>> ^vaire2ube:




HAHAHAHAHA!! My thoughts exactly =oD

Now that she mentioned it, dissolving in acid sounds like a cool idea.
My body, dressed in a suit, dangling on a crane over a big barrel filled with nitro-hydrochloric acid. And while my body is being slowly lowered into the acid a fat man in a gray suit laughs manically while stroking a white cat he's holding in his arms.
That'd be one burial none of my family and friends would forget easily

Why didn't the sky crane have a camera on it?!

>> ^SFOGuy:

Sometimes I admit to wondering: do these people have parents? I mean, people who have the normal level of fear response to seeing someone they care about finding new and interesting ways to potentially hurt themselves? I wonder that about the Russian high tower/building videos too...
Not to say it isn't impressive and artful; just wonder.


There was a short series of programs here in the UK about Danny Macaskill, looking at how he deals with the fear/adrenaline of these type of stunts. They took him to meet other daredevil types and looked at his response to the risks. They also interviewed his parents. His dad is very risk averse, he doesn't like anything his son does, but his mother encouraged him to take risks from a very early age. The result is a mature person with a huge understanding of risk. He really knows his limits and what is and isn't possible.

If you bring up a child without exposing them to risk they never learn how to deal with or understand risk. When presented with a situation which is risky they don't know which decisions to make and that's when it all goes really badly wrong.

One of the other people they interviewed in the series was a specialist action sequence director. He works all the time with stunt men and women, people who do things that look really dangerous to normal people. He said they're the least likely of anyone to do anything dangerous. These things look dangerous to us because we don't know how we would deal with the situation. But to a trained stunt person, it's not that dangerous at all. He said they were the most likely people to back away from a danger. They don't look to do dangerous things, but rather they enjoy mastering the risks, so it's not dangerous.

They talked about a sequence where Danny rode down some steps in an underground station (I say rode down, what I mean is hurled himself and the bike down in unimaginably hectic ways!). They asked him what he was thinking when they were planing the shoot and he talked about all the potential risks he could see. Would his bike fit through the gap between the handrails if he did a twist in the jump? Would he hit his head on a step in the ceiling? Would he have enough space to slow down and so on. You'd think seeing the end shots that he went along looking for dangerous things to do where as he actually did the exact opposite.

As for the Russian crane climbers, I suspect there's a little more vodka involved than perhaps there should be...

I was stunned also.

I reiterate my feelings from one of the videos of the event here...

MOTHERLOVING SKY CRANE ON ANOTHER MOTHERLOVING PLANET!

That's insane.

We sent a craft that lowered itself, autonomously, down onto another planet under power... I've always got the whole 'drop out of the sky, use a parachute and air bags' approaches, they all seem doable to my little brain. But for a craft to land like in a sci fi movie, by itself... that's just amazing to me.

Huge high fives to all involved. It was awesome watching it live here at work, and awesome to see the elation in those JPL people when it reported back it was fine.

I found it absolutely awesome that I could watch this live streaming from JPL on my computer at work, in Australia in great quality... and it started up instantly and never missed a beat.

The interwebs be coming into their own people... into their own!

And yeay NASA! Fricken skycranes on Mars people... SKY FRICKEN CRANES on another planet.

Science and engineering rocks!

Yes watched in 1080p and got the same feeling you get from those videos of the Russian kids playing on the crane... sweaty-palmed, ass-puckering fear.

>> ^kevingrr:

People really seem to have a lot of problems with science not being certain, but usually they are responding like this:
Scientist: All the available data and evidence shows us with 98 percent certainty that 'it' works like this.
Journalist: So you could be wrong? You are not certain? It is just your opinion then.
This is when the scientist should slap the journalist in the face with a printout of all the evidence he had to compile and process.
Edit: If the printouts are too heavy to be lifted by hand I support dropping them from a crane on said journalist.


It would be much quicker just to run them over with the crane. Then you could neatly stack the papers on top of the journalist. Of course put a plastic tarp over flat journalist. Don't want to ruin the papers.

People really seem to have a lot of problems with science not being certain, but usually they are responding like this:

Scientist: All the available data and evidence shows us with 98 percent certainty that 'it' works like this.
Journalist: So you could be wrong? You are not certain? It is just your opinion then.

This is when the scientist should slap the journalist in the face with a printout of all the evidence he had to compile and process.

Edit: If the printouts are too heavy to be lifted by hand I support dropping them from a crane on said journalist.

Before reading the comments I already felt it was staged. I do believe the concrete crushing the bus is real but it was all planned.

Why did no one jump/flinch? Why didn't they run over to the bus? Why didn't the camera drop (a weird reflex that you are all probably aware of)? Why was the bus backed into such an odd area? Why isn't the area blocked off and patrolled to keep people away? Where was the slab of concrete lifted from and who attached it to the crane? Why would it be lifted directly above the bus and not parallel to the building?

But the BIGGEST reason of all I think it is staged - comments have been disabled on the video...

used to operate a crane, never leave a load higher then need be (few feet off the ground), never move a load above anything or anyone(so usually straight up or slightly beside where it was lifted from) where is the spotter? the guy signaling the massively tall crane? if they were moving stuff around up onto the roof where did he load it from? where is any other construction worker? why is that whole area fenced off including around the bus, why is bus even there?! there would be no sane reason to park a bus that close to a crane.
the camera guy and skateboarder knew it was going to happen. it was staged for something, but not them.

Staged? Maybe. (Probably?)
Fake? I'm not so sure.
If you were going to fake it, I'd think you'd change the name of the crane operator to avoid liability issues. Beelen (the name on the crane and the banner on the fence) is a Dutch demolition company.

I'm having a difficult time identifying the livery on the bus, but I think it's noteworthy that it's been stripped of anything that might identify it. Beyond that, it almost looks like the top edge has already been damaged even before the block drops on it.
The guy in green in the parking lot in the background seems entirely unfazed by the proceedings.
And yes, I do think it's also noteworthy that the video was posted to YouTube with comments disabled.

>> ^legacy0100:

They sound like the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park!
promote


Ummm...they -are- dinosaurs!

Tags for this video have been changed from 'crane, afganistan, feed, wave, screeching noise' to 'crane, afghanistan, feed, wave, screeching noise' - edited by calvados