From the interwebs:
"Nixie isn’t going to be on this Christmas’ shopping list and is simply a concept at this stage."
and
"The Nixie prototype, as it is now, looks like it could break at a moment’s notice, and resembles more a school science project than the next big wearable."
and
"Nixie is currently in prototype stage and as an idea, was born only ten days before the deadline for the competition. But despite having a lot of work to do, the team's pitch convinced the judges not only that the product is brilliant, but that the team has a viable business plan and can make the product, quite literally, take off. Prize money will be used for improving the propellers, motors and object navigation, as well as miniaturisation of the whole product."

I still think Intel got conned.

What this tells me is that everybody sees potential but that what they showed in the video was pure concept design. They have a very long road ahead of them still. My key issues are and remain:
Getting the booms to bend around the wrist so as to bring the motor pods back together.
Fitting the electronics into a format that will fit onto a wrist.
Maintain an acceptable level of performance for an acceptable level of time.

Funny thing is that they mention all of the things I've commented on:
Propellers, miniaturization, and navigation.

I would add form factor and battery life. But Props will be a key issue as getting efficient props at this size is very difficult and maintain tolerances in production.

Actually, with that propeller I would been surprised if it WASN'T that fast.

Death by Return to Home. It's a shame the rock which blocked the signal also blocked the path home.

From http://www.diyphotography.net/drone-looses-contact-operator-activates-return-home-crashes-gopro4-rock/

The lens was damaged, good scratch on the bottom that was noticeable in later videos. Drone’s electronics were all fine, smashed up the arms and propellers which he has plenty of spares for. This isn’t his first time doing this, he did the same thing last winter and found the gopro a few months later still in perfect condition without the case. He has the video on his page, it’s pretty cool

The best double barreled shotgun of any FPS was the "Sawed Off" in Blood. A lot of double barreled shotguns in games, especially nowadays fuck around with a overly long reload animation (seriously, do you need to grab the barrels from the top and pull it open? Is it rusted shut??).
Not in Blood, reloads as fast as the Doom shotgun takes to pump and you can fire one or both barrels, and firing both would usually propel zombies and zealots across the room in a spray of blood.

Good times.

Airboats (used in swamps) also have Hugh Jass fans in close proximity to the human driver - that problem has already been solved.

And because they are lighter, these would need less downward thrust than a helicopter, but I agree that debris propelled by downwash could be a hazard. (but even the entire fleet of huge Chinook helicopters' downwash only caused a few minor injuries over past several decades in service.)

It just seems to me that this is myopic, short term thinking (by the military, not you) that actually hurts their operational effectiveness by
1)being wasteful when a simple box to catch empties could be designed to be failsafe, light, and maybe even function as 'armor' when full and flotation when empty. Also (and far more important to the military), every dollar saved by 'recycling' the brass is a dollar that could be spent on more and/or better equipment for soldiers.
and 2)creating hostility towards your forces in those that may have been neutral or even on your side, before their child was burned over 90% of their body by the shells falling out of the chopper, or their straw home burned down, or their fields/rice patties/hog pens are now full of burnt 'propellant' (not always gunpowder, and often more contaminating than gunpowder) and hot brass, ruining or contaminating them permanently when it could be prevented so easily. They have put big money into trying to create a less toxic 'bullet' out of carbon/other exotics, knowing it's an issue world wide. (I don't know how far that's gone yet.) I can't understand why they would ignore the other part of the bullet?

I see your point about 'informing' the public, but that could be done just as easily and maybe better with a go-pro (or a few) and commentary, no?
True enough, it may not have been the only escape chopper or trip, but make no mistake there was a HUGE shortage of escape methods, not everyone got a ride out, and there's no reason to short change the victims or require more dangerous trips in and out just so one reporter can see first hand instead of on video....not that I see.

I think they were hoping to get thrust from the hydrogen to propel the bottle like a rocket. Instead it just blew up

*dead removed by user ... guess he got discovered. From King 5 News in Seattle July 24, 2014:

Seattle's iconic Space Needle is still standing after police received reports of a drone crash at the popular tourist attraction Tuesday night.

The Seattle Police Department Blotter says witnesses reported seeing a small drone buzz around the top of the Space Needle and possibly crash into an observation deck window. Witnesses said the drone - described as a white quad-propeller unmanned aerial vehicle equipped with a camera - then glided to a nearby hotel, where it landed inside a fifth floor room.

Police said no damage was found at the Space Needle.

Investigators tracked the drone to a guest staying at the hotel. The man told police he flew his drone past the Needle, but claims it didn't hit anything. He showed video from the drone's flight, which showed people waving from the observation deck but no collision into the Needle.

The man told police he was an Amazon employee visiting from out of state and had bought the drone at a hobby shop. After police educated the man about Seattle's recent drone-related controversies, the guest agreed to not fly his drone again during his visit to Seattle.

I don't applaud Hamas, I think their actions are as deplorable.

But I understand them.

Similarly, I understand the French Resistance. Or the American "terrorists" (Son's of Liberty) that started the resistance against the British which eventually led to the War of Independence... Of course, those are terrorists that we agree with because they were on the side of good. So we call them a resistance or patriots. The people they killed were obviously all evil ne'er-do-wells who deserved it, innocents were never harmed... /eyeroll

I had a good laugh at the "50% of the kids have PTSD". Oh the poor dears, perhaps their government shouldn't have zoned their houses in a fucking warzone. At least they have bomb shelters, a warning system, Iron Dome ffs...

But you'll have to remind me, where are the bomb shelters in Gaza when Israeli artillery and guided munitions come a knocking? Where's the automated missile defense system shooting down incoming strikes, or the warning system to tell people an attack is imminent? Who's supplying them with first class military equipment?

Have you ever seen one of Hamas' vaunted "rockets"? A home built, hand machined dumbfire which uses ammonium nitrate and sugar as it's propellant, and mostly low grade explosives as it's payload. No guidance, just launch and hope it hits something. Yup, it'll kill you if it lands on you, but they are weapons of desperation, not a serious threat. The 600 to 30 kill ratio at the moment speaks to that.

thank you!
Personal fantasy; in my next career, I want to be a fire bomber pilot (twin engine propeller would fine)---flying beat up old aircraft into giant smoke plumes...1000-2000 gallons on each pass

The DC-10 shown here is a beast of an entirely different nature. It can drop 12,000 gallons---

There is even, though I've not seen San Diego footage---a 747 conversion that can drop 20,000 gallons on each pass

this one has been submitted before as the 'propeller man'

50 bucks says the word propeller will be in his epitaph.

Yes I hate to be a pedant (who am I kidding, I love it!) but that's clearly not a jet!

It is a turboprob which is maybe why the noise threw the OP, but the visible propellers was a bit of a give-away.

Nice landing though, jets or no jets.

That's almost exactly what I just said 17-18kg in earth terms. Do you think laid on your back you could easily throw a 17kg object 1.5-2m upwards?

He's not doing a push up he's trying to jump upright. Launching nearly 20kg of weight far enough to get to your feet would take some doing that way I'd say. Just lifting 20kg with the arms alone is an effort never mind throwing it which is effectively what's happening here.

This is part of the reason I defaulted to thinking in terms of rocketry as it's not as simple as just someone trying to lift something, they are trying to propel themselves 1-2m upwards with only a thrust from the arms. Much better to wiggle around/push up to get to your knees so one could bring one's legs muscles to bear (made very difficult by hard to bend suit).

Frankly I think it would be a total pain in the arse getting back upright. If it weren't for the suit you could easily push up to your knees and then straighten your legs but the inflation is going to make that very hard work (but doable after a struggle to one knee as other video footage proves).

The alternative however which sparked this whole argument i.e. lay on your front and push off with your arms. That I think would be considerably harder than you are making out. Throwing a 17kg weight with only your arms over 1m in height is not what I'd call effortless.

My old CRT monitor probably weighs about 20kg, it'd take everything I had to throw that over 1m up into the air. Without the power of your thigh muscles and the rigidity of your spine 20kg is quite a lot really.

How high can you "jump" with only your arms? (like those super push-ups where you clap your hands in between to show off) maybe a foot or two if your really really strong? So with the extra weight of a suit and reduced gravity multiplying the result by 6 under lunar gravity, 6feet is probably just about attainable for someone in peak physical shape. But it's defiantly not what I'd call easy!


Re: conspiracies The only one I really take at all seriously any more is the idea that 2001 (esp the book) was perhaps (very) loosely based on actual events. I have time for it simply because of Arthur C. Clarke himself who was going to give an interview (which he rarely does) on Project Camelot of all things but died about 2 weeks before it happened. If you know anything about project camelot you'll know whatever he had to say was going to be mental but then again he was very old and eccentric and plenty other people involved in the space program have "jumped the shark" so to speak. (Edgar Mitchell talks about aliens on a regualr basis, Buzz Aldrin has spoken about monoliths on Phobos, pilots being followed by "Foofighters" in WW2 etc. etc.)

But it's basically wishful thinking on my part, the story and implications are remarkably plausible for what they are but that is all they are. Combined with the whole Jack Parsons/Alastair Crowley connection to the JPL my creative juices start flowing. However the obvious counter argument i.e. that the world is largely run by genuine lunatics is never far from my mind either (look at the whole "men who stare at goats" thing).

I'll listen to anyone and some I'm even prepared to believe on their own terms but I have to defer to actual evidence where it exists (or does not exist). Consequently while I'll listen to someone like John Leer talking about stuff that would seem outlandish even in a science fiction story, people why claim the moon landing was a hoax tend to get the cold shoulder as it's pretty demonstrably not true/hard to believe.

I realise that's kind of backwards but willing suspension of disbelief is a lot easier when there's really no tangible evidence either way. (why I suspect huge incomprehensible delusions like those espoused by many religions get so much traction. It's easier to believe the big lie than the small one)

Jolly entertaining though regardless

The description from one of the other slingshot rocket launcher vids is:

Launching rockets in Germany requires all kinds of permits and licenses nobody ever gets. But for just 48 hours each year, the rules change. During these two days, every adult person is allowed to blast away with rockets and fire crackers!

The Slingshot Channel MUST take advantage of this once-in-a-year time slot. This time, we built a 2,5 meters high rubber based launch tower, capable of launching an unlit rocket about 50 meters up in the air! Add these 50 meters to the 60-80 meters that the rockets achieve by means of their powder charge, and you get some serious total height.

Of course many things can go wrong. The flimsy wooden shafts are not made to endure the stress of 50 kilogramms (110 lb) of a draw force applied by the rubber bands, and can break right in the barrel of the launcher. Also, if the timing of the fuse is bad and the charge ignites when the nose of the rocket is already pointed downwards, then the rocket will be propelled downwards and explose at ground level - effectively a surface to surface missile.

The Slingshot Channel tests all this... come and see the results!