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posted by CoolHand on Sunday April 26 2015, @08:38AM   Printer-friendly

Ben Yeager writes in Outside Magazine that Italian explorer Alex Bellini plans to travel to Greenland’s west coast, pick an iceberg, and live on it for a year as it melts out in the Atlantic. But it is a precarious idea. Bellini will be completely isolated, and his adopted dwelling is liable to roll or fall apart at any moment, thrusting him into the icy sea or crushing him under hundreds of tons of ice. His solution: an indestructible survival capsule built by an aeronautics company that specializes in tsunami-proof escape pods.

"I knew since the beginning I needed to minimize the risk. An iceberg can flip over, and those events can be catastrophic.” Bellini plans to use lightweight, indestructible floating capsules, or “personal safety systems" made from aircraft-grade aluminum in what’s called a continuous monocoque structure, an interlocking frame of aluminum spars that evenly distribute force, underneath a brightly painted and highly visible aluminum shell. The inner frame can be stationary or mounted on roller balls so it rotates, allowing the passengers to remain upright at all times.

Aeronautical engineer Julian Sharpe, founder of Survival Capsule, got the idea for his capsules after the 2004 Indonesian tsunami. He believes fewer people would have died had some sort of escape pod existed. Sharpe hopes the products will be universal—in schools, retirement homes, and private residences, anywhere there is severe weather. The product appeals to Bellini because it’s strong enough to survive a storm at sea or getting crushed between two icebergs.

Bellini will spend almost all of his time in the capsule with the hatch closed, which will pose major challenges because he'll have to stay active without venturing out onto a slippery, unstable iceberg. If it flips, he’ll have no time to react. “Any step away from [the iceberg] will be in unknown territory,” says Bellini. “You want to stretch your body. But then you risk your life.”

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday April 26 2015, @09:03AM

    by Bot (3902) on Sunday April 26 2015, @09:03AM (#175305) Journal

    Humans, why don't you stop doing silly things like ending up as a human burger between two slabs of ice? even systemd in debian stable looks more sensible than that.
    Well, at first glance it does.
    Well, at a very brief first glance it does.
    Well, at very very brief first glance while on tequila peppered with LSD, it does... nah.

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  • (Score: 2) by Geotti on Sunday April 26 2015, @05:09PM

    by Geotti (1146) on Sunday April 26 2015, @05:09PM (#175382) Journal

    Well, at very very brief first glance while on tequila peppered with LSD, it does...

    Well, that would actually depend on whether the sum of these lsd grains end up weighing a multiple of 250μg or not, since then that single glance could span what might feel like an eternity and it'd be quite possible that one ends up meeting our makers in the process.

    Then again, it's unnecessary to glance at someone "ending up as a human burger between two slabs of ice" to do so either...

    "I think the brain did something... It restructured itself. So I remember things that are very wonderful and things that are terrible. And I forget things that are wonderful and things that are terrible." (Corrie - Groove Me Last [youtube.com])

  • (Score: 2) by DECbot on Monday April 27 2015, @10:50PM

    by DECbot (832) on Monday April 27 2015, @10:50PM (#175889) Journal

    A bit off topic, but your comment made me think....
    Is LSD in people like ESD in electronics?

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    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:35PM

      by Bot (3902) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:35PM (#176137) Journal

      I don't know, we tend to stop when getting ESD, instead they core-dump a lot of crap.

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