Short Video Clips (from Youtube, etc)

[fragger]

It's part of a documentary film, "Chasing Ice". The whole 50-minute movie is on You Tube but it's one of those pirated kind of things where the picture has been reduced to one small corner of the screen and has crummy, tinny sound. Rather defeats the purpose, I wouldn't be bothered watching it like that.

Apparently it's on Netflix, I might see if I can find it. Dunno if it's available on the Oz version though.

[fragger]

And yeah Dweller, I'd love to watch the whole thing happening. Makes my part of the world look pretty boring

[Art Blade]

WOW!!!!  , thanks for this fragger, I'm downloading it from youtube so I can watch it on tv

That was EXACTLY what I was thinking and doing Got it, and thanks, fragger

I love the sound of all this. My TV is connected to a rather big sound system. If I crank it up enough, people will start running for fear of the house coming down

[fragger]

Cheers, gents

[fragger]

I watched "Chasing Ice" on Netflix, and it was quite riveting viewing. You won't see any more of that calving event than you saw here (although in the lead-up they showed a helicopter hovering in front of the formation, and when they zoomed out, it all but disappeared), but what you will see, towards the end of the film, is he culmination of months and months of w0#k - the time-lapse images that James Balog captured that clearly show the retreating ice all around the northern polar regions. A time-lapse film is worth a thousand words, and a number of them are worth more than a book.

One of the most pertinent comments Balog makes is that the public thinks scientists are still arguing over whether climate change is happening - because, as he points out, they are no longer arguing...

Balog (not Balrog, lol) and his assistants placed dozens of cameras all over the Arctic regions and set them to snap an image every so often to create time-lapse films of what was happening up there. There were heartbreaking setbacks, but they doggedly persevered. What they ultimately captured was alarming, and as far as I'm concerned, irrefutable evidence of rapidly-shrinking ice fields. At this rate, there won't be much ice left and we'll end up uncomfortably close to the shore. Which is a worry for me because I'm already close to it. I don't want to wake up one morning to find me and my bed drifting off to Ecuador.

[Art Blade]

cheers, now I know that I won't have to look for it.

[mandru]

A very impressive video fragger.  I'd say even breathtaking.


Multilingual operations on the ISS has led to some minor issues when one of the astronauts ordered Gorilla Glue.

Spoiler

www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0lpiXAHuyA

"Uhh Houston... We ordered Gorilla Glue.  Not a bottle of Elmer's and this horny bastard!"

[Art Blade]

uhm.. apart from the obvious, a gorilla disguise, I instantly wondered who paid for that. It's not exactly like the cheapest local parcel service competitor secured the order and you need rocket fuel for every ounce you want to bring to the space station. Science equipment has to be cut down to a minimum because of weight but it was OK to send up a costume. I'm usually up for a laugh but this one just didn't w0#k for me.

[mandru]

The current lift rates run about $10,000 USD per pound.

The member's of the ISS team have a weight allowance for personal effects.  I've seen guitars, personal cameras, and other various incongruous objects show up in videos and photographs.  I guess this astronaut decided to blow his personal allotment on monkeying around.

I suspect that anything that catches the attention of or amuses the public following the ISS mission more than pays for itself in the long run.

There's a trimmed clip of this video that edits out the handling of the container at the beginning and starts at the point where the gorilla bursts out.  All you see is the frantic movement and the resulting chase.  For me it gets funnier every time I watch it.

But then I'm the type of guy who insists on doing at least one silly thing every day. 

[nex]

But then I'm the type of guy who insists on doing at least one silly thing every day. 

That makes two of us mandru     

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah there is a big public relations aspect to this sort of thing. That costume maybe weighs a pound or two, so sure, $20K to get it up there whether it was in actual cargo or part of one of the astronaut's personal allotment. But having a video of someone having a fun time on the space station and not just always boring science that the great unwashed can't understand boosts not only morale for the people involved but also increases the public's awareness and possible support.

Something similar happened on one of the moon missions where I'm sure it cost a lot more per pound in today's money to get there when one of the astronauts brought golf balls and a club to try out a drive in lunar gravity. He did pretty good as I recall.

Another similar thing also sometimes happens on various space probes and telescopes. If there's room, they add a visual light camera to take "pretty pictures to grab the public's attention" even if the space probe or telescope isn't studying something in visible light. The space program has to keep the public engaged and interested and the best thing is pretty pictures even if they aren't as scientifically valuable as say, a measurement of gamma ray emissions that produces a nice line on a graph, because not many people in the public will look at that and see the scientific value because you have to have a doctorate to understand what it even means. Even if that line on the graph is the most amazing thing humans have ever discovered.

[Art Blade]

alright, guys

[fragger]

I thought it was funny

[nex]

How would you guys like to do this!!!

[Art Blade]

I'm not the type who would do bloody everything just to get more clicks.

Hehe, imagine the guy who's holding her has got to sneeze...

"wa... WA..."
"Hey!!"
"wa-CHOO!"
"NAAAaaargh.." <disappears>
"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, I am SO sorry!!"