Don’t look down… until you have to. Here’s the view from Felix Baumgartner’s capsule after it hovered 128,000 feet – that’s 24.2 miles! – above Earth. Then he jumped, setting a new world skydiving record. (Red Bull Stratos/YouTube)

HERE ARE THE things you need to know as we round off the day in three easy steps.

THINGS WE LEARNED:

#QUINN RALLY: Over 5,000 people have turned out at a rally in Ballyconnell, Co Cavan in support of Sean Quinn and his family – though later estimates put the crowd at closer to 10,000. The rally comes five days ahead of Quinn’s return to the High Court after being found in contempt of an order not to move overseas assets.

#BUDGET 2013: Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has ruled out any prospect of asking the EU and IMF to delay our deadline for meeting their deficit target – saying the Irish people want an end to successive austerity budgets. A junior minister had earlier suggested Ireland could seek an extension given the IMF’s recent change of heart about the impact of austerity.

#MURDER: A murder investigation is underway in Co Cavan after a man was stabbed to death at an apartment in Cavan town last night. The man – who is reported to be a non-national who only arrived in Ireland this week – was attacked at about 11pm last night.

#PROPERTY: Property website Daft.ie has released an analysis suggesting property prices have stabilised in the last six months. The analysis is based on prices from the new national property price register.

#MIDDLE EAST: There’s renewed tensions in the Middle East after Turkey and Syria banned flights from each others’ airspace. Tensions between the two countries have been fraught in the last fortnight; Syria says Turkey is helping to arm the rebels.

#SKYDIVE: Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner has set a new world record – skydiving from 24.2 miles above the Earth. Baumgartner’s record dive – which was streamed on YouTube and witnessed by millions – also saw him set world records for the fastest unsupported freefall, and for the highest altitude ever recorded by a manned balloon. The image above is his view, just as he jumped.

THINGS WE LOVED:

• The not-random-at-all but still totally random appearance of people in giant panda suits around Edinburgh today.
• This puntacular press release. Complete the sentence: People who are into knitting have _____ pleasures.
• The comments on our selection earlier today of the greatest toys of all time. Most of them are asking where you can still get Lolo balls.

Lightning illuminates the ancient Parthenon temple atop the Acropolis hill in Athens. The city’s been hit by thunderstorms, just as negotiations on a new €13.5 billion austerity deal creep toward a conclusion. (AP Photo/Dimitri Messinis)

THINGS WE SHARED:

• This girl tried to draw Pokémon without ever having seen them first. The results are… well, a bit odd.
• Lawyer Jason McCue reckons the best way to defeat terrorism is through PR – making new recruits feel like they’re buying a bad product. Here are his thoughts, delivered in a TED talk.
• You may remember the legendary Old Spice ‘Smell like a man, man’ commercials from a couple of years ago – an ad that made an old product cool again. Here’s a behind-the-scenes video of how some of the more ludicrous stunts were pulled off in one take which is doing the rounds again:

(Video: OldSpice/YouTube)

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