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Pointless Endeavours (Arbitrary Pursuits; Not Record Attempts)

This must be a good candidate for a mention here:

National Theatre stage braces for silent play
By Nigel Reynolds, Arts Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:26am GMT 05/02/2008

Its three stages have been graced by the greatest actors of the age declaiming Shakespeare, Chekhov and Ibsen.

But tomorrow, the National Theatre will pose its audiences an even greater challenge - the world's longest silent play.

For one hour and 40 minutes, 450 characters played by a total of 27 actors will flit back and forth across the stage of the Lyttelton Theatre and utter not one single word between them.

For those who believe that the point of drama is passionate speech-making or sparkling verbal duels, they have reckoned without Peter Handke, an experimental Austrian playwright and the author of The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other which is to be given 30 performances at the National.

"The point is to explore what's left when you remove language - and the answer is that there's a huge amount," James Macdonald, the British director of the play, explained.

Though Samuel Beckett wrote a number of short silent plays - notably Breath, which lasted 45 seconds - and Harold Pinter's dramas are so fill of pauses that audiences may sometimes wonder if the dialogue is about to dry up, Handke's wordlessness is on an epic scale.

There will not even be an interval for those yearning to hear the human voice again.

The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other, a piece of typical 20th century Continental avant garde theatre, is set in a city square through which hundreds of characters - including a bride, a businessman, a roller-skater, a playwright, then Charlie Chaplin, Tarzan, Abraham and Moses - drift.

There is no plot and any partial story - suggested by chance meetings - is left unresolved. Virtually no character appears twice. The idea apparently came to Handke as he sat at a cafe on an Italian piazza watching strangers come and go.

If wordless, it is not entirely soundless. The silence is punctuated by snatches of music, the occasional scream and the recorded sounds of an aeroplane or workmen drilling.

A National Theatre spokeswoman said: "It is a great piece of work, challenging and something that we should be doing."

She went on: "Tickets are selling well - not like hotcakes, but they are doing well. It is appealing to younger people. We think our more traditional audiences will wait until the reviews."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... lay105.xml
 
What's pointless about it? It's still a play, isn't it? Are silent movies pointless?
 
gncxx said:
What's pointless about it? It's still a play, isn't it? Are silent movies pointless?
Silent movies usually have a plot (and, quite often, speech captions).

Seems to me you could get a similar experience to this play by going to a bar or cafe on a busy square and just watching all the people go by.

(Probably cost you less than the theatre ticket, too! ;) )
 
Where's your sense of occasion?! And people used to go to the movies when the medium was in its infancy to watch ordinary people such as themselves wandering about and doing everyday things. What's wrong with harking back to that in theatrical form? Sounds ideal for people watchers and they won't get grief for staring at strangers either.
 
Difficult to see how he can be a 'playwright' more of a choreographer really.

1 hour 40 minutes with no words or story? There better be plenty of car chases, nudity and gratuitous violence - that's all I've got to say
 
'Snail mail' blazes slow e-trail

Muriel, Austin and Cecil are snails for the electronic age.

The gastropods have been fitted with equipment to allow them to send e-mails on behalf of visitors to a website.

Instead of instantaneous communication, sent messages will travel at 0.03mph (0.05km/h) and could take days, weeks or even months to arrive.

It is part of a "slow art" project called Real Snail Mail at Bournemouth University in the UK which will be showcased in Los Angeles in August.

"One thing technology promises us is speed, acceleration, more of everything in less time," said Paul Smith, a visual artist working on the project.

"Culturally, we seem obsessed with immediacy. Time is not to be taken but crammed to bursting point."

The researchers hope the project will encourage people to take their time and contemplate the technology and the work.

Each snail is fitted with a tiny capsule which holds a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chip. RFID allows objects to communicate over short distances.

Users of the service send a message via the Real Snail Mail website which is routed to the tank at the speed of light to await collection by a snail "agent".

As the three snails slowly amble around the tank, they occasionally come into range of an electronic reader, which attaches the e-mail message to the RFID chip.

The electronic messages are then physically carried around the tank by the snails until one of the gastropods passes close to a second reader.

It is then forwarded over the net in the usual way.

"It could be quite frustrating for some people," Vicky Isley, one of the artists told BBC News. "It's completely subverting that normal system."

So far, the three snails have managed to deliver 14 messages.

Users of the service will hope that Austin is on hand to collect their messages. The Snail has made 10 of the deliveries so far with an average delivery time of 1.96 days.

"He's a super-powered snail - he's doing really well," said Ms Isely. "He's really quite big - he's always the one that gets to the food first."

Unfortunately, Muriel is still languishing, waiting to make her first delivery.

The project will be on show at the computer graphics conference Siggraph in Los Angeles from 11-15 August.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7458531.stm

I found this fascinating since, only yesterday, I saw a pond with many water snails, and several of them were crawling along the water surface - by which I mean they were upside down in the water, but using the air/water interface as a land snail uses the ground! I've never noticed that before.
(Don't know how RFID chips work underwater, however...)
 
Add similarly.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers

And from the RFC...

Avian carriers can provide high delay, low throughput, and low
altitude service. The connection topology is limited to a single
point-to-point path for each carrier, used with standard carriers,
but many carriers can be used without significant interference with
each other, outside of early spring. This is because of the 3D ether
space available to the carriers, in contrast to the 1D ether used by
IEEE802.3. The carriers have an intrinsic collision avoidance
system, which increases availability. Unlike some network
technologies, such as packet radio, communication is not limited to
line-of-sight distance. Connection oriented service is available in
some cities, usually based upon a central hub topology.

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1149
 
Zero-G artist in action

British artist Nasser Azam has created two sets of artwork in zero gravity, for a project called Life In Space.

The London City Hall artist in residence, and a team of five painters flew up to 23,000ft in a specially modified transport plane to create the images.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7496688.stm

The accompanying video has a nice glimpse of one of the military-type minders having a :roll: moment! And it seemed to me that some of the more tricky bits of the pictures were done when there actually was some gravity to steady the artist.
 
Volcano surfing: Lava waves in Hawaii
By Laura Clout
Last Updated: 11:01am BST 08/07/2008

Even for the hardened adventurer, surfing in boiling waters just 20 feet from the flowing lava of an active volcano is pushing the boundaries of extreme sport.

But for professional surfer CJ Kanuha the thrill of a challenge was too good to pass up.

Hovering above in a helicopter, a photographer captured the moment he edged as close as possible to the molten lava of Kilauea volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island.

Kirk Lee Aeder, who took the shots, said: "It was one of the most thrilling photo shoots I have ever had in my life.

"One day I was talking to my pro-surfing friend, CJ and we began discussing the idea of him surfing, or should I say, stand up paddle surfing close to where the lava enters the ocean and that I would shoot it from a helicopter."

"We both knew it would make for an amazing shot if we could pull it off," the 49-year-old added. Before attempting the stunt, the surfer left an offering for the mythical Hawaiian goddess of fire known as 'Pele' on a nearby beach.

"Not leaving an offering could have resulted in bad luck, a value that most native Hawaiians strongly believe in," Mr Aeder said.

Mr Kanuha, 24, was helped into position by canoeist and a jet ski, before paddling as close as he could.

He said "I was tentative to get too close at first, and for good reason, the boiling water there is well over 200 hundred degrees in some spots, super hot, and it quickly melted the wax on the surfboard."

The surfer, who suffered peeling skin on his legs from the boiling water, added: "It was an amazing feeling to get so close to the power of the lava from the volcano."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.j ... ano108.xml
 
Sounds like a potential contestant for the Darwin awards. :p
rynner said:
Volcano surfing: Lava waves in Hawaii
By Laura Clout
Last Updated: 11:01am BST 08/07/2008

Even for the hardened adventurer, surfing in boiling waters just 20 feet from the flowing lava of an active volcano is pushing the boundaries of extreme sport.

But for professional surfer CJ Kanuha the thrill of a challenge was too good to pass up.

Hovering above in a helicopter, a photographer captured the moment he edged as close as possible to the molten lava of Kilauea volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island.

Kirk Lee Aeder, who took the shots, said: "It was one of the most thrilling photo shoots I have ever had in my life.

"One day I was talking to my pro-surfing friend, CJ and we began discussing the idea of him surfing, or should I say, stand up paddle surfing close to where the lava enters the ocean and that I would shoot it from a helicopter."

"We both knew it would make for an amazing shot if we could pull it off," the 49-year-old added. Before attempting the stunt, the surfer left an offering for the mythical Hawaiian goddess of fire known as 'Pele' on a nearby beach.

"Not leaving an offering could have resulted in bad luck, a value that most native Hawaiians strongly believe in," Mr Aeder said.

Mr Kanuha, 24, was helped into position by canoeist and a jet ski, before paddling as close as he could.

He said "I was tentative to get too close at first, and for good reason, the boiling water there is well over 200 hundred degrees in some spots, super hot, and it quickly melted the wax on the surfboard."

The surfer, who suffered peeling skin on his legs from the boiling water, added: "It was an amazing feeling to get so close to the power of the lava from the volcano."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.j ... ano108.xml
 
Capsule of cheese 'lost in space'

Members of a West Country cheesemakers group hoping to make the first space flight by a piece of Cheddar say they have lost track of it.

At 0400 BST a weather balloon was launched 18.6 miles (30km) into the upper atmosphere, carrying a capsule containing a 300g wedge of Cheddar.

But the organisers' GPS tracking system has stopped working and now they need help to find the cheese once it lands.

They say it could land anywhere between Pewsey in Wiltshire and Hertfordshire.

Dom Lane, of the Shepton Mallet-based West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers group, told BBC Wiltshire: "We've been tracking the trajectory and the current prediction is that it could land anywhere from here in Wiltshire to Hemel Hemsptead.

"The GPS isn't coming through on the web so we might need listeners' help to find it because we're not sure where it is at the moment."

It was expected that the balloon would burst at the edge of space, leaving the capsule to float back to the ground on a parachute.

The bizarre mission is to mark the 40th anniversary of the Moon landings.

Philip Crawford, chairman of the West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers, said: "We are very proud of our authentic Cheddar which we make by hand on our farms and we set ourselves the very highest standards.

"It seemed appropriate, therefore, that we should mark the anniversary of the first Moon landing with a giant leap for 'cheesekind'."

In 2007 the group used a webcam to allow internet users to watch a traditional round of Cheddar mature live on the web over the course of a year.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wilt ... 171619.stm

From the video, the cheese seems to be sitting on a plate to one side of the capsule - seems to me that when the balloon bursts, it will very likely fall off. In which case it will probably land in some stretch of countryside where it will be eaten by wild animals.

But it might make Fortean News if it crashes through someone's skylight, or even worse, hits a car windscreen and causes a huge motorway pile-up...
:shock:
 
when you read about these wonderous leaders of men you learn that they were mostly arrogant bullies who couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery and got there by more luck than judgement and often killed several people through their own stupidity at the same time. Rolling Eyes

strangely enough, that reminds me of Crowley's attempt at K2. I forget if he managed to get anyone killed on that expedition though, or if it was just a bloody miracle that he didn't.
 
No more cheese news... :(

Space mission for wedge of cheddar ends in failure
A cheesemaker's mission to launch a wedge of cheddar into space ended in disaster after losing contact with its payload just minutes after lift-off.
By Murray Wardrop
Published: 7:00AM BST 29 Jul 2009

The 300kg chunk of cheese was attached to a weather balloon which lifted off from Pewsey, Wilts, at 4am on Tuesday.

It floated up to the edge of space at 18.6 miles (30km) above sea level, where the 1.6m-wide helium balloon was expected to burst.

West Country Cheesemakers, who organised the stunt, hoped the record-breaking capsule would then fall gently down to earth on a special parachute.

The capsule was even fitted with a digital camera to take pictures of the cheese in outer space. 8)

However, the on-board GPS satellite system which was supposed to track the intergalactic dairy product failed shortly after take-off.

It is still unclear whether the balloon succeeded in its bizarre mission until the missing capsule and its contents is found.

West Country Cheesemakers believe the capsule landed somewhere between Wiltshire and Cambridgeshire.

The project took them 18 months of preparation but cost less than £1,000.

...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/spac ... ilure.html
 
Hold up...
The Telegraph said:
The 300kg chunk of cheese was attached to a weather balloon ...
300 KG? A third of a ton?? I know the Telegraph gets excited sometimes, but that's a bit much.. besides, imagine that landing on you (would love to see the compo claim that followed as well :D.)

300 grammes, methinks. As confirmed by Auntie Beeb.
 
KarlD said:
I think its the same sort of mentality which led to these famous explorers hopping naked to the north pole dragging a grand piano, when you read about these wonderous leaders of men you learn that they were mostly arrogant bullies who couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery and got there by more luck than judgement and often killed several people through their own stupidity at the same time. :roll:

As a previous World record attempter, I have a theory as to why.

Firstly there is the view that as we, as a race, have less and less need to do anything our forbears did (we don't need to grow our own food, make or repair our own clothes, or even walk long distances)

As a result we, as individuals, gain a need to do something to not only fill our spare hours, but often to burn off the energy we would otherwise need to hunt, or whatever.

Hence people do things which on the face of it if we were working the land, we'd find ridiculous; watching soap operas, playing squash, or even working an allotment.

My grandfather, would probably find that notion that people do stuff mostly just for the point of doing it, rather than the need to do it for the end result as rather ludicrous.

Don't get me wrong; I fully accept that working an allotment and growing your own veg is a worthwhile pursuit, but compared to spending 5 minutes ordering my stuff online, having someone else grow it, pick it, pack it and drop it at my door does seem an enormous investment in time for little return.

I went to school with someone, who on the last day of fifth form proudly stated "that's the last book I'll have to read".

Anathema to me, as I find books interesting/enjoyable/oddly fulfilling, but it's a fair point.

I do not have to sit and read Vance Packard.

I gain nothing from it except an understanding that a lot of weird government decisions were being made a lifetime ago, and are not a recent phenomena.
I do not have a practical use for this, but will still berate my kids for watching TV and not reading a book.

They would argue that, as someone once said, "books are like TV, only slower".

So, we, as a society have evolved into groups who do stuff because it is "fun", "interesting" or simply fills a void in our days.

This could possibly explain why people think paying 5 quid for a massively calorific coffee served by someone who looks down on them, is somehow a sensible proposition.

I decided a long time ago that I would get myself in the Guinness book of records.

Mostly so when my son was a little older and he said "what do you do" I can point at it and say "not much, but I did that".

But the deed proved a lot harder than expected.

Once you rule out expensive, dangerous or just silly records, the list is quite small.

I picked something which I knew I could do, as it didn't depend on skill, money, or even practice.

I would set the record for the fastest time going around every station in the London underground. Seems simple, yes?

I soon realised that there were many, many difficult questions.

Do I simply visit the same number that the existing holder went to?
Or just the stations that are open now, and aren't closed for maintenance?
Or those plus the ones which have opened subsequently?
Do I include the DLR?
Do I include visiting the closed, but sometimes accessible ones?
Do I consider that I must do this all on the tube? Why? The DLR is public transport, so if I'm doing the DLR, I can't exclude it as a means of transport.
When trains don't run, they lay on buses. So do I consider using alternative public transport rather than the tube in each direction?
How do I prove I've been to each station at a given time? You can fake the date on photos.
Do I do this on a weekday, when it'll be hellish during two rush hours, or a weekend when some stations are closed, but in general the non-tourist areas will be quieter?

I ended up visiting the London Transport museum. Often. Talking to people, the London Underground, attempting to reach the previous record holder, buying many decent maps of London and marking all the stations and routes, trying to work out timings (as "a train every 3 minutes" doesn't help at remote stations that see one 3 times an hour). I made careful, copious notes, built a time table, then found this part somehow means I have to double back on myself, so I'll run out of day around the 22 hour mark. I worked, harder and harder but never reached a point when I felt I was equipped to do the attempt.

Then a simple realisation dawned (or was it light at the end of the tunnel?)

This is pointless. I've wasted hours and hours of my life so far achieving nothing.

I've spent a fortune on books, maps, and trips to the transport museum. I'd changed mobile plan to one which gave me free calls throughout London (before the obvious point that I was spending most of the time where mobiles didn't work), but it did not matter.

I was becoming obsessed. I could tell you what line any named station was on. I could recite the stations on any given line in order. I could tell you which were closed, temporarily, permanently, or just at weekends.

So why was I doing this? For the sake of doing it. I had too much invested, wasted too much time to simply write it off as an extended moment of madness.

The end result? I do not, have not, and probably will not ever hold a World record, unless FT gives one for the most rambling post in their forums.

My kids (including the aforementioned son, who is now 13), do not care what I do. They will occasionally ask, but they are far more interested in their lives than those of others.

So for every single person who thinks that juggling chainsaws, or hauling ironing boards up mountains, or some other pointless endeavour is big, clever, funny, or somehow brings something into their lives which was missing, I salute them.

I salute them. Every man, woman and fruitloop. You are all nutters, go read a book.
 
A bit of an anticlimax:

Earth landing for 'space cheese'

A block of cheese launched into the upper atmosphere on Tuesday has been found undamaged in Buckinghamshire.

The "interstellar cheddar" landed in Cressex - some 74 miles away - and was taken to High Wycombe police station on Wednesday night, the launch team said.

The wedge was still in one piece but the flight-recording camera had failed.

The helium pod's GPS system broke down soon after its launch to mark the Moon landing anniversary so the West Country Cheesemakers team lost track of it.

It was found in a garden and handed in to the police, the group said.

It had been attached to a weather balloon which was launched from Wiltshire 18.6 miles (30km) into the atmosphere.

The helium balloon carrying the payload had burst, indicating it had reached a considerable height in the upper atmosphere.

Dom Lane, of Shepton Mallet's West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers group told BBC News: "I am driving back from High Wycombe with the cheese now.

"I may try a bit to see if it has matured at high altitude and then it will probably go into a glass case at our production offices."

He said the police were very helpful and highly amused at the whole operation.

Mr Lane said he had given the police a selection of farmhouse Cheddars to pass on to the anonymous woman who found the errant cheese.

"The whole exercise was a nice way to wave the flag for authentic Cheddar," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/8175347.stm
 
Indian cabbie drives in reverse
An Indian taxi driver, Harpreet Devi, has been given special permission to ferry passengers in his unique reverse car.
Published: 1:11PM BST 14 Aug 2009

[video clip]

The 30-year-old drives at speeds of up to 50mph in the Fiat whose gearbox he has redesigned to have four gears in reverse and one only one forward.

Since 2003, the cabbie has been driving backwards after the state government in Punjab granted him permission to drive in reverse and he uses an ambulance siren to alert other drivers.

Mr Devi, whose reverse driving has earned him celebrity status in the Punjab, has now been given permission to ferry passengers in his unique car.

But after five years of driving in reverse, the cabbie admits that constantly looking backwards can be - quite literally - a pain in the neck.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraphtv/ ... verse.html
 
Ducks and humans on longest journey
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/wor ... 88317.html

BERLIN – Two Germans set out on an unusual summer holiday yesterday, beginning a 500km swim down a river from Kassel in central Germany to the North Sea with seven pet ducks.

Pia Marie Witt and Wilfried Arnold will swim down the Fulda and Weser rivers, hoping to reach Bremerhaven by mid-September. The pair says the journey is about self-fulfillment.

Witt and Arnold plan to swim up to 15km a day, but this would be too much for the ducks, who will be carried by car or boat when they become tired. – (Reuters)
 
kerravon said:
Then a simple realisation dawned (or was it light at the end of the tunnel?)

This is pointless. I've wasted hours and hours of my life so far achieving nothing.

I've spent a fortune on books, maps, and trips to the transport museum. I'd changed mobile plan to one which gave me free calls throughout London (before the obvious point that I was spending most of the time where mobiles didn't work), but it did not matter.

I was becoming obsessed. I could tell you what line any named station was on. I could recite the stations on any given line in order. I could tell you which were closed, temporarily, permanently, or just at weekends.

So why was I doing this? For the sake of doing it. I had too much invested, wasted too much time to simply write it off as an extended moment of madness.

The end result? I do not, have not, and probably will not ever hold a World record, unless FT gives one for the most rambling post in their forums.

On the contrary, I think this is one of the most interesting posts I've read here for some time. However, it must be said, I personally disagree with the conclusion that you reached. The quest, focus and countless hours may have seemed pointless, but that's a relative term. I have a pet theory, still undeveloped, that an utter and complete focus/understanding of any given facet of reality - if understood in its full context as part of a referential totality - can grant deep insight into the totality of the universe.

No, really.

I'd further posit that although you reached the stage where you thought you had 'wasted' part of your life, this is only as much of a 'waste' as any other project in which anyone anywhere may choose to engage. If our human journey is about anything whatsoever beyond the absurdity of living for the sake of living and the fear of the unknown alternative, it is about understanding: understanding of ourselves and that around us. On what we spend our lives is largely irrelevant - climbing a career ladder, searching for God, researching pygmy seahorses, collecting cookies, or all of these combined - all are a means to a few vital ends: peace, contentedness and understanding. Perhaps, Kerravon, the London Underground was not the path for you, but it could very well be for someone else. The very fact that you've learnt that much about yourself and become familiar with countless aptitudes and vagaries of your personality means that the time probably wasn't wasted.
 
Worm charming festival fails to catch a single specimen
Crowds who attended a worm charming festival were left disappointed after contestants failed to tempt a single creature out of the ground.
By Murray Wardrop
Published: 8:30AM BST 07 Aug 2010

Dozens of competitors converged on a field in Lincolnshire for the sport which involves trying to lure as many worms as possible out of the earth within a 30-minute period.

But while the world record stands at 567, not one of the entrants at the Woodhall Worm Charming Festival managed to persuade a single invertebrate to vacate its underground lair.

The dismal performance was not matched by the enthusiasm of those taking part. While many traditionalists used the tried and tested method of “twanging” – whereby a four-pronged garden fork is inserted into the ground and vibrated by hand – others played instruments and experimented with homemade contraptions.

One contestant repeatedly honked his patch of grass with a vuvuzela, while another wheeled a spiked roller called “the worminator” across the ground. One team even used an electric back massager to coax out their prey.

At the close of the contest, one entrant said: “I feel wormthless.” Another added: “No worms, but we think they were just under the surface.”

With no clear winner, organisers were forced to modify the judging criteria and awarded the trophy to Team Green for being the Most Enthusiastic Charmers of the event.

The dire result follows the World Worm Charming Championships in Nantwich, Cheshire, earlier this summer which regularly sees entrants luring hundreds of creatures to the surface.

Event organiser Toni Franck said: “I can’t believe it because in Cheshire, even in their worst year, the winner took 40 worms – the best was more than 500. But we didn’t see a single worm here.”

Rules stipulate that contestants are not allowed to use water or dig worms out of the ground.

The event raised more than £200 for the Woodhall Spa Twinning Association.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... cimen.html
 
The Willaston event is a well-loved local tradition, stretching back, ooh, a few years now. :lol:

It's the best day out for 100 miles. We also have a Donkey Derby and Pie-Rolling within a few miles, but the worms are the funniest. :D
 
It's a bit worrying that they didn't get any worms at all.
 
Mythopoeika said:
It's a bit worrying that they didn't get any worms at all.
No worms, no bees, foxes turning homicidal..

...it's an ecological catastrophe! :shock:
 
rynner2 said:
Indian cabbie drives in reverse
...The 30-year-old drives at speeds of up to 50mph in the Fiat whose gearbox he has redesigned to have four gears in reverse and one only one forward. ...

Quite a simple modification. You just fit the gearbox from an Italian Army Fiat.



I'l get me coat...
 
I suppose this stunt has some educational benefit:

Can you ride a motorbike across the Tamar, without using a bridge?
7:00am Wednesday 1st January 2014

In 'Speed with Guy Martin', motorbike racer Guy attempts to set the world record for riding a motorcycle on the surface of water.

With the help of a Cambridge professor and a team of marine engineers, Guy's stunt hinges on Sir Isaac Newton's Third Law of Motion: that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
If he can maintain enough speed on his bike, the 250-year-old theory says he should be able to achieve the seemingly impossible: to ride on water.

The team master the engineering on the back wheel and the extra fittings on the bike to enable it to skim across the surface of a lake.
Crashing is inevitable, so Guy endures a rigorous training schedule, trying to escape underwater from a submersion rig and then conducting a series of dizzying trial runs, hitting the water at 30mph head first.

Testing for the stunt took place on the Tamer between Saltash and Plymouth, with the final record attempt taking place at Bala Lake in Snowdonia - which is so deep a 10-storey building could be submerged in it - with Guy surrounded by an army of rescue teams and emergency divers.

Find out if he makes it when the show airs at 8pm on Sunday, January 5.

http://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/10 ... EO/?ref=mr
 
Reza Baluchi, ‘bubble man’ attempting to float to Bermuda in a homemade 'Zorb', has be to be rescued by coast guards

Endurance runner Reza Baluchi called for help after suffering from fatigue days into his trip

An endurance runner attempting to reach Bermuda from the US in nothing but a self-built inflatable bubble, has been rescued by Coast Guards after suffering from fatigue. Reza Baluchi, the runner and peace activist, was picked up by US Coast Guard air crew on Saturday morning and taken to a nearby coast guard station, where he was described as safe and well.

The Coast Guard said it was first made known of a man floating in a giant bubble on the sea on Wednesday. After Baluchi had alerted the emergency services of his need for help, rescuers found him disorientated and asking how to get to Bermuda.

Baluchi, an Iranian exile, was attempting to 'Zorb' the 1,033 mile trip starting in California in order to raise money for “children in need” and “to… inspire those that have lost hope for a better future” according to his website, in his inflatable “Hydo-pod”.

The pod is a large bubble housed inside an aluminium-type frame dotted with inflated footballs. The bubble itself is made of 3mm-thick plastic, and is propelled forward by running inside it and using arms to push at the sides. ...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 75138.html
 
I bet he's hopping mad

A 71-year-old Frenchman has departed on a journey across the Atlantic in a specially designed barrel capsule, which will use ocean currents alone to propel him across the sea.

Jean-Jacques Savin set off from El Hierro in Spain’s Canary Islands on Wednesday and is aiming to complete his 2,800-mile journey to the Caribbean in about three months. Savin will drop markers from his three-metre long resin-coated plywood capsule along the trip to assist oceanographers in their study of currents in the Atlantic Ocean. The barrel is equipped with a kitchen area, and a mattress with straps to keep him from being thrown about by rough seas.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/break...-cross-atlantic-in-barrel-capsule-894305.html
 
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