Video/Photo of the day: Cloud over Austin, Texas

by Elizabeth Seward on

An attention-grabbing cloud rolled over the city of Austin last night. I spotted the cloud from the kitchen window and proceeded to immediately notify my photographer friend, Ben Britz, in the next room over. The cloud was spinning relatively quickly. It was colored pink, white, and even aqua in some parts. Shortly after the cloud was dimmed with the darkness of sunset, shots of rosy lightning within the cloud began illuminating the night sky.

I found this time-lapse video on YouTube and couldn’t help but post it. This is, I promise, exactly how it looked. Austin was under a tornado watch the last couple of days, but the rain has yet to come.The following two photos were shot by Ben, who loves a good cloud photo op.

Other YouTube users caught the same cloud on film. Check out the giant cloud from some different angles with these videos below.

Boeing’s 787: Engineering a quieter airplane

by Grant Martin on

It has long been rumored that Boeing‘s new 787 Dreamliner will be the quietest commercial jumbo jet in its class. Take a look at the back of select engine nacelles on the airframe and you can see an obvious difference. That egg crate design is in place for improved acoustic performance, which means a better experience for not only passengers but the people living near airports and flight paths.

Boeing just published a video showing some of the other improvements and the testing that they’re working on. Take a look at the show above.

What its like to survive a plane crash – 3 things one passenger learned about life

by Justin Delaney on

Have you ever wondered what its like to be in a crashing airplane? The thoughts that would go through your head? While many of us have no doubt experienced troubling turbulence, sitting in your seat as the engines fail and the aircraft careens towards the earth is probably every traveler’s worst nightmare.

In 2009, Us Airways flight 1549 experienced loss of both engines due to a collision with a flock of Canada geese. The crew had to make an emergency landing on the Hudson river. The story was covered extensively, and the heroics and decision making of the crew saved every life on board. Captain Sullenberger and the crew even received the keys to New York City.

This video from TED shows one passenger’s account of the horrifying ordeal that took place in 2009. Narrator Ric Elias was seated in the first row of the flight. In this video, he candidly shares his thought process during the crash and how this moment of terror actually transformed into a gift. He talks about the three things he learned and what it is like to confront death in a plummeting airplane.Link to TED

Video of super DIY Chinese street-sweeper

by Justin Delaney on

One of the coolest things about China is this street sweeper. Fashioned from dried plants or perhaps straw of some kind, it is the sort of thing that is conceived in the pockets of China where rural life and modernity intermingle to create interesting contraptions with a foot in each century. With the functionality of its modern counterparts and the charm of peasant ingenuity, the device appears to be plucked from Mao’s cultural revolution but remixed considerably to serve its purpose in the 21st century.

Video: beautiful aurora from a plane

by Elizabeth Seward on

Witnessing a beautiful aurora is on my absolutely-need-to-do list. But in the meantime, I’ll have to satisfy my infatuation with that which is googleable. Auroras are caused when charged particles, directed by the Earth’s magnetic field, collide.

This video is a time lapse video. The photographer, Nate Bolt, explains how he put this cool video together on his YouTube page.“I shot a photo roughly every two miles between take-off in San Francisco and landing in Paris CDG to make this airplane time lapse”, he introduces the video in the YouTube page’s description”.

“Shot with a 5d2, a time-lapse controller, and a 16mm – 35mm, mixed with some iPhone shots. The flight path from SF to Paris goes well over Greenland and the arctic circle, where you can see “northern” lights from all sides of the plane, which explains why I could shoot them facing South”, he explains.

“The photos during take-off and landing are all computer models and totally rendered because I would never use an electronic device during times when the FAA prohibits them. I did get lucky and have a whole row to myself to setup the tripod and gear”.

Check the video out. It’s great!