This isn’t exactly news, since the feat, whether you see it as either brave or foolhardy, was accomplished in 2005 by Didier Delsalle, identifed on YouTube as “a fighter pilot and helicopter test pilot.” The video below tells all.

This ain’t no fake, at least if you believe the pilot’s Wikipedia entry:

On May 14, 2005, at 07:08 NPT in the early morning (01:23 UTC), Delsalle set the world record for highest altitude landing of a helicopter when his Eurocopter AS350 Squirrel touched down on the 8,848 m (29,029 ft) summit of Mount Everest. The flight and the summit landing were recorded by multitude of cameras and other equipment to validate the record. After sitting on top of the world for 3 minutes and 50 seconds, Delsalle lifted off and returned to the Tenzing-Hillary Airport at Lukla, Nepal.

This accomplishment had required extensive testing on site, especially because of the low atmospheric pressure available for the helicopter rotors, winds over 299 km/h (186 mph) at these altitudes, and oxygen depletion for both Delsalle and his helicopter’s engine. Delsalle had to find areas of downdrafts and updrafts to complete the flight, stating: “I found an updraft so strong that I could rise up with almost no power.”

Delsalle repeated the Everest summit landing the next day, May 15, 2005, to prove that the previous day had not been simple luck. Conditions the second day were much more difficult, but Delsalle chose not to wait any longer so as not to squander the opportunity for ‘conventional’ climbers waiting to summit Everest during the limited good weather conditions available in May.

Delsalle used a virtually standard version of the Eurocopter AS350 Squirrel B3, only removing unnecessary elements, such as passenger seats, to reduce the standard weight by 120 kg (265 lb) and thus extend the 1-hour fuel range.

What a view he must have had! I’ve flown in or out of the Lukla airport twice, but had to hike to Everest, which took five or six days with acclimation periods. It’s unbelievable that this guy could do it, and nobody’s done it since.

I keep having weird dreams at night in Dobrzyn (typical of when I’m traveling), and keep forgetting them, as one is wont to do when you wake up and then go back to sleep. If I write them down, that act just keeps me awake for a long time, so I really need some kind of voice-activated recorder next to the bed.

Not that the dreams mean anything, but they’re weird enough to ponder. Last night, for instance, I dreamed that there were two types of chestnut trees, red ones and black ones, and one of them (but not the other, and I forget which one) could ensnare you by throwing their twigs around your arms or legs. Then you’d be in trouble! I woke up while trying to figure out whether a tree I’d encountered was a red or black one.

I won’t even try to interpret that—it clearly has something to do with a horse penis—but, after I woke up, and tried hard to fix that dream in my brain for the morning, I started thinking about something else: had I done anything really creative in my life? If so, what was it? Don’t ask me why that question arose: weird things emerge in the night from the adyts of your brain.

Well, even half asleep I knew how to answer that one. I did at least one creative thing, but it involved science rather than art or humanities.

It was writing half of the book Speciation (the other half was written by Allen Orr, and we tweaked each other’s sections). I recently reread the book while preparing to write a more popular version (Speciation is a technical work intended for students and professors in evolutionary biology, and you shouldn’t read it without the right background), and I was amazed at how creative I was around 2003. I kept thinking, “Damn, I was smart back then! What happened to me?”

I hasten to add that I could never write such a book now: I suppose either my brain has hardened out of a youthful suppleness, or I just no longer have the attention span to read and synthesize a gazillion papers. The book’s synthesis was, I think, truly creative, and I’ve done nothing before or after that I could say shows the same kind of creativity. (The book is now 13 years old.)

I’m not trying to brag here, but am giving this as my one example to prompt answers from readers, for as soon as I pondered the question I wanted to pose it to others. So, please, answer this question in the comments:

What is the most creative thing you’ve ever done?

Now it could be a single photograph, a book, an article, a painting or anything that show imagination out of the ordinary, like rearing a child in a creative way. Link to a photo or a post or a book, if you’d like, and don’t be modest.

Yes, it’s clickbait; I like to do that sometimes even though it doesn’t work on this site.  At any rate, here are two videos from the Steve Harvey program showing a girl (or woman; I don’t know at what age the name is supposed to change) performing a fantastic feat of memory. Steve shuffles a deck of cards, she goes through them in 17 second and memorizes them all in order. Then Steve deals seven cards alternately and face down to three other people, for a total of 21, with her watching, and he keeps the other 31.  She then answers correctly “How many aces have been dealt out”, and proceeds to identify any card that the three people have in front of them, as well as naming the remaining 31 in order.

I find this absolutely unbelievable. It is not a trick. And it means she doesn’t just memorize the cards in order, but has to keep track of their placement in front of other people, and also know things like “how many aces have been dealt” instantly. That’s far more than just memorizing the order of the cards.  I can’t fathom how anybody, regardless of their neuronal wiring, can do this, but it appears to be real. Watch for yourself.

Her name is Katherine He, she has a Facebook page, and she’s not even the best memory champ in the U.S. (though she’s the best under 18).

h/t: The Kingpin