Breakfast Links: Balloon Photography, Biking & Lions, Buffalo and Crocodiles
Check out this high speed photography from the MakerFaire of people popping balloons. I really like the serene look many of them have on their faces, eyes closed, totally relaxed - it’s quite a counterpoint to the scrunched up, nervous, please don’t explode into my eyes look the other half has. Or the, “this is practice for when I go postal” look this lady has. Or the vaguely dirty general aspect that this shot has. Or the subtle terror in this little girl’s eyes.
Now onto biking. There’s been some debate on bike helmets. There was the crazy study that found some kind of psychological reason that caused drivers to drive much closer to bikers wearing helmets than not - so finding it more dangerous to wear a helmet. For me biking is a situation where you have very little control over your accidents, someone opens a door, a car doesn’t obey a light, etc… so I wear a helmet. This guy also wore a helmet when he got his head run over by a truck. Here’s the money quote:
Madison Police Department Sgt. Chris Boyd said the officer at the scene urged Lipscomb to keep the helmet. He did. It is all flattened and mangled and broken, unlike his head.
I too like my head not flattened, nor mangled, nor broken.
Check out this youtube, some folks were on safari at Kruger National Park and caught this strange scene with surprisingly uplifting ending (how often does that happen when buffalo, lions and crocodiles are involved??). It’s pretty long so skip to 3:20, 5:45 and 6:05 if you don’t want to watch the whole thing. It’s totally crazy. Those folks got their money’s worth on that safari!!
