Plenoptic

Article: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/19694083/ Kent Couch used 105 balloons connected to a lawn chair to lift him into the air for a 9 hour, 193 mile flight from his home. This isn't the first time he has done it, he had a 6 hour flight before where he shot down a balloon at a time with a BB gun but ended up bailing out with a parachute after strting to come down too fast. This time he brought along instruments to test his speed, alititude and brought a GPS navigation tool. He had 4, 5 gallon bags of water that he released a little at a time by the use of a spigot to release a little water at a time to bring him up to his 13,000 ft altitude going roughly 20 miles per hour. He released helium a little at a time from the balloons instead of popping them to come down slower so this time the parachute wasn't necessary. Unfortunately, after he landed, a draft picked up and the chair took back off with his camera, phone and wallet. I have always dreamed of doing something like this. Couch isn't the first to try this actually but is the most recent. I've thought about trying this but never really thought about what would happen if something didn't go right. I figured just popping the balloons one at a time would bring you down slow enough but I guess I'd have to learn how to parachute just in case. I think it'd be cool just to fly around in the sky with nothing really around you. It's amazing to think what it'd be like. I love flying in planes and I've often thought of finding a jetpack or flying in a hot air balloon too. I think the $1500 fines would probably even be worth it.

Well Monday night, the 8th was the Home Run Derby in which 8 contestants dueled it out for the title of Home Run King. Vladimir Guerrero won in the end with 17 home runs total. Alex Rios came in second behind him. The first round was sort of slow at first but in the second round really heated up with Rios hitting 12 home runs total. The game was held at AT&T park in San Francisco which is next to McCovey Cove, named after a former San Francisco Giant, Willie McCovey. There were 300 to 400 kayakers out in the cove is what I heard, all waiting for a home run. Unfortunately only 2 balls went out there and both were foul.As for the All Star Game, it was played Tuesday night (Last Night). The pre-game show was great. They had a ceremony for Willie Mays, the "Say Hey Kid." They unveiled a banner showing one of his greatest catches and had an interview with him. They had him toss out balls into the stands. I am not sure if they were autographed or not but I think they were. But as for the game itself, it was pretty exciting. Ichiro Suzuki hit an inside the park home run. The first ever in an All Star Game. It occurred when the ball took a bad bounce off the wall. That gave the American League a 2-1 lead. Jose Reyes of the National League almost hit one himself but he didn't really run to first base because he thought he had hit a home run over the wall. The American League had a 5-2 lead going into the bottom of the ninth after Mike Lowell had a homer as well as Carl Crawford. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning though, the game wasn't quite over. Alfonso Soriano of the National League hit a 2 run homer to make it 5 to 4. Unfortunately, they left the bases loaded and still lost 5 to 4. This put their All Star Game losing streak to 10 games. Josh Beckett ended up with the win for the American League.Did anyone else watch the game? It was a pretty good one I think, especially the end. I'm pretty upset though that the National League lost. I was hoping they could end their streak. In the end though it doesn't really matter that they didn't win.

Considering, when you sign up for Xisto you accept the rules which you should have read. This means that you are willing to follow them and will before and after you are accepted for hosting. Creating multiple accounts doesn't really do anything for you. If you stuck with your first account and just improved your posts probably shows a lot more about you then creating multiple accounts and breaking the same rules. Seeing as you probably don't want to keep up with the posting anyway if it requires a bit of time, then I would recommend you use the Free hosting and small text ad at the bottom of the page at qupis.com or pay for cheap hosting at Xisto - Web Hosting.com

When searching through the sky through the Keck-II telescope on top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, astronomers found the farthest galaxies known to man. They are so far away, that they are viewing them at the age of 500 million years old. That may seem old, but the universe itself is approximately 13.7 billion years old. That means that the galaxies are 13.2 billion years away. What does that mean in miles? From what I calculated that would mean that they are roughly 82.2 sexillion miles away. The number itself would appear like this... The article says that the stars they see were made after the era of the first stars, because when the universe first was created, it was in theory just fog like. They found the six galaxies using a concept known as "gravitational lensing." define:gravitational lensing The article can be found here: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ Space has always interested me, that is why I posted this article. I like to think of what the "Big Bang" was like and what it was like for this space to just expand into nothingness or whatever you may view it as. They got to see the universe close to the beginning. Those stars are probably long gone now but they are looking into the past. I wonder how they know they are looking at the beginning and not the end though I'll have to do more research on that.

As the others said, I don't really like the color mixing too much. The newer layout looks better but I would try to stick to more of one scheme. A little bit of blue in green or green in blue isn't bad but having random sections of each color just doesn't really seem to fit. I know you are trying to be different but I think there are other ways to do it. The search box idea Jimmy gave you to have the word search in the text box until it is clicked upon I think is a good idea. Sure most people will know it's a search box but there are a lot of people out there who aren't familiar with sites and may not know that. The categories on the right, I guess is OK because it's pretty obvious that it is navigation stuff. I personally probably wouldn't do it but it doesn't look all that bad.

Although music is nice to listen to, I don't really think it's necessary to have it on Xisto. There are many sites out there that allow you to listen to music. Most radio stations now allow you to listen to music online. If you don't like the music they are playing they can just go to another station or play it for themselves. AOL has a lot of songs that are free to listen to, just have like a 20 second ad before them. Most people now have Ipods or MP3 players now that they will just listen to their own music either way. I don't really think it'd be a great idea/addition but more of a waste of space because I don't really think that many people would use it. Of course then again, if it's there then maybe they will but it'd be too much of a hassle in my opinion.

I'm not an expert in this area, but I'll tell you what I think. Before you gave up your dream did you realize that if things didn't work out with her that you will have to start again? It was ultimately your choice to stay where you are to be with her. You can try to talk to her and tell her how you feel. The only way she is going to realize what you did and how you feel about it is to just tell her. Sit her down one day and have a talk about it and tell her why you feel like it was a mistake. But then she may feel obligated to you because of what you did and that probably isn't what you want either. Things aren't really going to be perfect in either case but if you want her to know what you did for her then tell her.

I didn't even know that they vote upon what the Seven Wonders are. If I had known I would have voted on them as well. As of yet I haven't seen any of them, except maybe in pictures and who knows if I will or not but that'd be pretty cool to say that you have traveled to each of The Seven Wonders but if they vote on them again and they change you'll have to say, I've seen The Seven Wonders of 2007. The order doesn't really matter, the point is they are the top seven places to see in the world and are for the most part pretty historic.

This is a nice tool, especially if you are talking about an unnkown topic in the "What Is" section, and instead of having to explain everything you can just have hte links that lead to the definition or will search it for people. Image Align will help also for comparing two images and you want to place them right next to each other and what not as well as make your tutorials look nicer as already stated. It may take me a few tries to get it right but once you memorize the code it's nice and simple. Good work!

I'm sure this 3 strike law was put into effect to keep people from breaking the law because they'll be scared of the sentence. I am guessing that if people even think about it being their 3rd strike they argue with themselves saying that if they won't get caught it won't matter or they are a special case. They find some excuse either way. Sure I think it's harsh but it's these kinds of stories that cause people to think twice or even a third time before they go and break a law because they don't want to pay the price.

Yes I see all of these things that add up to 11, but do you really think that it was ALL planned like that though? Sure I can see the date, the telephone services, maybe the flight number, who knows, maybe even the passengers. But do you really think they had that much control? So if George W Bush wasn't 11 letters long and say maybe Al Gore was president, would they not have sent the attack and waited? If Ramsin Yuseb was not 11 letters long and say he had different name of 12 letters long, would he not send the attack or send it on the 12th day of the month? I see also even the Madrid bombings being 911 days after, it's all one big pattern but I think people are looking just more and more to add to it. If you want you can add Empire State to the list because it also has 11 letters in it. Yes I see all, but I think some are just coincidences that people went out looking for. They were trying to send a message and that is how they chose to do it and that's what makes it even more memorable. They hurt our country and there isn't really anything we can do to change that day because it is in the past. We have to now look into the feature to try and protect it better.

Hello Atthack. I turn 16 at the end of this month. Are you allowed to get your license at 16 where you live? What game do you play that you are in a clan in? I used to play America's Army and still do sometimes but don't really have a clan anymore. I also have an interest in Photoshop and Webdesign but I'm not that good at either so I've sort of gotten out of that too. Good luck with getting the site up for your clan and your plans for design.

That would be pretty weird to have someone keylogging you without you even knowing it just because you try to save a few bucks and in some cases you lose all of your money because of stolen credit card numbers and what not. They can use them because you give them all of your information including your name and address. I guess you should only buy from companies you know but even then they could take your info and it'd be least expected but I think that'd be a bigger risk than they can take. People are already worried about losing their information, if this is all true it could make things a bit worse.

As for an actual downloadable program, I am not sure. But if you need directions to places go to https://www.mapquest.com/ or "Yahoo Maps" or you can go to MSN, http://www.bing.com/maps/ It's called, Microsoft Virtual Earth. In each you can get an Aerial view of the world or just a map for your instructions. Hopefully this is what you are looking for.

I agree that we do take things for granted. I have never been to another country but watching movies like "Invisible Children" about the children in Uganda suffering, you realize how things that may seem so little to us, can make another person's day just by having it once. We are used to having everything a our fingers, and if we don't have it, we can buy it from somewhere else with money. I wonder what it would be like to go without having internet, TV, radio, cars, or even smaller things like peanut butter. I was supposed to go to Mexico this summer but the trip was cancelled. But I can tell just from stories I here and like I mentioned before, movies I've seen that I have it really well off. Of course you don't know what it really is like until you experience it.

Well it appears that the Trap clock was a little different so here we go again. HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Xisto now that it's finally official. Guess I jumped the gun by a few seconds on my first post so here we are at number 10

It appears that this was made by the real time but Trap time a little off. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRAP17!!! Now it's finally official. It's a big fight for number 1 with the credits on the line I just like being first. Credits of course are a nice bonus. Well I guess I can be considered the class of 2005. I've been here for over a year and a half of the 3 years Xisto has been around. There have been so many good times and few bad times. There was the day of the fake OpaQue that flooded the forum and offered people mod spots asking for passwords. But of course no one likes to remember that kind of stuff unless they can laugh at them. Which I guess I can because I did give him a password. Then there was the day I got my hosting despite a lot of improvement I needed. I then strode to become one of the Top 10 posters which I have become. I probably won't hit number one because Saint_Michaels is way up there already. I will still continue though past the 5000 post mark hopefully like he did. I can also remember the all night parties waiting for the 10,000 and 20,000 member mark. Of course this was also the nights of shouting in the shoutbox. That was brought to my attention when someone told me I passed SM in shouts and that got me all started on keeping it that way. In the second month of my time year I held the first annual Trap Awards of 2005. I then continued it the following year of 2006 and plan to this year of 2007. They have grown a lot just in the year held between them and people got more involved in them. There used to be the army system before it was moved fully to IPBGaming but it was a lot of fun until it messed up. The graphics crew has grown a lot as well as the Xisto forums themselves. There are a lot more boards and expanded sites for some of the boards. Now we have the [Evil] Group as well. There are just so many memories of Xisto that I remember and will continue to during my time here despite some periods of absence. I am proud to be a part of this community and have learned a lot and met a lot of great people. I plan to be a part of the community until it dies whether I keep my hosting or move up to probably Xisto - Web Hosting. Congratulations to Xisto and staff and let the community and fun keep on going.

The way I see it, you are going to die some day whether you like it or not. When and where and how I die is up to fate. Knowing when and how I'm going to die will just scare me and change me because I'll think about it too much or try to cram in all these things I always wanted to do before I die. If you can see it coming you will try to avoid it but I don't think you can, you are destined to die when you are is the way I feel. You shouldn't have to worry about it anyway if you are living a good life or to the best that you can. I think people will go crazy if they know the precise moment or day that they will die and may kill themselves earlier.

I think this is a really great idea. I mean people can leave out as much info as they like for security issues and if you don't like the idea of your information out their for everyone, then just don't make an account. It will be up to you what information you want on there. The only problem I can think of at the moment is what if someone creates a page for someone else? I don't want someone making a fake page about my life and then posing as a real one. There would have to be a way to validate it of some sort because people can make anyone they want a myspace with just a picture of them and fake information. It's still a good idea though and I think you should start something or gather people and start something. It'd be neat to look up people of the past or be able to group people together into families and see who you are related to distantly.

If you want to get into gaming I would stick with a desktop for gaming. I have both and if you are getting a new laptop that comes with Vista it will slow things down a lot. Desktops run better for cheaper but if you really want a laptop, Dell is pretty good. We have a lot of both types from them. I currently have a laptop from Gateway which is fine for gaming minus Vista. I got it from Best Buy for $700 with Pentium Dual Core, 1G Ram and I forget the graphics card. Just do a bit of research and comparing and you should be able to find a decent one.

This is all bologna. People have said time and time again different dates that the world was going to end. Last year it was supposed to end on June 6th, what happened? NOTHING! There have been many 06/06/06 before that. What made it different? People say we have done worse things since then. Well obviously the bad things we did weren't that bad because I'm still alive and kicking. It's just a bunch of rumors to get people worried and cause excitement in the world or maybe to bring people together who knows. The only thing that will happen on that day that may change is because of us being worried about it. We shouldn't worry about the end of the world anyway, just live your life like you should and as if you were dying and you should be fine. Anyone can predict a day that the world will end. I predict it will end February 14, 2082. The world will end when it ends, until then, just live like normal.

Sometimes when I go and visit my old neighbors we will play on the Gamecube and that is the game we tend to play. It is a lot of fun when you are fighting between friends and what not. (Saves you from fighting in real life. ) It's a bit of healthy competition. Usually we just do a battle between four of us on the different levels as our own favorite characters. It's a pretty cool game I think, I still have a Nintendo 64 but I didn't get a Gamecube, instead I got a Playstation 2. I personally enjoyed being one of the Marios or Kirby. Sometimes I was Falco though when someone already took my character.

Yes I believe that this is the same story as back to the Cold War. The United States doesn't want to have to worry about a nuclear attack from any country. Just the though of a country having as much or more power than us. During the Cold War Russia feared the US and the US feared Russia. I can't speak for the Russians but I think the US is still afraid of Russia. But it is more than that, it is what I said before about the US not wanting to have anyone as powerful than them. I do live in the US and I'm proud of the country but some of the things we do aren't really fair. I don't really know too much about the government but I think it's another country's business to whether they want to build nuclear warfare or not. Sure if it's gonna be used against the US I'd like to stop it but we shouldn't until it is or plans.

I just saw the commercial for the iPhone and I'm pretty excited about it. Sure it will be an expensive phone and a really expensive monthly payment for all the features but it'd still be a nice tool to have. Of course I could stick with my laptop and desktop computers because the iPhone is like a computer but this would be a lot more portable and easy if you were to go on business trips. Although I probably won't get one unless I win the lottery I still like the idea. The touch screen is nice but if you drop it you may be in a bit of trouble because if that screen breaks or the touch screen capability, it's new phone time or time to pay a bit of money to fix it. So to all of you who get it all I have to say is, "Be Careful With It"

I tried Trillian once, I didn't like it but I don't remember why. I prefer MSN Messenger because of the interface and the features but I also use AIM too. Yahoo I just didn't really care for. Now you don't really need Trillian because the messengers are allowing you to add AIM contacts to MSN or MSN to AIM because it brings more users. I have Yahoo friends on MSN but I still keep AIM and MSN separate because of the different features and it would take some getting used to to just switch to one. I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't mind the hassle because I'm used to it and soon they will be one anyway.