Archive for the ‘Apocalypse’ Category

…proof that it’s bullshit.

It of course stands to reason that some apocalypse or another will eventually hit our planet – scientists are predicting a rise in solar flares that could disrupt or even destroy our electrical grid, the magnetic poles are due to shift around, and even the long dormant volcano in yellowstone is due to erupt any day now. But that’s science, taken with a grain of salt, not mystical prophecy from a misunderstood culture.

…is, regrettably, still in the works. And by in the works, I mean I haven’t started it yet.

But fear not! As Gamer Phreak readies his cat-of-nine-tales to beat me into a bloody pulp, here’s something to whet your appetite until my wounds heal and I can type again.

First of all, it is impossible for all the planets to form a straight line out from the Sun (or viewed superimposed on each other in the sky) because each planetary orbit is tilted slightly (and sometimes not slight at all in the case of Pluto) with respect to the Earth’s orbit (whose plane we trace out on the night sky as a line completely around the sky and is called the ecliptic). These zealots confuse the term planetary alignment with the more accurate words that should be used, planetary configuration or a loose grouping of the planets in the sky. Actually the event that occurred in 1983 was that the planets (all eight of them — we are on the ninth, Earth) would be within 96° of each other in the sky — not in a straight line as most people would misinterpret with the term alignment. To have all of the planets on the same side of the Sun and virtually all within the same quadrant (i.e., 90°) happens approximately once every 200 years — rare as far as humans are concerned, but not rare as far as the solar system is concerned.

The last series of planetary configurations or perhaps more accurately called multiple planetary conjunctions occurred in the year 2000. Did the Earth tilt over? No. Did tidal forces trigger earthquakes? No. Did the polar ice caps melt? No. Were you even be able to see the conjunctions? Not really.

The rest of the article is here.

…is a steampunk band that mixes rock, techno, and classical in their music. Sound original? Good, because it is. Watch the vid then go buy their albums; the band’s self-employed so they need our support!

…is the name of the game.

• Stagnant incomes.  Median per capita income has stagnated for 30 years and is now headed lower. The only increase in household income came from adding the income of a spouse (that typically gets less than the male income earner). The value generated by mighty productivity increases over the last thirty years was routed to the financial markets (aka casinos) and not shared with American workers.
• Increased fixed expenses.  The costs and amount spent on variable consumption have fallen (clothing, food, autos, etc.) over the last thirty years — which puts the lie to the “over consumption” charge.  Instead, the median cost of housing, health, and the costs of work (childcare, two cars, etc.  brought on due to a need for sending two people to work) have skyrocketed with very little improvement in the quantity or value of the goods/services received.

The rest is here.

Just a few posts ago we had warnings about how dangerous coronal mass ejections could be to our technology. Now we have a post about how quiet our sun has been – could we be on the verge of a massive blast that could cover the whole earth?

Quiet suns come along every 11 years or so. It’s a natural part of the sunspot cycle, discovered by German astronomer Heinrich Schwabe in the mid-1800s. Sunspots are planet-sized islands of magnetism on the surface of the sun; they are sources of solar flares, coronal mass ejections and intense UV radiation. Plotting sunspot counts, Schwabe saw that peaks of solar activity were always followed by valleys of relative calm—a clockwork pattern that has held true for more than 200 years: plot.

The current solar minimum is part of that pattern. In fact, it’s right on time. “We’re due for a bit of quiet—and here it is,” says Pesnell.

Full Article

The more I read about this stuff, the more I wonder if technology truly has any place on Earth. If our precious electronics are so easily taken away by random spurts of electromagnetic energy from our mother Sun, well, why bother in the first place?

Go buy a sword, learn to use it, and read on.

It is hard to conceive of the sun wiping out a large amount of our hard-earned progress. Nevertheless, it is possible. The surface of the sun is a roiling mass of plasma – charged high-energy particles – some of which escape the surface and travel through space as the solar wind. From time to time, that wind carries a billion-tonne glob of plasma, a fireball known as a coronal mass ejection (see “When hell comes to Earth”). If one should hit the Earth’s magnetic shield, the result could be truly devastating.

The incursion of the plasma into our atmosphere causes rapid changes in the configuration of Earth’s magnetic field which, in turn, induce currents in the long wires of the power grids. The grids were not built to handle this sort of direct current electricity. The greatest danger is at the step-up and step-down transformers used to convert power from its transport voltage to domestically useful voltage. The increased DC current creates strong magnetic fields that saturate a transformer’s magnetic core. The result is runaway current in the transformer’s copper wiring, which rapidly heats up and melts. This is exactly what happened in the Canadian province of Quebec in March 1989, and six million people spent 9 hours without electricity. But things could get much, much worse than that.

Envision a world where every computer is rendered useless, manufacturing capability is at a standstill, and bullets are slowly but surely running out. It wouldn’t be long before we’re in dusty streets fighting with swords and knives again.

We’d be bitch-slapped right back into the dark ages, most of our current knowledge useless.

Read the rest here.