pick-up mailboxes in your own home have never existed here anyways. Only community ones at one or a few places in town.
Order of Kilopi
pick-up mailboxes in your own home have never existed here anyways. Only community ones at one or a few places in town.
Order of Kilopi
I'm old, and still pay most of my bills by mail. Pretty often the only stamps I find immediately are holiday ones! I don't think the recipients care, or even notice.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.
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My wife pays our bills by internet, all at once.
Do good work. —Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom
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I think she was depending on me to have that.Originally Posted by Jim
Nowadays, my old phone is full.
Order of Kilopi
Resurrecting this thread for something seemingly out of science fiction. Watch this video, I recommend going forward about one minute in for the first viewing to catch the best part:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4FUBfp9kS0
I suggest watching it before reading the following explanation of the video to get the full effect without spoilers, but here it is anyway:
You will see three people in jet suits (they move like Ironman suits) doing a flying “assault” (actually coordinated landings) on a moving boat. It REALLY looks like something from a movie, but this does seem to be real. Now I’m wondering if there would be a practical use case for this. Maybe landing on an out of control boat or something. If there was someone hostile the guys in the air would be easy targets. In any event, very cool to watch.
"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." — Abraham Lincoln
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
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Very cool video. It really looks like something from a Bond movie.
I actually thought of resurrecting this thread for a totally different reason. I recently purchased a “pulse oximeter”, just in case I find myself on a telemedicine call and my doctor is concerned about my blood oxygen level.
Being a nerd, I had to look up how it works. What an amazing little device; and it only cost a few tens of dollars, even in a pandemic-inflated market.
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I may have many faults, but being wrong ain't one of them. - Jimmy Hoffa
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I'm old enough to remember what anaesthesia and respiratory care were like before pulse oximetry became available. We were judging oxygen delivery by the colour of the patient's lips, or by sticking a needle into an artery and running a blood sample (packed in ice) to the lab to get a blood gas analysis, phoned back about ten minutes later.
Grant Hutchison
Moderator
I had the same thoughts (about doing this under hostile conditions). It might be more useful for the Coast Guard, such as getting a corpsman (medic) on-board a ship.
I suppose in a hostile situation the boat they launch from could get closer and use suppression fire to keep the flyers protected until they land. Would still be a pretty dangerous situation.
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I also heard they want to turn it into a competitive sport, which would be awesome. Jet suit racing!
The greatest journey of all time, for all to see
Every mission makes our dreams reality
And our destiny begins with you and me
Through all space and time, the achievement of mankind
As we sail the sea of discovery, on heroes’ wings we fly!
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How long can they operate on a single fueling/ charging, or whatever the consumable is?
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I may have many faults, but being wrong ain't one of them. - Jimmy Hoffa
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I'd guess longer than the old peroxide powered jet packs, which were good for about 15 seconds! Pretty cool. And looks more practical the Franky Zapata's Flyboard.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.
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This is from the "Gravity" website under "specs":
Power; 1050bhp
Turbines; 5
RPM; 120,000
Fuel; Jet A1 or Diesel
Dry weight; 27kg
Flight time; 5-10 minutes
Current speed record; 136.891 kph
So it doesn't stay up for long, but definitely longer than the old hydrogen peroxide rocket packs.
"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." — Abraham Lincoln
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
Banned
I still like the X-Jet flying podium...less abuse on the arms
Order of Kilopi
I've just watched a spaceship dock with a space station, live on my computer, which has no wire connecting to the internet. Quite amazing.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.
Established Member
I watched the docking as well. It was amazing comparing the crystal clear pictures we were getting rather than the flickering grainy picture I remember from the 1960's. Also the inside of the capsule was all white, glossy and smooth like something out of '2001' rather than the industrial look of the Gemini & Apollo crew capsules.
Order of Kilopi
And yet, I remember it being much better than what the Soviets could do at the time (at least in the later Apollo era - I don’t remember details from Gemini or much before Apollo 11 as I was too young). Occasional videos from their spacecraft, up to, I think, Apollo-Soyuz were low res black and white. But, yes, now it completely different.
I mentioned in the launch thread, in 1987 on Star Trek TNG, I watched a fictional crew controlling their fictional spacecraft using a then futuristic touchscreen, all supposedly set centuries in the future. In 2020 I watched a real crew controlling their real spacecraft with a touchscreen.
In 2020 I split time watching it on my wall mounted flat screen and my touchscreen tablet.
"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." — Abraham Lincoln
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
Banned
Tomahawk cruise missiles gave us the small engines that allowed the VLJ and these suits—but their avionics/accelerometers that allowed nap-of-the-earth handling are what really helped smart phones along... so I would think.
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So, swords into plowshares?
The greatest journey of all time, for all to see
Every mission makes our dreams reality
And our destiny begins with you and me
Through all space and time, the achievement of mankind
As we sail the sea of discovery, on heroes’ wings we fly!
Order of Kilopi
That may be an overstatement, as we still have the missiles.
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I may have many faults, but being wrong ain't one of them. - Jimmy Hoffa
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I’d put this in the “Amuse me” thread, but there is a serious side to it and it is somewhat related to an earlier post I wrote here. It seems that over LA recently, an airliner pilot saw a person apparently wearing a jetpack flying near his plane at 3,000 feet altitude. Another pilot in a different plane made a similar report. The serious aspect is that this was near a busy airport - the largest in California. A person is too small to properly be tracked by standard radar too. Whoever this was hasn’t gone public so far.
Old style jet packs would never run long enough to get to 3,000 feet, but a modern one might. Though it would still have a short flight time. Another possibility is that the flying man was dropped by an airplane. It would most likely be a custom built jetpack.
Of course, I get a kick out of the idea that something similar to what I’ve seen in some science fiction movies actually happened in real life. Here’s a video news segment from an LA TV station and article on this (no pictures, sadly):
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NXj0LaYTtvI
https://www.latimes.com/california/s...-near-lax-jets
Last edited by Van Rijn; 2020-Sep-03 at 06:32 AM.
"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." — Abraham Lincoln
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
Order of Kilopi
Another possibility is a remote controlled aircraft shaped to look like a person.
Although the “people “ in the following video were hundreds, rather than thousands of feet high.
https://youtu.be/dcDN409ZBv4
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I may have many faults, but being wrong ain't one of them. - Jimmy Hoffa
Established Member
Well it can't be Lawnchair Larry, he died in 1993.
A: "Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other"
B: "The two sides of this triangle are things that are equal to the same"
C: "If A and B are true, Z must be true"
D: "If A and B and C are true, Z must be true"
E: "If A and B and C and D are true, Z must be true"
Therefore, Z: "The two sides of this triangle are equal to each other"
Order of Kilopi
There has been another LA jetpack sighting near the airport, the last was about six weeks ago. The FBI has reportedly become interested. Not much detail here, but an article:
https://www.latimes.com/california/s...-investigation
I’m hoping they figure out what’s going on. I’m curious and there could be potential for danger here.
Also, here is a video of a jetpack test for mountain rescue (though to be fair, these look more like hills):
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gtvCnZqZnxc
The idea is that somebody can get close by other means, then fly in quickly, and later call in a helicopter if needed. I notice the guy in the jetpack stays fairly low to the ground, which makes sense, if they have a problem they can get down fast, and are less likely to get serious injuries. Flight time is of course limited, but going from seconds to minutes makes a big difference in possible uses. I was never that big on jetpacks, but wow does this stuff kick in the “Yep, this is like the future I used to read about” feeling.
"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." — Abraham Lincoln
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
Order of Kilopi
I did a bit of time traveling today. In a thrift shop I found a book called "Encyclopedia of spaceflight" or something along this lines. It was in brand new condition so it felt like holding a contemporary book, only it was from 1967. Weird to read a modern feeling book about spaceflight, from a time where a moon landing was still a dream.
I didn't buy the book in the end, because I don't really have a use for it. I have a very similar book from just before the first STS mission so that one has a bit more content to offer (even though the page count would be similar).
With sufficient thrust, water towers fly just fine.
Order of Kilopi
I'm sorry, I can't seem to understand that sentence. You didn't buy the book because you didn't have a use for it?
Nope, I'm just not getting it.
PS: I wonder if it was the small-format hardback, The Pocket Encyclopedia of Spaceflight: Manned Spacecraft, by Kenneth Gatland? That's a 1967 classic.
Grant Hutchison
Order of Kilopi
I've got that one. Unfortunately not in mint condition. An ex-library book in fact, missing some of the colour plates. But very informative.
Order of Kilopi
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I think he meant, I didn't buy it because it didn't seem that interesting to me.
As above, so below
Order of Kilopi
I'm sure Grant was joking there.
"I'm planning to live forever. So far, that's working perfectly." Steven Wright
Order of Kilopi
As Noclevername correctly deduced, I was making a joking reference to my own relationship with (non-fiction) books--they're always interesting in some way; I can always imagine a use for them; I can always think of a reason to buy them.
Grant Hutchison
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