steve barrett

I’m not sure why I don’t remember this show since I’m sure I was the prime marketing target for this type of thing. I suppose that could be the reason it was canceled after 1 season; though watching the trailer leads me to believe otherwise. For one, this was created by the same group that introduced us to Baywatch. I have a feeling the older audience was either still busy watching Baywatch or simply getting tired of the pathetic excuses to show women in Bikinis on TV. Not to mention Terry “Hulk” Hogan, whom we’re somehow lead to believe became the sole proprietor of the most bad ass boat known to man.

I guess its rather easy to see why Thunder in Paradise was canceled.

The Icon A5 has just undergone the first test flight. Targeted for a release in late 2010. at $139,000 plus 4,000 for a special sport license this isnt that bad of a deal and might help to push small engine aircraft into the general public’s range.

via wired

The plan is to drop them from aircraft and annoy everyone on the planet.

This is the Joint Strike Fighter, aka F-35, taking off and landing vertically. This was developed as a shared asset between several nations like Australia, Israel and Japan. You can see a long list of similarities with the American F-22 which was also developed by Lockheed Martin. The major difference is that the F-35 uses a standard afterburner while the F-22 has dual afterburning turbofans with thrust vectoring. You can sort of see the vectoring mechanism in the early part of the following video.

Got a plumbing emergency?

An article published by Washington University in St. Louis claims that the American Military will be roughly 30% robotic by 2020. This includes everything from crawling scouts, unmanned automatic UAVs, self-driving convoys, and job specific bots like the robo dog.

Sounds like a pretty accurate estimate to me.

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Judging by the look on her face when she turned around I’ve got a slight feeling she didn’t like that so much.

Licorne Nuclear Test

The Licorne Thermonuclear test was one of 4 French nuclear tests carried out around 1970. This paticular test was an air detonation. The 914 kiloton payload was suspended from a helium balloon and set off at an altitude of around 500 meters. As you can see the resulting blast was, like most nuclear blasts, quite spectacular.

Licorne Nuclear Test

What strikes me about this test was the vibrant photos of the mushroom cloud. Most often photos of nuclear tests are black and white grainy film slides that keep you detached from the vividness and reality of the true blast. As you can see from the photos this test was carried out a bright and sunny day under a baby blue sky.

Adelir Antonio de Carli was a Brazilian priest who took on the noble task of fund raising for a spiritual rest stop for truckers, but that’s just the beginning. His method of fund raising is what really made this guy famous - he decided to perform a publicity stunt where he took flight by means of a bushel of helium-filled balloons.

He flew away with a wide variety of safety gear including, water proof overalls, a helmet, parachute, food for 5 days, a satellite phone, a mobile phone, a gps tracker, a floating chair, and a thermal suit. Unfortunately, he didn’t have enough forethought to learn to use his GPS device.

Despite staying in contact with authorities for some time, Adelir was never able to relay his position for a rescue. For that reason, his body wasn’t found until 3 months later by an offshore oilrig support vessel.

Way to go Adelir.