Wingsuits and the Crazy BASE Jumpers That Love Them

Filed Under Video | 2009-01-05, 16:38

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

There aren’t many videos online that give me goosebumps in a good way. This is one of them. I can watch this over and over and over and still my jaw drops. The clip above is from Matchstick Production’s ski film, “Seven Sunny Days” (trailer). There are a ton of videos out there of people who are BASE jumping with wingsuits. It’s nothing new, but still awe-inspiring. They may not be as fast as a guy with a jet strapped to him, but I’m sure they’re having a ton of fun out there.

Buzzing tourists:

Wingsuit jumping in Switzerland:

And we’ll leave you with the trailer for ‘Learning To Fly’, a film about Chris McNamara’s first year learning to BASE jump:
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An unoccupied derelict’s attempt to communicate

Filed Under Pranks, Scam | 2009-01-05, 14:56

Heather received the perplexing email at the end of this post in her inbox a few days ago. I’m not sure what it all means, and I could only find this post on Yahoo! Answers with other people questioning it as well. The email posted there was slightly different in some sentences.

Intelliant (the username in the email address) is a company that provides OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software. Alternatively “IntelliAnt” is another company that provides “end-to-end corporate services focused upon addressing both Business and IT needs of the corporate world”. I doubt either is behind this email though, unless they’re testing OCR software on someone’s scribbled rantings.

Another clue is that all the emails in the To: field were *.edu. The other copy of the email posted on Yahoo! Answers was from “i.love.school@gmail.com” but was addressed to *.edu email addresses as well.

Is it some strange spambot looking for valid emails? Or maybe a spammer trying to craft emails that get past filters? Is it viral marketing? Is it just somebody bored? Anyone have any ideas?

UPDATE: Looks like some people are already on the case and have uncovered a plethora of information related to this interesting email. Head over to tomecatti’s livejournal for more info and enough links to keep you busy until 2010! I haven’t read it all, but there’s a good summary posted in an lj community:

So, about two and a half weeks ago, I got this weird email at my university email account. My first reaction? Post it in my LJ and laugh. Over the next two weeks, that LJ post was flooded with other people who got the email, with interpretations, theories, and sudden paranoia about terrorism. We’ve come to a few conclusions: It’s not Jim Strope, author of the hilarious manifesto Weeping for Narcissus, but it also could be, because Jim is practically giving the culprit head in his denial. It also seems to only be going to people with some association with Colleges; students and faculty members have shown up. We’re also pretty sure that it’s this guy who registers his sites as “Tom Jones”, but is more likely named “Michael” or “The Man Smarter Than Everyone For Seriously You Guys” and wants to make the Borg real.

(warning: All links here may give you a combination headache and lulz, and be packed full of stupid “puzzles”)

Original email that H recieved:

—–Original Message—–
From: intelliant@gmail.com [mailto:intelliant@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2008 12:16 PM
To: [REDACTED]
Subject: An unoccupied derelict’s attempt to communicate

Is it accurate to say that you’re trying to find another human who thinks as you do? If not, there is no need to read further as it means that those who think just like you are already around you.

You must wish to force all people to adopt your views. Or does it appeal to you more to promote imbecility?

I was planning to get married this year since it would have increased the tax refund. They told me a marital union should be about love. They had no interest in acting as allies.

They think the most wonderful thing is to find what you enjoy doing. This is self-deception. Perhaps one twentieth of today’s GDP would suffice to live luxuriously by historical standards.

People ask how I make ends meet as I rarely work. I question why they compensate skillful liars by donating to the movie industry. Why do they crave after cars and private property? Is it not apparent that they admire traveling only as long as it’s highly regarded by the general populace?

They’re confident that society can’t change. But as children, they dreamt about omniscience, perfect relationships, and utopias. We are still that impressionable. We’ll build a society based on rational thinking.

Don’t reply to this message as we will not read it. Use the best internet search engine to search these words.

arrogant teenage expectation intelligence students
light philosophy strategy ideology logic
distilled pure general design insecure
terrestrial personality intolerant delectable defiance
conspiracy social spiritual art traits
indoctrination innovative Borg monomania clandestine

Search for three words at a time for best results. Hence, there are a very large number of possible searches, so only the fanatical will succeed.

2 Comments

New Year’s Eve at the Blogger Bungalow

Filed Under Personal, SF Bay Area | 2009-01-01, 22:19

photo by Violet Blue(?)

When it came time to decide where we were going to spend the evening welcoming 2009, it was a tough choice. There were things happening all over the Bay Area, but not wanting to do the “party circuit” we decided we had to pick one. Enticed by interesting hosts/guests, technology, and gift bags compliments of Good Vibrations, we got dressed, touched up the red in the hair, and headed over to Violet Blue’s Blogger Bungalow for her New Year Party.

The party wasn’t just for invited guests though, as she had all sorts of live-blogging technology setup in order to share our celebration with everyone online. There was an Eye-Fi enabled camera circulating around the guests where photos were instantly uploaded to the Blogger Bungalow Flickr account. There was a Macbook on the table next to the absinthe and chips logged into a WordPress blog and 12seconds.tv. Guests were encouraged to post on either of the sites, and some of us took 12 seconds in between conversations to record silly videos. We stayed up until the wee hours of the morning talking tech, sex, art, and culture. There was even time for some late night Twitter-nanigans.

In addition to the Eye-Fi camera, Scott Beale of Laughing Squid also took some photos, and I grabbed a few with my iPhone. I’m sure there are tons of other photos, tweets, and blog posts if I can just try to remember the names of all the wonderful people I met….

Hope everyone out there had a safe and enjoyable celebration and is looking forward to this new year as much as I am! Have a great 2009!

3 Comments

Year-End Travel Meme Time

Filed Under Personal | 2009-01-01, 18:29

List the towns or cities (I’m including National Parks too) where you spent at least a night away from home during 2008. Mark with a star if you had multiple non-consecutive stays.

Monterey, CA *
Lewisville, NC
Santa Barbara, CA *
Olema, CA
Seattle, WA
Black Rock City, NV
Cedar City, UT
Bryce Canyon National Park, UT
Loa, UT
Goblin Valley National Park, UT
Moab, UT
Las Vegas, NV *
Hollywood, CA
Miami, FL
New York, NY
Chicago, IL
Yosemite National Park, CA
Los Angeles, CA
Joshua Tree National Park, CA