A childhood dream from The Rocketeer to Tomorrowland, the jet pack is now not only a reality but it just circled the most famous statue in the United States on an island in New York City.

JetPack Aviation chief David Mayman took his invention to the skies in a very successful publicity stunt aimed to help sell an upcoming commercially-available jetpack. While there are many other jetpacking attempts out there, this one is controlled, stable and sustainable for flight, as demonstrated in the video. They have done other tests and demos, mainly safely over bodies of water, but this one really shows what this thing is capable of.

“We believe a JetPack should be just that – a jet turbine powered backpack that is capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), is extremely light and small and can easily be carried around by the pilot. It should be powerful enough to lift the pilot quickly to thousands of feet above the ground but small enough to fit into the trunk of a car. Meet the JB-9 JetPack. The design of the airframe was helped by our earlier experience with rocketbelts but there were many changes needed related to the size, weight and shape of the engines as well as control systems and engine management systems. A jetpack on the other hand requires systems to start and cool engines, to manage fuel flow and to capture operating information for display to the pilot.”

The post World’s First Stable Jetpack Flies Around Statue of Liberty first appeared on Gajitz.

It should come as no surprise that we’re pretty big fans of tech-heavy art. Terri Timely and Park Pictures created this seriously amazing short film that warps reality to the point of complete nonsense.

Input/Output uses clever graphics to manipulate mundane scenes. Instead of a milkshake being slurped up, the glass it’s in disappears instead. Rather than dispensing paste, a toothpaste tube shoots gas and fire.

We love the total absurdity of the images – but even more so, we love how beautifully and seamlessly the filmmakers brought the images together. It’s the sometimes-unexpected ridiculousness of life that makes our days happy.

The post Hysterically Weird Short Video is Masterfully Mind Melting first appeared on Gajitz.

Each year, an entire lake in Oregon fills up with water, and then empties through a giant hole in its bottom, turning into a temporary meadow and sending its contents into the ground toward an unidentified set of mystery destinations. There is speculation about the moisture seeping into aquifers, but no study has yet managed to successfully track where the flow goes.

Per TreeHugger, “The volcanic landscape of the area gives way to a number of quirky geologic traits – the one responsible for swallowing the lake is a lava tube. The tunnel-like structure is formed when flowing lava hardens near the surface but continues to flow downwards, and the inner lava escapes before hardening. The result, a tube that opens to the surface and leads to the mysterious depths below.”

While the cycle is predictable and the forces behind it known, the sight is nonetheless dramatic and the ultimate fate of the lake’s waters still stumps scientists. A number of people have also attempted to ‘plug’ the whole with cars and other matter, but even if this were to work it would unbalance the natural process in place, not solving any real problems. For those fascinated by lost lakes, it is well worth reading the story of Lake Peigneur, a body of water that emptied entirely when miners accidentally pierced it from below: “The resultant whirlpool sucked in the drilling platform, eleven barges, many trees and 65 acres (260,000 m2) of the surrounding terrain. So much water drained into those caverns that the flow of the Delcambre Canal that usually empties the lake into Vermilion Bay was reversed, making the canal a temporary inlet.”

The post Whole ‘Lost Lake’ Drains Down Mysterious Hole in Ground first appeared on Gajitz.

We have a confession: we avoided watching this video for a couple of months. It seemed pointless, like there was no possible way that cutting a huge rubber band ball in half with a hand saw could possibly be interesting. We, dear readers, were totally wrong. This is the most awesome thing we almost never saw.

YouTuber Jordan says that he and his dad built the big ball of rubber bands over the course of about a year. They picked up bags of elastic bands at the store regularly to add on to the bouncy project. After a while, they decided to cut it open to see what would happen.

In the video, which starts after about 10-15 minutes of sawing, Jordan and his father reached the wiggly, creepy center of the ball. Luckily for lovers of weird stuff they recorded it so we could all see how bizarre the ball acted. It came to life – the center lurched out like a chestburster and various little jiggly rubber band pieces flailed about. And just like that, hundreds of thousands of people started their own rubber band balls and got their hand saws ready.

The post Giant Rubber Band Ball Becomes Wiggly Monster When Cut first appeared on Gajitz.

Time-lapse videos of the night sky with the stars rushing around the Earth are always fascinating to watch, but filmmaker Lance Page has a new take on filming the night sky. His short film entitled “Ride the Sky” depicts the Earth turning while the stars stand still.

Using a motorized pivot for his camera, he trained the lens on the north star. From our vantage point on Earth we usually see the stars gliding across the sky throughout the night while we appear to stay stationary. Page’s short film shows our planet’s perpetual rotation in contrast with the stars holding their relative positions.

The video is a fascinating new perspective on a familiar sight. Though we know logically that the Earth is not the center of the universe, it’s easy to believe that everything really does revolve around us. “Ride the Sky” is a beautiful reminder that we are simply another piece in the vast puzzle that makes up our cosmic neighborhood.

The post Spellbinding Film Shows Earth Rotating as Stars Stay Still first appeared on Gajitz.