{"id":1760,"date":"2008-06-30T10:31:16","date_gmt":"2008-06-30T15:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2008\/06\/30\/whats-yellow-hovers-and-is-in-the-midst-of-a-funding-crisis\/"},"modified":"2008-06-30T10:31:16","modified_gmt":"2008-06-30T15:31:16","slug":"whats-yellow-hovers-and-is-in-the-midst-of-a-funding-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/30\/whats-yellow-hovers-and-is-in-the-midst-of-a-funding-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s Yellow, Hovers, and is in the Midst of a Funding Crisis?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.geostationarybananaovertexas.com\/en.html\">Geostationary Banana Over Texas<\/a>, that&#8217;s what!  Longtime readers will recall that we <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2007\/01\/16\/geostationary-banana-over-texas\/\">love the GBOT<\/a> here at Cosmic Variance.  What is not to love?  Just the existence of the very concept holds out promise for a brighter future.  Truly, it&#8217;s projects like this that define what it means to be human.<\/p>\n<p>(After all, actual bananas may <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/06\/18\/opinion\/18koeppel.html?ex=1371528000&amp;en=9ba6330bc3c06212&amp;ei=5124&amp;partner=permalink&amp;exprod=permalink\">soon go extinct<\/a>, leaving us with only their giant inflatable brethren to remember them by.)<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/files\/uploads\/geostationary-banana-over-texas-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" class=\"center\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Now, however, <a href=\"http:\/\/backreaction.blogspot.com\/2008\/06\/this-and-that_29.html\">Backreaction<\/a> points to terrible news:  the GBOT is facing a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/servlet\/story\/RTGAM.20080624.wbanana24\/BNStory\/National\/?page=rss&amp;id=RTGAM.20080624.wbanana24\">funding crisis<\/a>!  Artist\/visionary Cesar Saez has received about $100,000 from the Canadian government, and needs to raise another $1.5 million to make his dream a reality.  So far, efforts have fallen short; only $12,018 has been collected.  Hey, it&#8217;s a start!<\/p>\n<p>Now, some will say that the GBOT isn&#8217;t really a realistic project; that it&#8217;s more an excuse to have a cool website, generate a bit of buzz, and play with some drafting software than an honest attempt to float a banana over the Lone Star State.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/files\/uploads\/geostationary-banana-over-texas-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" class=\"center\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Some will say that the flight plan looks more like a scribble in Microsoft Paint than a NASA-approved model of the GBOT&#8217;s trajectory.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/files\/uploads\/geostationary-banana-over-texas-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" class=\"center\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We say, true art doesn&#8217;t listen to people like that!  True art thinks those people are wankers.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/files\/uploads\/geostationary-banana-over-texas.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" class=\"center\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Some day the GBOT will fly &#8212; if only in our hearts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Geostationary Banana Over Texas, that&#8217;s what! Longtime readers will recall that we love the GBOT here at Cosmic Variance. What is not to love? Just the existence of the very concept holds out promise for a brighter future. Truly, it&#8217;s projects like this that define what it means to be human. (After all, actual [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}