"To mark the 40th anniversary of the Internet, DARPA has announced the DARPA Network Challenge.... The challenge is to be the first to submit the locations of ten moored, 8 foot, red weather balloons located at ten fixed locations in the continental United States. Balloons will be in readily accessible locations and visible from nearby roadways." Teams must register by December 1st and have two weeks to submit balloon locations. [more inside]
posted by jessamyn on Nov 2, 2009 - 108 comments

The real world location behind “Up’s” Paradise Falls. But could that house really fly?
posted by Artw on Jun 2, 2009 - 54 comments

Japanese Balloon Bombs — "In 1944, during World War II, Japan launched a top secret project, nearly two years in the making, to send thousands of "balloon bombs" (called Fu-Go Weapons) to the United States. The goal of the attack was to create panic, forest fires, and show the United States that it could be attacked from afar. Each of the more than 9,000 balloon bombs launched towards the United States, over the course of several months, carried a 15 kilogram bomb that would detach from the balloon and explode on impact with the ground." On a Wind and a Prayer. [more inside]
posted by netbros on May 2, 2009 - 39 comments

Primal source at GLOW (video), Burble London (an implementation of Open Burble) (video), Evoke (video) - the transformative artworks of Haque Design and Research. Interview with Usman Haque. Previously.
posted by Artw on Sep 21, 2008 - 6 comments

You wake up, walk out into the early morning air, kiss your wife goodbye, pet the Chihuahua, and sink into your lawn chair for another breathtaking flight. On Saturday Kent Couch set off to recreate, for the second time, the famous flight of Larry Walters, balloon-lawn-chair-aviator and Darwin Award Honorable Mention. Kent flew some 193 miles using 105 helium balloons, and unlike some previous fliers, his event was not only successful, it was photographed by a chase plane.
posted by Muddler on Jul 10, 2007 - 27 comments

Toy art: tribal scooters, spider car, little animal robots out of broken electrical parts, a color changing house designed by a 14 year old boy, of wood, wind-up, MunkyKing, Ugly Dolls, out of beer cans, with balloons, Cute Things, artoyz, toys from trash, tiny knitted dolls clothes and accessories, vintage and retro at Tick Tock Toys.
posted by nickyskye on Jul 7, 2007 - 15 comments

BubblePLY lets you easily overlay subtitles and speech balloons over videos hosted on other sites.
posted by Partial Law on Dec 27, 2006 - 9 comments

In 1938 the British Balloon Command was established to protect cities and key targets such as industrial areas, ports, landmarks and harbours.Barrage balloons or "Bulging Berthas" were inflatable shiny silver-painted balloons, made of rubber-coated fabric, and filled with hydrogen gas used prevent low level attacks by enemy aircraft. The balloons flew anywhere from 500 feet to 10,000 feet. The 15 gauge flying wire that tethered them could clip the wings off a plane. They were also used at sea and to cover invasions. They were also effective against the V-1 flying bomb and back in the late 80s, at least one general thought they could still be used to protect airfields.
posted by Smedleyman on Mar 24, 2006 - 16 comments

Big Balloons!!!
posted by Capn on Aug 25, 2005 - 44 comments

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to pop a water balloon in space? (Check out this page for more videos)
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies on Jul 15, 2005 - 24 comments

Sky Ear will be a one-night event in which a glowing "cloud" of mobile phones and helium balloons is released into the air so that people can dial into the cloud and listen to the sounds of the sky. The cloud will be made of one thousand large helium balloons each responding to the electromagnetic environment (created by distant storms, mobile phones, police and ambulance radios, television broadcasts, etc.) with coloured blue, red and yellow lights.
posted by schoolgirl report on Apr 9, 2004 - 22 comments

"A man can't just sit around." This summer marked the 20th anniversary of the guy tying balloons to a lawn chair and floating along two miles high, shivering and brandishing his pistol at bewildered passing airline pilots. Also this year, the historic lawn chair was finally found.
posted by luser on Nov 2, 2002 - 17 comments

The other side of globalization? For over three years, a balloon twister and a photographer went around the world and made balloon hats for everyone they met, for free, and took pictures of them.
posted by tranquileye on Jun 15, 2001 - 13 comments

My new hero John Ninomiya is going to fly tethered to a cluster of balloons this weekend. I've dreamt of doing this since a kid and I guess I'm not alone.
posted by roboto on Jun 5, 2001 - 9 comments