Skip to content

$40,000 of Red Balloons

2009-12-04 · Hank · watch on YouTube · Nerdfighteria · announcement promotion

Hank drops yesterday's plans to rally Nerdfighteria to win DARPA's $40,000 red-balloon challenge, arguing the geographically spread community can prove its awesome; he gives detailed sign-up and reporting instructions and pledges any winnings to charities from the best Project for Awesome videos.

What is said

00:00:00 — Yesterday's plans out the window; find balloons: DARPA's 10 weather balloons and the $40,000 prize

  • ★★ Hank says the things he said yesterday they would talk about are going out the window, because something more important is happening: he needs viewers to find balloons. — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ Hank says DARPA, the U.S. military's research arm, which created the internet, is putting up 10 eight-foot weather balloons across the US; the first to locate all 10 wins $40,000. — 00:00:00 · United States

00:00:30 — Why: $40,000 would make the Project for Awesome awesomer; a tight-knit, geographically disparate community can prove its awesome

  • ★★★ Hank thought $40,000 would make the Project for Awesome a little more awesome. (playful) — 00:00:30 · Project for Awesome
  • ★★★ Hank says he, John, the Nerdfighters and YouTube are unusually good at being a tight-knit community that is geographically disparate, making this a chance to 'prove our awesome'. — 00:00:30 · Nerdfighteria, YouTube, collective action > «extremely good at being a tight-knit community that is very geographically disparate»

00:00:58 — The Search, Discover, and Confirm team: who, emailing DARPANERD, signing up at nerdfighters.com, no other emails, why (misinformation), searching yourself

  • ★★★ Hank asks Nerdfighteria and the YouTube community in the continental US, with a car and cell phone and free on Saturday, to join the Search, Discover, and Confirm team. — 00:00:58 · Nerdfighteria, YouTube, United States
  • ★★ To join, email DARPANERD at gmail.com titled 'Search Team' with name, city, state (optionally neighborhood and phone), and sign up in the box on nerdfighters.com. — 00:01:24 · nerdfighters.com
  • ★★ Hank promises the sign-up list will never be used for emails about anything except the balloon project. — 00:01:53
  • ★★ Hank expects lots of misinformation, so team members must be ready to check that a reported nearby balloon is a real DARPA balloon where people said. (hedged) — 00:01:53
  • ★★★ Hank asks people to go out and look for the balloons themselves and to report any balloon they or friends and family see, by calling or texting 66069DFTBA or emailing DARPAnerd. — 00:01:53

00:02:22 — Jobs for everyone else via the mailing list; reporting a balloon by phone, text or email with address and balloon number; balloon hours

  • ★★ Those outside America, without cars or not free on Saturday also have 'very important jobs', revealed only by signing up for the mailing list on nerdfighters.com. — 00:02:22 · nerdfighters.com
  • ★★ A report must include a street address or nearby intersection, the balloon's number (without it the report does not count) and ideally a name so they can say thanks. — 00:03:00
  • ★★ Hank says the balloons go up across the country at 10 a.m. Eastern (7 Pacific) and come down at 4 p.m. — 00:03:00

00:03:29 — Keep sightings secret from for-profit teams; all winnings to the charities of the best P4A videos; 'Nobody else has a team like we have a team'

  • ★★ Warning that many for-profit teams will do anything to get their information, Hank asks that known balloon locations be kept secret. — 00:03:29
  • ★★★ Hank pledges that if they win the $40,000, all of it will go to the charities promoted in this year's best Project for Awesome videos. — 00:03:29 · Project for Awesome
  • ★ Hank closes: nobody else has a team like theirs, and this is going to be amazing. — 00:03:29 · Nerdfighteria

Threads in this video

Replies to

BR2_fce52f746e