Fluff

The Elder of Air

The raddest among us jumps out of an airplane. Also, a US congressman's car is stolen, the FCC issues a space pollution fine, Elon Musk caused an innocent family to flee their home, and a little satellite begins its orbit.

Endeavorance

Oct 4, 2023 — 3 min read

You May Be Cool, But You're Not 104-Year-Old Skydiver Cool

Dorothy Hoffner, who's name is Dorothy Hoffner, is 104 years old. She also recently went skydiving, because she is rad as hell, and has set the new Guinness world record for oldest person to skydive.

The previous record was held by a 103 year old woman from Sweden.

This was not Hoffner's first triple-digit-age skydive, having previously jumped out of a flying plane when she was 100 years young. The first time she went, she had some hesitancy. But this time around, she reportedly was eager to go, and performed a perfect forward roll out of the plane into freefall with her instructor.

Hoffner turns 105 in December, and plans to next ride in a hot air balloon.

The Public's Car

A Texas congressman's car was stolen in Washington, DC by 3 armed individuals. The congressman was not harmed in the altercation, and the car has since been recovered with no arrests made as of yet.

This is the second time a congressperson has had their car stolen in DC in the past few years, both times at gunpoint.

Carjackings in DC have been on the rise over the past few years, often from young teens. Maybe now that it wasn't a normal every-day person who's car was stolen, something will actually be done about it. The cops are "investigating," but that's what they've said about all the other carjackings and yet…

Weird. I was told that cops stop crime.

The Final Frontier of Corporate Pollution

The US FCC is issuing its first ever fine for polluting SPACE. The Dish Network is required to pay $150,000 after leaving one of their satellites in space, despite having an obligation to de-orbit the satellite.

Instead of bringing it out of orbit entirely, the company just kinda lowered and changed it's orbit in the hopes of just getting it out of the way. But as more and more companies are launching shit into space, more and more regulation is needed to prevent a future where satellites are just kinda crashing into each other and posing threats.

It would also be nice to, y'know, be able to observe the night sky without massive amounts of space pollution. That whole thing.

Weird How Free Speech Doesn't Seem To Mean "Say Whatever Without Consequence"

Elon Musk is being sued by 22-year-old Ben Brody, a recent college grad who was publicly accused of being a fed posing as a neo-Nazi by the Musk.

The richest man in the world, on his own social media platform, amplified posts from far-right extremists, con artists and conspiracy theorists who claimed that they identified a neo-Nazi in footage as Brody, despite the fact that Brody was not even in the state where the footage was recorded at the time.

The conspiracy theory, supercharged by Musk, resulted in death threats, doxxing and harassment of Brody and his family, causing them to have to flee their home. Brody is also Jewish, which of course made all the conspiracy theorists salivate even more.

Brody is working with a lawyer who has previously won a case against another far-right extremist, Alex Jones. This won't be the first time that Musk is sued for shit he posted on Twitter, and it almost certainly will not be the last.

Slightly related but also not, Musk's ex Grimes is also filing a lawsuit against Musk, claiming that he is not letting her visit their son.

On This day…

On this day in 1957, humans successfully launched the first low orbit satellite into space as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 into orbit.

It didn't stay up there for super long, eventually crashing back into the atmosphere in January, but while it was up there, it sent signals back home until its batteries ran outta juice.

The success of the Sputnik 1 mission sent the United States into hyper overdrive regarding the space race, as they did not expect that the Soviet Union would be successful in their space endeavors.