Nerdist: In a turn of events Monty Python could’ve written, a giant, inflatable Moon recently tore loose from a Mid-Autumn Festival in China’s Henan province. It flew down a city street as officials chased it. The Guardian has a glimpse of the hilarious getaway in the video below, which seems to have been wholly harmless. Although if the incident looks familiar, that’s because it’s happened before.
17 comments:
"...or some kind of supervillain decided to steal it to demonstrate their massive powers." Oh my goodness... This shouldn't be this funny. On the bright side, it doesn't seem to be heavy enough to crush things in its path. I wonder if there was a section in the hazard analysis dedicated to what would happen if the moon got away... I'm trying to imagine myself as one of the workers, thinking of how I would have reacted to this. The thing is, once it began its runaway mission, you just have to keep on following it. Maybe they could have stopped and tried to get something large enough to put in its path and stop it. Like calling the fire department to intersect it with one of their trucks. Maybe that would have been more useful than running behind it but its just one of those things. Your reflexes tell you to go after it... Imagine being in the road and seeing a giant moon coming behind you... Just when I thought that there was nothing worst than running behind a piece of paper blowing in the wind...
This is pretty funny. It really is something out of a movie, the protagonists are all in the car arguing and through the window you just see a humongous inflatable moon rolling down the street in the opposite direction with some poor officials chasing after it, most likely a direct result of an action or line earlier in the film. Although this is something that brings a smile to my face, I can’t help but be a little anxious as to the safety of drivers with inflatable moons on the loose. Rubbernecking is a curse that affects all nations and the possibility of it hitting a car, making it loose visuals is a comedic but scary thought. All though I will say it would make one hell of a story if you survive and one hell of a way to go out if you don’t. They definitely need to invest in stronger cables at the very least.
As a general rule, I try to avoid commenting on the first article on the NFTRW page, but with a title like this, I simply could not resist the temptation. Watching this massive inflatable moon rolling down the street, dwarfing the size of the officials chasing after it in an attempt to stop it was absolutely comical. It was a very nice laugh on a Saturday morning after a very long week. I laughed even harder when I learned this isn’t the first, but rather the THIRD time that one of these moons has “escaped.” Let the moons be free! They don’t like being held in captivity! In one of the video clips I was intrigued by the woman on the motor bike who was directly in the path of the moon and escaped just in time – it makes me wonder what WOULD happen if the moon were to run over someone. On one hand, it is inflatable and presumable quite squishy, but on the other hand, it is very large – had the motorist not escaped from the path of moon-struction, would they have been okay? In fact, how did the two officials chasing down the moon in that first clip stop it? Unfortunately, the video does end mid-roll, so this mystery may be left unsolved.
I really do not think I have straight up cackled after reading an article but I guess there is always a first time. The instant thought that I had when I read the heading for this article was Aunt Marge flying over London in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. As a child, I always wondered what exactly would have happened once Aunt Marge was in the air: would Vernon be running around the town, keeping a track of his sister who is afloat in the air, would he have filed a complaint with the police department about his missing sister and what exactly would he say about the magical state that his sister is in because of his nephew? But coming back to this real situation which is supremely comedic, so long as it does not run into anything and then cause more problems. But other than the comedic aspect, I think one thing to think about is how exactly this happened?
to plan something out so much only to have it go awry like that! Sometimes accidents happen, but I think articles like these remind me of how often those backstage are expected to be perfect by default, and make no mistakes. We are usually invisible to the general public and work hard, however, only when things go wrong those backstage are put in the spotlight. I find this kind of sad, because those people put so much effort into their work and have nothing said of it, and the only mention of their existence is when things go wrong. I hope that public view of such things changes, but it is hard to say because we are expected to be perfect (or rather appear such as that) in order to have a career.
I found the article pretty funny but also mildly horrifying. I could not imagine what it must be like to plan something out so much only to have it go awry like that! Sometimes accidents happen, but I think articles like these remind me of how often those backstage are expected to be perfect by default, and make no mistakes. We are usually invisible to the general public and work hard, however, only when things go wrong those backstage are put in the spotlight. I find this kind of sad, because those people put so much effort into their work and have nothing said of it, and the only mention of their existence is when things go wrong. I hope that public view of such things changes, but it is hard to say because we are expected to be perfect (or rather appear such as that) in order to have a career.
Sorry this is my full comment. I don't know why it did that.
I also feel like I'm an inflatable moon rolling away from the cops. Maybe this is just a mistake and it got lost in the streets or maybe this is a political statement about China? Maybe we're all the moon just rolling away from our lives? It happened on the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival so maybe it's foreshadowing events to come. I'm just saying we can't disregard what this actually means or what message is trying to be delivered. This is a great metaphor for life, or a great analogy for when things go wrong during shows. It was obviously an accident that it didn't get secured properly in place, and someone probably feels like crap because now they're the reason a giant moon is rolling down the street, but they're probably never going to do that again. As we say at good ol' CMU, learning happened. We learned to let go just as someone let go of the moon.
Immediately upon reading the title, I thought that this article was going to be focused on a poorly executed attempt at a live-action remake of the 2010 animated film Despicable Me. And after reading the article, it honestly might as well be. The story was quite the comical read; just imagining a giant inflatable moon tumbling through the city streets made me chuckle out loud. And the fact that this was one of three recent, similar occurrences of a giant moon getting let loose is even funnier; how and why does it keep happening in rapid succession? The more somber takeaway from this article would be the matter of how the steel cable snapped to be able to let go of the moon. An inflatable moon may not be of much concern or danger to anyone, but if the same cables have/are/will be used in other more important structures then it would be much scarier and more serious.
This is kind of concerning, actually? I know it’s an inflatable, and it’s *probably* not going to hurt anybody, but it’s still a big thing to go wrong, and it sounds like this a fairly common occurrence. “The cable snapped”?? Somebody should have known what kind of cable to use, especially after the first time this happened…… honestly it kind of makes me wonder if this is planned. A ridiculous but mostly harmless thing that goes wrong almost every year as part of a big celebration? I’m not normally one for conspiracy theories, but that would be funny, and honestly it makes as much sense as the alternative of the same mistakes being made on a major, high profile, public event that happens every year. Who knows? That’s the theory I’m rooting for.
This is so hilarious. It is actually pretty easy to understand this happening, though. Big inflatable items like that pick up wind so fast and it takes several people or stakes to properly anchor it to the ground or else, like in this case, it will go flying. Sort of similarly, last summer I hosted a drive-in movie fundraiser where we used a 40ft inflatable movie screen to project onto in a parking lot. When inflated, this screen caught wind like a sail. We anchored it to the ground with several corkscrew ground stakes as well as many sand bags, but the first time we had set it up we didn’t have nearly enough ground support and the whole crew of people working the event had to hold on as this screen almost took flight. Without the proper weather conditions or preparation into the setup of these types of things, I could totally see this happening.
Yeah, no, this is hilarious. The funniest part about this to me is that this isn't the first time that its happened, and it probably won't be the last either. What a sight that must have been for those walking/driving by... and how terrifying it must have been for those in the path of the giant inflatable moon. I've heard a lot of stories of giant objects like that going flying and being almost impossible to catch. Reminds me of that one video of the swarm of beach umbrellas being picked up by the wind and flying down the beach. Absolutely terrifying, but funny to watch all the same.
As a fun little extra, this video is very related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkS58cLsd0M
You really just can not go wrong with a real life Indiana Jones moment. I really appreciate that the article was able to provide video footage from multiple different angles, and really painted a funny picture. In all seriousness, I wonder what the plan is for a runaway balloon whenever I am watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Obviously those would float away in some manner which is different from the moon, but this case study is a good example of why a worst case scenario plan is necessary. Things like cables holding the balloon in place must have failed either by breaking the cable or pulling out of the termination at either end of the cable. Overall the situation is definitely one that is much easier to laugh at after the fact than in the moment. If I try and think about what I would do differently to prevent that from happening, I would look at designing a system that did not have too few methods of failure so if something broke, there was another system in place to prevent it from getting loose.
It’s pretty amusing seeing this giant inflatable moon rolling away and people desperately trying to catch it. Especially since it’s happened before, you’d think they’d have figured out a way to keep it from doing that again. It’s also kind of concerning since while it doesn’t look like anyone got hurt or anything got damaged, I think something like this could’ve had the potential of doing more harm. I can’t imagine that anyone driving would be calm watching this giant ball rolling around near them. It also must suck since the Mid-Autumn Festival is pretty important in China and in other parts of Asia. Things going awry during big cultural events surely isn’t fun, more-so for the crew and organizers who are in charge of handling everything. Hopefully this’ll be the last time this happens to them and they figure out a more foolproof way of securing the moon next year!
I just think that it's funny that it has happened not once, but twice. In a sort of "Who could have predicted this?!" kind of way.
I have no idea how we tend to tether parade balloons but it seems that there is an extra step of securing scenic elements that needs to be part of the conversations that are being had.
If one thing can be taken from this it's that we are wholly at fault if history repeats itself and we need to make the changes necessary to prevent repeat disasters. Though I guess I will concede that the newer iteration looked more solid than the last so maybe the thought process was "it's not as light as the last one so it can't blow away now" and they got a Kevin Hines lesson on Rolling Resistance.
Still it's good to see that nobody was injured by this.
This is a funny story and it's lucky that no one was hurt. Obviously someone didn’t do the math, but this reminds me of a very similar story that happened in highschool. Just outside of Baltimore there’s a military testing facility called the Aberdeen proving grounds. When I was in highschool, they started flying a blimp above it that was tethered to the ground that was a proof of concept of a missile early warning system that would be put in place up and down the east coast. At some point this many billion dollar project’s guy wire broke loose and the blimp went on a ride up into Pennsylvania wherever the winds would take it. If memory serves it ended up being caught in a line of trees in PA and some sheriff’s deputy took it upon himself to shoot it down with a shotgun so that it would truly deflate.
I definitely needed this laugh today. The actual inflatable rolling away I think is equal parts scary, particularly from a safety perspective, and entertaining, but the writing style of the article is in itself quite funny. The two people running after it in the video I think highlight the silliness of the situation - they can’t possibly hope to catch up with it or stop it, but they’re running after it anyway in an attempt to regain control or at least show to bystanders that someone is working on getting it back and it’s not fully abandoned. Obviously this does bring up some ideas about the handling of unplanned crises in live events - you can’t plan for everything that could possibly go wrong, but you should have a plan for a general strategy to handle issues. And in this specific case, clearly there was an error somewhere with the securing of the inflatable that should have been fixed earlier. But it seems like there were no injuries, so I feel pretty comfortable in just laughing at the ridiculousness.
First and foremost, I am glad no one was injured. This is such a funny article! I am just imagining a scenario where I’m on headset chasing after the giant moon. I immediately wondered how one would go about catching the moon and resecuring it. I was not surprised to find out it got away and turned up on deflated in the sea. It sounds like this is a recurring event so they better get a few extra cables next year! The article was lighthearted and fun but I imagine an incredibly stressed out management team. Who was in charge of hunting down the run-away moon? Who spent their nights searching the streets of China for a monstrous moon? More Importantly, how do I get this job? What a fun article, it is certainly a lesson that anything can happen during a live event. Looking forward to checkin in on the mid-autumn festival next year for updates.
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