haV Lllong RunWay- So- We Use...!
- T3rd We kNow hoW to uSe aiRpLain- We Njet so Sissy as You- aaaah little Mouse extra on plain you not fLy- No we use eveRy noek and cRanny - We noT sIssy- We fLy.

Spaciba!

:-P

Why all the fuss?
Do you think that we modern 21st-Century humans were the first to be gadget-fetishists if we could afford them...?

Rest assured that all through human history from the moment humans started to use tools, there have been people who just love to have something special that stands out. Nowadays iwe have our I-phones and blackberries and alikes and our special wheels on our special cars or our Guggy-bags for that. And if we in some years will look back on those are they all so very totally practical...?

Oh and 1.000 days from now....?
I have to see that happen first before I would believe it.....

Mond says it- The rovers on Mars already did exactly that.
The main differences are that on the Moon, the return signal is much faster so the interaction between the drone and the operator is much better. And if they use a humanoid-drone combined with some good interfaces like biofeedback touch and 3d-surround vieuwing and such, the human-experience can be enhanced.

Another advantage is that all that hardware can be sent one-way with no hardware and costs needed for the return-trip.

So- Don't be impressed.

But if you look and listen at the vid in the lnk, you see that the sounddistribution is changed so much that even if the reduction is only about 3-4 db's, it is mostly a reduction in the high pitch that bothers us humans.

And that means that to the human ear the sound of those blades dissapears far more that only 3-4 db's.

Where I work, I get a lot of choppers circling over my head. Pléáse give me choppers with those new blades any day!!!

Taco- To name a few reasons:
- Just to be there - to make your presence known to the world somehow?
- Just to state that you the one that states this obvious thing are not the stupid one?
- Just to make conversation?
- Just to get under the skin of some others?
- Just to be funny by stating the obvious?
...

We see them all here on the comments...