While most of the people I know are going about their daily lives, there are two things going on today that makes my ass feel sorry for itself for sitting on a chair in front of a computer all day long.
1- One of my best friends Kevin Estrada is playing with Phil and the Osophers at SXSW as I'm typing this. By day, Kevin is an editor at Harper Collins. By night, he's a crimefighting, damsel-saving son of a gun superhero who drums on the side.
2- These fuckin' Spanish teens who's made headlines with their science experiment in shallow space.
Long story short, they used a $77 Panasonic camera from a Target and couple bucks on a latex balloon, their dads' vans, 2 Macbooks, and Google Earth to send and track photos from the device's ascension.
They wanted to take pictures and track their device to see what kind of results would show up. They weren't testing or trying to prove anything. In fact, they didn't even expect it to go past 30k ft.- where planes fly. Instead, this motherfucker went past 100k ft- 20 miles into the air and damn near outer space.
Basically, these 18 year old kids took a picture, from space, of Earth, with a digital camera that costs less than half of yours.
Instant acceptance into any college, kids. Congrats. More info HERE.
A receiver, your trusty laptop, and Google Earth is all you need to track this. Amazing.
This is around 30k feet, around where commercial planes cruise. Where Oceanic 815 first lost radio contact.
According to Giz, these kids be running out of battery juice and had to go door-to-door to borrow internet connections and power outlets to keep going. They're right. Disney-short in the making.
$150 they'll never forget.
