h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

PS:
It doesn't get interesting until about 2 minutes in.

~jwf~

"How about wing dancing?" [jwf]

Are you talking about beautiful chorus girls dancing on the wings of airplanes> They had that in thefilm "Flying Down to Rio."

Yep! That's the Utoob link in my post.
I suspect we'll being clips from that
quite a bit over the next four years.

~jwf~

Here's a shorter version of the clip
that gets right to the wing action.
http://youtu.be/M6xzyVY7EfU

~jwf~

Erm? Running into someone else's edition of h2g2? (Note, if you get to Mars you'd have to start your own edition, unless you were able to return)

And yes, there are certain human rights you are unable to remove, especially in the sense that you can't remove someone else's need to obey them concerning yourself
( things like assisted suicide are problematic this way) but it is more problematic is, despite that fact that you probably sign many of them, you can't actually indemnify someone/thing against your death or injury

So many stunts are banned for this...getting to Mars is also a tad risky

I personally found the Olympics very interesting (with the exception of most of the closing ceremony) but not inspiring


Nothing enormous comes to mind (although I've only got the 2 decades to play with) though certain things do catch both the interest and indeed inspiration of the planet for short lengths of time

The reason why wing dancing stopped being popular after "Flying Down to Rio" is that somebody died during the filming of that film. People were leery about doing that sort of thing after that.

And yet a strange form of wing dancing or as the Brazilians now
call it kitesurfing or kiteboarding, will be an Olympic event in 2016.

"At the beach's edge in Barra da Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro,
Brazilian kiteboarding champion Milla Ferreira wrestles in
twisting winds, with the nine-metre long kite flying high
above her head.

The waves are high, the wind changeable, but Ms Ferreira
appears magnetically attached to her board, as the kite
moves her at speed across the water.

In its Olympic debut, kiteboarding will replace windsurfing
at Rio 2016."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19233328

"If God doesn't want to give the wind then you just go back
to the house, there's nothing you can do," she explains.


~jwf~

I'm not clear on what windsurfing is. Does one sit/stand on a surfboard on the ocean and let your sails propel you? Or Is windsurfing known as hanggliding?

Well you balance on a surfboard and hang from a parachute type wing.
It involves the skills of surfing, kite flying and hang gliding. In that regard
it can be said to be very much like wing dancing. In Brazilian bikinis.

(There was video at that last link)


~jwf~

"you balance on a surfboard and hang from a parachute type wing"

No, you don't.

"It involves the skills of surfing, kite flying and hang gliding"

No, it doesn't.

"In that regard it can be said to be very much like wing dancing. In Brazilian bikinis"

No, it can't.

I wonder if anyone has written a guide entry on the subject?

Oh yeah A653221.

Nearly eleven years ago!

Thanks for the link, Hoovooloo. The description in the guide article sounds a lot like what I imagined windsurfing to be like. It's not like hanggliding. Now I know.

Wave sailing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXZo1bl4k4k

Slalom racing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7rm79vrWag

Course racing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e6V_PrBT5Y

Freestyle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk7sC7tH5ac

Speedsailing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3-euMjOAA0

Big wave riding: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4znK_XdzUM

Windsurfers were the first people to ride Jaws, the infamous big wave also known as Pe'ahi off the north shore of Maui, in the days before tow-in surfing was developed.

I think confusion is arising in the similarity between "wind surfing" and "kite surfing". I think of the former as a sort of midway point between surfing and yachting. Personally, it may be just the beaches I've been to over my life, but I've seen considerably more wind-surfers than I have conventional surfers, and I don't think I've ever seen a kite surfer except on TV. In fact, I just googled it and realized I may have been confusing it with yet another similar pastime I've seen more coverage of: What's the one where you're pulled along in a sort of buggy by a kite, usually on mud-flats at low tide?

Kite buggying. I do that too, in fact, I've got a kitebuggy (and kite) in the boot of my car right now as it goes.

Windsurfing is, for me at least, nothing to do with surfing at all - waves are a complication I've never learned to deal with at the same time as steering a big, heavy board and a large, complex, heavy rig. It's strictly a flat water thing for me, blasting along in straightish lines.

Kitesurfing, on the other hand, is easy enough that waist high waves just represent usable ramps. You can still blast on flat water, obviously, but wave riding on smallish waves is something you can reasonably expect to do in your first week.

Windsurfers are dying out. Where I go, on the Fylde coast (near Blackpool), you hardly ever see windsurfers any more - it's all kitesurfers. The kit is smaller, lighter, cheaper, easier and quicker to set up, easier to use and, imo, more fun.

Kite buggying is a different game again, and can get pretty extreme. When you fall off a windsurfer or kitesurfer you're (usually) hitting water. Flip out of a kitebuggy at the easily achievable speed of 50mph, and it's hard sand you're hitting. I never ride without a helmet, and I'm considering some body armour after seeing what a buggy frame did to a guy's ribs last year (it landed on top of him at speed). Best spots for buggying are actually sandy beaches, rather than mud flats.

Irritatingly, one of the very best spots in the UK, Lytham, is off limits to land-kite sports due to the inconsiderate actions of an idiot who decided to walk their dog right through the middle of a signposted, organised competition. Entirely predictably, they got hit. Not necessarily predictably, they were killed. In any sane world, such a dumb action would have seen condolences and sympathy and exhortations for pedestrians to perhaps consider using their freakkin' eyes as they wander about the world. In our ridiculous reality, the actions of this one person have rendered the beach unusable to hundreds or possible thousands of potential users, simply because they were too stupid to notice several dozen large, brightly coloured, noisily fast moving objects racing up and down the entirely flat and unimpeded beach on a clear sunlit day.

Swan pedalos...now there's a thing I could get into in my twilight years. Well the spirit is willing.

As it happens am going to see this on friday evening.

http://www.whirledart.co.uk/cinema/programme/swandown

"Windsurfers were the first people to ride Jaws, the infamous big wave also known as Pe'ahi off the north shore of Maui, in the days before tow-in surfing was developed." [Hoovooloo]

Maui is one of my favorite places. I tried to go snorkeling there in the mid-1990s, but it was a time of dangerously high waves. A wave threw me against the beach, and I decided to give up snorkeling.... I heard that four experienced surfers died that week.